We're Not Passing Through Here Again - Non Torniamo da Questa Parte

Photo: Fabrizio Lingesso

Look around. Take in the sounds and the smells. Breathe in the air. Take a snapshot, make a memory. We're not coming back through here. Where are you right now? Are you in your office, your home, commuting on the bus with an iphone in your hand? Wherever you may be, wherever you are, you will never be there again. Take in the magnatude of that thought. Your physical location in time and space will change; it will never be the same as it is right now in this moment. For however many times you do the same comute or walk into the same office, they are neve the same. You are never the same. Nothing is permanent. The sights and sounds around you will change in continuation. That collegue who gets under your skin will get a new job. Your children wil grow old and leave home. Your favorite mug will chip, crack and eventually shatter.  Or you will change and find a new favorite. The places you call home will evolve and change, flipping past your eyes like cards in a rolodex (rolodex's will become useless, then kitch, then obsolete, then retro, then antique - though in what order or what stage of this evolution we're at right now I'm not sure). Every moment of our lives are in transition. Seing that is what helps to free your mind from what happened yesterday and the worries of tomorrow. If you only exist in this moment (and you do), stopping to really see it leaves you without space left for regret or worry. Only love. Where are you right now?

Guardatevi intorno. Ammirate i suoni e gli odori. Respirate l'aria. Fate una foto, fare un ricordo. Non stiamo tornando da qui. Dove sei in questo momento? Siete nel vostro ufficio, la vostra casa, sul autobus con un iPhone in mano? Ovunque tu sia, non sarai mai più lì.Fate una pausa sul quel pensiero . La tua posizione fisica nel tempo e nello spazio cambierà; questo momento non sarà mai lo stesso perché è proprio ora. Per quante volte fai la stessa strada. Non si è mai lo stesso. Nulla è permanente. Le immagini ei suoni intorno a voi cambierà in continuazione.  Quel collega che ti da fastidio otterrà un nuovo lavoro. I vostri bambini cresceranno andranno a vivere dal altra parte del mondo. La vostra tazza preferita si scheggia, finisce in frantumi. Oppure potrete cambiare voi e trovare un nuovo preferito . Ogni momento delle nostre vite sono in fase di transizione. Vedendo che è ciò che aiuta a liberare la mente da quello che è successo ieri e le preoccupazioni di domani. Se siete in questo momento soltanto (e lo sei), fermandoti un attimo per vederlo davvero ti lascerà senza spazio per rammarico o preoccupazione .  Solo l'amore. Dove sei in questo momento?

♥ Jess

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House for Sale - Casa in Vendita

Just after moving in in '08
Appena arrivati in '08

Back in September of 2008, 6 months after our wedding, Fabri and I moved into our house.  It's amazing to look back at those days... carefree, kidless and just at the start of our big adventure as a family.  Since then we have shared many many moments walking through that door, shutting out the outside world and feeling blissfully at home.This is still my favorite place to be.

Nel settembre del 2008, sei mesi dopo il nostro matrimonio, Fabri ed io siamo trasferiti in casa nostra. E 'incredibile guardare indietro a quei giorni ... spensierato, senza figli e solo all'inizio della nostra grande avventura come una famiglia. Da allora abbiamo condiviso molti momenti attraverso quella porta, chiudendo fuori il mondo esterno e sentirsi a casa.  Questo è ancora il mio posto preferito.

We put a load of work into this place. We found our dining chairs in a garbage heap outside an elementary school and re-did them ourselves, learning about paintstipping ang the way. We changed the floors, stairs, doors, windows and walls since we've been here. We've painted and assembled, arranged and entertained, grown and even multiplied and now I'm feeling nostalgic that soon it will be time to say goodbye.

Abbiamo messo un saco di lavoro in questo posto. Abbiamo trovato le nostre sedie in un mucchio di spazzatura fuori di una scuola elementare e li abbiamo ri-fatti noi stessi. Abbiamo cambiato i pavimenti, scale, porte, finestre e pareti da quando siamo stati qui. Abbiamo dipinto e assemblato, organizzato e intrattenuti, cresciuti e anche moltiplicate e adesso mi sento nostalgia che presto sarà il momento di dire addio.

This week we've decide to sell our house in order to be able to afford something a little bit bigger.  Our place has a small room for Sera and a big open space for us but it's time to get something a little larger and with a more traditional layout. We need seprate rooms and another bathrom as well. Sera is growing up so fast and we're already overrun with toys, books and mini clothes... I hate to think what would happen when homework and backpacks start arriving, not to mention sports clothes, records (yes I know she'll probably never have a record collection... just being romantic) and giggling friends.

buying furniture online
comprando i mobili

Questa settimana abbiamo deciso di vendere la nostra casa in modo da essere in grado di permetterci qualcosa di un po 'più grande. Il nostro posto ha una piccola sala per Sera e un grande spazio aperto per noi, ma è il momento di ottenere qualcosa con un layout più tradizionale con camere separati e magari un altro bagno. Sera sta crescendo così velocemente e stiamo già invasa da giocattoli, libri e mini abiti ... Non oso pensare cosa succederà quando i compiti e zaini cominciano ad arrivare, per non parlare di abbigliamento sportivo, dischi (sì, lo so che probabilmente non avrà mai una collezione di dischi ... ma sono romantica) e amiche ridacchiando.

Phase one of trying to sell the house is via word-of-mouth, or word-of-social networks... Basically meaning we told our friends on Facebook. The interesting thing is, for as much as your friends on facebook are your friends, they're not really your friends so I don't know how well this strategy will work. I expected more people to share the post... but then I'm working on my expectations, so I can't even be disappointed that only two friends did.

the kitchen today
la cucina oggi

La prima fase di cercare di vendere la casa è tramite word-of-mouth, o word-of-social network ... In pratica significa che abbiamo detto ai nostri amici su Facebook. La cosa interessante è, per quanto i tuoi amici su facebook sono i tuoi amici, non sono davvero i vostri amici.  Non so quanto bene questa strategia funzionerà. Mi aspettavo più gente a condividere il posto ... ma poi sto lavorando sulle mie aspettative, quindi non posso nemmeno essere delusi dal fatto che solo due amici l'hanno fatto.

Instead, I'll share the info with you here dear readers, in the hopes that maybe you'll pass on the info. I know most of you probably don't have friends in Milan who are looking for houses, but you never know right?  We made a nice little website with all the photos of the current state of our house for sale over at MYNEXTLOFT so if you do know someone who could be interested you can direct them there.

Invece, condivido i informazioni qui con voi, cari lettori, nella speranza che forse passate l'informazione. So che la maggior parte di voi probabilmente non hanno amici a Milano che sono alla ricerca di case, ma non si sa mai giusto? Abbiamo fatto un bel sito web con tutte le foto dello stato attuale della nostra casa in vendita sopra a MYNEXTLOFT quindi se si conosce qualcuno che potrebbe essere interessato è possibile indirizzarli lì.

living space today
soggiorno oggi

In the meantime, I'm going to fix myself a cup of green tea and sit on my couch and just look around the room for a bit... enjoy this place that I helped to create a bit... memorize what it feels like to be here a bit... if only for a little while longer.

Nel frattempo, ho intenzione versarmi una tazza di tè verde e sedersi sul mio divano.  Vorrei guardarmi intorno la stanza per un po'... godermi questo luogo che ho contribuito a creare un po'... memorizzare come ci si sente ad essere qui un po'...anche se è solo per un po'.

♥ Jess

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Hitting Goals in January

Well, January is underway and despite having Sera at home with me until she's back at school on the 7th I've managed to cut new squares for her memory quilt and sew up the blocked ones that I cut last year.

You might recognise the fabric with the balloons from this skirt alteration I did in May. Well it's now on its third life being reused again in the quilt. Reusing fabrics has brought me more joy than I ever thought it could!

Other things I'd love to tackle January:

• plan Sera's 3rd birthday party; decide when, where, who and a budget!
• master grocery list planning in order to be able to do one on line order a week and avoid the chaos that is the local super market.
• de-clutter and donate clothes from my closet. No one needs 7 black tee-shirts!
• pack away tree and ornaments before it gets to be silly.
• drop off de-cluttering junk at the mercatino so that maybe it can get reused by someone who wants it
• assign new shots to animators on Hick! and work through the last tweaks on the rigs.
• catch up with some friends I haven't seen for a while
• create my Project Life spreads for November and December 2013 as well as the archived ones since January 2013.
• go get my documents of Italian citizenship at the Questura
• catch up on some medical tests and checkups

What have you got on your list of to-dos for January? How do you organise your time and goals? I've tried every software and app on the market and find that a pen and paper and a simple calendar works best for me... Speaking of to-dos and calendars, I must hang out new one for 2014!

Favorite moments from 2013

It's time to say goodbye to 2013.  I've had such a wonderful year. Here are some of my highlights and favourite memories:

// Celebrating Sera's 2nd Birthday with friends // Thailand with mum, Sera, Eric, Jaqui, Taryn, Asher and Bailey //  Visiting Milla, Lidia and Mimmo in Grenoble // Agroturismo weekend with Mario, Lucrezia, Riccardo, Martina and Irene // Friuli with Momo, Marina and Jacopo // Grenoble 2.0 // Nonni visit // Massa // Making friends with Valentina // Surprise visit from Grandma // Cattolica with nonni // Family Ferragosto Picnic // Tuscany with Denis, Chiara, Gaia, Greta, Denise, Epi, Miki and Maria-Grazia // Nonni visit 2.0 // Zia Alessia visiting for Halloween // Milla Visiting // Setting up for Christmas // Holidays in Canada with Grandma // Visiting Max, Jack, Marty and Tam in Toronto // Christmas with the extended family in Taranto //

Have a wonderful time tonight with all the celebrating, whether it's at a party, with a few friends or just cuddled up on your own with a good book.  Goodbye 2013 and Welcome to 2014!!

Dressing the Tree 2013

To keep with our travel plans this year we had to set up the tree quite early.  Sera has a lot of memories from last year but I think this is the first year she's really excited about Christmas.  This is the first time she helped to dress the tree and my control freak nature had to take a backseat. I think it came out quite nice in the end... with just a few tweaks!

We've had our synthetic tree for nine years now and it's not showing its age at all. I have only ever once had a real tree and felt horrible as my flatmates and I finally threw it out of our second story window, dry and dishevelled in the middle of March 2003.  

Every year I make a few new ornaments and maybe buy one or two that keep in style with the traditional red, green and white theme.

Hannukah Toy Felt Board Craft

This year Hannukah is sneaking up on us early, November 27th to be precise!  That's only a few days away! I don't want to miss out on this important holiday with everything else we have going on at the moment; trying to sell our house, pack for our big trip to Canada on the 30th and get everything ready for that other big winter holiday, Christmas.

Since we will be in Canada for 6 of the 8 days of Hannukah I also have to take into account the fact that my heavy pewter Menorah doesn't really travel well and that it's not possible to light the 3rd candle on an intercontinental flight.

Last year Sera and I made a paper Menorah but that won't really pack well either what with all the crumpling.  It barely survived the 8 days of sitting side by side with the regular one. Little toddler hands...

Last year's Hannuka celebrations. You can see our paper  Menorah to the right of the pewter one.

What's the solution? A felt Menorah of course, complete with removable candles... and what better way to create it that with Sera herself on a rainy afternoon in November?

First we cut out the shape of a Menorah in the blue felt. We made certain parts "3D" by gluing extra felt on top. Then we made 9 little rectangles as the candles and glued yellow flames to the tops.  Since the background is felt and the menorah is felt and the candles are felt we didn't even need to attach anything to the backs to make them stick. Felt is fun because felt always sticks to felt.

I finished off the project by making a little box out of brown felt to store the candles in when they're not in use. Not only is this project quite fun to do together, but it will teach Sera about an important tradition in Judaism, and about numbers as well, as each night you add another candle.

I'm quite pleased with the results! Look how hard she is concentrating on putting the candles into their holders!

If crafting isn't your thing I have also spotted a fantastic wooden menorah for little kids to play with.

Please leave me a comment if you decide to try your hand at making your own felt Menorah!
Happy Hannukah!!

Loving ProjectLife

A layout from July 2013

A few months back I got started up with ProjectLife, a form of easy scrap booking, photo and memory archiving and I thought I'd give you the update. Firstly, I love, love, love that I'm finally printing out and getting hard copies of Sera as she's growing up. She's so beautiful and amazing that it's really a shame that most of her pictures are digital. With ProjectLife all that has changed!


Here's how I approach the job:

• Towards the end of each month I download all the photos taken in that month from our various cameras and devices onto the computer and put them in a folder for the month. Named, for example 13_10_October. I put the year and month in number format first so that when all my folders are lined up in their parent folder they're in order. I make sure to name the single digit months with two numbers as well. 02=February
• I then go through that folder choosing my favourite photos and place them in a new folder for printing, cropping and resizing and digital embellishing as necessary.
• Every month on the 27th we take a family photo in a photobooth around town. It's a tradition we've had since Sera was born. I make sure to scan this photo and re size it to 4x6inches so it will fit in a vertical ProjectLife photo sleeve.
• I also go back to older photos and make sure to cover at least one or two 'archive' months. These are the months before I started ProjectLife. The ones we never printed any photos from... they span back to the beginning of time (or at least the beginning of my marriage!)
• I order the photos on line for printing and wait.
• When the photos arrive I check them against the 'toprint' photos to remind myself which months they belong to and I start my layouts.  I fill the photo pages with the photos and put in journalling cards int he spaces that are left over. Then I write my memories about those months on the cards.
• If I feel that a layout needs more photos I go back to my folder from that month and set up a photo for printing in the next batch.

A layout from May 2013

I am loving how the project is coming along and love the journalling cards and what they add to the design of the layouts. It's really a fun project and it will be a treasure for our family for years to come.  At the moment I'm only doing a few pages per month but i can really see how someone could become obsessed and start documenting EVERYTHING!

I totally recommend this kind of scrap booking for a digital time.

Doll's House

I wouldn't mind being the doll that lives here!

I don't live with many regrets. In fact I'd say that I probably have only one thing that I would have done differently in my 34 years.  It's not a significant or life changing regret in any way, but it is heart-wrenching when I think about it... So I try not to think about it.

When I was a little girl my father built me a dollhouse in our unfinished basement workshop with his very own hands. He got the plan from a book in the library. He sawed and measured and glued each piece together and even put shingles on the roof and working electrical lamps in each room. It must have taken hours upon hours and was surely an act of great love.

similar to the one my dad made me

In my mid-teens, during a time when I was very disconnected from my past or my future I agreed to l the dollhouse in a garage sale.  At the time it felt like a liberation of a large object of clutter that I didn't use anymore. I didn't have any foresight.

I didn't know my father would die and that that material proof of his love for me would become such a symbol of loss for me.... As if had I not given up the dollhouse I wouldn't miss him as much.  I also worry that he was saddened by my letting it go so easily. I hope that he had never read anything into me having sold it and I hope the child that subsequently got to play with it has fond memories of it as well. In a way having something my father created out there in the world somewhere is a comfort as well.

Unless the family broke it down for firewood... Which is possible too. I hope the glue fumes didn't asphyxiate them.

Since Sera will never play with my own childhood dollhouse a substitute must be found!  Ideally my hubby will become a carpenter when the time is right and built his own version of a dollhouse for his little girl and when she turns 16 I will stop her and remind her that she too will have children one day and that hand-made items are by default family heirlooms.  But he's not all that crafty or carpenterish. But I guess anyone can learn!

There are also loads of gorgeous dollhouse kits on the market and I suppose that could be an alternative with just gluing things together in the right order. We could work on it all together.  Or there are the classic store-bought versions. They come in all shapes and sizes but lack that personal touch that having a parent built it adds in. 

GLENN HOWELLS design for A Doll's House Auction

If you would prefer a dolls house that you can leave out in your lounge and that doubles as a work of very exclusive art you nab one this November at the A doll's house auction You'll also be helping a great cause as all the proceeds go to a children's charity called KIDS. The 20 houses up for auction are designed and built by some of the best current architects in the world, but be prepared to pay upwards of £1000,00 for any of them, and the bidding has just started.  

A Funny Thing Happened - My Beginners' Italian (anche in italiano!)

Woody Allen by Kerry Waghorn

AMICI ITALIANI!!! - VERSIONE ITALIANO IN BASSO!

I'm lucky enough to hear compliments on a regular basis on my fluency in Italian.  Either it's because Italians are very kind to foreigners learning their language or it's because I've actually mastered the language after living here for the past 9 years.

People often continue in the conversation to say how they're envious and would love to learn a second language themselves, but that it would be too complicated or they don't have time or that they're just not language minded. They tell me it's too late.  First of all, if you're still breathing I don't think it's ever too late to try something... even if you don't succeed at it.  Secondly, no language doesn't come to everyone easily and at times it can be embarrassing, but eventually with persistence, patience and a sense of humour it will come

Here is an anecdote from my own personal journey towards my current level of Italian:

I was studying 3D computer graphics shortly after arriving in Italy and all my classes were held, amphitheatre style, in Italian.  My way of following the classes and learning what I needed to know for the exams consisted of me writing everything down in notebooks, even the words I didn't understand, for review later on at home.  The notebooks from those days are classics and I with I had photographed them now to share with you. Every word is spelled incorrectly, every word misunderstood.
One of my courses was Film History.  I sat through the invention of Cinema and the Lumiere brothers and up through Charlie Chaplain without any trouble having done it all before.  The course was going OK and I felt confident that my Italian was also improving.
One day the teacher came in and started his lecture about the films of Woody Allen.  I was a bit surprised because I didn't realise that Woody Allen, though a great film maker, merited an entire 3 hour lecture to himself.  'I film di Woody Allen' this and 'I film di Woody Allen' that. The teacher went on and on.  I put it down to cultural differences.... maybe Italians LOVE Woody Allen??
When the next weeks lecture started much in the same way.... with 'I film di Woody Allen' I was confused and worried.  Surely a culture couldn't be obsessed with Woody Allen.... I peeked over to a neighbours notebook and to my horror found these words:
I film hollywoodiano
The translation is not the films of Woody Allen but rather the films of Hollywood.  That's why the lectures made no sense.  I was certain that Woody Allen had nothing to do with 2001 a Space Odyssey.

And on that note, as a special treat to my Italian readers I will attempt to translate this post, as best I can into my adoptive country's language... please forgive me.

If you also want to learn Italian here's a good place to start.

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Sono molto fortunata perché ricevo spesso i complimenti sul mio Italiano.  Non so se è perché i italiani sono generosi con i complimenti oppure perché veramente sono bilingue dopo 9 anni di residenza qui a Milano. 

I stessi che mi fanno complimenti dicono che sono invidiosi e vorranno imparare anche loro una seconda lingua (sopratutto Inglese). Dicono che non c'è tempo oppure non sono bravi ad imparare. Dicono che è troppo tardi, ormai.  Nel mio parere, se respiri ancora non e mai troppo tardi per qualsiasi cosa nuova... almeno di provare anche se i risultati non sono quelli che aspetti.  Poi credo anche che imparando una lingua nuova è difficile si, ma con pazienza e un senso di umorismo si può fare.

Adesso vi racconto una piccola storia di una mia prima esperienza in Italiano.

Appena sono arrivata in Italia ho iniziato un corso di Grafica 3D. Parlavo il minimo Italiano immaginabile.  I miei corso erano in una grande Aula con tantissimi studenti.  Ho deciso di seguire i corsi scrivendo tutto quanto che sentivo passare per le orecchie su un quaderno e poi a casa mettere insieme i pezzi del puzzle nella mia mente.  I quaderni di quei tempi sono pieni di parole miscelati, scritti male e tradotti in maniera brutale.Dovevo seguire un corso di storia di cinema.  L'ho seguivo dal introduzione dei fratelli Lumiere a Charlie Chaplain e oltre. Mi sembrava che tutto stava andando bene. Ero contenta che finalmente cominciavo a capire Italiano.Un giorno il docente inizia a parlare dei film di Woody Allen. E parla, e parla, e poi parla ancora dei film di Woody Allen.... ero un pò sconvolta perché anche se Woody Allen e un bravo filmaker, non pensavo che meritava 3 ore di classe.  Magari i Italiani AMANO davvero Woody Allen?La settimana dopo la lesione inizia nel stesso modo. I film di Woody Allen. I film di Woody Allen. I film di Woody Allen.  Non potevo credere!! Guardo il quaderno del tizio al mio fianco e inorridito vedo queste parole:
 I film hollywoodiano.Al mio orecchio Inglese i due frasi erano uguali.  Adesso ho capito il motivo per quale le lezione non avevano senso.  E poi ero quasi sicuro che Woody Allen non avevo da fare con 2001 Odissea Nello Spazio.

Allora, amici italiani.... sto facendo il mio meglio per condividere questa esperienza con voi per farti vedere che siamo tutti idioti mentre impariamo nuove lingue e non dovete temere niente!  Al massimo fai un gaffe... ma la vita è troppo breve per non provare... per avere de rimpianti... o per dubitare.

Se vuoi imparare inglese davvero, farlo.... se no, smetti di dirti che vorresti farlo.
E se vuoi farlo puoi provare con questo sito. Sto usandolo per migliorare il mio Francese ;-)

Project Life!

How did I only find out about Becky Higgins' Project Life line of scrap booking products today? I'm so excited!

I'm not a scrapbooker (I know, hard to believe cause there are very few crafts I don't dabble in) but I'm about to become a lazy scrapbooker thanks to Project Life. Here's what it's all about (copied and pasted from their about page):

Project Life^® is a solution-based approach to scrapbooking that was created to simplify the process in order to allow you more time to enjoy life! It requires no glue, no scissors, no tools, and no skills of any kind. The design of our products takes the guess work out of layout design so that you can focus on recording your everyday moments through your photos and journaling. The simple design is stylish and makes it possible for you to complete more pages in less time.

What it consists of is a binder and photo sleeves, just like an old photo album (remember those, before photos were no longer something you could touch?) and a kit of pre-printed and themed or coordinated card stock cards which you can place in with your photos and scraps mixing and matching.  When I saw this post about setting up for photographing Project Life albums I fell in love with the concept.  It will also fulfil my need to do something about the guilt I feel for not having printed a single photo or album for Sera since she was 4 months old (too much knitting, quilting, animating and other pressing responsibilities).

I ordered the kit you see above (Honey Edition) as well as a black chevron binder (cause we all know I still love chevrons) and 60 sleeves. From what I can tell most people do a spread per week, but that's pretty unrealistic in terms of my time so I'm going to aim for one per month if not one per season.

I'm hoping to be able to share my progress with all of you.

Thank you 10Q

The other day while catching up with a friend just back from holidays she asked me what my new years' resolutions were.  She claims that September makes more sense as the start of the new year than January ever did. Schools get back in swing, the weather starts to get cooler and the lazy days of summer are gone. Even the harvest gets underway as farmers start preparing for winter.  Plus, wineries all over Italy start the vendemmia; plucking the ripe juicy grapes from the vine to start the process of turning them into this year's wine.

What my friend didn't know was that it is also the season leading up to the start of the Herbrew calendar year and Jewish New Years for those very reasons (the harvest, not the wine). September is definitely the start of my new year as well.

In that regard...

For some years now I have been subscribed to a web service called 10Q. Here's their about blurb:

10 Days. 10 Questions.Answer one question per day in your own secret online 10Q space. Make your answers serious. Silly. Salacious. However you like. It's your 10Q. When you're finished, hit the magic button and your answers get sent to the secure online 10Q vault for safekeeping. One year later, the vault will open and your answers will land back in your email inbox for private reflection. Want to keep them secret? Perfect. Want to share them, either anonymously or with attribution, with the wider 10Q community? You can do that too.Next year the whole process begins again. And the year after that, and the year after that. Do you 10Q? You should.

Some of the questions are geared towards having you analyse your life and the past year with an eye towards gratitude and appreciation, the rest have you ponder the year to come.  On the 10th day the answers are sealed in a vault for 12 months and you tend to forget them pretty quickly.  When they come back to you it can be extremely enlightening! I've found it a very powerful self-analysis  tool.  You can even login and check back on previous years' responses to see how much your spirit, and you have changed over the years.   The first year I wrote my answers I was pregnant with Sera so you can imagine what has changed since then!

The 10Q service starts this Wednesday, September 4th. Sign up now to get daily reminders to answer your questions.

10Q: Reflect. React. Renew. Life's Biggest Questions. Answered By You.

memory quilting: part 2

< back to memory quilting part 1

I've finally decided on a quilt that I'm going to use as inspiration for Sera's memory quilt.  It's from Amanda Jean over at Crazy Mom Quilts. I wanted something simple with sashing that showcased the individual fabrics and yet kept everything neat and tidy. I came across this quilt while researching how to do the math for planning the quilt I had in mind and found that if instead of the 9-square blocks I just use plain, simple blocks then the quilt is exactly what I'm after and will allow me to use even more of the clothes I cut because of the beautiful and colourful border made up of tiny blocks.

Check out more of Amanda Jean's amazing blog and beautiful quilting!

I also started cutting up the "materials" for the quilt (sounds better than destroying my child's precious clothing). I knew it would be a hugely emotional task if I did it alone in the quiet of my upstairs office so I took a few items downstairs at a time and cut them while sitting in front of the TV with Sera and hubby.  I started with my favourite pieces/memories first figuring it would be a lot like ripping off a band aid and in fact it was a smart choice. From the moment I made the first cut into her raspberry corduroy romper with the tiny pockets there was no going back. From then on the quilt had-to be made or I would simply be a vandal.

I swear, not all of her clothes are pink of fuscia!!

On my third trip back from the clothes stash Sera spotted me holding a really fun skirt and stole it back. What do you know!?! It still fit! It goes to show you that the sizing labels on baby clothes are really crazy because the last I checked she's quite a lot bigger than an 6-month old. I'm going to let her wear it for the rest of the summer and then find it a spot in the quilt in a central location, now that I know how much it means to her.

There is still a very long way to go, even with just getting through the clothes so I can start cutting my squares, but so far I'm feeling a lot better about the project than I thought I would.  

Here's a quick idea of the numbers to get an idea of how much cutting ill be doing in the next few months. The finished quilt requires 70 coloured 6.5" squares and 308 2.5" squares for the border + all the sashing, which I haven't bothered calculating yet and possibly some more coloured squares for the backing.  I'm waiting for my nice new ruler and rotary cutter to arrive before I even let my mind wander towards those cuts at all yet.

Oh my oh my! I'd love to have this done by the end of January for Sera's 3rd birthday but who knows!

Mix Tape Nostalgia

If you were born in the late 70's, as I was, then you definitely remember mix tapes. Up until I was in my late teens, CDs weren't rewritable and didn't even exist before 1982!  You couldn't record onto a vinyl record at home so tapes were definitely the way to go.  I remember spending hours sitting on the floor of the family den with gigantic headphones on and my finger suspended, ever ready, over the record or pause button waiting for the exact perfect song to come on the radio. It was, after all the only place to pick up music for your mix tapes.

How will my daughter ever understand something like that? Waiting, song after song for the perfect moment to hit record, knowing that if you just got the magic combination of songs compiled onto one magnetic strip the object of your teenage crush might might just notice you.  'Hey, Timmy, um... I made you a mix tape.'

With access to MP3s and who-knows what else when she gets to her teen years, music is already instantaneously available and therefore has lost a lot of it's value. It's impossible to attach any sentimental value to something that seems impossible to lose, and therefore you never really have it in the first place.

Already my own relationship with music has changed dramatically and I can't put it down to the sheer fact that puberty hormones haven't coursed through my system for over 15 years. Today for example I was on the treadmill a the gym and realised that they have Internet access so I logged onto Grooveshark and started to listen the the Indie playlist. It's basically a really really huge mix-tape compiled by a computer.  As I listened I realised that though I may have really liked some of the songs, but there's a very very good chance I'll never hear them again. Not having a pen and paper to mark down the names of the songs, and honestly, with the notion in the back of my head that they're so easily 'findable' I'll probably never look for them again. The next time I play the indie playlist the computer will compile a different selection of songs for me. The moment is gone.

This would have never happened in 1993, the peak of my music listening prime. Back then, my only access to new music would be the handful of FM radio stations that we had programmed in our car. Back then, if there was a song I head once and liked I would strain my ears patiently at the end of the single to hear its name spoken by the DJ's lips. Then I would memorise the combination of artist and song title and hold that info in my mind for the next Saturday afternoon free in order to sit by the radio and hope that the DJ mentioned it again in the 'up next' list of songs. If I was lucky I'd catch it and have my very own copy, if not, I'd have to settle with hearing it occasionally through the airwaves. But once I did have the song on tape it was 'mine'. It had become my music, inserted in order to be played over and over and over, always the same, always in order (and if my timing was bad, always overlapped by the DJ's I to or exit).

Even when CDs came out they weren't personalised compilations in any way. You couldn't decide the order if the songs and they didn't even have themed compilation albums till much later. If you wanted to share music with friends mix tapes were the only way. CDs couldn't compare.

I truly miss those days. Of course having everything digitally has its obvious pros, but on a tactile emotional level things will never be the same.

My most nostalgic memory of tapes was the first time I came to Europe on my own. I was 18 and remember packing my carry-on bag with my Sony Walkman and 22 tapes. I was afraid my luggage would get lost and I'd be separated from my precious music. I almost didn't have space for anything else in the bag and that was ok.