Treasures from the bookstore on Easter

Apr20

I have very fond memories of Easters growing up. Of course we started with baskets, then we’d hunt for jelly beans hidden around the house. After we’d eaten our fill of candy, we’d go out to lunch (Annie’s Santa Fe was a popular choice) and visit a bookstore. For many years, we went to Borders in Overland Park. It was a half-hour drive but that was before we had a stand-alone bookstore any closer, so it was a real treat. It was marvelous to spend the afternoon wandering among the aisles, and I always found way more books than I was allowed to buy.

This year, we resurrected the tradition, albeit with a few changes. My kids are 14 and 10, and the 14yo can’t have jelly beans because of her braces, so we couldn’t do the jelly bean hunt. We also have a new dog who eats a lot of…everything, so I didn’t want to hide anything chocolate and risk it getting eaten by the dog. So in lieu of a candy hunt, we went to visit books. Obviously Borders is gone now (sad panda) so our new favorite is Half Price Books. We just got one in our city recently and we’re loving it! We packed up a small basket with books to sell and set off.

And I’m so glad we did because I scored big time! I found these in the clearance DVD section for $2 each:

That was just the beginning. As I browsed the fiction section, this was the first book to catch my eye, and yes, it’s a first edition with dust jacket:

You may remember the title: it’s the book that my dog Max ate a few days ago. I’m so happy I found a replacement. I guess I have to forgive Max now.

But my favorite find of the day was from the clearance fiction section. Jodi Picoult is another of my favorites, and I found a first edition with jacket of Mercy. It’s her fourth book, before she became quite the superstar she is now, so it’s harder to find. It’s a really nice copy, too. And it was only TWO DOLLARS! I love finding treasures like that. It’s one of three I didn’t have, and though it’s not my favorite of hers, I’m a completist. I want to have the full set.

I wasn’t the only who scored. The girl found three books, the boy found a Big Nate book, and the hubby found a couple of jazz CDs. Good haul all around. And all that shopping made us hungry, so we completed the tradition with lunch out. It was a fun day. I think we may have to do it again next year.

This cut is the deepest

Apr18

When Max unrolled and ate the toilet paper, I laughed. When he destroyed toy after toy after toy, I smiled, cleaned up the mess and bought new toys. When he chewed up two of my Twilight figurines, I sighed and but again laughed at the sight of headless Bella. When he chewed into my yarn bag and ate part of my shawl, I kept my calm, swept up the mess and moved all knitting and crochet stuff out of his reach. But what we came home to tonight was the worst.

It looked like a battlefield coming in the door. He’d found a bag of dried apricots (kept at the back of the counter); all that was left was bits of the bag. He’d gotten into my daughter’s school bag and tossed her shirt across the room, chewed up part of her gym shorts, and eaten her Pop-tarts. That wasn’t the worst. No, the worst was the … I don’t even want to say it … the books.

I’m a book collector. My mom owned a used-book store when I was growing up and I worked with her for ten years, learning everything about collectible books. I’m also a reader, a fast and voracious reader. Those make for a substantial and really cool book collection. We have four 6′ tall bookcases in our dining room. They’re all hardbacks, and most are first editions with dust jackets. Some are valuable only to me, but many have monetary value too.

Now some of you might be hyperventilating right now (as I was as I came home) but rest assured, it wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been. He only managed to pull out two books, and one is still salvageable.

See those scratches across the front? Yeah, those weren’t there before. Now granted, this is not my favorite Dean Koontz book. I am a huge fan of Koontz, especially his early books, and I have a pretty thorough collection. The fact that he chose this one and not the signed first of Whispers or Strangers…well, that’s something to be grateful for. I guess. Whatever. But still. This is a pretty unusual title and a first edition. Not cool, Max.

So what was the other one? I couldn’t tell at first: the dust jacket had been torn from its protective plastic cover and both were in shreds. As I got closer, I saw the initials L E on the front of the book. I also love Louise Erdrich. I first read her in college and was obsessed with her books for a long time. One of my most treasured books is a near fine first edition of Love Medicine, her most famous book, and I was sure that was what Max had chewed up.

Thank goodness, it wasn’t. It was The Blue Jay’s Dance, her memoir of early motherhood. Again, not my favorite of hers, but still, I really enjoyed this book. Not anymore.

But it wasn’t really even which books got damaged that affected me. It was that they were Books. Books are part of me. They’ve always been a huge part of my life. I treat them with respect and reverence and love. They are vessels of joy and heartache and wonder and imagination. To see one destroyed like this…it hurts more than it should.

So I’m frustrated now. We were gone maybe an hour, and he had a number of toys to entertain him. He’d been fed. He’d already gotten two walks and two playtimes in the backyard. I don’t know what else to do with this dog except to shut him up in the kitchen or crate him when we’re gone. I didn’t want to have to resort to that but I don’t know what else to do. I love him, but I also love my belongings. I want us to be able to coexist peacefully. So how do I make that happen?

Where’d my mojo go?

Apr17

I seem to have lost some of my knitting motivation. I’ve been so caught up in training the new dog that my focus has shifted. Maybe the fact that I can’t leave current projects out where I can see them prevents them from staying on my mind. Or maybe it’s the fact that I have two bigger projects going, and I really like immediate gratification. The only project I’ve finished recently is this scarf:

I have several single skeins of mercerized cotton in my stash and couldn’t figure out what to do with them. But with warmer weather supposedly coming, I’ve been wanting to make all kinds of lighter knitwear, and a Spring scarf seemed perfect for this color. It’s a bit shorter than I anticipated but I love the openness of the pattern.

I have re-started the shawl that Max ate, and it’s almost back where it was before. I did switch to the bigger needles and like it a lot better. So I guess he kind of did me a favor. Except that he killed my momentum and now I’m slower to get back into it.

The other project on my needles is a cardigan, my first knitted garment. I chose the Lilas Cardigan on Ravelry partly because it looked simple enough for a newbie and partly because I love the big, floppy collar. I’ve had six skeins of Cotton Supreme Splash in my stash for ages, waiting for the right pattern, and I think this is it. I’ve already used up one skein just making the collar.

But here’s the problem: this is boring. It’s a LOT of stockinette. I make it through one row and reward myself with an email or Twitter check. I know I’ll love it when it’s done, I just have to get there. And I think if I can push through to the point where it actually starts looking like a cardigan, I’ll get excited enough to finish.

So today, I have some knitting time. Hmm, what to work on? I think I’ll make another one of those lacy scarves in this CEY Imagine yarn…

Oh, I could just cry

Apr14

My first clue was the yarn label I saw on the floor as I unlocked the back door. A small, intact yarn label…that was in the middle of a ball of yarn when I left the house this morning. As I came inside, I saw a long dark trail along the dining room floor, and I gasped. It was yarn. A long tangled mess of purple yarn. Behind it was a pile of pink yarn. These were neat and tidy balls when I left. After an hour in the house with a bored dog? Not so much.

Near these travesties was another: my cute new YarnPop Gadgety bag was on the floor, intact but muddy and damp.

I was trembling with fear by this point because I knew what was coming. I knew what this yarn had been attached to. I had started a spring shawl for myself yesterday with these gorgeous colors, and I was loving how it was turning out. See, I’ll show you. Before:

Here’s the after:

Sighhhhhh. I know, I know. It could have been so much worse. If I had been gone any longer, the shawl would probably have been gone too. And I wasn’t too far into it, so I wasn’t losing too much time. As it was, I frogged it all very carefully. The yarn is beautiful Simply Sweet Whipped Cream, a blend of wool, mohair and silk. The mohair, which gives it that fuzzy halo, loves to tangle if you pull too quickly. So I worked slowly, making sure to keep my breathing even and steady. And when I was done, I realized I wasn’t really missing much yarn, though it looked my pink yarn ball had babies.

So now I get to start all over with my shawl, as soon as my Gadgety bag is dry. The silver lining is that I can switch to a bigger needle size, which I think will make a better shawl anyway. I’ve also learned that absolutely nothing is safe around this dog. Nothing. I’d cry…but he’s eaten all the tissues.

p.s. for those who are wondering, no, I did not yell at, or punish, the dog since he didn’t know better. It was my mistake to leave it within reach. He got to stay in the kitchen with the door closed while I removed all the evidence.

Coldwater Creek is closing, and I have so many feels

Apr11

I read today that Coldwater Creek has filed for bankruptcy protection and will be closing their stores within the next couple of months. It’s sad because I hate to see any popular retailer like that close, but also because it was my second home for a long time.

I was 29 when I started working part-time at Coldwater Creek. I had been a stay-at-home mom for over four years, and my kids were five and two, and I was itching for more adult social interaction. I was quiet, shy, insecure and timid. Why work retail, then, when I’d have to talk to new people every day? No idea why I latched onto this company, but I was glad I did. When I started with them in 2005, they were passionate about treating people well, both customers and employees. They fostered a warm, close-knit environment. As a result, the team at my first store was very much like my second family. I had more friends, moms and grandmas than I could count.

I blossomed with their love, support and encouragement. Within a year and a half, I had become an assistant manager. Before I knew it, I was helping lead a team of roughly 20 women. I was interviewing and training new employees, leading store meetings, joining in on conference calls…and I was doing it all with growing confidence. I may have been (may still be!) insecure about some things, but I knew that job inside out, and I felt sure that I was doing it in a way that my team appreciated.

In 2010, I became the store manager. It was scary, but not because I worried I couldn’t do the job well. My previous store manager and my district manager were convinced I would succeed. Everyone at my store had given me nothing but encouragement about being their leader, and I was excited to be taking the reins. Now I was in charge of interviewing and hiring the leadership team, I often led conference calls. I stood up in front of the team at every meeting; me, the girl who was petrified about public speaking. I was traveling alone cross-country to attend training sessions with groups of complete strangers…and I loved it. I trained other managers on new software. I drove myself six hours to train another manager–and I had always been terrified of highway driving and getting lost. But I did all these things because I had people counting on me, people who had no doubt I could do them. I had a team of women I loved who loved me, and their support meant the world to me.

I eventually moved to a bigger store, leaving my original family (which had changed a bit over the years) for a new one. I loved this new team too, even though it took a while to build up the connections I’d had with my first team. Again, they were loving and supportive, doing everything they could to help me, and the store, succeed.

I left Coldwater Creek in 2012 for a variety of reasons, but none of them were related to these women. The company had changed over the years; different leaders and different visions plus a recession meant more stress and a focus on profit over service and people. My family life was going through some difficult times, which made it harder for me to focus on work. So I’m a stay-at-home mom again, and I love it. You couldn’t pay me enough to go back to retail. But looking back at these pictures and remembering all the fun times I shared with these women, I can’t help but be nostalgic. Creekers, I love you. I miss you. I hate that there won’t *be* any more Creekers. I’m so grateful I had them to help shape me into who I am now: strong, confident, able to speak my mind and follow my instincts. So thank you, Coldwater Creek, for a great seven years. You’ll be missed.

Today’s Library Books

Apr9

I love trips to the library. As I kid I’d walk there and come home with armloads of books that would keep me quiet for hours. It’s not always the same now, though it still happens from time to time. Today, I just went to pick up one book I had on hold: Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell. I’ve been hearing about her and this book for ages, and I’ve been on the waiting list for ages. Can’t wait to start reading it finally!

But then I browsed through the new non-fiction section, and there’s just SO MUCH interesting stuff! This is what I came home with:

Puppy Bible: because I have a new dog and I figured it’d be smart to see what’s coming next.

My Dog is Driving Me Crazy: see above. Plus I won’t always think his quirks are charming, so I might want to help improve his behavior.

The Art of Cartooning & Illustration: my 10yo son loves drawing and thinks he wants to be a cartoonist when he grows up.

Fine Woodworking Turning Techniques & Projects: my husband is an avid and talented woodworker and one of the things he wants to learn is turning. (And I want him to learn so he’ll make me yarn bowls and knitting needles)

Building Classic Arts & Crafts Furniture: kind of for the husband. We own a house that’s almost 100 years old, and we both like the Arts & Crafts look. I like to dream of the furniture he could make for us.

Home Workshop Storage: Storage is an issue for most artists regardless of the medium, I would think. And with two kids and limited workshop space, I thought Alex might find a helpful idea or two.

And now I get to sit in the sun and read!

Don’t Hate Me Because I’m Beautiful

Apr9

Siberian Huskies are gorgeous dogs, and their coloration is so striking that they’re exceedingly photogenic. Max is no exception, especially with his unusually pale ice-blue eyes. He makes it a delightful exercise in photography!

The dog ate my homework!

Apr8

Well, he hasn’t eaten any homework *yet* but give it time: this dog is obsessed with paper. He’s been on several walks with us already and each time he’s found a used napkin, tissue, paper towel, candy wrapper, cigarette butt or something similar to consume. Sometimes I catch him in time to pull him away, sometimes I can get it out of his mouth, and sometimes he even drops it. And then of course sometimes he just chomps away and has a weird snack. Yesterday I left him alone for the first time. I was gone maybe an hour, to Costco to get him some food. I come home to find this:

I laughed and cleaned it up…and decided to keep the bathroom door closed from now on! After lunch today, I grabbed a tissue from the box on the kitchen counter. You guessed it: there was a damp spot and two small holes in it. I have no idea why he decided to leave it in the box. Today, I went to vote, making sure the toilet paper wasn’t accessible. Oops, but my slipper was. It was still intact, but a bit dampish. So was the dust rag he’d found by the basement door, where it was waiting for a load of laundry. I’m glad neither of them suffered the fate of the rope toy that only survived about 8 hours:

I took away the handle once he started tearing it apart to actually eat but the ball is one of his favorite toys now so I’ll let him keep it. Really, he’s much like a baby: it’s a darn good thing he’s cute! Still, if this is the worst that he does, I’m fine with it. Clearly he just gets lonely when we’re all gone. It’s a bit charming how he follows me everywhere I go. Even if I get off the couch just to get a drink, he’ll hop up from a nap and trot with me back and forth. It’ll probably get a bit annoying after a while, but it’s not yet. Neither are the muddy floors. And to be honest, I think the kids really *want* to go to school and truthfully say “The dog ate my homework!”

“It’s exhausting being this cute!”

This Easter, the treat is the basket itself!

Apr7

I finished another project the other day, and I’m quite tickled with it. It was the cutest little bubble bag pattern, and since I’ve been on a felting kick lately, I thought I’d give it a shot with one of the random skeins of wool in my stash. I picked a bright grassy green and cast on, and the knitting went so quickly! It felted quickly too, unlike my last bag. This one only needed two wash cycles and it was ready to dry. After that, I found a pink ribbon to thread through the eyelets, and voila!

It’s small–only 5″ by 7″–but it would easily hold all the essentials. I’m also thinking it would make a great small-project bag! You can easily switch out the ribbon for any other color. For now, though, I’m thinking it needs to hold some Easter eggs!

Available for sale here

Meet Max, our new furry friend

Apr7

This is our new baby, Max. He’s a Siberian Husky, around 11 months old, and we adopted him from a local animal shelter, Wayside Waifs.

Alex and I met him Saturday without telling the kids. Max has juvenile cataracts, which means his vision is impaired, and he wasn’t recommended for a home with small children. We were concerned about taking on a dog with a vision problem, so we wanted to check him out on our own. While we visited with him, we could see that he has adapted quite well to his vision, and he had no problem seeing us, the treats in our hand, or the ball we threw for him.

The vet at the shelter said he didn’t think Max would ever need cataract surgery, though it was something we could opt for if we thought it necessary, which supported the research I had done. Huskies are prone to eye problems, especially cataracts, but juvenile cataracts are different in that they often don’t progress over time and the dog can live quite happily as he is. That eliminated my concern about his health, and I was excited for him to meet the kids.

We made sure to talk to the kids beforehand about his vision, stressing that they would have to make sure not to startle him or come up to him from behind. We were told he had food aggression, so we talked about that too, and how we’d have to keep him separate during meals and have an adult feed him. We talked about his “mouthiness”, which is just him wanting to latch onto things with his jaw and play. As a result, our son, who is smaller and only 10, was a little tentative and hesitant, but couldn’t help but be charmed by Max. Our daughter was in love at first sight. The meeting was smooth sailing, and before long we were all smooshed in the car heading home. I sat in the backseat with my son and Max, and Max had no qualms about sitting, leaning, and laying on me. We also learned that he gives doggie kisses.

It took very little time for Max to adjust. His vision seems to be keeping him from going upstairs inside, but the stairs leading to the yard are no problem at all. A quick trip to the store meant he had new toys, and his favorites are the tennis balls. He’s perfectly content to throw it around and chase it all by himself, though the kids like it when he lets them play too. He’s got a nice backyard with plenty of room, and seemed thrilled when he caught the scent of a mole in the dirt!

Dinnertime was a sweet surprise: we put his food out while we had dinner, and he displayed no aggression whatsoever. He nibbled at his food, then came and watched us intently, but didn’t try to steal any bites and remained calm and civil. He’s more of a beggar than some people might like, but I can work with it, especially since it’s so much better than I expected.

We took him for a walk after dinner, hoping to make sure he was worn out for his first night in a new home, and again he behaved better than expected. He didn’t pull excessively and he didn’t bolt after the squirrels or bark at the other dogs. It’s really amazing how quickly he’s adjusted to being with us, and vice versa. He seems so happy to have a yard, and kids to play with, and people to love. I think he was just waiting for a family who understood him, and I’m so glad we’re that family.

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