break

Someday not too long from now she's going to grow up and move away, and I'm going to wish for many, many more of these days together.

renovated

We've just finished some renovations to the studio, and I had a chance to show it off yesterday at Pink Chalk. Kathy is featuring all sorts of great sewing spaces on her blog this month, so if you're looking for ideas or want to share off your space you should definitely take a look.


Now that we've been in this space for almost three years, I feel like it's finally come together. We've just been so busy that I hadn't taken the time to do any work on the studio itself. But I'm really happy with it now. We've put linen-covered homosote doors over all the shelving, and the doors are perfect bulletin boards. I love being able to put up everything I'm working on because I can step back and really look and get a good perspective on the scale and colors and ideas as they work together. It's been very helpful to see how new fabric collections play off older groups, to compare and develop color palettes, and to just spread out and play. I actually think those doors are changing the way I work. The leftover pieces became smaller bulletin boards behind the sewing machine counter.



For a while there I had a cute little whitewashed branch suspended from the ceiling, and it was a great place to hang finished garments. That came down when we built the doors, but I'm still hoping to find a place for it. And I didn't get a good photo of the old library card catalog at the entryway. It's great for storing all sorts of odds and ends and just looks fun.

S and I are out in Michigan right now and returning home tomorrow, just in time to pack for a family vacation. I've had a couple of days with my Grandma, and today I think we're headed to the beach. I can't wait!

July 20

Twenty years ago yesterday I married this guy.


That was a really good idea. (Although when he wakes up tomorrow morning and sees that I wrote this he's going to kill me.)

Twenty years of marriage means that it's also been twenty years since we moved to New York. Just a couple months out of college, we drove a giant U-Haul truck out here with our belongings tied up in a little corner of the truck because it was the smallest vehicle the rental company would give us. We carried boxes and boxes (of books, mostly) up to our tiny third-floor apartment on a very hot, sticky day. A lot like today, come to think of it. We slept on the floor of our un-air-conditioned apartment until our sofa bed arrived a few weeks later. (The sofa bed wasn't much of an improvement from the floor, trust me. Somehow we slept on that awful thing for almost five years until we moved to a larger apartment, and then we went out and bought the most comfortable bed we could find.)

I started my first job a day or two after we moved in. Todd started graduate school shortly after that. We barely got by; but we were thrilled to be married, living in New York, and pursuing our dreams.

Since then we've both made several career changes. And we had a kid. And I've never really talked about it here, but two and a half years ago Todd quit his job and joined me in my business. So it's no longer my business, but our business. Now he runs things (far more smoothly and efficiently than I ever did, believe me) and I do what I do best (which doesn't include nearly as many things as he does), and that allows us both to spend more time together and with the kiddo.

I can tell you that being married and rearing a child and running a business together are far more challenging than either of us expected. Our studio and our apartment are both very small spaces, and sometimes the only way to make things work is to each be in a different place for at least part of the time. We can each be in charge independently that way, at least until dinnertime.

But when I stop to think about it all, I wouldn't want to have done it any other way. We still have fun together. We have similar interests and can appreciate each other's interests even when they aren't shared. We have very different senses of humor, but he can still make me laugh. And I'm ecstatic when I can make him laugh every once in a while.

We were very young when we got married. Many, many things have changed in our lives in that time span. But I'd do it again, given the chance.

I hope we get another twenty (or more?) years together.



And he does look like Heather's illustration of him, doesn't he?

summer

Summer, at long last. New York schools continue through June, so S's summer break started with the Independence Day weekend and we've been busy cramming a lot of activities into our schedule ever since. We've made silly treats like cupcake cones (S liked these) and strawberry shortcake popsicles (I liked these and didn't feel a bit guilty eating them), had loads of playdates, run some errands , and made packing lists for all the trips we're taking.




We've also trying to slow down to enjoy picnics, the hydrangeas (especially since I only glimpsed the field of roses outside our building as a blur, I was trotting past them so quickly every day), and to play some games.



Ah, summer! Why do you go so quickly?