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Love,

Amy

I’m so glad you’re here. February was a bitch this year and you’re a sight for sore eyes.

I love you because you always bring me liberation. The extra daylight you give is a much needed dose of anti-depressant and the knowledge that full-on spring is near helps me breathe easier. Passover falls within your days and it always helps to officially close the door on winter and usher in the new season.

So far since you’ve been here I’ve:
started swimming classes with my two year old
visited with my brother (who lives on the other coast)

taken my boys on a tour of some of their mamma’s childhood landmarks

spent hours trying to remove Vaseline from my eleven year old’s hair. (Don’t waste your breath leaving me comments with your suggestions as to how this can be accomplished. I promise you if it’s a ‘trick’ for removing Vaseline from your hair, I already know about it.)
sorely neglected my dear blog
started designing three new website projects
attended the inaugural meeting of the NYC Metro Mod Quilter’s Guild
had lots of fun searching through overlooked photos to play along with ‘For the Love of Color’ week on Flickr

Before you leave I hope to:
photograph a dozen sunrises

put away my wool socks (until October)

watch my son in his first middle school play (guess what: It’s Grease. The Vaseline thing starting to make sense now?)
launch a new collaborative photo project with a friend
travel somewhere warm and tropical with my family
procrastinate about finishing a few lingering projects

paint my toenails pink.

Thanks for everything March.

Love,
Amy

I’ve been quiet here because things are noisy at home.

Two boys. ‘Tween and toddler. No school. Cold weather. I was overwhelmed at the thought of it before it began so I enlisted some help. A few hours of babysitting. An extra set of hands. A luxury to be sure. But one we allowed ourselves this week. I believe it’s good for my kids. To be able to say goodbye to me for an hour. To learn that I’ll come back. To feel secure without me for a short time. (Or at least that’s what I tell myself.) And that it’s good for me, goes without saying.

And it’s not like we haven’t made the most of our time together—

A day spent in New York City. (It never stops being strange to be a visitor in my hometown.)

An unexpected snowfall.

Old friends are new again.

Breakfast in bed at the hands of my eldest.

Hours spent camping out in the living room.

Just your average commonplace February week.

If you’ve reached this site and it doesn’t look right – it’s cause there are big changes going on. Please check back later to see the finished product and my apologies for any inconvenience.

There’s a conversation a parent has with an adolescent. I know because it was had with me and I’ve now had it with The Older Boy. In a moment of sheer (pre-)teenage angst one looks around and thinks he/she sees everyone else having an easier time. Remember? Everyone else seemed to have more friends? This conversation is the one about how you’ll be lucky in life if you have two or three real friends—that anyone who appears to have more is just collecting acquaintances.

Recently while imparting this motherly wisdom it occurred to me (and not for the first time) how truly lucky I am in this regard.

I’m often caught in amazement in the wondrous women in my life. Mothers, friends, sisters, daughters, earners, homemakers, creative, talented, thoughtful women. And while I know that I’m blessed with them and thankful for the knowledge that I’m deserving of their friendship there’s still a moment occasionally when I can’t believe my good fortune.

I have friends who will bring me food when I’m sick. I have friends who will bring me food when I’m not sick. Friends who drive long distances to see my children. Friends who partake in my family gatherings. Friends who inspire my senses. Friends who teach me things. Friends who can be called at all hours. Friends who tell me the truth. Friends who feed the cat. Friends who know my secrets. Friends who share their secrets. Friends who have been there for absolutely ever. New friends who only know me as a mother. Friends who ask for difficult favors. Friends who surprise me and friends who make me laugh.

For all the parts of one’s self that get side-tracked or altogether fall by the wayside when one becomes a mother, I have never ever not been fulfilled by the women in my life. And so in the spirit of this month of giving thanks I thank you, the women in my life for what you give to me every day.

Hi.

Thanks for the great response to my announcement last week. I’m really excited to launch the website for PatchworkFolio next week (yikes – I’d better get that finished). For those of you who expressed an interest in having me design something for you or host your Wordpress site, feel free to contact me as soon as you’re ready because I’m working, even if my website isn’t.

Designing the site has kept me pretty busy and yesterday I got a full-day break. I took Denyse Schmidt‘s advanced improvisation class in her Bridgeport Studio. I signed up with a friend of mine from high school with whom I have reconnected through the miracle of Facebook and blogging. When she got out of her car in front of my house yesterday morning it was the first I’d seen (or even heard her voice – as all our plans were made via email) of her since the day I graduated high school (in 1987). As it turns out, we were the only two students in the workshop and had Denyse and Richard all to ourselves. While it’s possible that we missed out on some of the group dynamic that happens when there’s a full-house, it was a pretty intimate and productive five-hours of creating. Much of the day was spent head-cocked, chin in hand, standing back from the design wall rearranging and auditioning designs.

Mostly what I took away from this class was a reaffirmation of my process. It was reassuring to be encouraged and respected by three such talented designers. It felt comfortable to converse with them in a language we all speak and to participate in discussions of style, theory and creation and be treated as an equal. While I’m proud of my quilts, I design and create in a vacuum (also known as my bedroom) and to be told by someone who’s work I admire so much that my work was beautiful meant quite a lot to me. (Perhaps this is why so many of us blog about what we make.)

Did I also mention that the workshop was held in Denyse’s studio? Which is not in my house. And that there were no children there? And no husband. And no phone. See where I’m going with this? When was the last time you spent five hours doing something just for you? Try it. I’m sure you’ll come away refreshed and inspired.

And just in case that wasn’t enough, Niall brought the boys down to meet me after the workshop and we spent a glorious late-afternoon on the beach in Bridgeport letting the already-cooped-up-monsters out of their cages.

I highly recommend taking off your shoes and getting sandy if you’re starting to feel the constraints of cooler weather and shorter days. Come to think of it – I highly recommend taking of your shoes and getting sandy for no good reason at all.

I like to post photos of my quilts when they’re finished but I fear this one may never get bound, so here goes.

Is it okay for me to say that I love this quilt?

I don’t know what possessed me to stipple so tiny (each loop is about dime-sized instead of my usual quarter- to half-dollar sized). It was very fun, but took a long time and a huge amount of thread. I kept it in the machine and basically quilted one bobbin’s worth at a time. I set up my old sewing machine on the dining room table in the meantime for other projects, because I was afraid if I took the quilt out of the machine I’d never get back to it!

I’ve been busy with freelance work. My current job came to me as a referral from the last website I designed and the client has been a dream to work with. (If only work could always fall into my lap this way.) It’s been a juggling act of time-management and I’m feeling pretty good about it. I may even have a business-related announcement to make here in a few week’s time. All I’m saying is: if you’ve been thinking about registering a domain name for your blog or business, redesigning your blog or launching a website of any kind—keep me in mind.

This morning Quinn and I snuggled in my favorite chair and watched television. I’m not embarrassed to tell you that I loved every minute of it. Sometimes letting someone else entertain us is just the thing we need on a rainy morning.

Thank you for all of the birthday love. I’m overwhelmed.

It was a day like any other with a few special touches mixed in.

There was an unscheduled pediatrician visit and an ear infection and Saturday business to attend to: haircuts and visits from neighbors. I baked a cake (what’s a birthday without cake) and we ordered in dinner and ate in our pajamas. There were no dishes to wash and no diapers to change (thank you Niall). The phone rang maybe fifteen times—old friends and relatives wishing me well.

And there were these.

And facebook posts and email messages too numerous to count.

I felt very loved.

And a I gave myself a gift.

It’s a work in progress but I’m feeling ready to share it.

From now on, please visit me here.

I’m excited about the next chapter in my journal-keeping adventure and the places it might go.

If you want to come along for the ride (and I hope you do), you’ll need to update your subscription or bookmark.

Thanks for visiting.

The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.

—Anna Quindlen

When I was growing up, Anna Quindlen wrote a column in The New York Times called "Life in the 30′s" for The Living Section. My mother used to read it religiously. A collection from the column was published with the title "Living Out Loud" in 1990 and my mother gave it to me. It is one of those books that gains meaning to me with each passing year. Like a movie you watch a second and third time and still see and hear new things.

I gave up on trying to be perfect long ago and it was amazing.

Happy Friday y’all.