Ezra's 4th Birthday

Monday was Ezra's 4th birthday.

We usually go to a coffee shop on Mondays, and so we asked Ezra where he'd like to go. He picked Kopplins Coffee. Here he is with the owner, Andrew Kopplin:
In the afternoon, we had an outdoor party with neighbors and some family. There was a kid pool (which Ezra was born in...), a slip and slide, and a greased watermelon.







Note: All of these pictures were taken on Arista Premium 400 film using either my Nikon EM with a 28-105 Vivitar lens, or my new Zeiss Ikon Contaflex with a 50mm Carl Zeiss Tessar lens.

Post Seattle Trip

I got back from Seattle a while ago. It was a great to see Pat and Angela, and go to a bunch of coffee shops. I was reminded how small the coffee world is and how many connections there are between people I know. I was reminded about the hype and the ego. I was reminded that there are some really good tasting coffees out there, and there are some mediocre coffees with fancy labels.

I love that now when I talk with Pat, I can picture his life and the scenes from one of his average days.

The trip was also about photography. I hadn't intended it to be, but bringing along my favorite Nikon system was bound to do something. Walking into Jim's Cameras to get my FE2 fixed did something too. I was surrounded by old cameras. I wanted to look at so many of them that I think Jim got tired of me. Oh well.

I got home, started developing film again, and bought a Canon CanoScan 8800F scanner. I'm having a lot of fun scanning my hand-processed negatives. It's great because I can use my 35mm cameras for everyday photography and have a way to use the photos digitally, and then hand print the ones I really like.

So, my Seattle & Portland Set on Flickr is now complete with both digital and film pictures taken during the trip. I also have a set just of film scans.

If you run into me on the street or in a coffee shop soon, chances are I'll have an SLR or a rangefinder on my person.

Fire Roasting

I mentioned a couple of posts ago about roasting coffee over an open fire with my buddy Pat. He was good enough to share the pictures from this adventure, and so I will too.
You can see by the color that they're pretty early in the roast process above.
I can just barely see that Pat was wearing his Clover t-shirt. Very appropriate.

As Pat said, it was a "fantastic uneven roast."

Not good coffee, but a very good time.

Twa bonnie wee Ring Bearers

Here are some more pictures of our bonnie lads. In our dear friends' wedding this past December. Remember all those kilts we made? This was the occasion: the marriage of our dearest, and one of my longest-standing friends, Pat. Or Uncle Otter, or Patter, as the kids call him. Paul was the best man and they entrusted our bairns with the rings.
But losh, man! Dinna they leuk fine?




Ezra looked as if he were'nt going to venture up the aisle. Gibbie had set himself to it. But at the last minute, a tear still tracking down his cheek, I put a ring in Ezra's little fist and his other hand in Gibbie's, and they walked right up, with all those eyes on them! Ezra had a whole outfit, but he has some sort of internal promise he's made never to wear a vest, and enough tears were shed over putting on the kilt, I was happy just that he was wearing the kilt, socks, shoes, and any shirt. Angela, the lovely bride, understandably requested that he wear a shirt, if possible. If you look closely in the picture of Ezra and Gibbie starting down the aisle, you can see the glimmer of the ring in his hand. After the ceremony, Ezra offered no objections to any of his clothing, and played like a broonie.


(Gibbie's cooperation and spirited enthusiasm is fitting, as he is named after Sir Gilbert Galbraith, the sometime broonie, sometime hero of a highland romance writ by our beloved George MacDonald, one of the very first books my beloved and I read together! A good man will go to the trouble of learning to speak a brogue to read a book with the woman he loves!)
Gibbie, who was sooo happy about his outfit and his role in the day, "I just can't wait for the wedding, Mama. I'm so exciting for it!" just "danced his heart out" for the rest of the night.

Pat's Wedding

Here we are. Pat and Angela got married on December 12th, and boy was it a great time. They were married in a rural Wisconsin Bar/Polka hall. It was one of the most enjoyable weddings I've ever attended.

As was previously mentioned, Libby made the kilts with some help from our friend Abby. The rest of the suits were rented from The Celtic Croft: very nice people. (The horse was a friend of a friend's.)

The Great Kilting Adventure

What man's garment takes a full eight or nine yards of fabric? What requires precise and extensive hand sewing? A traditional dress kilt! What eats up more than three spools of silk buttonhole twist? Six kilts! Current kilt count: two down. Abby has one and is fully taking care of it. That leaves three to go. The wedding is on Friday. Paul made me coffee before he went to bed. I've noticed I only seem to have time to blog when I'm so busy that I'm already a bit crazy.
p.s. I love Pat and Angela more every time I see them. Very excited for this marriage.

Tribute to Zil, Inside tour of the Artist's Box

Sorry, that last post was just too complainey. So on a more positive note; I am so thankful for good friends. I have one friend who has had Mastitis way way more times than me, and her help has been invaluable this week! (not pictured)
I believe that when we meet someone with whom we are like-minded, with whom we can share our heart, and with whom we communicate well, we have to hang on to these kindred spirits. Many of you know how hard long-distance, heck, even short distance correspondence is for us! My brother once said that calling our house is like calling a black hole. Well, I'm rubber and you're glue, Robert!Anyway, this is Me and Liz and Paul. This is a fourteen-or-so-year friendship. (nineteen years if you count the ones Paul's been in on it, but that's not really fair.) I used to call her "Zil", after a funny trip where everyone briefly got called their backwards name, and I kept it up with Zil. We once made her watch a Will Farrell movie with us, to her loud protestations to the store clerk and to us all the way home that she hated said actor, and everything he was ever in. Well, I think she watched that flick about three more times before returning it, and her speech has been peppered with quotations from it ever since.
Duude, we miss her!
She has a master's degree. In Science.
Just kidding. She's a real live doctor. Of medicine. Wait, no-- of Osteopathy. I know what you're thinking. But she's not a quack. Osteopaths are even better than real doctors, and often even help people get better! Seriously. She's got healing in her hands. (Liz would be gasping and whacking me now, if she weren't in Arizona)
Okay, enough squirreliness. As Gibbie says, "Back to work now, back to work." (that's a quote from Birthday Bear in The Witch Down the Street. not the best writing, but really cute bears!)
Anyway, I just want to show y'all one of my own little pleasures in life: my art box. It's just a lil cigar box, filled with my essential art supplies. I take it with me whenever I might need a bit of art, anywhere, in a pinch, you know. Actually, with what's in this box, I can make almost anything two-dimensional I want. It's light, packable, durable, protects my supplies, and as beautiful as useful. Plus, it took no work to make!
My art box contains:
-Ink: walnut, my fave.
-Pen holder: that's the handle for the pen you dip in the ink. cheap, plastic, black, elegant.
-Erasers: kneadable, regular. I never use these.
-Pencil sharpener. I've just switched to a new one. My old ones bit it and it's tedious and messy to use a knife. Did you know there are cheap sharpeners with replaceable blades?
-Lead pencils. Okay, graphite. Okay, I don't even know that, you stickler! HB, 2B, whatever.
-lil ruler (six inch, wooden, metal edge. vintage!)
-X-acto knife. I like things that start with X-
-extra (X-tra) blades, and safe dispenser
-stoneware bowl for ink. I like to work out of a little well, to minimize the impact, and the loss incurred by spilling. I spill lots and I'm just dealing with that.
-nibs. These are the metal points that make the line with a dip-pen. My new favorites are at Wet Paint. They're the Japanese ones behind the counter, and they're like a thousand times better than any other nib ever. Seriously.
-a bamboo pen. for ink with thicker lines
-a wooden tool meant for throwing pots on a wheel, that I use as a paper folder. Actually, I never use it. I should trade it for my bone folder.
-a tiny chamois useful for blending, especially with charcoal
-a rag. for blotting ink
-watercolor pencils. I just love my Faber Castell Aquarelles. I use them for everything and they are fabulous. I adore how they work in conjunction with my Walnut ink. I have a big set, but mostly use about 6 colors, so I put them in my Art Box.
-a vintage eraser/brush tool. The eraser is a wheel with a brush attached. I use it exclusively for brushing dust or eraser dust off of work. It's from my late great-grandmother Daisy's paint box, and erasers that old oughtn't to be used.

Isn't that amazing? The whole thing is maybe 5x7", all told. I holds way more in it than I need, and I love it so.

Do It Yourself love

On thrift and Doing It Yourself:
Fast is expensive in a way that slow is not. Efficient is expensive in a way that inefficiency is not. Oddly, most people love to tell us we are "idealistic" when we are really just being cheap. We don't want to pay so much for the services we don't need. We want to save money for what we do need-- and for the occasional great food from far away. Those of us who remember the annual orange in the stocking are not so much worried about losing freedom and fossil-fueled abundance of options. What we worry about is being able to afford the good things, like air and water and time and balance.
This is Donna Schaper, writing in Grass Roots Gardening; rituals for sustaining activism. It's an odd little book, but I loved her expression of the above idea. We often forget the real costs of the conveniences that seem normal to us. This is part of why I bake bread, and sew clothes.

Speaking of inefficiency, we have some catch-up blogging to do, now that we can post pictures of many special gifts that have been recently all given away. The above bit of inefficient homemade-lovin' is a little zippered bag I made for my dear friend Liz, leaving us for wonderful work in South America. You can find out all about her exciting work with this really amazing organization, LifeWind, on her blog, where you can also find pictures of us singing Elvis Christmas and The Doors numbers with her great family, with Paul at the piano, among other things.
We will miss her so much, and yet we are so glad she is going! Like for my friend who will be receiving the socks, I wanted to make her a present she could use lots, and feel loved every time. This pouch is made mostly out of recycled fabrics. The print is a fabric my mom used on so many things when I was very little; an apron, a teapot cozy, a quilt, maybe matching dresses for us? It is very evocative for me. I just have a small piece of it left, and this gift is worth it. It's funny; I told Liz about the special fabric and when my mom saw the bag, she saw the fabric and spontaneously said almost the same things!
I made the pouch following the directions in Bend the Rules Sewing by Amy Karol. It's the second zipper I've ever sewn and the first that didn't make me cry. It's a little stiff, but will have to do. The pouch is lined with flannel, and I added a simple pocket on the inside, as well as a bit of hand worked embroidery on the inside and out. For extra love.

Love you so much, Liz!

There Once was a Gib in a Bucket...

Uncle Otter proudly displays his fresh catch!

Hendricks Adoption

Our friends Kevin and Abby Hendricks are in the early process of adopting a child from Ethiopia. I guess it costs about as much as one year of St. Olaf education cost us, so that's quite a bit.

Go Kevin and Abby!

Brush Painting

This is a brush calligraphy set given to me by my dear chum Emily once upon a time. She brought it back with her from China. Thank you, Emily. It is really a wonderful little thing. Inside this lovely, silk-covered box, is a complete set for brush and ink work.
Gibbie is learning to do it too. His first job is to take each component out of the box, and set them up around his pad of paper. I fill the tiny water bowl with water. He uses the delicate spoon to move the water into the stone basin where it will be made into ink. Then we take the stick of compressed pigment, and grind it on the stone until we have a good amount of nice, black ink.There is a special porcelain stand upon which to rest the brushes, and places in the case for each brush. One brush has been designated as Gibbie's. I've noticed the most difficult thing for small children in painting is not destroying brushes. He's working hard on this, but still, just in case... I love this painting set because it is self contained (here we are using it at a local coffee shop) and very high quality, and getting to take out all the parts and mix the ink ourselves is an enjoyable part of the process rather than a chore.

I learned a lot more about Chinese calligraphy, and painting when I studied it in college. Enough to feel almost unworthy of taking a brush in my hand!

Oh, and the best part is the little chop, the stone carved stamp with which the artist marks her work. Emily tells me that mine is carved with the phonetic syllables of my name. Pressing the chop into the greasy red inkpot and making that clear, bright red square on his white paper is the best part.

Christmas Downtown

Well, not really Christmas. Monday before last we spend a wonderful afternoon in downtown St. Paul with our friends whose last name means Christmas in another language. I grew to love downtown when I worked at the Central Public Library there. Not too many folks go downtown if they're not working there or living in one of its homeless shelters. I like interesting old stuff and there's plenty of it downtown.


Our friends invited us to go to the Minnesota Children's Museum with them. Every 3rd Sunday admission is free, which just happens to match the amount we have in our budget for children's museums. After we were done with the sensory overload of it all, we hung out in beautiful Rice Park and ate homemade candy from a Wonka-like store called Candyland.
A very nice day.

Friendship and Time, How to Comment

Paul and I started this blog because we are bad correspondents. We want so to keep in close touch with our loved ones; friends and family, and find ourselves falling short in this regard. If they gave awards for being bad at keeping in touch, I think we might get one. This isn't the way we want it to be, however, and so we started blogging in hopes of finding a way to share our lives and keep those lines open.
We also want to share with anyone curious all kinds of wonderful, beautiful things we are discovering.

There are so many things we want to post about that we haven't yet. Much of what is dearest to us, we haven't even touched upon. (except the kids.) Part of this is in the difficulty of writing and writing well about Big Things. We're new at this and often it's easier to post on a simple project than on something more complex. Certainly another element is that we can't share stories that aren't ours to tell, though they may hugely intersect with our own path. Still figuring out how and what to communicate here. There are natural limitations--this can never be a totally full picture of us. We do, however, have some big things in the works we may be able to share about soon; stay tuned!

All this is to say; please leave a comment! Say hi, say what you think, tell us about yourself; we welcome your comments!
How to Comment: At the bottom of each post, you will find a link to comment. It will say "0 comments" or "2 comments" or whatever.
Click on it. You will get a screen that lets you type in a comment.
You can post anonymously if you want. Click on "other" and you can put your name (or pseudonym!) and web address if you like. You don't have to have a web log yourself or website or anything else in order to comment! It's just like a leaving a note on our door.

I'm not giving up on old-fashioned correspondence, either; just admitting my weakness and trying another avenue. I actually regularly write paper letters that always seem to get lost en route to the mailbox! Nothing new, alack!

Too Much Coffee?

While Libby and I were sitting in Black Sheep Coffee Cafe on Monday, and I was taking a picture, she said "Our blog's getting pretty coffee-centric, don't you think?" She's probably right, but I do work with coffee five days a week, and then we go to a coffee shop first thing on our days off. It was bound to happen.

It's not all about the coffee. Ok, this sounds cheesy, but Libby and I are best friends (awwwwwww). There aren't many places we can go to hang out casually anymore, but we have figured out how to still go to coffee shops with the boys. That means that we can have some time out to kick back, share our ideas and thoughts from the last few days, and try to plan what to do in the coming week. Since we tend to read a lot to each other at home, we always have things to share about our current book. We just finished The Princess and Curdie by George MacDonald. It's a wonderful young person's story with so many layers of Christian truth. I wonder how much it influenced Lewis' Narnia.Gibbie played with Legos for the first time at Black Sheep (though he thought of them as strangely small Duplos). For now they're too much of an Ezra choking hazard to keep around the house, but it was great to find them at a coffee shop. By the discretely placed toy area a sign read, "Unattended Children will be given a Shot of Espresso and a Puppy."
It was also good to see Andrea at Black Sheep. I'm proud of her learning latte art (though I don't think I can take any credit!) As for me, I had one of the best latte pours ever today. Want to see it?

So I don't think there's too much coffee on this blog. Do you?

A Winter Visit

Our dear friend Liz Winter just finished staying with us for a few days. She lives in Maine most of the time and is one of the several important Liz's in our lives. Gibbie has a little book of photographs that he likes to look at which contains pictures of Liz eating at a restaurant with us when he was Ezra's age. So I thought it would be fun to get some pictures of it happening this time around at Maria's in Minneapolis.
I love how Liz and Gib are both examining the menu.
Lastly, here's what Ezra does for fun at a restaurant: (that's a packet of jam.)