SOFT HUES

This season has been full of soft rose petals and downy balls of yarn.  I have so enjoyed my knitting projects.  I have one in my purse, one in my backpack, one in the car, and another nestled in our armchair.  This craftsy streak has led to the desire to pursue new interests.  I'm hoping to experiment with some natural dyes, and if all goes well I want to dye some curtains for our bedroom.  I've narrowed my color palate down to avocado peal, which makes a dusty rose, or rosemary, a soft yellow.  Any tips?  

Hope you're enjoying all of the spring rain and fresh air!

ON DOWN THE ROAD

Today is our last day in our first home.  We moved in a year ago September while the afternoons were warm and abuzz with laughing children on the playground across the street.  On that first day, David and I climbed the narrow flights of stairs together man and wife.  Him in his dashing dark suit, me in my white lacy dress with an antique hair clip holding back my bouncy curls.  And then, half way up the stairs, there was a trip and the platter of wedding tarts and cookies we had been carrying flipped bottom up and tumbled back down the stairs.  David and I chose to laugh at this misfortune, and still smile remembering the stairs dusted with powdered sugar and crumbs. 

This morning the contents of every closet and cabinet are strewn about in messy stacks of boxes.  The windows and walls are bare.  David and I are giddy as we wait for family and friends to arrive and carry out our belongings and drive them on down the road to our new house.  Our first sweet house.  Oh the sleepless nights of late as my head has spun with paint colors, landscaping, and dining room tables.  As I wait in this quiet moment before the chaos, I have every expectation of this new home being every bit as sweet as our first.  Wish us luck as we squeeze our couch down the winding stairwell! 

CHRISTMAS CLASSICS

I’ve been settling in after a busy first semester of graduate school.  Very busy.  The boring kind of busy where nothing exciting really happens and there is little room for coffee dates or whimsy of any kind.  So Christmas break has been a release of pent up creativity.

This weekend David and I were invited to a classic Ugly Christmas Sweater Party.  Unfortunately, we are not so lucky to have inherited sweater heirlooms from a grandma’s closet.  So we hopped from thrift stores, to Walmart, to Target over the course of several days.  Would you believe we came up empty handed!  Apparently, ugly Christmas sweaters have become quite the commodity.  So, in a desperate last effort we settled on creating sweaters of our own. 

I had no idea that my husband could sew!  But he single handedly stitched a large, felt Christmas tree to a sweatshirt, and added some bows and bells and a battery powered strand of lights.  For my sweater, I created a snow globe, using felt deer, fabric for snowy hills, and Styrofoam balls for snow.  We laughed all afternoon and practically dripped from all the creative juices. 

Needless to say, we brought home silver and gold!  I’m so looking forward to the rest of Christmas break.

BISCUITS AND BERRIES

It is embarrassing how long it has been since I’ve posted.  My excuse is that, very last minute (as some of the best plans are done,) I decided to just try and find out if I could make it into graduate school for this fall semester.  This threw all my efforts into essay writing, filling out the application, notifying references, communication with admissions, and so forth.  Well, I made it and am basking in these last weeks of calm before classes start in August. 

Graduate school hasn’t been the only exciting change.  It’s astonishing that the one-year lease on our apartment is almost up!  David and I have tossed back and forth whether to stay or move and we were tickled to decide to buy a house!  We have found a house we adore in the neighborhood of my dreams.  We hope to see the inside this week, but in the meantime we have been terribly rude and slowly drive past the property anytime we are out. 

Hmmm.  What else is going on?  One of my dearest friends got married on Thursday.  The whole day flounced with lace and curls.  My friend had her eye on this wonderful young man back in high school and it is so delicious that after all this time they are together. 

With so many changes, I woke up this morning and knew I needed to bake.  There is something about following the steps of a delicious recipe that makes me feel grounded and successful!  Poor David had hardly rolled out of bed before I shooed him off to the store for berries and heavy whipping cream.  We’ve nibbled on biscuits and berries as we’ve been in and out (driving by a certain house,) today and it tastes like the essence of summer.

DON'T MESS

 Well, how have you been surviving the summer?  I’ve done rather poorly, complaining incessantly.  Each time I step outside I feel as though a layer of my skin is melting off, and when possible, I am hunkered down as close to our air conditioner as possible. 

When its hot in Oklahoma, don’t dream of dropping down to Texas, where you can fry eggs on the sidewalk!  The exception was last weekend to take my sister, Mary back to her school.  This I did gladly, as another sister, Lydia promised to come.  We made a sister weekend out of it!  On sister weekends, you are bound to miss your exit at least once, you drive an hour out of the way to shop, and you stop for the bathroom excessively.  Multiple times I laughed so hard that tears smudged my sunglasses!

You’ve heard the saying, “Don’t mess with Texas?”  That’s how I feel about these girls.  Don’t mess with my sisters!  There’s a mama bear in me that comes out snarling to their offenders.  I could deliver a serious butt whoopin’ if needed.

Many summers ago, my grandparents piled us in their motor home and we drove from Oklahoma to Florida to visit our great uncle.  One hot afternoon we spent dangling our legs off the deck into the ocean.  We used a net to catch sea creatures meanwhile scorching our legs ‘til they were red and blistered.  I’ll never forget that sunburn. 

Walking the steps up to my uncle’s house I could feel the skin on my legs, tight and stinging.  My grandparents believed they could cure the sunburn and the sting by soaking our legs in vinegar.  Lydia has always been sassy and she absolutely put her foot down.  But the more she protested the more my grandparents insisted, resulting in a mad chase through the house, Lydia scampering around furniture and through rooms and my grandparents close behind, sloshing their bottle of vinegar.  Lydia and I finally locked ourselves in a bedroom.  I was there to protect her of course.  At intervals I would sneak out a side door and yell a few choice words at my grandparents who were prowling through the hallway.  As much as my sunburn stung, what I remember most vividly was my bubbling furry that anyone dare harm my sister with smelly vinegar! 

That’s still how it is.  It’s all for one and one for all with the Ekhoff girls.  If one girl is in distress, we all are.  If one girl has an enemy, we all do.  One’s victories or defeats affect us all.  So unless you’re looking for a serious butt whoopin’, don’t mess with my sisters!

THE VERY BEST

 My husband and I spent Sunday afternoon with my family.  Dad requested chicken tacos, zippy rice and homemade guacamole.  We concluded his Father’s Day feast with iced coffee, bittersweet chocolate tart, and home churned mint chocolate chip ice cream.  I adore my dad.  We are two peas in a pod and probably most alike out of anyone in the family.  While he has many fantastic fatherly qualities, one practice wins my dad the title of, “the very best!”

I grew up in a small town.  The kind that is so connected, it feels like it is the center of the universe.  A busy street separated our ranch styled home from a local produce store.  We measured the change of seasons by the pumpkins, Christmas trees, flowers, and watermelons arranged along the shop. 

Our house began cavernous and empty, but soon I was elbow to elbow with 6 animated brothers and sisters.  What to do with so many children?  We bought bunk beds and trundle twins!  As the bedrooms filled up, mom and dad moved into the spare living room.  The lack of space had my parents storing belongings wherever was available which put mom’s clothes in the little girl’s room, and dad’s suits and slacks in the right half of my closet. 

I loved sharing with dad.  I loved that when I was playing hide and go seek, and later when I talked on the phone with boys, I could hide down behind his muffled suits.  I loved that when he hung up his clothes from the dry cleaners, he would make air bubbles with the plastic covering and let me pop them, just like jumbo-sized bubble wrap. 

But these weren’t even the best parts of sharing with dad!  Here is what I loved the most.  Each evening I would be getting ready for bed, and dad would come into the room to rummage through the closet and choose what to wear the next day.   He would select slacks, a shirt, occasionally a tie, and coordinating belt and shoes.  Then he would turn to me.  He would hold up his selection and ask, “Hannah, what do you think of this outfit?”  Me!  The girl who wore soccer pajama shorts to the grocery store!  The daughter with the never ending ugly duckling stage, and the boy hair cut! 

I have since received above average grades.  My amateur artwork has boasted first place in some events.  I am a decent employee and sometimes receive humbling compliments.  But no praise, no award or recognition has meant more than my dad wanting the opinion of his little girl.  This is what makes my dad the very best!

FOAM

This sunny weekend I have done a lot of daydreaming about Greece.  Several years ago I spent a summer there.  Right in the midst of the protests and riots and the economic crash, there I was in the sandy sunshine and salty waves. Greece is a monologue of photo opportunities.  Every side street, bicycle, church, and ruin insists on being photographed, painted and remembered.  But when I close my eyes, what is painted most vividly is foam. 

Foam tops Greece like the fluffy head of a root beer.  The foam made me thoughtful.  How many times I paused and watched the bubbly remnants fizzling on shore, or sipped coffee foam through a straw while overlooking the rugged mountains. 

On boating excursions, I positioned myself aft, where I could lean out and watch the foam churning to the surface of the water and finally exploding in soft white against the glassy blue waves. 

Foam still tickles my lips as I remember the famous Greek frappes.  I was coached to combine a tablespoon of instant coffee, sugar and a quarter cup of water.  Then whip whip whip whip as the foam filled up the sides of the glass cup.  The foam was so thick that it held half sunken ice cubes as though they were elevated by clouds.

Greece was exquisite, but while there I was forced me to grow up in sudden and painful ways.  I so quickly forget the loneliness, and frustration, the language barrier and vulnerability.  My memory is white washed by a glorious cloud of foam.