how does grief look?

as i said in my post the other day, one of the things i've been thinking about is the individual nature of grief. and how grief hits you at the strangest moments and in the strangest ways. 

maybe it's just autumn, and the changing of the seasons, but i think it started a few weeks ago. i went to a gourmet knitting day that someone i know holds regularly. she's an amazing knitter and even participated in the knitting equivalent of the great british baking show. only knitting. and in denmark. and since i eternally hope to learn to knit and i like food, i went. so there, in a room full of knitters, i found myself talking about my mom's alzheimer's and how on some level i hadn't forgiven her for it. 

i know how terrible that sounds.

but there you have it.

and i found myself explaining to them the way we found, at the height of my realization of how bad it was with mom in 2016, what we thought were dad's bowling balls in mom's car and discovered instead that it was a case full of pistols and a case full of ammo. and how i still feel shocked by that. and unable to forgive her for what she could have done with those weapons. in that moment of finding them, i clearly saw in my mind's eye, my beautiful, amazing daughter, knocking on mom's door to visit her and mom not recognizing her in the throes of her diseased brain and taking one of those guns and shooting her own granddaughter. that didn't happen, but the fact that it could have takes my breath away, still to this day, as i write these words. and i can't forgive her for it. i can't forgive her cracked brain - for having all those guns, for loading them into her car, for the shooting of her granddaughter that she didn't do. and i can't forgive the state of south dakota for renewing her fucking permit to carry just days after they took her driver's license. what kind of a fucked up world do we live in that that's even possible.

the lovely knitting ladies were fascinated and horrified that such a thing could happen. it couldn't happen in denmark, that's for sure. and though i didn't know them, they listened to me and understood me and gave me space and that was a great deal of comfort that i'm not sure i've felt before. and i wonder if explaining it all in danish put me an emotional step away from it that helped me. and i think it may have been a baby step towards forgiving her, though i haven't done so yet.

i'm more certain than ever that this grief thing is a process and one of which we have very little control. 

but in the days since, i've felt pangs of missing mom. weirdly, mostly in connection with putting on my socks. which i realize also sounds weird. mom was a sock snob and i have a lot of her high end socks in my sock drawer. and enough time has passed that most of them are quite threadbare from wear and in recent weeks, i've felt sorrow about that. like when her socks are gone, she will really be gone. though she's been gone for more than two years now and because of the disease, she was gone for quite a lot longer than that. 

why does my grief manifest in a sock? i've got multiple pairs in my darning basket, but i've yet to darn them. would darning them darn my own soul? would it help? is this how my grief looks?

at least i feel i've stopped telling myself how my grief should look and started accepting how it looks. for me, in my own individual situation. right here and now.  

live your life now or what are you gonna remember?

i found myself fuming today. last week, the belt on our riding lawnmower broke and i went to the local "tractor place" to get a new one. i brought the old one with me and a picture of the lawnmower, in order to ensure that i'd get the right one. the guy googled the model number (damn, why didn't i think of that at home? <insert sarcasm font here>) and then badly read the number on the very worn out belt i brought in. it was nearly rubbed off and i was pretty sure he wasn't reading it correctly. i said so in the moment, but he was sure. two days later, when i picked up the belt he ordered, it looked much shorter than the original, which i took in with me. a new guy who was there, a bit of a young smartass, assured me that the old one was just stretched out. i had my doubts. but what could i say at 4 p.m. on a friday, other than that i'd try it. of course, it was far too short. so i went there again today. there was only one guy tending customers. he was the old owner of the place. after he tended the guy ahead of me, he just didn't bother to come back to talk to me, me being a woman and all. so i waited, and waited. a woman came out of the office and did some fiddling around and then finally asked me if i had gotten any help. i said, "no, just waiting for someone to notice i'm here." she giggled and opened the door to the workshop. some other rube was sent in and he walked past me, then turned and awkwardly asked me if i needed help. i showed him my belt problem and suggested that maybe this time we measure my old one before ordering me a new one. he took the old one and disappeared. he came back with one that was the same length. proving that they had it all along and that i wouldn't have needed to wait a week. i can only conclude that i received shitty service since i was a woman with a foreign accent and i said as much to the woman in the office. she muttered that they were busy on friday and i said i ordered i wednesday. <insert eye roll here>  and meanwhile, the lawn grew half a foot.

why do i tell this petty, stupid story? for one, because it's bugging the hell out of me. and for another because life is too short for this bullshit. women have taken this kind of treatment for too long. and frankly, i'm too old and too experienced to take it anymore. life is too short.

life is too short because my mother has been lost to alzheimer's. i have no idea who the woman is who is left. even her hands, which have always been a source of strength and comfort to me (mostly because i see her strong, capable hands when i look at my own), are unfamiliar, alien even. who is this woman and what did she do with my mother? why can't i remember the good things about my mother when faced with this shell she has become? and will this happen to me too? will my daughter have to go through this? will she lose her good memories of the mom who went to get tattoos with her and traveled with her and and bought her the coolest shoes?

i don't know the answer to that and it scares the shit out of me. but all i can do is live right now. and that means not doing a job that may someday fit if i'm lucky. and that means living right here, right now. planting my garden, enjoying the kittens, reading a good book, learning new things - like spinning and weaving and dyeing. embracing the creative people in my life and hanging on for dear life. what am i going to remember? i don't know, but i hope it's something.

it's mom's birthday

my mom turns 79 today. my sister went to her assisted living yesterday and did a whole shebang. mom's sister was there, there was music, there was cake - it was a celebration. reports suggest that mom enjoyed herself thoroughly, which warms my heart in these times when i wonder what her quality of life is through the fog of her alzheimer's. and i feel very far away. mostly because i am very far away. and i have some ambivalence about that - it can be good and bad, sometimes at the same time.

these photos of mom are from the late 1950s. she was a member of the class of 1957 (of musical fame) and these must have been shortly after her graduation, when she was working at the sioux falls argus leader. her father had been an editor there for 30+ years, so she got a job there as well, even though he died when she was 16. she was a typesetter, but i think in these photos, she was a markets reporter. there must have been several photoshoots, since she's not wearing the same clothes in all the photos, nor is her hair quite the same. i suspect she trimmed it herself. and she never really stopped doing that.

i look at these and i wonder who she was? i'm not sure we ever really know our parents, they are kind of strangers to us. what goes on their heads? what life did they have before we came along? what dreams did she have? what did she like to do? what did she think of her job? did she like it? it seems obvious she laughed at work and enjoyed it, and i'd like to believe it wasn't just for the camera. i think the cameraman was wilmer. i don't remember his last name, but i remember visiting his smoked-filled house frequently as a child. he made the most amazing photographic new year's cards every year. they weren't christmas cards, as i recall him not believing in god, which was pretty out there for someone from sioux falls in the 1970s (probably even more so today). he was a real photographer - i remember his small house in sioux falls - his wife helen's fish pond in a very eclectic back yard and stacks of photos balanced precariously on card tables in the living room. even in my childish memories, he was a real character and probably one of the first intellectuals i was exposed to. in my memory, those new year's cards were a bit surreal and dali-esque. always with a clock on them, to signify time passing. i hope there are some in a box somewhere in the house, i'd like to see them again, to see if they match my memories.

it seems appropriate to stroll through my own memories as hers fade away. i am struck by the sorrow of her becoming even more of a stranger, that who she was and who she is are ever more unreachable by me. in this last photo, i look at her hands and i see my own hands, but otherwise, i don't find myself in her. maybe i see a hint of myself in that collar bone and in the freckles on her arm. but otherwise, she is and will undoubtedly remain, a mystery to me.

happy 79th birthday mom. you are your own, to the very end.

the end of an era

today was a fateful day. mom failed the test to keep her driver's license. and she failed it with flying colors. it's the end of an era for her. she's been driving for a good 60 years. and what a change it will be. to be able to get into the car and go somewhere has been the hallmark of her life. once upon a time, she picked up and drove herself to a new job and a new life in the black hills, moving away from her mother, her home and her job in sioux falls for the first time. on another occasion, she drove herself to a new life together with my father when he bought a little weekly newspaper in his hometown. and from there, whenever she needed to get away, she got in her car. she drove us countless miles to horse shows and a couple of times to visit her sister in oregon. she was fearless at the wheel, if distracted, the dashboard covered in glasses cases, kleenex and donut crumbs. when my sister and i fought, she stuck my sister over to her left on the broad bench seat of the old brown pickup and separated us. seat belts be damned. those were the times. and it ended ok.

she must feel devastated. i can't even imagine. even she, from within her fog, must know that that is significant. for the first time in this experience, i feel genuine sorrow for her. this changes everything. she can no longer escape. and neither can we.

paranoia and pistols

i try to call mom and she doesn't answer the phone. i guess she's still mad at me for supposedly taking her glasses (which were found, there in her house). i also apparently took that big picture of dad that she puts in the chair with a stuffed cat and a blanket and talks to. but that too was found on her dining table. and does she express remorse for her accusations? apparently not, she experiences only the immediate joy of being reunited with her precious possessions.

was this paranoia and thinking the worst of others always there in my mother or is it the disease? and why me? because i was the last one there, visiting her? perhaps she associates me with the glasses because i was the one who found them for her, stuffed into a paper bag in their cases, just before i left, so i was imprinted on her mind along with them. or maybe, all of the furniture from her basement that has peopled my various apartments and which was freely and generously given by her, has imprinted me on her brain as the one who comes and takes things away. maybe this is why she can hurl wild accusations of her thieving daughter around. and i can't say that they don't hurt, even while i know they're not true. who is this person and who does she think i am?

it's this paranoia and thinking the worst of people that made me worry about all the guns in that house. her expired permit to carry a concealed weapon (incidentally not a photo id) was on the table in the living room, but that didn't stop her from loading two heavy bowling ball-sized bags full of guns and ammo into her car the other day (turns out she had a new permit there among her stacks of mail). i don't know what she was planning to do with them, but i had visions of her shooting her  beautiful granddaughter in a haze of paranoia one day. and it takes my breath away to even write that. that said, i have also laughed hysterically over my pistol-pakkin' mama. if you're not laughing, you're crying with this disease.

the guns are packed safely away now, so the horror scenario that flashed across my mind isn't going to happen. but undoubtedly many others will with this cruel disease. i have to grow a thicker skin.

i don't know what i expected

my, what a couple of weeks it has been. fevers, coughing, snowy nights in a hot tub out on a deck in the black hills, presents, cooking, food, games, skiing, snowboarding, a broken wrist, an infected jaw that's been building for some time (since a couple of weeks before the november 8 election debacle), two miserable flights in acute pain, lack of sleep, kindness, laughter, and sorrow. the whole gamut of emotions. and i am wrung out. it's somehow fitting that it all ended in a raging, painful infection in my jaw. i've always held my stress in my jaws, grinding my teeth at night. old habits die hard.

i don't know what i expected. i was apprehensive before we left, knowing that it was likely the last christmas where mom would remember us. but i had no idea how advanced it had become. the repetition of stories, i could handle and even enjoy to a degree, impressed at what she remembered (she remembers leaving us there by the side of the road near wasta and even remembered (which i didn't) that she needed water for an over-heated radiator). the constant asking where we were going and what we were doing next, just after we had explained it was slightly more exasperating. but, i could understand that this was how her mind now works.

and then there were the moments of spiteful anger that came seemingly from nowhere. so much venom over insignificant things - mostly in the form of harsh judgements in the retelling of events. either traditional views on the role of women and men rearing their head, or just plain judgemental nastiness. that was hard.

i keep wanting to write "but most distressing was..." and then thinking that the thing i'm going to write isn't the worst thing. but it was very distressing that when we gently tried to speak with her about how she probably shouldn't be driving anymore or that she doesn't need three vehicles, or that the big house might be too much for her (she has every surface covered in junk mail, so there is nowhere to sit or have a cup of tea and we couldn't stay there, tho' we did try one night), she steadfastly refused to admit or recognize that she even has a problem. this may be a symptom of the disease, but it also may be who she is.

but what might be the most distressing are the lies she tells. she forgot the christmas presents she had bought for all of us (matching slippers for 8), when we went to the cabin and every day the story changed as to where they were. sometimes it was our fault because we didn't take the vehicle she had loaded them into, expecting we'd take it. when we got home, they were right there on the couch, where they'd been, she'd never loaded them at all. she also took back her sewing machine, which had been lent to the child, taking it when no one was home. she venomously spat at me, when i asked her about it, that she had needed to use it herself. this despite the fact that she had left the cord behind and couldn't have plugged it in. i never did find it in her house, so i'm not sure where it is.

she was stopped by the police yesterday, 45 miles from home, driving 25 with the windows open (despite it being bitterly cold) and with the dome light on. wearing slippers. it's unclear whether they took her license or recommended that she be evaluated (i'm not clear on the procedure, but it's clear that we need to take those three cars away from her. pronto. apparently, this morning's lie is that she had to go to on a trip on such a cold day because i took all of her glasses with me when i left. the truth of that one is that we spent half an hour helping her find them on the day before we left and when i last saw her, she was sitting in my dad's chair, opening all of the glasses cases and burbling happily over her collection. it was a strange goodbye.

i'll allow that maybe they're not lies - they're the gossamer holding her thoughts together.  so perhaps they shouldn't upset me. but right now they do. it's a bit like this disease has amplified all of her worst traits - the solipsism, the selfishness, the lack of caring one iota about her grandchildren (which has always been a source of pain). they are all dialed up to full volume, replacing all of the things i loved about my mom - her willingness to drop everything and go off and have fun, to try new things, to buy a lot of tricked-out gear for a hobby and jump wholeheartedly into it. her enjoyment of good food. on christmas, when asked if she wanted to come and have some dinner, she said, "that depends on what it is," after i had worked all day, cooking the most beautiful beef wellington i've ever prepared. that day ended in a flood tears for me. it was all too much. and while i logically know that it's the disease and not my mother, it's very hard to separate and hard not to be hurt.

it is a crazy hurtful disease and it's only the beginning for us. i haven't even come close to getting a handle on how i feel about it.

note: i'm choosing to share the journey we've only just begun with alzheimer's here on my blog, as honestly as i can, because of one of the things i read was what we must speak it out loud. but also because this blog has always been where i work out what i think and feel and i've encountered no bigger topic where i have need for that. i by no means want to hang my mother out to dry and i realize i'm walking a fine line in that, but i know i'm not the first person to go through this and i hope that my journey can spark a positive conversation on a difficult topic. that said, i am no expert and have only just begun to read about the disease, trying to learn more. all opinions and thoughts on the disease are my own and from my own very limited experience. if you have any thoughts/readings/resources/experiences to share, please share them. this is all very raw and new for me and i want to grow in understanding and compassion.

they say we need to speak it out loud

i didn't realize it, but the signs were already there two years ago. my mother's obsession with the notion that someone would steal her purse was a sign. i remember how utterly bewildered i felt. here was my mother, who drove me and my horses on threadbare tires all over a 7-state region, by herself, walking a mile once in the dark beside a pitch black interstate to get help when something broke down, leaving her sleeping children in the back of the pickup and the horses stomping in the trailer, munching on hay as she set off into the starlit night, semi trailers lumbering past, shaking the whole vehicle. and she came back with help and we were on our merry way, none the wiser to the stop in the night. that fearless, fierce woman, suddenly afraid the aggressively perfect (and quite attractive) danish father, leaning on his volvo in his mads nørgaard clothes, waiting for his 12-year-old and her friends to leave the one direction concert, was going to reach in the window and steal her over-stuffed with snacks and kleenex bulging no-brand midwestern purse. um, what? i was confused. frustrated. and a little bit pissy.

the way she kept getting lost in our house. seriously. it's one story, it's the shape of an H and we're honestly only using the middle and the right half of it, it's not difficult. the way she wandered away in the middle of the party, missing all of the toasts and speeches. i thought she was just badly-indoctrinated into the social mores i had taken to me like water to a sponge. or perhaps that she had just been badly raised and i never noticed. (watching americans eat, all fork and no knife, can make you think that.)

i don't know why i didn't realize it then. her mother had alzheimer's as well. but it didn't really occur to me at the time. i chalked it up to the ridiculousness of the morning news in the us...click-bait headlines about the latest scams and calamities that make you tune in again after the commercial. that could make anyone fearful.

and i felt sad that the woman who i felt taught me my very fearlessness (which is one of my biggest sources of pride) had become some inexplicably fearful. how could this happen? and seriously, who thinks that someone will steal their purse on a plane? where would they go with it, honestly? but i know now that it was a sign. it was the big a, the scarlet letter, of a much more sinister sort. she will eventually be stripped of everything she once was...fearless, funny, active. she, who got her motorcycle driver's license at 60, and began pistol shooting lessons at 70, will lose everything of who she was.

and i don't know what to do or think or feel. the whole gamut of emotions courses through me...sadness, impatience, anger, and yes, fear...what if it happens to me? can i do anything to prevent it. i'm terrible at names, is that a sign? i occasionally struggle to find a word...is that a sign? i switch subjects and can be moody...are they signs? is it all downhill from here for me as well? will i recognize it, if it is? she doesn't, which is both a source of frustration and a blessing. but how can you not? when you are a navel gazer like me, don't you know? is she really hiding from herself at that level?

i fear that maybe she is. i don't know where i got it, but my notion that an unexamined life is not worth living clearly did not come from my mother. i fear i may have actually gotten it from madonna. which is surely the stuff of a separate blog post.

does she know deep down? does she feel the fog descending? does she understand? or is she really blissfully unaware? is that one of the symptoms? so many questions. and we are only just beginning to look for answers.

we'll always have paris

my throat is raw. i was walking across paris, back to my hotel in the 6th arrondissement, from the eiffel tower, talking to my mother, who finally actually answered the phone after weeks of trying her and never getting her. mom started in on how it was good that hillary didn't win the election because she had received a letter from her, in which hillary threatened to take away my mother's right to be a good christian. she went on to say that it was because hillary had spent too much time with barack obama, so she had become evil. and i was outraged. i screamed at her that those were fucking outrageous lies and she should stop saying them. and she said she sure wished she hadn't thrown it away, because she'd show me that it was true. and i screamed some more about outrageous lies and that it must have been the first piece of mail she'd thrown away in years, which seemed ironic. (not to mention, who sends these things?) and i was shaking so badly, i almost had to sit down right there on a paris street. and i thought, "this is it, this is the last conversation i will ever have with my mother and i always remember that it took place in paris." and i didn't know whether to be jubilant or devastated. life is like that right now. emotions run so close to the surface it's hard to grab onto what you really feel. and i was a little surprised at the heat of my own reaction. my throat is so sore - i must have really screamed. and then i calmed down and mom admitted that she didn't like trump either and that she didn't want to vote for either of them. but she didn't remember who she had voted for, but she did vote early. and she would have to ask her friend who she voted for. i asked her to lie to me if it was trump and she said, cheerfully, and perhaps a bit too readily, "i can do that."

and we ended up ok and she said, "i love you, honey" before we hung up and i said, "i wuv," which is our family way of ducking the real words.

and i have to wonder if my yelling at her didn't scare her lucid, for just a few minutes. because she seemed ok after i did it. and i told her that i was sure that dad would be rolling over in his grave if he knew what she said about hillary and obama. and i almost hung up. and i thought for a minute that she hung up on me. and i was shaking in anger, throat raw, heart pounding, livid.

and now this is what i have imprinted on my first trip to paris. and i don't know what i think about that.  but my throat sure is sore.

dip dye!

hot pink tips! sabin wanted to update her initial foray into the ombre world that's so hot on pinterest. in december, she had gotten the ends of her hair bleached. but after being in berlin and seeing all of the many daring haircolors on the streets, she wanted to go pink and purple.

so the ever-game sophie at sophie's salon said, sure, let's do it! and we had a consultation about what colors and how to approach it on tuesday afternoon and then the actual appointment yesterday. the bright, bright pink went on first, followed by purple.

sophie then worked the purple upwards and downwards a bit so there wouldn't be such a hard line between them. sabin had to sit super still, but unlike her mother, she's capable of that.

her new vans (courtesy of aunt monica on her recent visit) matched the wall!

and here it is, the vibrancy of the finished product! it looks super cool, even when she piles it all on top of her head into a bun. i realize there are many people who would frown on allowing a 12-year-old to get her hair colored, but i think it's awesome! i'd much rather support her in it and take her to a salon where it's done properly than have her try to do it herself and go horribly wrong. it kinda made me want a little streak of aqua in my own hair, but thus far, i'm restraining.

1D in berlin: a concert review

we set out for berlin on saturday morning, bound for a concert with british boy band One Direction (hereafter 1D). we found a hotel that could accomodate 7 in one room (it was actually two rooms with only one door), checked in, got all ready and set out for the concert. as you can see, it was essential to already be wearing 1D gear upon departure. my favorite part of this photo is the mad scientist political ad in the background (more about those in another post).

after a slight public transport snafu (there were repairs on our line, so it wasn't the four stops away we thought it was...it was three trains and a bus away, but we had time, so that was ok). once we got there, we had to pose for a photo with O2 World in the background (that was the concert venue). i'm not sure what that pose with the hands is, but it's apparently important (we would see it again, several times).

we walked in search of a quick dinner before the concert and came upon the berlin wall east side gallery - a section of the old wall (had to have been reconstructed, if you ask me) that was decorated by various artists, many of them apparently russian. we made the girls (ages 12-14) pose there as well, just to prove we had been in berlin.

traveling with five near-teens and teens isn't always a barrel of laughs, so there were a few times when we wished they would just get human.

i had declared before we left that we would not eat at mcdonald's and where do you think we ended up eating? yup, you guessed it, mcdonald's. i, however, grabbed a box of sushi from a nearby food court. i have to admit it was probably the mcdonald's equivalent in sushi form, but at least it wasn't actually mcdonald's. the girls were excited and happy by this time (feeding them helps) and this is probably my favorite photo of the whole trip.

they were singing loudly at this point, so we (my friend, who is the mother of two of the other children in the photos and i) let them get a little ways ahead so no one would know we were with them.

we then waited several hours in line to get into the actual venue. they were individually checking everyone's bags and taking cameras and iPads away from people (carefully numbering them, german style, so people could have them back after the concert), so it took hours to get in. i had time, while we were in line, to conceal my little nikon underneath my little iPad (which was in a case and therefore looking rather like a book). i was so happy i succeeded in smuggling my camera in (i actually didn't know at the time that they were taking iPads from people, so i didn't know that i was guilty on two counts).

as for the concert itself, 16000 screaming girls and a handful of dads and moms made up the audience. it was a cheerful, happy group. the boys are cute, well-mannered and not lip synching. they're humble and sweet. it made me totally ok with my child being so into them that her room is plastered on every wall with posters (and with driving 6 hours to see them). they can really perform and the production values of the entire show were high.

it was really worth the drive and the €50 per ticket. i loved the graphics - we could see the crew with computers and cameras down in front of us, expertly producing the show as it happened. and they did an awesome job. i loved this monty python-esque set - it even includes a blimp flying a red london double-decker bus. it seemed clever and not a gimmick.

it really is hard to decide which one is the best and the cutest. we all thought it was harry before we went, but actually zayn did most of the talking and is a pretty good singer. niall actually played the guitar on multiple songs. and there were a couple of moments where they were slightly off key, so they weren't just playing it all back. they actually gave a helluva show.

but the moment when they totally won me over was when they sang teenage dirtbag, that anthem of late 90s alternative loserdom. and it didn't even seem ironic.  and the graphics on that song, like a cartoon - and awesome, just awesome. they also did a WAY better job on their cover to blondie's one way or another than they do on the recording of it. they won me over with that too.

in all, it was a really good concert. even i enjoyed every minute of it. the atmosphere was positive and the energy was great. the girls loved it and were so glad we went. and i'm so glad i smuggled my camera in. we thought about following them to hamburg the next night (it's impressive how they can take down and set up their elaborate sets/screens and move to another city and often another country on a nightly basis), since it was on our way home, but we restrained. it was really kind of the experience of a lifetime! tho' nothing like seeing lyle lovett at mesa amphitheater in the mid 90s.

happy birthday dear mom, happy birthday to you!

a string of happy memories from last summer, in honor of mom's birthday. we're dreaming of sunshine, as we wait for spring to happen. and looking fondly back on fun had on horseback, in the water and in haunted houses last summer. mom, i hope you have a wonderful day and we wish we were there to celebrate with you!!

announcing a handmade holiday: an eCourse for beating the holiday rat race

every year, i declare that this will be the year when i don't succumb to last-minute gift buying panic and angst and the whole holiday rat race. this year we mean it and so, sabin and i are very excited to offer our very first eCourse, to share some ideas and a sense of community in our quest for a handmade holiday.

for $30, you'll get access to an exclusive blog, where ten step-by-step projects will be posted. projects you can make with things you already have around the house, your existing stash, those boxes of old baby clothes, ordinary craft supplies or things you find in second-hand stores. some of them are holiday decor, some are gift ideas and some are treats for yourself, so you don't lose yourself in the holiday rush.

at least three projects will be specifically aimed at kids and sabin will lead the way on those.

we'll also have weekly exercises in noticing our immediate surroundings, so we can all keep this whole holiday thing in perspective.

ten creative projects for you and your kids (tho' you don't need kids to do this) - all of the patterns and lots of photo how-tos (and maybe even a video or two), so you can have a handmade holiday this year.

that's only $3 per project - a great investment in making this holiday a mindful one.

when you place your order, you'll get an access code to the closed blog. the first project will be posted november 1, with the others and some other fun little extras to follow throughout november. you do the projects as they inspire, no deadlines (except the approach of the holidays!). we'll have a flickr group to share your creations with the other course participants and there will be at least one opportunity for some "live" chat via the comments on the blog.

we're going to have a limited number of participants, to keep it manageable and hyggeligt (as the danes say) this first time around. we hope you'll join us. please go to MPC: the shop on big cartel to secure your spot. sabin and i are really excited to get creating for the holidays with you!  the access code will be sent out on friday to all who sign up, tho' you can join in anytime and after friday, the code will be sent upon receipt of your order.