We Have Winners!

The winners of the Bloggity Bigday Giveaway are:

Spud and Chloe at the Farm will inspire

Emily Hammer who said:

Your blog has touched my life and mothering in so many ways ~ thank you for that gift! Since I already own 2 of the lovely books listed...I would love to have Spud and Chloe at the Farm. Thank you so much for this opportunity!
God Bless You!

Small Steps will find its way to

Renee, who  said:

I would love a Small Steps for Catholic Moms. I am expecting baby #9, at age 45, and feel like my life is being taken in leaps and bounds. I want so much to take smaller, simpler steps.

Thank you for this blog. You have the perfect balance between reality and grace. You show your struggles, but you also share the grace you depend upon to live your life with joy. I want to be like you when I grow up ;)

Happy Anniversary!

Real Learning goes to

Amy @ simply necessary , who said:

Elizabeth, your blog was one of the very first I ever read in the blogosphere! I ran into you from Dawn at Sun and Candlelight 4 years ago and have been with you through two pregnancies! Your honesty and spirituality have kept me coming back. My grandmother is catholic but my family is protestant. More than anything else here I see Jesus in you and have gleaned so much for my own family about your faith that I have incorporated into my own faith. I have cried and laughed with you, which seems so odd since we have never even talked before! Your CM homeschool ways have stuck with me no matter what other new ideas I've tried and I recently bumped into an old article of yours about living books that made me fall for this educational lifestyle all over again!

If a book should come my way it would have to be your Real Learning. I have your Small Steps and would love the knitting book except I can't knit! Have always wanted to read your original book.

Thanks for being here as a voice of truth in the big internet world of voices.

Please email with your mailing address and I'll get your prize out to you!

Five Minute Friday: Distance

Mike is in Portland this morning. Yesterday, he was in Salt Lake City. Monday it was Houston. Distance. For the last 23 years of married life, there has been distance. Come to think of it, our engagement involved distance, too. We know distance. We know how to time phone calls for 8:00 my time/5:00 his time when he's working on the west coast. At home, we know how to shift the rhythms and expectations of a Sunday morning because someone has just arrived on the red-eye. We know exactly how long it takes to get to the airport.

We know homecomings. And we like them.

It won't be long now, just a few short weeks, and this life of frequent flier miles will come to a close. New job. Not nearly so much distance. Am I thrilled to pieces? Well, sure. I am. Truth be told, I'm a little nervous, too. Will he like being around all the time? Will we adjust to being in each other's spaces on the weekends. Actually, he will be in my space, won't he, because up until now, his weekend space was a production truck? I want him, look forward to him being there, but worry just a little that this space, this place called "home," might have looked better to him from a distance.

I'm re-thinking the weekend style, re-tooling around the house, almost as if I'm expecting an important guest. But he's not a guest. He's the person and the personality that has always felt "missing"--very much there in spirit as we go about our weekend busyness, but still off in the distance of the regular routine. Big gaping, 6'4" Daddy-sized hole that is filled with aching loneliness.

I wonder how many times I've driven to the airport since we moved to this neighborhood. I wonder how many times I've watched him zip that old green suitcase closed and swallowed hard so that I could say goodbye and he wouldn't hear the lump in my throat. I wonder how many weddings, funerals, and social gatherings of families I have attended without him, feeling awkward and out of place in the company of couples. I wonder how many times I've told a child," Daddy's working. He took an airplane to XXX." How many times I've rocked and distracted and tried to tell myself that he or she would be just fine, when really we were just limping along. I wonder how wonderful it is to live together all the time without distance.

I think I'm going to like discovering the answer.

Got five minutes? Tell us about Distance. No editing, no fussing, just five minutes of writing. And then link up over at Gypsy Mama's place.

This is Priceless

Truly, truly priceless: read it.

{photo credit: Ann Voskamp}

Teach someone you love to knit this weekend (or learn together).

You will both be glad you did.

Bluebells in the Rain

I couldn't wait any longer. We headed out to Bull Run today to see the bluebells. And--surprise, surprise--we had the whole place to ourselves. It was a rainy, muddy mess.

There were just a few moments when it wasn't even drizzling.

I tried to fit some knitting into those. Didn't go so well. Too cold.

The creeks are wider and deeper and moving faster than I've ever seen them. This picture doesn't do it justice.

We discovered a skeleton. We're researching now. Would you like to help us identify this creature? Leave a comment. We're glad to have someone with whom to play "Bones."

So much for the fairytale bluebell pictures, huh?

More tomorrow when the sun shines.

Yarn Along: How Many Sweaters before Easter?

This week, I finished Chloe sweater #3, a striped shrug for Karoline. I knit it with Spud and Chloe sweater weight yarn, which is the yarn for which the pattern was written. The yarn is really wonderful. The stitches are so pretty and the colors are amazing. Mike is bemused as I sit here at night, alternating between knitting and researching yarn. He wishes he could be as excited about yarn as I am. I just about have him convinced to go to this fiber fair (okay, so I think the name of it caught his interest). We have to see about working it in around soccer. He reminds me that years ago he tried to convince me to move to New Zealand and I told him there were too many sheep there. I'd be wheezing all the time. So, maybe a fiber fair isn't a great idea. Sounds fun, though (except for the breathing part).

Back to the sweater:  I thought the yarn was causing me major allergy issues long about Thursday. But as the rest of my family has fallen victim to the same ailments, I am re-thinking my allergy diagnosis. We'll see. I have more S & C stashed away and I may bring myself to give it one more try before deciding the wool content was making me feel sick. In the meantime, I've ordered some Bue Sky Alpacas 100% cotton for the next Chloe (#6), to see how it compares. The only cotton I've ever knit is dishcloth cotton; hopefully, this is not that.

My mom bought these Hanna dresses for the girls last month. I love the way the Spud & Chloe stripes look with Hanna's colors. And Karoline was pleased.

I have cast on two more of the same shrug (#4 and #5) this week. (Obsession anyone?) One, I only did through the set up and puffed sleeve rows. It's winging it's way to Canada where a mama will make a sweater for her own curly girl with eyes of blue. That little girl's sweater will match Karoline's blue cashmere shrug which is on its way here from Elizabeth's. My girls are really loving this game of spinning and knitting and sharing (and shrugging). The other is a wee baby one in pink. More on that next week. Still no buttons on any of my sweaters. I'm waiting to see how Elizabeth did it and then I promise to summon up the courage to do mine. Karoline's really needs buttons.

For the most part, the reading is the same. I did do a little tiny hop off the Lenten  reading path to take a look at my friend Suzie Andres' new book, A Little Way of Homeschooling. On Sunday, I treated myself to just the chapters written by Suzie. Suzie is a personal friend who is as warm and genuine and real as people get. I was eager to "hear" her voice as she reflects on two topics which have long been her passions: The Little Way of St. Therese and unschooling. Suzie's gentleness resonates throughout her chapters and inspires some beautiful things in my mama heart. (Sorry, no book picture as I have already handed it off.)

I expect that both blogging and knitting will be light the next few days: it's bluebell time. Be sure to stop by and visit Ginny and see what other folks are knitting and reading. It's a enough to make a girl twirl with joy.

 {Comments are open: it's fun to talk knitting:-)}