I’ve almost thrown my scraggly pot of live-forevers in the compost several times over the past few months. Their pot filled with water and then froze… I was sure they were not, in fact, going to live forever. I peeked at them a couple of days ago, though, and found new life. And snowdrops in the church yard on a dog walk. And we keep going to the playground without coats.

It’s an internal debate every time. My senses are delighted, and my brain tries to tell them to settle down, because spring in February is actually Not A Good Thing.

But… we keep going to the playground anyway.

Listening: Mumford & Sons

I know it exists. I see it often, in people “like me.” Just not in my family. I am genetically predispositioned to collect things, and although I have tried to fight it at times, I have consciously let it in a little in my adult years. Mostly in the form of Pyrex.

But also in the form of swizzle sticks that my grandfather (the one I never knew) brought back from his travels for my child-mom. My aunt got the matchbooks, my mom got swizzle sticks, and my grandmother kept the latter in a little office nook under her basement steps forever after he died, next to a mug full of pencils and pens and an unnecessary amount of letter openers. When I was little I’d always get them out, examine and read every location, and put them all back. For Christmas this year, my mom felt guilty about gifting a family quilt to my brother and his girlfriend without giving me a “family thing”, and when she asked what I wanted that was what I chose. Why? I have no idea. It makes me happy to see them on top of my cabinet – in a glass whose maker I learned to identify in mid-twenties (Hazel Atlas), stickers placed in the middleish by my mom when she was ten. It gives me much greater joy than any Pottery Barn item ever could.

And also in the form of family handmades / things previously owned by family. In taking a load of things to goodwill for my Ma a couple of weeks ago, I pilfered a great-grandma-crocheted cushion for myself. Almost weekly I wear glass beads that another great-grandmother slipped around her neck, with an apron, to farm and run a home every day of her life. I wear my grandfather’s chunky silver fraternity bracelet pretty regularly. For twelve years I’ve been wearing a ring that my mom bought in college for no real reason other than that I slipped it on in high school to see if it would fit, and didn’t ever think to take it off. There are blankets. There is a wooden silverware server that belonged to my great grandparents, which has never held silverware in my lifetime. An antique Fiestaware carafe. Is that even collecting? Or is that just passing down?

There are other little things here and there, but mostly, in the forefront of my brain at all times, are not the things that make up the collections I grew up with and continue to grow around – the collections of my family and my lifelong friends: stone jars, Fiestaware, Viking glass (and pretty much any other West Virginia glass… and Ohio… and, well, whatever depression glass), stoneware mixing bowls, arrowheads and other local artifacts, antique tools, guns (definitely not guns), dolls (since the freaking dawn of man), mostly-Navajo pottery and artifacts, costume jewelry, Apple Kitchen Stuff, Horse Stuff, Peanuts Stuff, figurines, TOOTHPICK HOLDERS, WVU memorabilia… if it needs to be dusted constantly, the people in my life collect it. And always, books. And records. Or whatever makes music at any point in time.

Mostly in the forefront of my brain is Pyrex. I can’t tell you why. I have pondered it, and I really can’t. My Ma has four bowls – a primary set – that she has had and used since she and Pa started keeping house. That is the only vintage-style Pyrex I can ever recall in my immediate life. Somewhere two years ago, though, I realized that – since I am not a Baker of Casseroles – I did not have a suitable baking dish for making a nice, deep, crispy batch of homemade mac & cheese. Shortly thereafter I goodwilled the largest of the spring blossom cinderella bowls, for $1.99, for purely practical reasons. Near as I can tell, that is where it started. I have since gifted out that bowl to a spring blossom collector. And… I just started………. wanting more Pyrex. And people just started….. giving it to me. And since I live in West Virginia, where people use things for their entire adult lives and then die, never having swapped out their mixing bowls for something more modern, there is an abundance of Pyrex to be had here, if you thrift often enough and get lucky. Even if you are in competition with your own brother, who scours for Pyrex for his loveliest-Megan-ever. If I walk into a thrift shop in town and bump into my brother, I either get a smirk and a glimpse at his prize, or a “there’s nothing good today.” I don’t buy it all, or even close to all of it. I don’t particularly like cinderella bowls. I don’t collect mugs or any other tableware. There are many patterns I will always pass up. But Pyrex? Oh mama.

It just happened. And it is the happiest, most functional thing I have ever collected. Way more functional than my childhood rocks, stamps, and animal-shaped candles that were always too cute to burn.

So Hazel has been down for the count with a fever and nothing else for 48 hours, and after spending most of those holding her and cuddling and doing absolutely none of my daily necessary tasks like showering and keeping things clean and tidy, she had a good morning. She pranced around in fleece pants and a sheer pink dress-up skirt and nothing else, assuring me that she was warm enough because she was “wearing a pretend shirt”, and allowed me enough time to accomplish something. I took advantage of the sunshine and spent half an hour photographing my collection, which I’ve been meaning to do for awhile. My brain is starting to require a few thinks about where did I get it / how much did I pay when I’m cooking or doing dishes. My grandpa just turned 83 and he can still tell you the purchase price and location of every single piece of everything that he has collected over the years and none of it is anywhere except in his head. This stresses me out. I’m 29. Better get started documenting to avoid stressing out my future granddaughters.

I don’t trade (yet), I don’t have a wishlist of pieces, I still have room for more with none in storage, I don’t buy online or pay antique store prices… I just look for Pyrex in thrift shops and if I like what I see and it’s fifty cents or a couple bucks, I buy. I like to think that I am pretty laid-back, but that doesn’t mean I won’t stroke out from excitement if I ever find a balloon chip and dip set in a thrift shop.

Listening: John Prine pandora

I can’t remember if the preorder happened before or after this video of the author reading the first chapter. I know that watching this video (and the one he did later on, of the second chapter), just about wrecked me… with its John-Green-is-awesome and all that.

I cried like a baby reading Looking for Alaska, so I’ve been equal parts elated and scared that this new one was soon to arrive in the mail.

My signed copy arrived in the mail last Saturday morning, and I’ve only cracked the spine to check for a hanklerfish (nope / that doesn’t make sense to anyone probably) and to do the without-even-thinking-about-it-take-a-whiff thing that I do with books.

I don’t really know how I am going to deal with a teenage cancer patient named Hazel, because based on real life (which this novel is not based on), I can guess how it ends.

But the Hazel that I love is sound asleep, and I have two cold beers in the fridge and a hundred other things I should be doing, including but not limited to: dishes, laundry, Work work, Etsy work, phonecalls, knitting stripes to add to the Valentine’s day blanket that I started for Hazel LAST YEAR and have resurrected from the Pile…

instead, I’ll go read. Almost always the superior choice.

Listening: Nick Drake pandora

Four days ago Hazel and I had a self-proclaimed snow day – the streets were sheets of ice and seven busses weren’t able to run, but they didn’t call school for our county. I stayed home from work, and she from daycare, anyway. One of those days where I am extra-grateful for my job. Now it’s almost sixty degrees, and yesterday she and her little buddy, Xavier, made “snow angels” in the pea gravel at the playground, with no need for outerwear / hats / gloves.

I’ve ventured into the worlds of air plants (so weird and impossible, inspired by these open-faced christmas balls that I bought on clearance for fifty cents each.) And the world of green smoothies (so far mostly spinach and celery and avocado, with some berries thrown in, a little juice, some chia or flax seeds… whatever leftover fruits or veggies are in the fridge… so far I haven’t had one turn out green because I am still playing it safe with my spinach : berry ratio. Two giant handfuls of spinach is my max.) Only a few days in, and I have markedly higher energy levels, which is much needed after two months of limping along, nursing some now-mild shit-in-my-throat illness that may or may not be whooping cough (apparently it’s going around? Hazel never got what I had?)

And I made a Pinterest. God help me.

Listning: Nick Drake pandora

I wrote a WV Etsy gift guide, in case you are in need of any last-minute gift ideas :)

(While you shop there, Hazel is currently pretending to shop in Target [kitchen] for her baby [stuffed dog]. She is buying treats. There are even automatic doors.)

(Yes, this all makes me very terrified for my daughter, and I just try to ignore that because she’s only two.)

Anyway, on Sunday evening this is happening:

I’ve been spending lots of time (partly afforded by the fact that this week has been Sick Week in our little yellow house) making goods for a craft table whose profits will entirely benefit MAYSP. Other people are making fun stuff, too. I can’t wait to see it all together! A sneak peek…

…are the nearest thing to heaven that I know.

And they are not green, but blue, as seen through this lovely instagram filter. I’m teaandlaundry, and I’m an addict.

Hay-z is three years old in about a month. This will be our view from her party, if the weather cooperates. She has long loved birthday parties, but has never put too much (voiced) thought into her own. She has requested “chalk, crayons, Ella, Xavier, Morgan, black balloons and black cake.” Auntie Megan has already taken care of the first. I have high hopes for some of the others. I can indulge some Snoopy-colored balloons (to complement her Snoopy-themed invites, of which I’ve completed steps 1-3!) I have other cake ideas that are hopefully so exciting she’ll forget she asked for a black one. Does anyone out there happen to have the retired 1960s Wilton Snoopy cake pan? :)

Nothing makes this kid happier than birthday parties. And when you ask her how she got so tall, she says “workin’ for Chuck.” The ideas are pretty much directing themselves… :)