Today’s Homemaker

I’ve had a lot of my friends (online and off) wonder why anyone would bother buying handmade and making their own presents. Sometimes there is the assumption that the quality of handmade items is not as good somehow (and if you’re reading this right now and you’re thinking this blog is inspired by a conversation we had yesterday, you’re partially right. Except I know the quality thing was not what you meant). That machines somehow do it better. If this is your line of thinking, you’ve probably been to too many church bazaars (and not the cool ones!)

Anyway, this handmade gift guide put together by Design*Sponge will dispel that myth once and for all. The quality and originality of these pieces is top notch.

I’m about to do a little research because this post by Meg over at Montessori by Hand has me so inspired that I want to wake my kids up from their naps and traipse around the house with construction paper and confetti. Almost.

I am incredibly interested in homeschooling my kids (that’s probably not the Montessori way…I’m not sure), but I have a huge fear of not doing it well. Of being too lazy, too tired, too uninspired. Of wasting my time away on the computer too much. These are ingrained tendencies (How they came to be, I am not sure), and I purposefully swim upstream against them every day. Some days I succeed, others not. I hope that I would not end up complacent about my child’s education, but it is a fear, nonetheless.

Don’t quite know where that came from — I’m on a blogging frenzy today, it seems!

I went to the library (all by myself!) yesterday, and it was glorious. I was there for a full 45 minutes with no particular purpose or plan. Librarians kept stopping me to ask, “Is there anything I can help you with?” and I just said “No…not at all, actually. Thank you.” It was bliss. I felt like I had stepped into some kind of time warp where I had all the time and freedom one can possibly muster in the span of an hour. And I guess I did.

I left with a handful of books, and a couple of special ones for Nolan. One that particularly mesmerized me was Gaspard and Lisa’s Christmas Surprise, written by Anne Gutman and illustrated by her husband Georg Hallensleben. The illustrations are so beautiful, and you do get a warm, yet off-beat, fuzzy Christmas-y feeling when reading it. Nolan loved it. He especially loves the name “Gaspard”. I do too.

By the way, there is an excellent discussion of favorite children’s books going on over at the Cherry Menlove forum. I cannot get enough!

Just a quick update today (still catching up on “life” stuff), but I just had to tell you about a lovely etsy shop that just recently opened. It’s called Rigamaroll, and they create tiered tea-light holders (though the actual pieces definitely deserve a better name than that! Tea-light displays? Candle-holding pieces of art? Help me out here.) I have had the pleasure of holding a set of these in my hands, and they are absolutely beautiful and can be set up in a countless number of ways.

The family that designs and makes these is Maine-based, and their daughter is a good friend of mine. I adore this entire family and their work. I think you will too.

(P.S. My personal favorite is the red barn collection.)

Ahhh…home. We’ve had such a great Thanksgiving, but it is truly nice to be back. Traveling 14 hours each way makes me wish for incredible wealth for the mere benefit of being able to afford plane tickets! But it could be worse, I keep telling myself. I’m sure some of you have had even longer distances to travel.

The only bad thing about coming back is the workload that piles up. Today I’ve got Laundry to do (the capital L is not a typo), a book to outline, an article to work on, a weekly menu to plan, a list of materials needed for Christmas presents to make, and clothes to unpack. Oh yes, and bills to schedule payment for. And a body sculpt class to go to. And local businesses to call (that one will probably wait ’til tomorrow).

Will be back soon with menu plan. And hopefully a little more sanity.