ruffles

What is it about ruffles. . .

that makes me love them so much?

Is it their coquettish playfulness?

Or their puckish flipancy?

Maybe it's just the romance they exude.

Oh but I do love ruffles.

The more the merrier.

saturday

One of the happiest places on Earth IS NOT Disneyland. Hell no.

It's our pool, on a Saturday afternoon with some good snacks, cold drinks and old friends.

Oh, and dressing Birdie in one of her ten, count them, ten, swimming suits is all part of the fun.

So many people gave her pool attire that honestly, she is the bathing beauty fashionista of Carlsbad.

Splash. Blop. Blop. Blop.

the last gift

Please forgive the length of this post. It is a story that must be told and, hopefully, one worth reading.

My grandmother gave me many gifts. She gave me her big nose and wrinkly hands which I am not at all fond of. She also gave me my sense of tradition, my love for literature and my height, all of which I have found very useful.

It seems she saved the very best for last. Shortly before her death she gave me one of the most precious of all gifts I have ever received.

Reed and Vola Campbell, May 1945

One of the many, many shortcoming of my character is that I don't receive compliments lightly. I only take a compliment to heart if I believe it to be true. Say for example, someone were to compliment me on my bookcases. Now that's a compliment I can really get my soul around.

Shortly after moving into our house, Sugar Daddy humoured me and let me order, from New York, a set of Hale bookcases. They have leaded glass and are the very same book cases used by the Library of Congress for the last hundred years or so. They are wonderful and I treasure them.



Now, if a person were to tell me that I have a nice singing voice, well, I would have to make a note to self that that person was apt to use flattery to get in my good graces. It is a widely known fact that I sound like a deaf crow when I sing, not that it keeps me from doing so.


I know, because I have been told, that this is a very egocentric way of being, and I should change my ways. My opinion isn't the only one that matters in life. I'm working on it, but it is slow going.


One hot October day several years back, when I was in Utah visiting my parents, I decided to take a walk up the road to my Grandmother's house. I arrived wringing wet from the unseasonable heat. Sweat rolled down my back and my hair had sprung loose from my clips and hung in wet limp tendrils.


She meet me at the door. In the months to come she would loose the use of her legs and then her dignity, but on this day, she was up and spry. She hugged me close to her bony angular frame and it felt wonderful to be in her embrace. Then she held my face between her hands and said, "My beautiful, beautiful April."


I knew at the moment that it was true. Like most mothers and grandmothers, she truly believed that I was extraordinarily beautiful. Never mind my stout nose and deep set eyes. These were her genes and Campbell stock was steadfast and loyal and strong in spirit.


So I spent the afternoon with her, feeling beautiful, which was a unfamiliar notion for a girl with a big Campbell nose. And it was a gift that I will never forget.


One year later, almost to the day, she passed away. It is a loss that I have felt acutely.


There is a desk that had belonged to her father that my Grandmother had inherited. I loved this desk for all it's little individual drawers and it's heavy rolled top with a brass key to lock it shut. It is made of oak and I think it may have been a drafting table at one time.




My father, knowing I loved it, requested the desk be included in his inheritance and stored it in his garage until just last October when my brother brought it to me. It was covered in a thick layer of greasy dust and the metal joints were rusty and becoming useless. My father asked me several times if I really wanted it. It seemed in such disrepair. I had hoped that some of the photos and letters would still be in the drawers, but it had been cleaned out shortly after my grandmother passed, left bare.


As we were jostling the desk around to clean it and position it, we made a discovery. Secret drawers.

And what was inside? I know you are dying to know.

An old gas station receipt dated January 15, 1962, some three cent stamps that say "Win the War" and a two cent Jefferson stamp, some fountain pen tips, and a few of my great grandfathers tie tacks.


And then there was the last gift.


On that October afternoon three years ago, I sat on my grandmother's couch and talked about my desire to have another child. I cried a little, because there are somethings you can only hold in until you see your mother, or in this case, my grandmother. She listened intently, dabbing her upper lip with a Kleenex, as was her habit, and finally said that she was positive that God had great plans for me and my family. She had no doubts about it. And then she stroked my hair and patted my leg and we went into the kitchen to have some sugar-free diabetic cookies.


The last gift my grandmother gave me was hidden in the secret drawers of the rolled top desk. It was for the child that she knew would be coming to me. A little girl.


Around the time Amelie was conceived, I opened the drawers to find a gold baby ring and a tiny gold heart necklace.

The ring finally fits Amelie and I love to see it on her chubby little hand, although I am paranoid that she might suck it off and swallow it. The necklace will have to wait until she is old enough not to pull it off. For now, even though I am not a heart wearing kind of person, I will wear it around my neck.

Thanks, Grandma. Only you could find a way to send me a gift in this way.

Although Amelie will not inherit the Campbell nose, (thankfully), I will read to her from the best books and hopefully she will love literature like you and I. And I will continue to carry on the traditions that you started so that she will feel your presence in our life.

Love ya. Give Grandpa a kiss for me.

blah blah blog

handcarved stamp by s. britt

I'm feeling a bit, well, uninspired these last few days. What to write? What to create? Hummmm.

Birdie has decided that being an angel baby isn't all it's cracked up to be so she bucks and fusses and generally wears me plumb out by the end of the day.

I'm tired. The kind of tired that when you crawl into bed at night the cool of your sheets and the loft of the mattress make you shudder. And you can almost feel the reluctant inch by inch release of every muscle. Sleep comes quickly and brings rambling dreams of old school mates and awkward situations.

And before anything is resolved with you and your classmates, the sun comes out and it's time to do it all again. This is when you think, I literally can't get out of bed. I'm paralyzed with comfort. But you must, because there is escalating babble coming from the nursery.

So you slide out of bed and flop down the hall and when you reach the crib you can see out of the tiny slits of your eyes a pink gummy smile and sparkling blue eyes that are actually happy to see you in your disheveled state.

And this is the prize for all the work and toil you endure. And it is more than enough.

because i want her gold pants

And because everyone needs a little cheese on a Friday night.

the little professor

I took to really really missing him.

I missed my little professor. I missed the daily lessons he gives Amelie on his new chalk board. I missed his boney little body snuggled up next to me on the couch. I missed his art projects that make a huge mess.

The flip books. . .

The solar system on the ceiling in his room.

He colored each planet and then I cut them out. He made sure I put them up in order. He even insisted that although Pluto is no longer a planet, it's still a thing, out there, floating around, so we put it up in the far corner. His light, of course, serves as the sun, and the stars glow in the dark.

I slept in his bed Tuesday night. I couldn't seem to fall asleep and so I wandered down the hall and into his room. His bed seemed so inviting. I feel asleep holding his Uglydoll looking up at the night sky.

I missed the little professor. The next morning I got in the car and drove to be near him. Funny how a mother needs her children as much or more than they need her.

rush hour

The boy is away at art camp this week. I thought I would love having him gone. Really I did.

But I'm missing him and feeling all anxious and funky.

The house was so quiet today with him gone. The baby was sleeping. My chores were done. It was too hot to work out at my bench doing jewelry. So I busted out the paints. I had my own little art camp right there in the kitchen.

I call my creation "Rush Hour". You can buy it here if you are so inclined.

sleep

Why is it that they fight so hard to stay awake when they are miserably tired? How is it that something so precious and sweet can make me so miserably tired too?

just say campy

In my book, the very best birthdays aren't the big over blown celebrations involving blow up bounceys and expensive entertainers. No, no.

Birthdays are done better on a smaller, more intimate scale.

Sometimes I think the days of homemade birthday cakes are long gone. I feel so lucky that as a kid my mother made me campy little birthday cakes, perfectly, imperfect. Like the Raggedy Ann cake that will live in my memory as the best thing to ever come out of my mother's kitchen.

Jo invited us over to celebrate little Sam's first birthday. She asked, in that British accent of hers that gets me every time, if I would bring some cupcakes for the party.

I was shooting for campy. I wanted perfectly, imperfect. I was hoping to create nostalgia and not just a huge mess.

They were a hit.

Oh the things a person can do with plastic cocktail accessories!

All the children had a cupcake. Some had at least three that we know of. And then there was Sugar Daddy, so named for more than one reason, he had one too. Earlier in the day he had put dibs on the pink and purple one with the chesty mermaid on top.

It was a wonderful afternoon, celebrating a wonderful child that holds a special place in my heart. Happy Birthday Sam!

P.S. If you think you might like to make the cupcake cones for an upcoming event, beware, they are a bugger to transport.

lab partners

Ryan Meis and Sarah Labieniec live in San Francisco. They don't know this, but I love them, er, I mean, I love their brains, or rather, their talent. Oh for Pete's sake, I love their work.

Looking at their art makes me want to be a Parisian. Well, not really. Just skinny with a French accent.

Their company is called Lab Partners. Cute, don't you think?

They did a series of paintings I particularly like. It's called Hunt & Gather. Here's what they have to say about it.

"Hunt & Gather is a series of works drawn from a mishmash of experiences at flea markets. To us, the flea is a festive event, one filled with both delightful curiosities and people. There is something tantalizing about arriving at a market with the hope that you might uncover some hidden gem amongst the endless rows of objects from the past. It is this fascination of a time far gone and the thrill of the hunt that draws us (and undoubtedly others) to continually return. "

You can find these two lovely people here and here. Happy shopping. Happy Friday.

I'm baking cupcakes for little Sam's birthday and going to Target with a gift card. Now that's a pretty good day in my book.