pussy cat wussy cat...

Mama! There are kittens underneath the Woodbridge!

Yeah? That's nice, sweetie.

One followed us here...can we keep her?

Uh, nope. Unless you learn to scoop cat poo.

She's so cute and black, Mama!

A black kitten? Uh oh.

Oh Dear.

Are we suckers?

Please meet little Miss Dibley, the newest member of our family, and our third black cat.

Dibley has a small white patch on her neck, like a Vicar. So we immediately named her after the Vicar of Dibley show that I love so much.

Our oldest cat, Tiggy, doesn't give a rat's ass about the new kitten, but Neko is out of her mind. Neko has been walking around pissed off at the world and growling at all of us.

Dibley is super sweet and just thrilled at having a bowl full of food in front of her. Tomorrow she goes for her first Vet visit and Ella is already worried about that thermometer going up the kitten's hoohaw.

Even though this has interrupted some Lumpling sewing time I still expect to launch a herd in about two weeks!

There are still three of Dibley's siblings living underneath the restaurant if anyone is local and looking for a new fur baby!

Tea Towels & rosy woes

I'm a bad blog mama, that's for sure.

I think about making a post daily...but then I get distracted by pretty things, like my roses here!

Unfortunately, that Easter Freeze wiped out the blooms from my large rose bed in the front. Usually we would have hundreds of hot pink blooms right now, and I really mean hundreds, cars slow down in front of the house during the first bloom, people come to a sudden stop when walking by and ask about the type of rose bush.

A portion of the rose bed from last year in the first blush

But now, there are only a few little blooms. The bushes are not dead, and for that I am grateful, but oh how I miss the blooms.

When I'm not cursing Jack Frost, a whole lotta needle threading has been going on.

I adore travel tea towels, but I need something more absorbent in the kitchen for drying hands after washing. So I took these mint vintage towels, then I cut up some of my older terry cloth bath towels that had a few worn spots and smacked them together.

Well, maybe I didn't actually "smack" them, but I sewed them together like a pillow case and then did an extra stitch around the edge after turning them right side out so they won't warp in the wash.

So now I have pretty towels for drying my hands than I have been obsessively washing.

It's all about the pretty. And maybe the washing.

All of my efforts to give love to my kitchen didn't prevent me from dropping one of my favorite bowls last weekend. Later that same day I dropped one of my Smurf glasses too, but luckily that one didn't break.

Oh, the horrors if a Smurf glass breaks.

You understand, right? Right?

Smurfs!

small pleasures mine

Tallulah Bankhead: "Why, it's as easy as ducking for apples."

Dorothy Parker: "Hah, change one letter in that sentence and you've got the story of my life."

Our new little fat belly tea pot has a brilliant strainer hiding in the spout, keeping the pesky leaves out of the cups.

Hans and I have been so thrilled with watching the tea leaves dance about that our eyeballs are floating from drinking so many cups.

Now I need a good source for loose leaf tea that we can afford given our million cups a day habit!

More small pleasures this week include sending off all of the Lumplings, making a new flower bed and moving my heucheras to a more friendly spot in the garden, walking the Renn Fest, Rocky Road ice cream, installing a new ceiling fan (can never have enough in Georgia!), leaving the windows open to enjoy the breeze and planting my rear end on the sofa sewing more Lumplings while watching _How Clean is Your House?_ on bbc america.

All in all, a near perfect week for me!

Do you remember the first time you realized that you lift another human?

The knowledge has gone to Finn's head and Ella is never safe these days! I'm waiting for day that she turns around and picks him up too.

solace in pillows, & comfort in my clutter

New Lumpling pillows are in the works! I hope to finish them in the next couple of days.

Not very sure when they'll go in the store because Hans and I travel to Texas for his cancer checkup early next week.

I usually get a bit paralyzed before Hans has a checkup, and it keeps me from sewing and other hobbies. But I'm really trying to overcome that this time by forcing myself to keep working.

This will be his year and a half tests. For the first year he went every three months, and at a year he "graduated" to tests every six months. So this is the longest that he has gone without a CT, PET scan, or biopsies since being diagnosed in July 2005.

Now me? I'd be content with scanning him every damn week.

It's like we have been holding our breath for the past 18 months. Gastro-esophageal cancer has the highest chance of recurring in the first two years. Five years, of course, still being the "cure" goal, but these first two years are the scariest.

We are so close! It's so hard not to live in cowering fear every day, but we have to live our lives as normal as possible for our children and our sanity.

A really nice lady emailed me a few days ago after stumbling across the Amy Rue site and our story. Ten years ago her young husband, and father of their two young kids had Cancer. Here is an excerpt from her email:

~~It is a roller coaster, but almost 10 years later, I see that somehow we survived the ride. Our daughters are teenagers now. My husband and I stay active in their lives and our life is "normal". Those early days now seem very far away. A couple of the important things I learned are, keep your life as normal as possible, for yourselves and your kids. And remember to take one day at a time. Don't worry about tomorrow. Trust me it will take care of itself.~~

I love when people reach out like this. When they take the time to offer solace to a stranger.

I try to do the same for people now, and I hope that in ten years Hans and I will be a bit of strength for others in this fight.

Here's my wall of clutter and comfort above my desk. When I'm feeling stumped or blue, I can look up and see the small things that mean something to me: Pictures that Finn, Ella, and Hans have drawn, my marriage receipt ($26.00!!), family photos, old postcards, a card that Richard Kirk painted for my birthday, buttons, metal bits, and more!

I should also mention that I'm sick sick sick right now, and dosed up on cold medicine which makes me a bit introspective.

Crass goofiness should return by tomorrow!

I'm late I'm late!

Our local magazine featured a photo that I took of my daughter, Ella, for the Valentine cover.

Ella was pretty thrilled because she's still been a bit sore that Hans had Finn on his cooking show, and not her. But now they both have a tiny bit of local fame.

I've been remiss in posting on the blog since the last Lumpling adoption. After I had all of the Lumps packed up and sent off, I attacked the study/studio where Hans and I work.

It might not be spring yet, but I feel it coming and I had to get all of this organized.

Hans even helped me put up new shelves in my fabric closet, and now I'm just incredibly happy with it.

I've also created havoc on the rest of my house...ripped up carpet from the stairs and started painting them white. Made new curtains. Took apart the dining room table because it doesn't work and I'm annoyed with it. Hopefully, I'll be able to afford a new dining room table one day, but right now the room has no table, much to the confusion of our guests.

It's hard to explain that if something annoys me that bad it just has to go. I have to keep the table because it does mean something to me. My Granny used this table in her photography studio in Montgomery Alabama, then it was my Mom's dining room table while I was growing up.

When my stepfather died, I was five, and I crawled up on the table and carved his name into the top. I didn't want any of us to forget him.

But now the table is not a comfortable fit for us as a family. Maybe one day I'll open that shop that we dream about and I can use it in there.

Mama shakes the dreamland tree

Pillows & blankets are a big deal in the Rue household. One big snuggery around here!

I end up making lots of special pillows and blankies for the kids from things we recycle.

Ella's kitty pillow above is a vintage handmade bib on top of matelasse remnants I had from making her bedroom curtains. I found the old queen size matelasse at a local antique store for $5.00...priced so low because it had large rust stains running across it. An overnight soak in Oxyclean took care of that, I use Oxyclean on all of my delicate vintage linens.

The bib was found on Ebay for a couple of dollars with storage stains as well. Ella loves to look at Ebay and picked it out herself, at the time I had no idea what we would actually do with it! I cut off the bib ties and treated it like one large applique with little bitty, hard to see stitches to hold it in place.

A very back-lit photo of Ella's curtains from this morning, the sun says Hello to her room first. Love love love that ball fringe.

Our old pram is there, stuffed with all of her softies. That pram has been used for every baby in our family. I have a picture of my older brother looking like a little peanut in it from 36 years ago. When my son Finn was born, I relined it with a black & white toile. The last time it had been lined was in blue checks when my little brother was born in the early Eighties. It has a top...hiding somewhere in my messy house.

Now Finn wants more modern pillows. When he out grows a favorite t-shirt and is sad to see it go, I'll make a pillow out of it instead, just like the Spiderman one there. These make great soft, bonk someone on the head without guilt, pillows

Not that I usually feel too much guilt when I bonk someone on the head.

Cause, you know, sometimes you just have to.

His skull pillow is super simple all fleece. Fleece can make you feel good again about sewing when you've been frustrated by other fabrics. So soft...so freaking easy to work with. I just cut out the skull and appliqued it on the black background.

My next recycle the munchkin stuff will be a quilt, and maybe a pillow, of Ella's old dresses. She has had so many precious dresses that I just didn't want to give away, but I don't really have the storage room for them, so I've been cutting them up into tiny squares for a simple patchwork quilt.

I need to take a picture of the growing pile of dress squares...this might be a big quilt!

The Stockings were hung...

by the chimney with care.

The Nutcrackers are standing guard, on the look out for Santa and his reindeer!

While two little kids toss & turn in bed, hoping that visions of sugar plums will soon be theirs... but all of this excitement keeps sleep away.

I feel like Christmas just snuck up on me from outta nowhere!

We've been so busy and the weather here has been very warm.

But oh, tomorrow morning should be fantastic! I know the kids will be hopping happy when they see their gifts and actually get to open them.

And later my Mom and brothers will come over! We haven't seen my older brother in several years now and the kids are so curious about him. I'm really hoping to sneak a picture of him. He's never been the type to let me take a picture, but now I'm older and sneakier.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

I truly hope you all feel as blessed as I do this season.

A beautiful sight...we're happy tonight

Hans brought an entire bunch of these gorgeous Thistle blooms home,

and I'm so in love with them.

Such a darling man to bring flowers to me...and to know me so well that he brings thistles instead of something too sweet and fluffy.

Also loving my mail lady this week! A huge new batch of baker's twine for Lumpling tags and a vintage crafting book make life a wee bit kinder this holiday season.

Today I've been making bunches of Snickerdoodle cookies to give to our neighbors so the house smells just like a home should; cinnamon and sugar!

Tonight, we will go door to door with cookies and the handmade scarves for the neighborhood children. When we get back home there will be a gingerbread house to decorate and hot chocolate for all.

And after all of that wonderful, almost too perfect, holiday love I will lock myself in a room and get frantic with wrapping paper and gifts. Hans has wrapped my gifts and nestled them under the tree which has caused Ella to cry and look pitiful because she wants her gifts under the tree too.

She doesn't quite understand that Mama is lazy and hasn't wrapped them yet. One day I'm sure she will understand, but at age three it doesn't click.