black and blue

berries! the rails-to-trails path is loaded with blackberries this year.


we went out there twice, and gathered enough to make a big batch of jam.



the path is mostly shaded, which makes for pleasant picking, unless it is 90 degrees out there, which it was, on one of the days we went.



still, we had a great time, and only ended up getting a few chigger bites, the second time we went. the first time, we were a bit more diligent about tucking our shirts in, tucking our pants into our socks, and putting on some bug deterrent. we must have let down our guard the second time, and those little buggers show no mercy!



yesterday, cosmo and i spent three hours out at bray's you-pick, for blueberries. we ran into julie, and her girls, and had a great time visiting and picking with them. with temperatures in the seventies, couldn't have asked for a nicer day! we came home with almost twenty pounds of berries! we had enough to freeze and make two batches of very-low-sugar jam. we still had a handful of blueberries in the freezer, and one half-pint of jam left in the pantry from last summer. think i'll go make some toast.

addendum (later in the day): we just went back out to the rails-to-trails (another gorgeous day) and found that there are still plenty of berries out there. so, any local readers of this blog, there's still time! as cosmo says, "there's plenty for all bodies. plenty for all the people!"we picked some to eat fresh, and are taking the rest to mother hubbard's cupboard (let's hear it for free food!). also, i just found out that what we have been picking is black raspberries, not blackberries! the key differences are:
1) black raspberries ripen in june, and
2) when you pick a black raspberry, it is hollow in the center, it leaves the core on the vine.
blackberries, apparently keep the core in the berry when picked, and they ripen later in the summer. we may have seen some blackberries out there, but they are far from being ripe. thanks to amy for the heads up.

reduce, reuse, recycle

cosmo's got the recycling bug. i don't think it has much to do with an ecological awareness, he just likes to sort, and put things where they go. our curbside pickup doesn't require that we sort beyond keeping the paper and cardboard separate from everything else. but cosmo has plastic in one bin, glass in another, cans in yet another, and the paper and cardboard is in a separate spot, inside. first thing, when he wakes up in the morning, he wants to gather up any bottles and cans from the night before, and take them out to the recycling bins.



we recently took a field trip to the solid waste recycling center, so cosmo could check it out. he loved it, and since we didn't have much of our own to recycle, we took things from various visitors, and put them in the proper bins. when it was time to go, i swear, cosmo was crying that he didn't want to leave!



picking up trash in the neighborhood is a favorite activity, and, it's one of those things where once you start looking for it, it's all you see! on a recent trip on his bike, he would spot a bit of plastic, and have to stop the bike, and try to reach for it.



sometimes he'd be forced to ditch the bike altogether, so he could focus on getting up all that trash.



such a good citizen.

monkey swing

our next door neighbors have a rope swing that has been a lot of fun for cosmo and sylvan to practice swinging, and strengthening upper body muscles. cosmo and i got a long, red rope at biglots one day, and kevin (again, with the wonderful next door neighbors!) came over with the extension ladder, and got it tied to a tall branch in the silver maple tree.

a rope with knots is wonderful, but little arms tire rather quickly. carl tried tying a loop at the bottom, for a foothold. better, but a bit difficult for cosmo to do on his own.



our friend and neighbor, alan, suggested i make a wooden circle seat for it. i wasn't sure how comfortable that would be, or if i have the tools to cut a circle. i thought i'd just be on the look-out for something suitable.

the next day, we came home from some outing, and situated on the end of the rope was a plastic circle, just right for a little butt to sit and swing. alan had drilled a hole in one of those seats they make, for 5 gallon buckets. i don't have a good picture of the seat itself, but maybe you can tell from cosmo's face, it is perfect (or as cosmo says, "it's just the right thing").



cosmo cannot get enough. he swings on his own, but really loves it when we give him an "underdog," and swing him "super high!"

honey bee sanctuary

in our current location, we have a big lawn. if it was our own place, i imagine a big chunk of it would be tilled up for vegetable gardening, and another spot would be devoted to native grasses and flowers. as it is, we have quite an array of plants mixed in with the grass. clover dominates one whole section, and this year, it started blooming before we got around to cutting it. we noticed a few honey bees buzzing around the flowers. carl does all the mowing and he decided to leave the clover for the bees. in no time, the framed clover field was in full bloom and all abuzz with honey bees and bumble bees.



since then, i read a suggestion in organic gardening, to leave some of your lawn long, and heard that there was a piece on NPR about not mowing clover so the bees can access it. that's my carl--always cutting edge. a trend-setter, really. don't you think?


here you can see the line, where the clover stops, and the mowing starts.

we recently visited the hilltop garden and nature center, which is a wonderful spot for gardeners. they have a few bee hives, and when we went to check them out, a bunch of them were gathered on the outside of the box. cosmo informed us that the bees were "dancing, to show the other bees where the food is." while i know he has heard about this phenomenon several times, it always surprises (and delights) me when cosmo shows that he has retained knowledge.

blue tarp = summer fun

what can you do with a blue tarp? you can drag it down the street to the giant mulberry tree-- the one that's staining the road beneath it, and, apparently feeding all the birds in the neighborhood (according to all the purple droppings splattered on windshields and lawn chairs). many people find mulberry trees to be more of a nuisance, than a community treasure. the joy of cooking has this to say about mulberries:

purple-fruited mulberry trees are best suited, in our opinion, for varying the diets--and flexing the muscles--of marauding schoolboys.

but our buddy, euell gibbons is not so dismissive. he offers the suggestion of placing a plastic sheet, or tarp, under the mulberry tree, shaking the limbs, and gathering the fruit.



that's what we did. and then we dragged that tarp all over the neighborhood, sometimes with a passenger, and gathered enough berries to make the mulberry jelly recipe in stalking the wild asparagus. with all those stems and seeds, they aren't really suitable for jam making. but with a little pectin added, they are just right for jelly.



ours was more like a seedless jam, because i am not content to simply allow the juices of the fruit to passively drip from the jelly bag. no, i have to stir and push and wring the pulp filled bag until every possible edible particle has passed through. so, ours is not translucent, like some jellies, but it did jell. and i, personally, prefer this texture to "pure" jelly anyway. this year i was lucky enough to find low methoxyl citrus pectin (at bloomingfoods), which allowed us to cut our sugar almost in half, without using the questionable, sure-jel version of low sugar pectin. we ended up canning almost seven, half-pint jars, and the stuff is yummy! cosmo loves it, though i dare say, not as much as the fresh berries, right off the tree (or, ground right next to the tree, as the case may be). we've already been out to the rails-to-trails for black berries, and we'll head back out to bray's for blueberries, probably next week.
---
what else can you do with a blue tarp? construct a make-shift kiddy pool. this one is all carl and cosmo. cosmo saw a slip and slide at kroger(?), and has been talking about wanting to get one. i told him about the budget one my mom made for us as kids, out of an old shower curtain, and the garden hose. with the tarp already out, carl thought it might work. it didn't. tarps are not very slippery.



but, with a little ingenuity, he and cosmo built up an edge around one side (employing that multi-purpose dryer vent hose, once again!), and made a giant, blue puddle, perfect for splashing and wading in on a hot summer day. it also stores a little easier that those hard plastic kiddy pools.

ruffled

for the past few months, i've been busier than usual. i've been working part-time, on a contractual basis, at the wonderlab. mostly i've helped out with graphic design for exhibit labels, and some assistance with assembly of new exhibits. it's a lot of fun to get behind the scenes of one of cosmo's favorite spots in town, and he's always curious to know what i am up to when i go off to work.

i've been volunteering with middleway house, assisting with the new wings partnership, which is a fantastic project involving historic renovation of the coca-cola building, into a commercial kitchen/child care center/apartments, plus a new 3 story shelter for victims of domestic violence, next door. it is a green building project, which includes some roof gardening on the old building, a living roof on the new one, a courtyard garden, rain garden, cistern collecting roof run-off, solar panels, energy efficiency, operable windows, worm composting in the basement...exciting stuff! what a joy to be surrounded by such awesome women, in a supportive, feminist environment. can't think of a better place to get my architectural feet wet again.

i also took on a design project for a group of musicians, putting together a performance concerning music and culture in the time of shakespeare. they'll be performing in libraries this summer and, most likely, schools in the fall. they asked me to come up with a few pieces that would suggest the period, without being full-on costumes.



i'm not a seamstress, nor a costumer, but i hate to pass up a design challenge, especially for a friend. i made puffy sleeves for the women, padded shoulders for the men, a floppy hat, with a stiff brim (puzzled over that one for weeks), and breeches for the men--all from thrifted clothes and otherwise re-purposed fabric.

and. i. made. an elizabethan neck ruff.

what is a neck ruff? it's what you call those stuffy looking lace collars that we associate with shakespearian times. also referred to as cartwheel ruff, or head-on-a-plate.



at first i fussed around with folding paper, to make a mock up... i got some starch...but nothing i tried was working. then i found some instructions online that actually made sense to me (there were plenty that didn't) and i followed them precisely. after seven hours or so of tedious labor, i had a believable ruff. then i made a second one.



the trickiest part was dealing with two needles plus all that lace.



i had 15 yards of it, and didn't want to cut it until i knew how much it was going to take. so, i had to contend with it getting twisted, and just generally being in the way. once i got the hang of it though, it was nice work--slow, but pleasant.

the ruffs are decidedly a hit, they really make the whole look of the ensemble, if i do say so myself. and the musicians report that they can easily play their instruments while wearing them (a big plus).



i won't go into all the details of construction, since the instructions i used are readily available-- should you ever, for any reason, want to make a ruff. i have extra lace. i am considering making more to sell. though, to whom, i am not quite sure. maybe i can capture a niche market. is there such thing as elizabethan erotica?

up with dad, down with mom

as i've mentioned, cosmo knows what it looks like when someone's gutters need to be cleared of debris. when it rains, he inspects downspouts, to see that there is adequate flow, and then scans the length of the gutters to see if water is over flowing. one day, ours was, and cosmo kept reminding us to clean them out.



we borrow our neighbor's ladder for the task, and this time, cosmo was invited to go up on the roof with dad. he's climbed the ladder before, (with carl completely encircling him with his arms, all the way), but he's never actually stepped onto the roof. when he got to the top, he said he didn't want to get on the roof. so, carl climbed down with him, and cosmo inspected the down spouts, while carl cleared out all those helicopter maple seeds that had collected, and clogged the gutters. when he was done, cosmo said he wanted to go back up. this time, he went onto the roof. carl held his hand the entire time, and cosmo was nervous and extra cautious, so there seemed to be very little danger. our roof has almost no pitch. he seemed to enjoy the new perspective. it was a little tricky getting down, but i steadied the ladder (while shooting photos, of course), and he did fine.



the next day, he started asking questions about the boarded-up opening near the ground, next to the back porch. it's the entrance to the crawlspace. i've never opened it, because it isn't really secured, and i didn't want him to see how it's done, for fear he'd be trying to go under there all the time. but i realized he's old enough to understand, and respect limits, and that he'd probably benefit from getting a chance to explore under there. we opened the door and took a peek inside. it looked like the biggest danger was scraping his head on a nail or something from the floor joists, or, hurting his knees, since he'd need to crawl. so we got out his hard hat (a child-sized one that we keep in our seldom-used dress-up bin.) and some knee pads that came with his skates. his toy flashlight was practically worthless, with such a low beam, but he seemed to like having it.


once we got under there, he was pretty freaked out by the sound of carl walking around, just over head, and wondered what kinds of animals he might encounter under here. i assured him that a chipmunks were all i'd ever seen slipping through the small hloes in the foundation. we looked around a bit, found an old section of pvc pipe, that we cleaned up and added to the marble maze supplies, plus, an old bike pedal. there wasn't a whole lot to see. he wanted to know what all the duct work was, and where it went, but was never satisfied with my explanations. we both stayed pretty close to the entrance. his greatest fascination turned out to be a hole drilled in the cinder block, probably for a cable, right next to the door. he couldn't understand why, when he stuck a piece of grass in the hole on the outside, that he couldn't find it in the crawl space. i tried to show him how cinder block is hollow, but it was troubling, and confusing. we found sticks and other things that would go all the way through, and that delighted him. i guess his curiosity about that space has been satisfied for a while, i haven't seen him poking around there since.



he's been asking, for probably a year or more, "what's under the floor?" and "what is up above the ceiling?" now, he has at least a little first hand experience to begin to answer those questions. next stop: the attic. none of us have been up there.

water falls

cosmo's obsession with flowing water goes way back. it has been a consistent theme since he was one year old, or so (along with spheres, tracks, mazes, maps). he loves puddles, down-spouts, gutters, waterfalls, creeks, fountains, washes, bathtubs drains, hoses, storm drains, pipes, sinks, toilets etc. perhaps it is a natural fascination for all small children.



since the warm weather hit, his favorite activity is "playing with the hose." i feel like a real schmuck for allowing him to "waste" so much water, but on the other hand, he learns so much from his extended, solitary, exploration with moving water, that i really hate to cut him off. he will occupy himself for hours, if allowed, moving the hose all over the yard, finding different materials to flow over, and holes to fill up. he digs out little streams in the gravel and the dirt, builds dams, waterfalls, and tiny ponds. he becomes so engaged, and so focused in this free water play, it seems unfair of me to worry about things like global water shortages, or, of lesser importance, our water bill. it is also difficult to feel the scarcity when we are experiencing such excesses in terms of rain fall. a few days ago, we got almost 4 inches of rain in 24 hours. and then, another inch or so a day later (carl reminds me that where he grew up, in denver, they get about 6 inches a YEAR. if they're lucky).



in the midst of the day-of-downpour, cosmo and i were out traipsing around the neighborhood, in our goulashes, rain jackets and umbrellas, checking out all the gutters, large puddles, and storm drains. there was a lot to observe. and this time, it was guilt-free for me. we got to divert water that was missing the storm drain, back into the drain, clear debris, and float little "helicopter" maple seeds down rivers of rushing water. we do this often during spring and summer showers, but this year, it seems a bit more serious for cosmo. the rain let up for a while, and we went back indoors. after our outing, an hour or so later, when another storm rolled over, he was back out, on his own this time, investigating all there was to see in our yard. he moved from down spout to down spout with our dryer-vent-turned-all-purpose-toy, trying to hook it up to the spout, watching it flow out the end of the tube. entranced. he noted that our neighbors needed to clean out their gutters, since the water was over-flowing at the top, rather than heading down the water spout (cosmo is very vigilant about the care and upkeep of our own gutters, but that's a story for another blog post). he was out there for a good hour or so, i joined him for some of it, then carl went out, and they went for another walk in the pouring rain.

there was very loud thunder, there was lightening, and last year, this stuff scared him. this year, water obsession trumps thunder fear. he just can't be bothered. he did ask me, once, if lightening ever touched the ground. our dear friend hannah planted that seed when she visited a couple of months ago. i had to admit that it sometimes does, but that he really didn't need to worry about being outside in the rain. that seemed good enough for him.when carl and cosmo came in from their walk, i had towels waiting at the door, and homemade hot chocolate on the stove. he and carl had a little tea party while they got warmed up.




yesterday, we went out to the sculpture trails for the annual aluminum pour. i went last year with lara, and thought cosmo and carl would really enjoy seeing molten metal being poured into carved-out tiles of pressed sand. cosmo, not so much. see, it had just rained, and there were gravel roads and dirt trails with rivlets of water running down them, and a big rushing creek, with a bridge. anything that did not involve water flowing was simply uninteresting to cosmo. i got him to help me carve out my dragonfly tile, for a few minutes, and we did hike a good portion of the sculpture trails, searching for "hidden" sculptures, but when it was time to leave, the sculptures and the foundry were not the areas that we could barely tear cosmo away from. it was the creek. luckily, there were little trickles of water running here and there, on the road leading back to the car. but when we finally got him buckled into the car, he was in tears, crying, "i wanna go back to the creek! i wanna go back to the creeeeeeek! i don't want to leeeeeave...."




he was so devastated, he fell asleep on the way home, something that almost never happens these days. especially after a good night's sleep (12 hours).


oh, and we saw some geese and goslings on the road, this tree,


and i made this tile for the garden (photo of finished, cast tile, coming soon).

one of our neighbors, whom we don't really know, but refer to as "halloween," (due to her awesome october house decor the first year we lived here), has recently installed a pond in her back yard. a pond with a small waterfall, and a trickling stream. it has become the new destination for walks or bike rides, when it is NOT pouring down rain. one time, halloween herself was out there, and showed cosmo the pump that lives under a lightweight, fake, stone next to the pond. cosmo was talking about that pump for days. i have always thought those sorts of landscaping features were kind of hokey. but i tell ya, if we were homeowners, i'd be looking into low-cost ways of setting one of those up at our place. but cosmo and i have already decided, our pump wouldn't be hidden. why would anyone want to hide something so spectacular?

artists/mothers

for mother's day, i'll be participating in a show called artists/mothers, in houston texas. it's a multi media event, including readings, performance, video and visual art, put together by sehba sarwar, at voices breaking boundaries.

i won't be attending in person, but i'll have a virtual presence via skype, and i have sent some water color images of coral polyps (and the algae who love them) that i've been working on for the wonderlab. i'm hoping to encourage connections between motherhood and symbiotic relationships that occur elsewhere in nature.

i know personally, almost all of the women participating in the show, and greatly admire their work. i feel truly honored to be in such company.



if you're one of my houston readers, take my advice and don't miss this show.

salt "cooked" kale

my friend melanie introduced me to the wonders of raw kale salad. she brought it to a brunch at chuck and hank's place, and i fell in love. she explained that the kale was first rubbed with salt, which apparently breaks down the cellular structure just enough to make the leaves tender and delicious, while preserving that fresh taste.



our kale, which had over-wintered in our cold frame, has really taken off this spring. we harvested a bunch, and i made a salad from this recipe:

1 bunch kale
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 teaspoon coarse salt (or more, to taste)
juice of 1/2 lemon
1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
1 grapefruit, sliced and chopped

chop the kale into thin ribbons. drizzle the olive oil onto the kale, sprinkle with salt and then massage the kale with your hands. add lemon juice, vinegar and grapefruit to kale, toss and serve. (recipe adapted from one i found on elanaspantry.com).

the salt massage also releases the juices, and brightens the leaves to a glossy emerald. this one has grapefuit, but you could leave it out. melanie's salad featured pomegranate seeds, sparkling like little jewels, in the rich green ruffles.

sing a song of arugula

we harvested a second round of arugula from the salad box on the porch, and some from the cold frame/hot box out in the yard. the first round was just thinnings, mostly micro-greens. this time, they were all proper arugula leaves. to celebrate, i had to make the dish that led me to fall in love with arugula in the first place. carl's brother made a version of this for us last year. it was so tasty and so simple, we've been making it every chance we get.

the dish has 3 major ingredients:


pasta(excuse the lack of focus, it's not easy photographing steaming pasta)


potatoes


arugula

once you have your arugula washed and trimmed, peel a few potatoes, cut them in half and slice them about a quarter inch thick. steam them lightly, but don't fully cook. start the pasta water. heat up some oil in a skillet (preferably seasoned cast iron) and brown the potatoes on both sides. when your pasta water boils, pour in the pasta, and cook as indicated on the package. by the time the pasta is done, your potatoes should be nicely browned. drain pasta, and transfer to a large bowl. add the potatoes and arugula. drizzle with olive oil, season with salt and pepper, toss and serve.



the heat of the pasta just barely wilts the arugula, which is all it needs. the pasta and potatoes can stand up to arugula's intensity. if you aren't already a fan of arugula, you will be after this.

mantis mania

about a month ago, lara brought us an interesting cocoon/pod thing that she found while clearing out a garden bed. she knows we love stuff like that. it looked like a wad of that foamy stuff you spray from an areosol can, to seal cracks in walls. very cool. we poked it, sniffed it, shook it, and wondered, then stuck it in the corner of our kitchen, and kind of forgot about it.



easter morning, i noticed a baby praying mantis walking across carl's cosmas translation. i pointed it out to him, and then started wondering where it might have hatched from. i thought of the pod from lara, and looked over to see hundreds of baby praying mantis flowing out that foamy thing! they were everywhere!





i collected as many as i could, and took them out the garden. it was a bit cold, but i think they did fine. i put some on the seedlings in the office, thinking they could catch some of the tiny bugs flying around there. i misted the plants with water, and one of the mantis went right up to a droplet, and put its face in it. guess he was thirsty! some of them have died by now, but there are still tons in our house. i'll go to grab the scissors, and a mantis will jump off.



i've heard that finding a praying mantis in the house means good fortune. if so, we've got it made.

easter's on its way

i wet-felted the eggshell using an actual egg as the form. then, i sliced the crack in the egg with an exacto knife. i mostly needle-felted the little chick. i made it for our friend, ida jane, who will be turning 4 in a few days. we did the photo shoot out by the surprise lilies in the front yard.

closed for the season

this winter, we participated in project feeder watch, through the cornell lab of ornithology. we registered online, (it costs $15) and they sent us a packet of information about attracting, identifying and counting birds at our bird feeders. so, for two days a week, from early november, to early april, we spend time looking out our front window, and recording what we see. then, we enter our data online, at the cornell lab of ornithology website.


(revised photo of finches on our thistle sock. this is simply a better photo)

the biggest commitment is keeping the feeders stocked. we have one feeder filled with mixed seeds, a suet block, and thistle sock hanging from the dogwood. honestly, it can get a bit expensive, but, worth it for us. bird watching is such a pleasant activity for the wintertime.

the biggest challenge has been keeping the squirrels away from the bird food. they are quite crafty. i thought if i put out some food for them (a corn-based squirrel food that i attached to the dogwood) that they would stay away from the other feeders. not so. they do eat their own food, but still enjoy finding ways to get at the bird food too. carl started greasing the pole (which the main feeder hangs from) with crisco. it worked, and it was quite comical to watch a squirrel jump up, then slide down the pole. but, it does wear off, and needs to be applied regularly. they easily access the suet, upside down. though they aren't supposed to be the main attraction, they can be the most entertaining. check out the video of squirrels burrowing in the snow.


squirrel, eating squirrel food, and attacking the suet block




cosmo has learned to identify many of the birds we see regularly, including downy woodpeckers, cardinals, mourning doves, blue jays and gold finches. he helps us count, and, i think by next year, he'll be able to help record data. i've learned how to distinguish a downy woodpecker from a hairy woodpecker, a house finch from a purple finch (i think), i now know what a cowbird looks like (looks nothing like a cow) but i cannot, for the life of me, tell the difference between a black-capped chickadee, and a carolina chickadee. they both have black caps!



in addition to the packet sent from cornell, we have a sibley's bird book, and a small indiana birds handbook, which is organized by colors. this book is great for finding the names for the birds you see. my favorite bird, of the ones that visit our feeder, is the tufted titmouse. not only does it have a great name, but with it's little dark eyes, and tiny grey tuft on top of it's head, it is just too damned adorable for words. it appears only rarely, and always just one at a time. absence makes the heart grow fonder is a phrase that certainly applies to bird watching. though i haven't grown tired of seeing those lovely cardinals, even though they are the most consistent visitors to our feeder.


tufted titmouse (image taken from http://learningeveryday.wordpress.com)


i noticed that as soon as the warm weather came, our watching time decreased significantly. we're too busy working and playing outside, and spending less and less time indoors looking out the window. we decided that last weekend was our last watch day. we used up the last of the birdseed, and this week, carl took down our big feeder. we'll put a humming bird feeder up in the summer, and come november, we'll sign up for another season of project feeder watch.

neat

i'm a sucker for any books published by parent's magazine press, in the late 1960's, early 70's. why, you ask? because those were books that i had as a kid. my favorite books.



the first child-related purchase i made after finding out i was pregnant with cosmo, was parent's magazine press books i found on ebay. titles i'd loved as a child. i could not afford the few copies i could find of jelly beans for breakfast. fortunately and unfortunately by remi charlip was also out of my price range, but i did get my nostalgia fix with arm and arm (also by charlip) and a few other wonderful stories. now, i scan the bookshelves at thrift stores and yard sales, hoping to pick up a few more titles. one, which i found at a good will here in town, is called the awful mess. it isn't one i had as a kid, but is of the same general quality, and i love it. it is about a boy who crafts elaborate towers and tunnels and jungles in his room, which the rest of the family regard as "an awful mess." the conclusion of the book (spoiler warning!) involves the boy having a new friend over. the boys crawl through the tunnels, and share caramels at the end, and the friend says, "i like your room, it's neat."



i said that to cosmo today, and meant it. it is really neat and tidy in there, thanks to these awesome shelves i made this week. i've been meaning to make these for six months or so, finally got around to it. nothing like house guests (arriving this weekend), to get one motivated to finish projects. they were fairly easy to build. however, since i skimped on the "grade" of pine boards, i got some seriously warped and otherwise messed up boards that i had to work around, but, the finished product, i feel perfectly happy with. it was so much fun to fill in all the slots with toys, and art supplies, and TALL books (which had been lying on their sides, since we had no tall bookshelf space before), and to have more of cosmo's stuff down low, where he can actually can reach it. his clothes really had no proper home before this either, and, while i think i need to add a couple of shelves to the tall one, it is such a huge improvement. the new shelving also allowed me to de-clutter all the other storage areas, like thes built-in open shelves, and and the closet.

oh, and please note the "feet" of the lower shelf--they are made of wooden beads (which came from cosmo's beading set, which originally came from one of those beads-on-wire-tracks toys, which someone gave us when he was a baby, which i took apart one day, and saved the beads). they add a subtle color accent.

the stuff i build is always very simple, rarely painted, in this case, not even a clear coat. i'm just way too impatient to install the thing, and put it to work. i can't be bothered to wait for paint to dry! one of my neighbors said they looked "scandinavian." i'll take that as a compliment. even if she did mean that they look like they came from ikea. my other secret dream job is to be a furniture designer for ikea...

i also have to work within the confines of the tools i have available to me. i can borrow a table saw from our neighbors, but i'd rather not, so i avoid designs that would involve a table saw. recently i made a tv stand (so that cosmo could have his little table back) and i made it way too deep, primarily because i could find pre-cut plywood pieces at 2ft x2ft. it was close enough to what i had drawn, and so much easier than dealing with sheets of plywood, and getting it cut to size. the sides consist of small pieces, assembled to make a panel. i actually get a big kick out of coming up with the simplest and cheapest design, with the tools (and skills) i have at my disposal. constraints always force creative solutions.