Boys who make me hope

This sounds awfully old-fashioned of me to say but kids these days don't have any respect. They push past me on the MAX or make a mess of the fitting room at Anthro or rush ahead of you through an open door. It makes a parent like me (all 27 years of me) think there is no hope for this next generation. And I have boys, who have such a legacy and societal minefield where respect is concerned. But then I read things like this. And it makes me have hope. Even though I screamed back at Finn today when he refused to take a nap, he could grow into a caring, respectful human being.

And I am busy at work decorating the house for Christmas. James and I bickered our way through the Christmas lights on the house debaucle but it was accomplished. I made a wreath for the front door that promptly hung askew and then fell to the ground the first time I shut the door. And the boys can barely restrain themselves from picking at the tree and all its trimming. But it's Christmas time and I love Christmas time. Even more now that the boys are getting old enough to hear the story and appreciate the magic.

Calling the Pot Orange

I seem to have struck some sort of job-search gold. Since applying for and interviewing for the admissions position with Le Cordon Bleu, I have sought out other admissions positions and gotten really miraculous response. I think my recruiting experience makes my resume stand out, which is ever-so-nice when I haven't been standing out much at all in this job world. Today I searched through Indeed.com and applied for every admissions position they had posted and got called an hour later for an interview tomorrow evening. So hurray!

Now I am sitting listening to Mason Jennings in the sunlight that streams through our cold front window in lovely rainbows from the etched glass. It is quiet. The boys went to the park with Carly. I feel calm and confident that this process is happening at the pace that it must, that is much slower than I would have it happen. But there are jobs. Which is a new reality I came close to missing altogether.

And I dyed fabric orange and serged it all together into a duvet cover for our room. It isn't quite what I had pictured but I have an inordinate amount of pride about it. I bought a dye-pot for heaven's sake, which means I have the ability to dye more things in the future and it was a success. Again, huge strides in giving me confidence in other parts of life. Here I am in all my glory.

It's the start of a new week today, a fresh breath, a world of possibilities. I hope it brings some news--about the Le Cordon Bleu job, about the other admissions position that I applied for, about babies about to be born, about plane tickets--but mostly I hope I am more patient. The boys have been driving me crazy this week. Finn is defiant and chatty and destructive and needs to be in timeout as much for his misbehaving as for my calm and Henry is in the difficult margin between communication and frustration. Because of all the other things happening to and around us and because I am not naturally a patient person, I am snappy and mean to both of them when they push the buttons they are so good at finding, which then makes me feel bad about myself for being a horrible parent and perpetuates the process of my short fused explosions.
My lack of patience this past week could also have something to do with the craft bazaar I did yesterday and prepared for all week leading up to yesterday, hand sewing ornaments and stockings and swearing violently at the constantly breaking needles on the serger and generally taking up most of the patience I have allotted for any given week. So the boys were really destined for failure.
So I've obviously been sewing a ton. I haven't uploaded the photos yet but for a first effort, it all went pretty well. But this time, the sewing hasn't been particularly therapeutic so I might have to give up sewing with deadlines for a while, for my family's sake.

Chicken Cordon Bleu

My interview this morning with Le Cordon Bleu Culinary Institute (formerly Western Culinary Institute) went extremely well. The man who interviewed me seemed ready to bring out the paperwork and have me start immediately. He gave me a tour, introduced me to staff and had me sample some pound cake with ganache from the advanced patisserie class. But then I met with the vice president of admissions, a very kind woman who admitted that they actually don't have a position open at this point. They are interviewing to be proactive and ready when they do need someone new but they don't know when that will be. I was very disappointed. I think she could tell. But she said she'd call. Maybe tomorrow, maybe in a few months. crap.

You could look at it that I did all I could and got some great interviw practice and am closer to having a job than I was yesterday. But I have to admit I had been counting my chickens. And they were lovely chickens, Coq a vin chickens and chassuer chickens and fricassee chickens. Mostly chickens that represented income and benefits and some self-respect. So I'm going to keep looking and hope that they call. And in the mean time, I'm still planning the orange dye experiment, so there's that to look forward to.

new air

I am a new woman. This morning I got up with the boys and after drinking the last of the coffee walked to the coffee shop on the corner to get James a cup. The boys were sweet and adorable and made me feel like a wonderful mother. Finn asked the barista for some cockroach candy (gummy worms) and when she told him they were all out, looked so horror stricken I worried he might throw a tantrum right there. Instead he asked her if she would put it on the grocery list and then said maybe next time he could have some. I was so proud. And then I got a phone call on my way home explaining that I was actually still in the interview process with Western Culinary Institute and could I come in for an interview later this week. Yes I can, as a matter of fact; Yes I can. And my housemate offered to treat me to a haircut. Yes I would like to have a new haircut.

So I am feeling lovely and empowered. And I have been sewing these last few days, just not taking pictures, which makes me feel like not posting until I have taken the pictures and uploaded them to the computer and by that point, I've avoided posting for three days. But instead I will just tell you about my projects in that thousand words (or less) kind of way. Yesterday I ripped the cover from the arm chair I had found on the side of the road in Astoria and found the most amazing vintage hawaiian fabric underneath that matched both the cream covers on the other chairs and the gray I had just painted them all. I had been searching every fabric store in town to cover everything and now I am so glad I didn't find anything. The vintage mismatched but matching look is so much more what I was going for anyway. I also straightened a couple pairs of jeans that belled out at the bottom, very not Anthropologie this season and I've been wearing both pairs significantly more.

Today I am going to paint the guest room and redistribute the quilts in the house, getting everything ready for the holidays. Later I'm thinking about dying some fabric orange for a new duvet cover. I've never worked with dye before. We'll see. I'm feeling very optimistic.

Desperate Measures

I left three messages for the recruiter calling about an admissions adviser position with Western Culinary Institute and then stopped calling because I worried that I was sounding desperate and pathetic. Which I probably was because I sort of am. But calls about jobs get my hopes up. And of course with all the time between my voicemails, I've convinced myself that the job is perfect for me. Really any job sounds wonderful so my perspective may be a little off but seriously, a cooking school? I could have lunch at their test kitchen everyday and entertain the visiting professors from Le Cordon Bleu's french headquarters and inherit somone's Le Creusset cast iron cookware when they have to move overseas, and you know, learn all kinds of cool cooking sorts of things. So really, perfect.

So tonight I sewed myself a sweater dress out of a thrifted men's sweater that's been sitting around for a while. I look much thinner in person, you'll have to take my word on it and our camera seems to be jammed between lens open and lens shut and refuses to take pictures. (Finn may or may not have been playing with it when this jamming occurred.) So the pictures aren't great because James used the video camera instead. But you know, you get the idea. I feel ready to take on a ski lodge or a fishing trip if I can get over the neck being so dang itchy.

Some Success

No sewing yesterday or today but not as a lapse in therapy. Yesterday we had friends over for dinner and I made an absolutely beautiful pair of pizzas making up for any lack of creativity in clothing. I followed the elaborate recipes in my favorite cookbook From the Earth to the Table and made a spiced pork pizza with basil mint pesto and a red potato, onion and brie pizza that was less pretty to look at but equally delicious. I take no credit for their success other than my dedication to the recipes, which both had about ten more steps than any other pizza recipe I have ever seen.

Today, we drove to Madras to explore central Oregon and meet up with my father in law who is working on a fish cage project to get the salmon over the dam...yeah there's probably a better way to explain that. We drove to government camp and scaled the snowbanks in the beautiful shadow of Mount Hood and then got back in the car and drove the second half of the trip to Madras where we were entirely too early so drove around the bizarre back roads of the high desert. James kept making comments like, "the only way this road ends is us getting murdered and never found again" and "all these power lines must be giving us cancer". It was all worth it though when we found this absolutely breathtaking overlook point looking over a lake at the bottom of a canyon with Mount Hood in the background. The boys ran around and collected rocks making me irrationally nervous every time they got anywhere near the rock wall marking the drop off to the canyon. I took a zillion pictures. We met up with papa (James' dad) at the Black Bear Diner, which was exactly the way it sounds and had breakfast for dinner. So it was a great day.

Oh, and I got two calls about my resume, which is like a zillion calls compared to all the days before today. Who knows if they will materialize into anything but it feels very good to be acknowledged in the job search world, like the gods of employment have looked down and said, "well hello there kate, yes we see you there." So no sewing. But positive attitude.