Zeke, the dog

I don’t know how it actually happened, but about a year ago I was able to talk Mike into getting a dog. He’d probably tell you I offered an unrelenting arguement about the virtues of dog ownership, how important it was to teach the kids responsibility, how the very act of having a dog would make us more active. And likable. And fun.

I researched breeds, I read books. I debated the rescue vs. pure breed question with a twinge of sadness.

You see, when Mike and I were first married, we rescued a dog named Indigo. Indy had a heart of pure love. He was also 110 lbs. of goofball energy which we could never quite manage. Our lack of experience combined with our unstable life situation in the city meant we had to “re-home” him in 2001. It was heartbreaking. Best thing for all of us? Certainly. His new owners were amazing and I have no doubt he is one happy, suburban mutt.

Not wanting to make the same mistake, we waited nine years to consider another dog. Above all else, I knew we couldn’t repeat the same mistakes as we did with Indigo. We had to find a dog to fit our family’s energy level (Thanks, Dog Whisperer). More than anything, I wanted to take on this responsibility in a way that would make up for what I felt was a failure with Indigo. I felt our best chance for success for this first foray into owning and training a dog would come from a responsible breeder.

And then we met Misha.

The woman is a saint. Not only does she breed and show beautiful black labs, she regularly rescues and fosters animals from bad situations. After the interview process we felt it was a good fit. Our pup was due any day.

She called on May 4, exhausted from a night attending the births. Our pup was here, healthy and mom was doing great with her first litter. Five days later, we visited. The pups were the size of guinea pigs and squeeked the whole time. A few weeks later, when he was four or five weeks, I brought the girls to meet the pups.

I think they liked him.

How could you not just DIE?

He joined our family just a week after we moved to Seattle, just shy of eight weeks old.

Is it possible he was so small? I remember carrying him under my arm, like a football. I remember his puppy belly. Zoe remarked one day, “Mom! He doesn’t run! He frolicks!”

He grew.

And grew.

And grew.

And now, our pup is nearly a year. He’s the happiest dog I’ve ever met. He still frolicks. He still wiggles hit bum when he’s happy. He jumps like a pony.

And puddles? Forgettaboutit.

Happy birthday, you water dog.

Voodoo Lady

I’ve always wanted a nickname.

Miss Fancy has written about our adventure. She should have a “don’t drink and read” warning on her site. The girl is funny. Spewing my beverage on my shirt after reading about her impressions of me as a Voodoo Lady is not. Okay, it is.

Read about it, read all about it.

Be careful what you wish for, I guess.

Love,

Voodoo

Gather your stuff for the p.w. doll

For the PW Doll, you’re going to be combining some crafty techniques to create a needle-felted doll with armature. It sounds complicated but it’s okay. It’s not too bad and I’ll be here to walk you through the steps. I’m going to break it down into several posts.

Today, you’ll need to gather your supplies.  Unless you’re in to needle-felting and making small dolls, I’ll bet you’ll need to run to a craft store. For ease of purchase, I like Pacific Fabrics. They have what I need for small projects like this but are more expensive than other shops. On a recent wool roving purchase a cashier at Pacific Fabrics in Seattle asked me if I knew how much more expensive their roving was. I assured her I was okay with it.

Here’s what you need:

1. Needle-felting needle and foam pad.
You can get remanent foam in most fabric stores.  A 5×5″ square should do you just fine. The felting needle is sharp as hell. Be careful but also know that you are going to stab yourself and it will hurt. There will be far less blood than you expect, but you have to be careful not to get drops of your own blood on your projects. Now, don’t go running off. Buck up and take it for the craft. It’ll only take one or two jabs for you to learn to felt gingerly.

2. Chenille Stems (pipe cleaners).
I despise the brightly-colored pipe cleaners sold in most craft stores, but they will totally work. Get the ones with the shortest fuzz on them. I like to buy the cotton-covered ones but have only found them online. They are so much better because the fuzz is easier to hide when wrapping. Still, the other kind work so don’t stress out.

3. 1″ Wooden bead with a hole.
These are sold in packs. Don’t get the painted kind unless you want the painted kind. Then do what you want. See if I care.

4. Embroidery Floss.
The DMC floss is just fine. You’ll need shoe, accent and hand colors for this project. Go nuts, they’re only like 29 cents. Go ahead, get ten. You don’t have to commit to a colors just yet.

5. Tapestry needles.
They’re not shown here (like you’d be able to see one if it was), but you’ll need it for threading the hair through the bead head as well as placing the anchor floss under the shirt. I’ve never written that sentence before, ” …the bead head as well as placing the anchor floss under the shirt.” I love it when what I say sounds like a line from Beckett (go here if this reference has passed you by. Or just let it pass you by. See if I care).

6. Wool roving.
This is super soft wool fleece which is carded, cleaned and dyed into pretty colors. Folks use it to make yarn by spinning it or use it in needle felting projects, like us. The fibers on the wool catch on the teeny barbs on the needle and mat together, creating a dense fabric after repeated jabbing. It’s pretty freaking awesome how it works. You don’t need much, the stuff goes a long way. I bought nine 1/2 ounce balls in a package for this project. I used less than 1/4 of three balls. Check out your local yarn shop for roving or do a search for “wool roving” or “wool fleece” if you want to order online.

Happy gathering!

Don't adjust your screen

As much as I’d like to think there are throngs of you waiting for me to post my “How To” on the PW doll, my stats show me otherwise. I’m going to savor my lack of fame while I iron out my learning curve. I’ve taken approximately eleventy hundred images for the tutorial and I can’t figure out how to show them without clicking each one into the post. My patience is running thin, friends.

Here’s a sneak peak:

See, one is fine. I can do ONE. But the eleventy hundred will make me cranky.

For your troubles, I plan a give-away once things are ironed out. This little beauty may be yours if you can practice more patience than I.

Off to throw things at walls,

Jesse

Ree Glee.

The PW Shrine

And to think, I almost didn’t go. An invitation to sushi with real-life friends had me reconsidering my plans to see The Pioneer Woman (Ree Drummond) at Third Place Books on Saturday. Sushi is, after all, PW’s favorite and I knew she’d understand if I took my friends up on an opportunity to indulge in a kid-free night of gastronomic bliss. Further conversation clarified their invite was for lunch, not dinner. I won on both counts!

I arrived at Third Place Books around 2:30  with the following: large farmer’s market basket full of wool roving, laptop, camera, new phone, purse and my copy of The Pioneer Woman Cooks. At the info desk, I scored my ticket in the ‘F’ section and scouted the place for a power outlet. The only one I could find was by the cash machine, facing the kiddy play area. Nearby, a woman dressed to the nines (henceforth she shall be called Miss Fancy) sat amid books and papers and her copy of PW’s book. She was My People.  The orange-covered book proved it. I set up shop in my little nook of the store and took about about four seats with all of my stuff.

I sat to work on a little present for PW’s younger daughter. Her younger girl shares a name with my youngest girl and I figured she was more into the doll-scene than her older sister. I jabbed at the little needle-felted doll, only sticking myself a few times in the process. I’d look up now and then to see people watching me, including Miss Fancy. I conceded it must look strange.  Fancy told me later she thought I was getting my voodoo on.

A few hours in to our wait, Miss Fancy and I made friends. She’s just as sweet as can be, and a teacher to boot. Turns out her name is Susie. When I asked if it was spelled with a ‘z’ or a ‘s’ she replied she wasn’t cutsie enough to spell it with a ‘z’. What did I say? She’s My People. Poor thing had to leave at 6:15 to go to a school auction so I said I’d get her book signed. You’d thought I was curing cancer, Fancy was so thankful.  She’s also a superfly blogger. Read her here: theallisonwonderland.com.

Susie and Me

Here we are, IFF (Internet Friends Forever)

If I hadn’t recently waited ten hours in the pouring rain to audition for a certain reality TV show (more to come on that adventure soon), I might have thought the wait was long. Sure, six hours is a chunk of time to wait to get a book signed but consider the environment:

1. Fanfreakingtastic bookstore

2. Proximity to French fries

3. Abundant supply of Diet Coke

Ree’s arrival into the bookstore turned me into DorkGirl in one fell swoop. I happened to be at the Info Desk when she arrived to check in. Hello, tall Ree!  Hello, tall oldest Daughter!  Hello, beautiful other woman who looked related (Ree’s mother-in-law). Starstruck.  Totally starstruck.

I’m sure Ree’s daughter is accosted by all kinds of crazy women-fans, but I had to have taken some sort of prize when I asked her to be in a picture with me. Through glass.  Like we were buddies.

Sweet girl just smiled and obliged.

Who is this crazy lady?

The letter F group was a plucky bunch. Many of us had to “browse” near the start of the line, busying ourselves with feigned interest in end caps, magnetic poetry and the sale table. I did find this little gem, perfect. A Third Place Book worker in a red sweater frequently disbursed F group loiterers with the same admonishment, “We can’t have you waiting near the start of the line. You’re welcome to browse, but you can’t hang out here.”

Finally, we F’s got our time in line. I had done my time “browsing” and my head even got a crick in it from my faux interest, so my place in line was near the front of gaggle of F’s. This little muffin was in front of me.

I want to eat her cheeks

Her mama and friend created little PW shirts for their kids. Hers said, “I [heart] Pioneer Men” and the boy’s said, “I [heart] Pioneer Woman.” Super cute. Baby boy was a mover and a shaker, wanting to be DOWN and CRAWLING. He was done with waiting in line. Luckily for him, I have an obsession with collecting plastic spoons from restaurants (“Say what?” you ask.  I use them for school lunches, okay?) and had a fresh stash in my purse. Baby boy and girl played with those spoons. They played hard. Lesson here: real toys are overrated.

Spoon Wars

With complete honesty, I will say that when I met  her I was far more star-struck than a few weeks ago when I met The Indigo Girls. What’s up with that, I wonder? I arrived at the signing table and promptly lost my mind.

For her part, PW was gracious and sweet.

She even let me take a picture of us, friends-style.

It's Me and PW

Thanks, Ree for the great day. Y’all come back to Seattle soon.

-Jesse

Her Pocket

This is the first in the my Not-Still Life series, documenting the things I’d like to remember but will probably forget once I sit down to remember it. That’s how life is, isn’t it? We think we’ll remember the details, the things which give us pause. I can hardly remember what I had for dinner yesterday let alone the beauty of my five-year-old’s pocket full of treasures. Therein lies the beauty of the photograph and the written word. Way to go, humans. Nice job harnessing the power of light and shadow.

Life, still

It’s a funny thing, when you plan and plan. Things happen. Gods laugh. By now I’ve learned to enjoy the ride, or at least appreciate it. Today I welcome you to my next chapter, my Plan C [or is it D? E?].

Back in January, I started to get a funny feeling about my day job. Sick-to-my-stomach funny. I asked a few hard questions of the People in the Know and discovered times were, indeed, a-changin’. It didn’t much matter our family had packed and moved after my last job also ended in a strangely similar fashion. [Curse of death? Agent of change? I’m beginning to wonder if I smell.] My sneaky suspicions were confirmed in early April, thus securing our family’s coveted position in the annals of People Who Move A Lot.

After wondering if I’m good enough [and smart enough and if ANYone really likes me], I’m pretty sure I am. I’m quite confident, in fact. It’s a good thing, because the alternative answer had me in bed during the day and drinking far too much red wine at night. The hopeful me knew better. The hopeful me, biding time until the pity party was over, was hatching a plan.

Dad and me, 1975

The answer has been here all along, you see. It’s under my skin and in the way I see the world.  The answer has been a part of my life since my father looked at his little girl, took a picture, and followed his bliss. Almost thirty-five years later, it’s what he does. It’s who he is.

Grandma, Aunt Mary, Dad and Aunt Debbie - 1959

It existed even before that, when his father’s view of the world was shaped by a country recovering from a war, of a growing family and by a rapidly changing world-view. He did what he knew he must: he took pictures.

So confronted with yet another change, another disappointment, another missed target, I had a little come-to-Jesus with myself and I did what makes anyone feel better, I did what has been done for ages. I made a list.  On that list, I noted the absolutes of my next steps: I needed fulfillment, I needed to be able to be there for my kids, I needed to create. I needed to make money.

To those of you who know me, please resist the urge to smack me the next time you see me with a big, “Duh!”

This nugget of hope grew over the days and got me out of bed with more excitement than I’ve felt in years. Hope took root, it grew and it began to steady me against the storm raging around me. Before long, it became the only option and the one I’m ever-so-pleased to share with you today.

My day job in Seattle will end in June. Our family will pack it up, joyfully even, and head south to our beloved T-town once again. Our former home near the park awaits us, if you can believe that. All three kids will attend a local elementary school and I will follow my own brand of bliss, doing photography full time (www.jessemichener.com). This also means I’m back to blogging. I never really figured out how to blog and be a high-ranking staff person in an independent school. The blur between personal and professional has been much too hard for me to navigate. Although this site will serve as my all-in-one blog for personal and photography, the lines don’t seem so hard to keep straight.

Robert Frost’s poem about the diverged road has always been a favorite. I’m sure you’ve read it (if not, you should), so I won’t copy the whole thing here. The final stanza has haunted me these past years, years where I’ve doubted the path was the one I should be treading:

I shall be telling this with a sigh | Somewhere ages and ages hence: | Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, | I took the one less traveled by, | And that has made all the difference.

Can you see the road ahead? The one to the left? Yeah, that’s the one. I’m going to take it.

What a fine, fine day.

-Jesse