Blog a la Cart

Category: Post.

Assembly

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We had quite the weekend getting in the Christmas spirit. More photos and stories forthcoming about the weekend’s most exciting event, “The Nutcracker.”

On Sunday, after all of the excitement, James and I tackled one of our primary goals, to assemble and mail all of our holiday cards. We stamped, embossed, lined, stuffed, licked, and taped each envelope. While I’ve admitted to loving the process of addressing envelopes, I opted to give Minted‘s pre-addressed envelope service a try. It was free, and their system for uploading the addresses was very straightforward and intuitive. And, sweet lordy, I am obsessed. The envelopes just look so dang pretty! And having pre-addressed envelopes has made the process so much faster. Now that we mail over 150 cards, I’m grateful to have such a simple, elegant trick.

And Minted‘s turn around is lightening fast… so you can still totally take advantage of their amazing card options for this season. Merry merry, indeed!

Reindeer Games

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We have Auntie Kimmy to thank for digging up these gems circa 1992-95. Today, Sunny carries on the magically awkward Ulmer sister history as reindeer in “The Nutcracker.” I could not be more excited.

Thanksgiving 2014

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We had a wonderful, snowy Thanksgiving holiday. My sister and parents made the trip west, and Kimmy, James and I engaged in our usual Turkey Day food prep. After seven years of practice, we’ve got a much better flow and rhythm to the whole process. I’m in charge of dessert. Kimmy sausage stuffing. James, The Bird (and resulting gravy). My parents handled the cranberry sauce (fresh from a bog down the street from their house on The Cape) and sweet potatoes. And we tag teamed the mashed potatoes.

There was playing in the snow and watching of the Macy’s Day parade to entertain the kiddos. I do so like our intimate, low-key, delicious Thanksgiving ritual.

And then on Friday morning we held our 2nd Annual Pie Breakfast and filled the house with loved ones and children and a new 8 week old puppy. I delighted in the energy and goodwill bubbling in our little house. I have no pictures to show for it, save some snaps of the puppy. But it is a tradition that is here to stay.

We went to the movies as a family, and picked out a Christmas tree, and decked the halls, and mostly relaxed by the heat of the wood stove, enjoying one another’s company and feeling grateful for the simplicity and comfort of that.

Tomorrow, my parents and Kimmy make the trip back out for us all to watch Sunny in her inaugural production of “The Nutcracker.” To say that we’re all giddy with joy is the understatement of the holidays. I’m preparing for the waterworks as my little reindeer prances on stage. For now, images from last weekend…

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F.

No crime. No trial. All harm. No foul.

I had a meeting in our campus student center at lunchtime, and as I listened to the voices of students, and faculty, and staff echoing through the building in pain and grief and anger and frustration and unity and strength, I felt tears building and a knot growing and that communal pain and horror vibrating throughout.

I can’t breath.

Hands up. Don’t shoot.

Black lives matter. Black lives matter. BLACK LIVES MATTER.

Heavy Boots

We need enormous pockets, pockets big enough for our families and our friends, and even the people who aren’t on our lists, people we’ve never met but still want to protect. We need pockets for boroughs and for cities, a pocket that could hold the universe.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

Today, I wear heavy boots.

White privilege is me feeling enraged and disappointed at the news from Ferguson rather than utterly terrified. White privilege is me being able to parent my children without fear that they will be hurt or killed due to the color of their skin while many loved ones and fellow parents don’t have such a privilege. We deserve freedom from violence. ALL OF US.

Related: This is a useful, accessible way to understand privilege for those that may question my use of that word.

I am raising my voice because I refuse to reinforce this epidemic of silence that keeps our society functioning under these racist, patriarchal structures. Please raise yours, too.

Life Lately

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It’s been relatively quiet around these parts, what with our back-to-back travel schedules, a few coughs and sniffles thrown in for good measure, a clogged ear (yes, I’m complaining about an earful of gunk, because hot dang it has nearly derailed my whole week. So distracting and irritating and WAH WAH, Woe, Is me), a car that has bit the dust and is forcing conversations about new transportation a few months earlier than we wanted and at a terrible time of year *ahemhellochristmashoppingahem*, frigid temperatures, and a back log of photography work.

So James and I have spent our evenings (post general bedtime routine for all Cartwheel Farm dependents), hunkered down in front of the wood stove, each glued to our respective computers, editing and processing and tweaking and guzzling tea and editing some more. We wanted two projects in particular (a birth video and my final wedding shoot of 2014) put to bed before we focus all attention on the cleaning and the shopping and the cooking and the table setting and the gobbling and the eating, eating, eating that’s about to go down chez Cart.

I am preparing my stomach accordingly.

This weekend will involve a great deal of prep work, including retrieval of our turkey immediately post-processing at a neighborhood farm, and a jaunt to the community wide farmer’s market. Many of the local farmers and crafters band together in to one big space exploding in locavore love. I’ve got another family holiday card shoot on the agenda, but compared to a birth or wedding, that is a walk in a park.

And Life plows ahead, in all of its harried yet wonderful ways. Kaki delights me more and more every day as her ability to communicate continues to explode, while Sunny humbles me with her adaptability and flexablity as she tackles life in a new school with an entirely new community. My children are my gravity. They keep me grounded and honest. And I wish that kind of perspective for always. xo Ash

Homecoming // 2014

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There were cow bells and chili and facepaint and football and hot cider (and rum) and fear of purple bovines and Eph spirit despite a crushing loss.

Another happy homecoming in the books! And why yes, I am sporting a full fleece cow print footed pajama set in public. It’s how I do.

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Like Clockwork

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On Monday, James arrived at Courtland’s preschool just before 5pm, and was greeted by a flood of tears and distress. The teachers informed him that she had begun sobbing about 15 minutes before his arrival, but they hadn’t figured out the cause of her dismay. She buried her face in James’ shoulder and said, “Daddy, it was getting lighter and lighter and nobody was coming.”

You see, Courtland confuses light and dark, so what she was trying to convey is that as the day slipped into darkness, she feared that we’d abandoned her at the school for the evening. It would seem that even preschoolers understand the awfulness that is daylight savings.

Last night, I sat James down and we had our yearly discussion about my darkening mood. Like clockwork, I feel my motivation and spirit going down the toilet. It’s the post-Homecoming, pre-Thanksgiving, Daylight Savings-inspired funk that hits me like a ton of bricks every November. I am now able to speak very matter-of-factly about this depressive period, acknowledging its arrival, and doing my best to combat the pull to darkness and protect my family from its backlash. I sleep. I knit. I eat leafy greens. I bask in my sunlamp. I exercise. I schedule activities and socialization and I fight the urge to hide under covers and skip these scheduled respites. James brings me coffee in bed, eases me to wakefulness with a back rub and words of encouragement. He doesn’t fight the way I linger under flannel or shirk some of my usual parental responsibilities. After work, the kids willingly crawl under covers with me, and snuggle, and brush my hair, and spend time with their mama in the only way I’m able during this rough few weeks of transition.

I joked with James yesterday that I bet I could dive back into the blog and find a post from the first two weeks of November every year since we’ve returned to New England speaking to this period of sadness. And lo, there are indeed four years worth of reflections catalogued in the archives. They serve as important reminders that however pathetic I may feel, it’s not forever. I can and will get past this. And in the meantime, I have cheerleaders on my side to help move me through it.

To anyone that may feel this slump in spirit during these darker days, remember that there is indeed light at the end of the tunnel. We can do it.

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2013: This time of year is really hard on me (and many others, I’d imagine). I have S.A.D. (Seasonal Affective Disorder), and these short, dark days hit me hard every year. I’m a beast to live with despite my best efforts at exercise, time under the sun lamp, daily Vitamin D, plenty of sleep and healthy eating. I still just feel unhappy. This season has been particularly difficult with Ursa gone. James is so patient and understanding and always finds ways to put a smile on my face as I move through the 2-3 weeks of adjustment and sadness and come out the other side (today’s I HEART U pancakes as a perfect example).

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2012: Yesterday, I took a time out from my daily life, drove down to Lenox, and sat in the corner of a coffee shop knitting for three solid hours. While that may sound hellish to some of you, it was more therapeutic than any amount of time under my sunlamp, or with a shrink, or on Prozac. I needed a day, all to myself. A day with no email. No dependents. No plans. No nothing. And it was exactly as healing and relaxing as I’d hoped. It’s been a hellish fall. People in my life have been coping with so much loss and hurt and struggle. And I’ve had my own hiccups here and there. And I’ve been left feeling exhausted. Burned out. Stretched too thin. And failing on all fronts. I needed a day to make peace with that. So I basked in that stream of sunlight falling on my knitting needles and steaming cup of coffee, and thought, about nothing and everything. I recharged.

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2011: Feelings. I’ve got ‘em. In a maudlin and mellow dramatic way.

As I’m sure you’ve gathered, this is fairly standard for moi.

It’s the darker days.

It’s the baby who has absolutely no semblance of a schedule so James and I are like the walking dead because we can’t figure out how to get the kid to sleep the hours of the average working human. C’mon 3 month old! Get with the daily grind!

It’s the holiday season, which in and of itself wields enough nostalgia-provoking power to drown my weepies in a cup of egg nog.

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2010: He can instantly sense when I start to falter and most importantly, knows how to call me out on my shit in way that won’t result in me hurling a jar of pickles through the kitchen and reenacting scenes from The Exorcist. He ensures that I make it to the gym for a good ol’dose of endorphins (even if it requires physical force to get me in spandex – a tricky feat indeed), draws baths so that I can escape in the quiet of the tub, orders and installs sun lamps, gets me to laugh even when I am being a total bear and I’m spitting fire and hurling insults and refusing to cooperate.

Indian Summer

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This weekend, the girls and I retreated to my parents’ house on Cape Cod. Mostly to get out of James’ way and let the man tackle many a project that has been lingering on our TO DO list.

As I mentioned, Rufio’s demise accelerated the chicken processing from Important to Urgent. Our friend came over on Saturday, and helped James’ rid Cartwheel Farm of all but one rooster, sweet sweet Ferdinand. James relayed that it was a much smoother process than when he handled Emilio, save for that moment when he had beheaded a chicken but then lost his grip and said headless rooster proceeded to race around our barn while Gladden eagerly chased it, until she realized that something was not right. Yeah, bloody headless rooster is not right. Apparently, this is fairly typical and not just farm life lure. How glad am I that I was lounging on the beach rather than bearing witness to that scene? I suppose it’s nearly Halloween, but honestly, I would have lost my damn mind had I been present. We do not live in Sleepy Hollow, y’all.

So, we are down to one very sweet, fluffy rooster, 9 hens that are now all laying (so Sunny has begun selling eggs by the dozen in rainbow-decorated egg crates. Adorable.), the coop has been cleaned, rooms have been painted, carpets installed, lawns mowed, garden beds turned, and furniture moved every which way to accommodate the redesign/renovation of four rooms chez Cart. Why tackle all of these renovations at once, you may wonder?

Because we are out of our dang minds. You should know that by now. If you’re considering a similar undertaking, talk to this team of professionals to ensure your project goes smoothly.

As James and I were wallpapering vintage New Yorker covers from the ’60s and ’70s that my grandmother collected nearly 20 years ago, gave to my mother, who gifted them to me a decade ago, on to the walls of our downstairs bathroom this evening, James wondered out loud, “Why are we doing this now? Why did it take us so long to do, and yet, why have we decided to do it now while in the midst redoing three rooms upstairs?” (As I type this, he is still downstairs wallpapering…)

My response, “How long have we been together? Then you know me well enough that you have your answer. GO BIG OR GO HOME, CART!”

Do you remember when the New Yorker cost $0.25, because our bathroom sure does.

ANYWAY, back to our weekend (as I’ll be sure to share room redesign progress/plans another time). Saturday proved to be a positively gorgeous, hot day, so despite the foliage of oranges and reds telling us otherwise, we headed to the beach and lounged in our bathing suits, and Doda, Sunny and Kaki even went swimming. In fact, Sunny straight up submerged herself in the water before even Doda had gotten up the courage to do so. Our LA baby has proved that she is indeed a hardy New Englander.

I left the kids with my parents for a few hours on Sunday and had a family photography session in Brookline, and then rendezvoused at Ikea to purchase bunk beds, sinks, vanities, and an odd assortment of home goods that one is wont to purchase when sucked into the matrix that is affordable, mass-produced Swedish design. I was so daunted by the sheer number of bodies in one place at one time, their parking lot nearly did me in. But thanks to the moral support of my parents who wrangled children and my psyche, we survived and I am once again indebted to those two incredible souls who go out of their way time and time again to make my life a little easier (or in the case, A LOT easier). We love you, Momar and Doda.

And the girls can’t WAIT to show you their bunk bed on their bright purple carpet when you visit for Thanksgiving.

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Pardon the iPhone snaps. I did not drag my SLR to the beach.

Currently Reading

ESFJs are people persons. They are warmly interested in others. They gather detailed information about others, and turn this information into supportive actions. They want to like people, and have a special skill at bringing out the best in others. They are extremely good at reading others, and understanding their point of view. The ESFJ’s first desire to be liked makes them highly supportive of others. People like to be around ESFJs, because the ESFJ has a special gift of invariably making people feel good about themselves.

I am a cheerleader for others to the core and genuinely find great happiness in the success and happiness of others. (This analysis is almost entirely accurate. Except for the following the rules thing. I tend to throw a wrench in people’s vision of “rules” or “tradition.” Take the Memorado personality test (similar to Myers-Briggs) here.)