From Our Windows to Yours

DEBORAH CROMBIE: We have all been spending a lot of time looking out of our windows these last few weeks.  We are all trying to find little things to take pleasure in these days, the small moments of our lives, so we are, I think, paying more attention to what we see around us. And just knowing that others are having the same experience helps us feel connected.

I was absolutely riveted by a piece in last week's New York Times about just that. They asked seventeen New York artists to capture the view from their windows, and I've gone back and looked at these depictions over and over.

Of course we've also been having a fun bit of voyeurism, seeing into people's homes on  Instagram and Facebook videos (my favorite is writer and cookbook author David Leibovitz's daily cocktail hour from his apartment in Paris) but I also found it fascinating to see what people are seeing when they look out. So I thought it would be fun if we shared our views with you, and then perhaps you could describe in the blog comments what you see when you look out your window!

Here's my view from my living room window. This is what I see when I sit to chat on the phone, or to read. We live on a very busy corner so there are always people driving by, even in the lock-down, but now we are also seeing lots of people walking their dogs. And of course our dogs have to bark like mad at every single one.

And this is my view from my kitchen window, across the deck. Beyond the fence there is always traffic, but in a few weeks (assuming I can figure out how to get some flowers) it will be a little oasis outside our back door.

 LUCY BURDETTE: Debs, there is a new group on Facebook too called “the view from our window.” People from all over the world posting--it’s amazing and somehow reassuring. It’s so quiet here in Key West--none of the hustle bustle we’re used to. I think we are all feeling like T-bone in this view out our side deck--something very important and thrilling is out of reach!

I watched David Lebovitz this week--lots of fun! And I have to say that John and I have a running commentary on the state of reporters’ offices on the PBS Newshour. We’re pretty sure one guy must have gotten scolded by his wife and moved the camera to a vantage point that was less messy LOL!

HALLIE EPHRON: When I rolled up the shade in my office this morning, here’s what I saw. 

Seriously? We’ve had no snow all winter and now it decides to frost the forsythia and Japanese quince. You can see my office view is truncated - a fence between our property and our neighbor’s driveway. They’re great neighbors, with a baby and a toddler, swing set in the backyard. We’re surrounded by young families - we had a one-year-old when we bought our house from a woman who was in her 80s and had been here for 60 years.


RHYS BOWEN: I’m lucky in that I’m stuck at our winter home in Arizona where I live in a lovely little private community surrounded by mountains. So the view from my office window brings me delight as I work. I had to do a virtual tour for Goodreads this week so here’s the link for you to take a tour of my office and see my view

The one thing I don’t see is people or life going on. In fact the other day I was looking out and felt like the Lady of Shalott!

DEBS: Rhys, see the orange rose in my little bouquet, front and center? 

That's David Austin's Lady of Shallott and it is gorgeous! Now I'll think of you when I see it! And I'll happily share some of my traffic with you!

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I also had a snowy view this morning - New England has decided to remind us we can never count on it being spring until it’s practically over. 

The view Sunday morning - no snow!

It’s funny you bring this subject up, Debs, because I was talking (from ten feet away) with a neighbor a few days ago, when I was out walking the dog. We’ve both lived in our tiny neighborhood on either side of a county highway for over thirty years, and in that time, we’ve seen traffic change from almost non-existent to a vehicle every 30-40 seconds. Exploding housing prices in Portland have been driving people out to more distant communities, with a commensurate rise in commuter traffic.
That’s changed. Now, when I sit at my desk facing the road, I look up when I hear a car drive past, because they’ve become increasingly rare. It’s both eerie, and pleasant. Do the Germans have a name for that sensation?                                      

JENN McKINLAY: I’m quite certain the Germans have a word for it, Julia! Since I live in a frat house, my view is one of chaos and mayhem. We don’t have red hair and there are only four of us, but we could easily be Weasleys. My desk looks out into the backyard, so the view from my window is a pingpong table, a punching bag in the shape of a dude (we call him Dickie, no idea why), the firepit, my ridiculous amount of potted plants in various stages of health, and the swimming pool. Last year, I gave Hooligan 1 a blow up Narwhal for his high school graduation. Of course, H1 blew him up for a pool party and he has floated in our pool ever since, so I frequently look up from my desk, and see “Wally” floating by. It’s ridiculous but he always makes me smile.

I live on a street that has a K-8 school at the end of it. I never thought I’d say this, but I miss seeing all the kids walking to and from school. It used to be they were loud and annoying and made the dogs bark, but now I miss the sounds of the laughter and the good natured yelling at each other as they all walked home. I think the dogs miss them, too.    

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  Aw, Jenn. Yeah, I heard an airplane fly over yesterday--so eerie. The German word could be: ruhiggefahlzeitgeistgenugkeit. Quiet-danger-worldview-enough-ness. Does that work?

 The view out our back door always makes us laugh--which feels so bizarre these days. The ducks have taken on new and hilarious behaviors, and Jonathan says it’s their way of attempting to train us. These two guys are new-this-year-arrivals, Banded Duck and Wobbly (we think he has a hurt foot). They come right up to the back door and quack-quack-quack to be fed.

And a female, Eddy, flies, yes FLIES, to the back door when she sees me, and quacks like mad until I bring duck food. I open the door and come out, and she waddles at my side, following me to the place by the pool where they eat. It is truly out of Hans Christian Anderson--it’s there the little goose girl or something?

And yes, that’s SNOW on the white tulips. INSANE. I fretted all last night about whether I should cut them all and bring them in, which would be so sad. In true Hank fashion, I cut SOME of them. Easier to worry about the tulips than everything else.


DEBS: Hank, you are brilliant! Our new word-coiner! 

But now it's your turn, dear readers. Describe for us what you see when you look out YOUR window.

Mychal Mitchell Loves Blank Books

 DEBORAH CROMBIE: We have a really special guest today on JRW, my good friend Mychal Mitchell, book binder extraordinaire and owner of Iona Handcrafted Books!

   We've been talking a bit here on the blog about journaling as a way of dealing with the daily challenges of the coronavirus (we had Rhys's lovely son and daughter-in-law last week with some journaling advice) and it occurred to me that who better to talk to us about journaling than a person who makes them? I wondered how Mychal, a life-long journal keeper, was approaching her own journaling practice during these stressful times.

One of Mychal's journal entries

 Here's Mychal to tell us.

Mychal in her Austin studio

MYCHAL MITCHELL: 
 
My Love Affair…with Blank Books


    3rd grade…it was a little square, pink, Holly Hobbie diary with a lock and key.  9 years old in a small Arkansas town, and how I loved locking up that diary after each new crush’s name was recorded within.  I fancied myself a profound writer on those little lined pages, and yet I mostly documented grade school gossip, cafeteria lunches, and the latest hits from Casey Kasem’s American Top 40.  Though that first diary is nowhere to be found, flash forward 40 years and I have quite a collection of journals of all shapes, sizes, and styles filling the mantle above my fireplace in Austin.
   Something about a new journal is so magical…and yet, sometimes intimidating.  That first page is so BLANK!  It can be inspirational.  Or can just paralyze me!  Did I mention I am a bookbinder now?  That is my full time job. (And a whole other story unto itself!)  I have been stitching and selling leather journals for about 26 years now.  I can have my pick of any journal on my shop shelves, and yet even I am still a bit afraid to mess up that first page.

    So when I am stuck staring at that clean white page, I’ve kicked myself into gear by writing the words to a song I learned in summer camp as a kid. The words still resonate with me to this day, and honestly may have affected the way I operate in the world.  Here’s how it goes:
    "On the loose to climb a mountain, On the loose where I am free. On the loose to live my life the way I think my life should be. For I only have a moment, and a whole world left to see. I’ll be looking for tomorrow on the loose……."

    It goes on for a couple more verses about traveling the world, and sleeping outdoors, and making new friends.  I just now looked up the lyrics online, and saw the words (that my sister and I still sing in the car at the top of our lungs) were not exactly the “right" ones.  But at least I covered that first daunting blank page with something.   This isn’t how all of my journals begin.  But if I’m stuck, it sets an intention for my journal, my life, and my general attitude toward the world.

Mychal's lyrics to On the Loose

    Sometimes I know exactly what that journal will hold…a special adventure, a new relationship, a creative project, or a pandemic. I am in LA where my boyfriend lives, hunkering down with the man I love in a city I barely know.  This journal has been an especially tricky one to start.  Do I create a collage all about being in lockdown mode? 

Mychal's LA journal

     Do I write a poem about how interesting it is to get to know someone during a world health crisis?  The words to my camp song don’t seem appropriate when I can’t travel the world, hike in a national park, or meet new people.  I am still pondering that first page 4 weeks into this new reality.  But I’ve done a little bit of writing, and it seems a bit lackluster. No adventures, except long walks through the neighborhood.  No new people, except his neighbors whom I am trying to get to know from a safe distance.
 
    In my "normal life", I get to talk to people all day at art shows about keeping a journal.  And all day long people lament that their lives aren’t interesting enough to record.  I often respond by saying that if my grandmother had kept a journal of her life in the 1920’s, just about anything she wrote would be fascinating to me.  Even if it were just her shopping list!

   So I am trying to tell myself that now. There are so many stressors that slow me down during this time…Will I have to close my store?  Did I remember to sign that loan application I just sent in?  When will I be back home in Austin?   Will my relationship survive this sheltering-in-place?  Will my family be ok?  (And stupid first world things like should I have bought more chocolate when I was last at the grocery store?)  So even though that first page hasn’t quite come together, I am starting in the middle of the journal…which is a trick I learned from a client years ago.  "Don’t let that first page slow you down", they’d say. "Make your first mark somewhere 20 pages or so in…screw up a few times, scratch through something if need be…then go back and do that first page when inspiration strikes.  But write something."  It’ll all be interesting to you a year from now.  Heck, the way the world is currently, things you write today will seem quaint even a week from now!  Just write something!

DEBS: I am so glad to know that even Mychal suffers from BLANK PAGE syndrome! I've used the "starting a few pages in" trick myself several times. I am trying to write something in my own Iona journal every day, even if it's only a paragraph or two. If you want to keep a journal and don't know what to say, here is a great article from Jen A. Miller in this week's New York Times.  I've used some of these suggestions already.

I am so going to miss seeing Mychal next month at our Dallas area spring art show. Her spring and fall visits are two of the big treats of my year. And, of course, my opportunity to stock up on journals!

Here's my (very messily tied) in-progress journal.

And here's our JRW friend Gigi Norwood's latest, still in its shipping box. This size, which is my personal favorite, is 7.5 by 7.5 inches and is called "the writer."  They come in everything from plain brown leather to "one of a kind" fancy. But in this case, size really doesn't matter. Just WRITE!

Mychal may be stuck in LA, but Iona Handcrafted Books are still available from her website, thanks to her trusty studio manager in Austin. So check out the gorgeous books, and chat with Mychal here in the comments!

Mychal visited the blog back in January 2013 (wow, how is it even possible that it's been that long!!! Where does the time go??) so if you'd like to learn more about the journals, and about how Mychal came to be a book binder, click here for that story.

And readers, tell us if you had a locked diary as a kid! What did you write about?

Got Jigsaw?

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Who would have thought a few months ago that jigsaw puzzles would be among the new unobtainable things? And did you ever think about how labor and time intensive puzzles are to manufacture? I loved this piece in the New York Times.

The template for every single puzzle is hand drawn, and no two pieces can be exactly alike! That is just mind-boggling. They don't just use any old art for the pictures, either, but commission the paintings specifically.

Luckily for me, I had ordered a puzzle for Christmas, which has been out on my dining room table since...January! It's only 500 pieces but I'm very slow. Not to mention that the cats have dumped the whole thing on the floor twice and I've had to start over. 

This puzzle is a Galison, and double-sided. Eeek! I doubt I'll ever manage to do the second side!

(When I went to the Galison website just now, every single puzzle is SOLD OUT!)

My idea when I laid the puzzle out was that I would have friends and/or family over to work it with me, but obviously that's not happening these days, and the hubby has no patience for it. So in the meantime, I think I need some puzzle working tips from people who are better at this than I am! I do start with the borders, and am sorting the pieces by color, as you can see in the photo above.

I have a couple more puzzles on order, although one was just canceled. Maybe the other one, a Galison I ordered weeks ago, will arrive eventually. Maybe I'll even be ready for a new one by then…

Reds, were you lucky enough to score puzzles? Are you good at them? Do you have a favorite puzzle brand?

RHYS BOWEN: I’m not usually a puzzle person, in fact the only time I’ve really enjoyed puzzles is with a big group at Christmas when the puzzle is out on a coffee table and everyone adds as they pass.

However I have a great desire to do a puzzle right now and of course my large stack of puzzles and board games are all in California while I’m in Arizona 

I tried ordering online. I thought I’d scored until I saw delivery date, May 15 !

Then I tried online puzzle which drove me crazy as you couldn’t see the picture at the same time as the puzzle pieces. Hopeless. But I have just sent off for quilt squares. I’ve never quilted but I’m in full Little House mode. Next— churning butter. 

HALLIE EPHRON: Right, do the corners first, then the edges, then work toward the middle. I used to love jigsaw puzzles but haven’t done one in years. Might be time to start. Though patience is not my strong suit. 

JENN McKINLAY: I love jigsaw puzzles! It’s been awhile since I’ve done one but I love it when it’s a group activity. And, yes, Hallie is so right - corners, sides, fill in the middle! Also, if doing it in a group, hide one piece so you get to put the last piece in. Can you tell I’m the youngest child and had to learn this trick the hard way?

DEBS: Jenn, you are brutal!!!!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Ah, no, I really...don’t enjoy them. They take so long, and I guess I’m not spatial, and then, at the end, what do you do? Break them all up? Once a million years ago, my sibs and I got a jigsaw puzzle for my dad. It was terrific, with some of the shapes personal--a poodle, a scales of justice, a champagne bottle, a judge’s gavel, things like that. It was brilliant. We loved doing that one. In fact, I think I still have it! Hmm. 

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I’m not a jigsaw puzzle person - crosswords all the way for me. However, my mother always enjoyed working a jigsaw and HER mother was a fanatic. Grandma always had a puzzle going as long as I knew her, usually on a sturdy card table kept for that purpose. We would seek out extra challenging ones as birthday and Christmas gifts - oddly shaped puzzles, two sided puzzles like the ones Debs is doing, or, and these were really challenging - puzzles with no picture on the cover, just a vague or tricky description. (Those last were the popular form for jigsaw puzzles in the early 1900s.)

One thing I know is a must-have for jigsaw puzzle lovers - a puzzle mat! Two people can lift it and clear the table for a meal without disturbing a puzzle in progress, and the suede-like nap will help keep pieces in place, even when the cat jumps up to demand some attention!

DEBS: Julia, I do have a puzzle mat. It did not, however, keep the cats from pulling the whole thing off the table. And it shows the cat hair! I used to have a puzzle board, years ago, but now I have no idea where it is.

LUCY BURDETTE: I’m not a jigsaw puzzle person either, but our daughter is--and she was desperately searching for one online. And we were desperate to contribute to her mental health, as she works in the ER and has two toddlers at home. Luckily our Madison CT bookstore, RJ Julia, has some beautiful puzzles to order. They are now happily working on Cinques Terres, and shhhhh, don’t tell, I just sent them New York Times Square this week.

I love the idea of Rhys churning butter:)

DEBS: Lucy, I looked at the puzzles at RJ Julia. I was SO tempted by the one with the Japanese maples. But it's 1000 pieces and looks so hard. Assuming it is even still available.

I'm thinking that as a group we are either not very spatial or not very patient! But I do want to see Rhys churning butter!

READERS, how about you? Who likes puzzles? Who was lucky enough to get one? Or even two....

Pandemic Ingenuity

DEBORAH CROMBIE: In these stay-at-home weeks, we're all learning ways to compensate for the things we can't buy or do. Here are a couple of my pandemic hacks--silly they may be, but I'm quite proud of them.

With no trips to the nursery and no fresh herbs available in the supermarket deliveries (at least in my area) I was really missing planting my spring/summer pots of tender herbs. (Why is there a shortage of fresh basil, I ask??) So a few weeks ago I ordered a kit with little seed-starting pods for nine fresh herbs, including basil.  What I didn't realize until the kit arrived was that it was meant for a fancy $150 grow-light set-up. Well, I wasn't about to throw out my little pods, and I sure wasn't ordering the grow-light apparatus, but what to do with them? 

Here's my solution. An egg carton, an orchid stake, a plastic plant saucer, and the light from my kitchen window. And voila! All the little seeds have sprouted! In a day or two they will go into plastic cups, then hopefully, in a couple of weeks, into the outside bucket garden.

Hack number two was a solution for my splitting thumbnail. About fifteen years ago my right thumbnail developed a perpetual crack. This seems to come from  a fault in the nail bed and can't be fixed with glue or regular nail polish, and it doesn't heal itself when the nail grows out. 

The only workable remedy I've found is either a gel or an acrylic powder coating. With no salon manicures in the foreseeable future, I ordered a UV salon light and some base and top coat gels, then rooted around in my dresser for the bottle of gel color I'd bought to use at the salon before I went to London last fall. I've never even managed to do a decent manicure with regular nail polish, so I approached this with some trepidation and a good deal of trial and error. But what do you know, it worked, and it looks much more professional than I ever imagined! 

Dark purple wouldn't have been my spring color of choice, but it sure beats keeping a band-aid over my thumbnail!

Reds, what are some of your ingenious solutions?

JENN McKINLAY: Nice hacks, Debs! Much like you, I’m really missing my nursery! I’ve been using the scraps that used to go into the compost pile to plant. So far, I’ve had luck with repurposed green onion stubs, bell peppers cores, and sunflower seeds. Here’s a pic of one of my baby sunflowers.

Because I haven’t been able to visit the local “smelly store” (that’s what we call Bath and Body Works) and am missing my scented candles, I dug out all of the old plain tea lights I had, melted them down added some essential oil (lavender for calming) and a cotton wick and now have mini (colorful) candles burning while trying to maintain my Zen. 

HALLIE EPHRON: My favorite hack is in this week’s New Yorker - a NYC chef (Emma Bengtsson of Aquavit)  improvised, propping her phone on a head of broccoli to film a cooking demo when the tripod she’d ordered hadn’t come.

Not exactly a hack, but it's been an adjustment, not shopping for groceries every 3-4 days and walking down to the Seven-Eleven when we run out of milk. Instead I’ve been trying to order online for delivery. Anyone who’s trying to do this knows it’s a challenge to get a delivery slot. The first time I scored a slot, it was for 3 weeks ahead. My list grew longer and longer as the date approached, and the total ended up being nearly $400. Yikes. 

Then the delivery came! And immediately I began fishing for a new slot. It was an obsession. For days I tried at all different hours, only to find every time slot booked, And then last night I set my clock for 2 AM, got up and trundled down to my office, logged onto the market’s web site, and managed to book a slot. It’s two weeks from now but that’s perfect! Instead of adding to a shopping list, I go online and add to what’s in my ‘cart.'

I’m also understanding what we always called our parents’ Depression mentality. I simply don’t throw bits of leftovers away. They go into soups and stews. Overripe bananas can be frozen and used for banana bread or smoothies. Also we’re using the telephone a lot more. Actually *talking* to relatives and friends instead of texting or emailing. It’s really quite lovely.

And my hair… it hasn’t been this long since I was a hippie. I actually dug a curling iron out from under the bathroom sink and used it.

DEBS: Hallie, I cut my own bangs! Didn't turn out as badly as I feared (maybe I should get a second opinion on that...) and at least I can see now.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I’m not going to be able to worry about planting for another month and a half, so I’m going to order seeds from Johnny’s Seeds here in Maine as soon as they open for residential customers (they’re only filling commercial farm orders right now. However, Jenn, I’m intrigued by sprouting from scraps, and would like to find out how!

We’re still setting fires in the kitchen and family room wood stove to help keep the house warm (we had snow last Thursday that stuck to the ground for over 24 hours!) We’re fine on wood, but we normally use newspaper twists as the base layer for kindling - from newspapers we get at the Transfer Station, since we only have the Maine Sunday Telegram delivered. Of course, the Transfer Station is closed right now… but we’re still getting a steady diet of junk mail, medical bills with three extra pages for privacy, etc. So instead of many pieces of newspaper, I’m crumpling the burnable parts of our mail (just paper, no plastic, no coated stock) and adding just a few twists of newspaper to start a fire. It’s actually working better than newspaper alone, because the print-quality paper goes up more slowly and lasts longer, creating a longer period of time for the twigs and small splits to catch. 

Hack for those of you who suddenly have a lot more people eating at home than you did in the before times: I’m completely doubling all dinner recipes. Like, I’m making so much, I do it in two separate pots. With a 19 yo, a 22 yo and a 27 yo at home, it at least makes sure everyone has all they want in the evening AND ensures leftovers for lunch the next day. Truly, I had forgotten how much a household of young people eats when there’s no high school cafeteria and take out pizza to fill the gap.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I am spending so much time not only cooking--but planning. What I have to use first, monitoring sell-by dates with supreme focus,  learning how to freeze things, being so frugal and careful. Don’t use all those paper towels to wipe the floor! I call out to Jonathan. We can use rags, then wash them. I use half a disinfectant wipe instead of a whole one.

Anyway. We had a bunch of hot dog buns in the freezer, (I think from last July 4, frankly), taking up too much valuable freezer space. So--I made rosemary infused olive oil croutons! Cut up the frozen buns into crouton size, coated them with the oil in a bowl, CAREFULLY toasted in the oven. SO delicious. I mean--fabulous. 

And I found out you could grow spring onions from the tips of the used ones. I mean, of course things grow, but it never mattered before, because there were always onions.  But now it seems so terrible to throw anything away. I am so happy that they seem to be sprouting! (How much water are you supposed to put in, anyway?)

Plus, I made masks out of tea towels and hair holders, essentially the origami version. SO pleased with myself. 

Getting ready to cut my bangs. AHHHH. I have a Facetime appointment with the hair guy, and he is going to tell me how. Or try to, at least. Debs, your success gives me hope.

LUCY BURDETTE: We are very fortunate to have planted tomatoes, peppers, and basil on our deck well before all this hit. If only I could share!

I had the funniest experience on Saturday. Our church in CT sent out an email inviting us all to be part of a Zoom Easter choir. I love to sing (though I’m lacking in real talent) and I hated missing Easter, so I signed on. Our choir director/organist Nathan is an incredible musician, who cares deeply about how a group of singers sounds and works hard to get the very best out of the material he’s given. Anyway, about 17 of us plus the minister aka tech guy showed up on Zoom, along with Nathan stationed at the organ. We were to sing two familiar hymns “Christ the Lord is Risen Today” and “Thine is the Glory” that would be used in the Sunday service. We had a practice run. We were so AWFUL!! It wasn’t only the basic droning, it was the waxing and waning of Internet in 17 homes that caused us to be completely off the beat most of the way through the song. Poor Nathan! There was a lot of discussion about how to fix it--I suggested lip-synching or solos. Others thought we should all sing separately and some IT wizard would run that together, or maybe watch Nathan’s head bobs. (We were really trying though!) Finally, I said: “I think we have to focus on the joy and not worry so much about the sound.” So we tried again. At the end, someone asked the minister how we sounded. 

“There were glorious moments!” he said, then added, “Even the most broken things can be glorious.” 

I’m telling you the laughs were so worth the price of admission!

RHYS BOWEN: I am frustrated because I’m trapped in our winter home in Arizona,which is a lovely place to be but... it was only equipped with the basics and we moved house last spring, tossing out any bits and pieces. So no baking items, no sewing items, not even a jigsaw puzzle!
 

We just have a patio and shrubs so no garden. My daughter gave me a couple of pots and seeds but so far none has come up. Am I the only person in the universe who can’t grow zucchini?
 

I will try Hank’s growing onion tops ! Any other suggestions?

Also hardly any bath products etc. all those lovely bath bombs in California! And craft supplies plus a huge library to read! Thank heavens for Kindle.

 
My one hack has been making a face mask from a bra!  But it’s not very breathable.
 

I am trying a little painting with my granddaughters in California.

DEBS: So we are all working on our Little House on the Prairie selves, with a little WWII victory garden thrown in. 

What about you, dear readers? What solutions have you come up with for the little nags of our new reality?