Holiday week 2, the sequel...

What a full week! The holiday season is winding down, with only one houseguest left. Grandma and Aunt Lois flew home on Monday, and Vojta heads back to LA tomorrow afternoon. We tried to fatten him up a little on Kluski, flatbread, salmon and American beer and chocolate, but it’s hard to see the effects. He and I drove out to Sheep Street this week to bond a little and pick up my new drum carder. I’ve been borrowing the Spinner’s and Weaver’s Guild carder, but it’s clear I needed my own when I got into my big-format commission piece. It was a win-win situation: he got to take a lot of pictures of the Indiana countryside for his picture-hungry grandfather Pepik, and I got my shiny new carder with all its teeth. We shared a nice conversation in Czech on the way. I’ll christen the carder with some carrot orange fleece—I can’t wait to get carding! I even managed to sneak down to my art studio a few mornings and evenings when the world was quiet and do some weaving. I laid down my browns yarns and did some serious dirt creation to grow carrots and beets. Oh, and I enlisted Tommie to help with a big year-end yarn organization project. His brother got a Beyblade for Christmas, and he wanted one too. To earn a little extra cash he offered to organize a giant bag of mixed yarns. I couldn’t imagine when I’d get around to organizing it, so I beyond delighted to have the help. It feels great to start the New Year off with an organized art studio.

Wednesday was a big day in our house, since it was my birthday! I turned 35, again. I got a nice pan-seared tuna dinner with a spinach salad and a special bottle of wine. And since I got to pick the kind of cake for dessert, which is a family tradition. I chose—you guessed it—pie! Jim made a delightful apple pie for me from frozen Mutsu apples we got at the farmer’s market last summer. Yum! He’s really got the oil crust recipe down. I’ve had a slice of pie and an espresso for breakfast the last couple of days after Zumba. Life is good! The only down side was that the photographer for the Herald Times was scheduled to stop by Thursday morning to take a few pictures. That meant a lot of cleaning and picking up after a big dinner and wine—we should have planned that out better. In the end, just about all the pictures Pete the photographer took were taken in the art studio and the surrounding storage areas. All that work cleaning in the kitchen, living room and dining room were misdirected, although we do have a clean house. On the bright side, Jacob did ask if Pete would take some pictures in his newly cleaned up room. We got a family portrait, including Shadow the hamster, on Jacob’s bed at the end of the shoot. The article and pictures should appear in the February Home and Living magazine that is published by the Herald-Times newspaper, so watch your mailboxes. In my case, I’ll watch the puddle at the end of the driveway where our delivery person aims every time it rains.

The last stories I can think to tell involve Vojta, our 20-year-old cousin and guest from Prague via Los Angeles. We had pleasant Skype conversations with grandparents Pepik and Mila, and later Renata (his mom), this week. They all wanted to know what we’d be doing for New Year’s Eve. In our house New Year’s Eve usually means going to bed early. They were shocked! Shocked I say! Renata said they stayed out to seven a.m. last year, yikes! If there’s any reward to being, um, 35, it’s that you can go to bed early if you want to. Renata said that that Vojta was expecting fireworks, and he injected ‘giant fireworks’. I magnanimously offered him a sparker. Heck, I’d have given him two if he’d asked. Instead, for fireworks we went to the IU women’s basketball game against Northwestern. Unlike the last men’s game, when we sat so high up that the little oxygen masks dropped down during emergencies, we got to sit in the third row near center court. It was like we were in the game. The finish was intense, with IU pulling out a hard-fought and well-earned win. We even won a free Buccettos pizza in a give-away at the game, so a good time was had by all.

That’s enough for 2010, I suppose. Vojta flies back to LA today and the boys head back to school tomorrow. The Christmas tree ornaments went back into storage today and the tree hits the recycle truck on Monday morning. And then I become an artist again!

Until next week…

Martina Celerin