FreshMD

Finished

When I began blogging, a family member unfamiliar with blogs looked over this site and said politely, "It looks nice. Is it almost finished?" 

Well, now it is. 

I feel hamstrung by the mix of personal and professional anecdotes under my real name in the face of increasing readership. I find myself censoring and second-guessing myself and that really dilutes the pleasure of blogging.

I started this blog for the satisfaction of crafting bits of my chaotic days at home and work into a tidy package. But now my domestic and clinical days have settled into a relatively unruffled routine and I'm eager to pursue other projects. Any creative energy (and time) not exhausted by children or patients is in short supply, not enough to slather over multiple projects.

And so I need to absolve myself of this blog. I'm not sure if I'm euthanizing it or inducing an indefinite coma. The site will remain up but expect this post to greet you for the foreseeable future.

I'll still be active at Mothers in Medicine, Twitter and Flickr. 

Thank you to my little band of readers, especially those who commented or emailed over the last year and a half.

Decorating with vintage records

I covered one of Saskia's bedroom walls with vintage record covers.

Collected one or two at a time over a year of thrifting, they cost 25 to 50 cents apiece. Most of them are from the 1950's and 60's. The art on some of these is quite wonderful, and I'd admired them for years but couldn't think of a use that would justify relaxing my efforts to stem the flow of goods coming through the front door.

I keep getting asked how I mounted these to the wall. I drove a nail through each one. All those years of renting as a student, where pounding holes in walls was expressly forbidden, make pock-marking my own walls that much more satisfying.

Now I have a drawer of LPs that I'm sure Saskia would enjoy, but no record player. I don't want a 70's one with giant speakers, but I don't want one that's meant to hook up to a laptop, either. Sony makes this attractive option, but spending $90+ US for a machine to play these two-bit records seems a little self-defeating.

So, another corner of Saskia's room done, another one with which we're equally happy. Really, I should be focusing on the adult living spaces: removing wood paneling, getting some hardwood floors installed, finding a couch. But somehow that feels so much more like work.

Tidying Saskia's room

I just spent an hour cleaning Saskia's room; most of that time was used to organize her desk. I separated beads from stickers, put the ink pads and markers out of her younger siblings' reach and threw out a million snippets of paper collected from previous cutting sprees.

I sort through Saskia's creative messes carefully. I discover drawings I've never seen filed away in drawers, and notebooks with the sweetest things documented: a list of what we had for Thanksgiving dinner; poems about animals; journaling about her day (I got up at 6:38 this morning. I read On the Banks of Plum Creek and did crafts.)

What strikes me is that for the last couple of years, the things she makes hold value for her whether or not her parents see them. Everything Ariana makes is shown to Pete or me so that we can exclaim over it. All of Leif's projects are gifted to us or Scotch-taped to his bedroom wall. Stumbling upon Saskia's projects that she feels no need to show us is bittersweet.

As it is now, Saskia is pleased when she comes home to a freshly organized desk. But I'm acutely aware that the day will come that she doesn't want me to touch her things. We've currently designated one desk drawer as private. (We discovered at Christmas that all those mornings crafting in the wee hours, she was churning out stocking stuffers and stashing them in the drawer. Six for each of us, and seven for Ariana.)

But that pocket of privacy is going to keep on growing.

And so I find nothing tedious about tidying my seven-year-old's room, and leaving the kitchen floor unswept to vacuum glitter off of the bedroom rug seemed a perfectly reasonable choice this stormy Monday morning.

Last one before I'm back to patients and disease

One feature of visiting Ontario that I particularly enjoy is the relaxing familiarity of Pete's parents' house. Every year as I set my suitcase up against the south wall of the bedroom and flip open the lid, top-heavy with balled-up socks and wads of underwear, it's like déjà vu.

The kids quickly reacquaint themselves with the wonders of Opa and Oma's house. There's the marvel of a dog sleeping in his bed behind the stove. ("I want to pet his hairs!" Ariana said over and over.)

There's another Christmas tree, with new ornaments to discover,

puzzles to do at the kitchen table,

and grandparents with whom to cuddle.

 

As for me, I read Twyla Tharp's The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life, knit up most of the Morehouse striped vest for Leif, drew up lists for the New Year, roamed around with my camera and didn't have to cook a single meal.

And when my brother-in-law asked me about a pain in his knee, it required supreme effort to recall anything medical.

Advent ring

I wanted to do some kind of Advent countdown with the kids this year, something that would build up anticipation and allow for discussion about the meaning of Christmas, that didn't involve cheap foil-wrapped chocolate or me wrapping twenty-five times three tiny treats.

I found the perfect answer in this birthday ring, which I adapted for Advent. The wooden German-made rings are by Spiel und Holz Design, come in four sections and are available with twelve or sixteen holes. They hold candles, wooden figures, vases and picture holders. 

In our family, a different person selects an item for the ring each day. We light the candles at dinner time, and little hands position the donkey and the ox to gaze at whatever's deemed most exciting in the ring that night. 

The setup is flexible. I've arranged the quarters in all sorts of ways, and in the first week sometimes put out just the piece or two that was in use, not the entire ring.

I'm already looking forward to using this for the next birthday (Ariana's in May). I plan to pick up a few more figures that would particularly appeal to her, and to put photos, cards and notes in the holders with Leif and Saskia the night before.

There's actually a spiral that's intended specifically for Advent. However, the shape doesn't appeal to me, and I didn't want the cost and clutter of buying both the spiral and the ring.

It doesn't bother us that we're only counting down sixteen days until Christmas. I could use a bit of leeway in the first weeks of December, anyway.

* Ring, candles and ornaments purchased from The Wooden Wagon and Nova Natural Toys + Crafts.