Twilight hours

Life is very early mornings and very late nights, this week.  Life is mist and twilight hours and dew and feeling fuzzy around the edges.  Life is soft-coloured and frost-tinged.

Talia is taking inconveniently long naps and sleeping painfully few night time hours since her horrible cough just over a week ago.  The day/night reversal isn't getting any better.  I foresee an exhausting day of trying to keep her from napping ahead of me...



Outside my window... there is a washing line filled with naturally dyed yarn, indigo tones dripping with dew.  The garden is dishevelled and cold rain drips down my kitchen window.

I am thankful...  for regular updates from Jenna as she holidays without us, and for the kind of friend who comes and folds my laundry for me.

In the kitchen...  the dishes from last night are still piled up, and more yarn sits on the draining board with a rainbow of tiny naturally dyed silks.  I ran out of room to hang things up last night!  The colours are soft and sweet; the morning just *feels* those soft greyed peaches and blues today.

I am wearing...  new jeans that won't stay up, and a scruffy old olive green tshirt with tiny colourful buttons.  I wish I were back in my nightie...

I am creating...  Christmas gifts.  Always with the Christmas gifts right now.  I don't know if Jenna's cardigan will ever be done, but mostly I am knitting hats one after another because I am in mortal terror of not being finished in time this year.  This is the danger of taking on several commissions all at once and forgetting about the Christmas knitting.

I am going...  to take my sweet Morgan out for hot chocolate.  All by herself.  This may be the first time in her life I have ever been able to take her out on her own.

I am wondering...  why my toddler is hiding behind the airer...  mystery solved - she is colouring in her face with red pencil.  Of course she is.

I am reading...  some more historical fiction - S J Parris was annoying me with the first-person arrogant pretentious Bruno, but I am enjoying Suzanna Gregory's gentle murder mysteries.

Oh and I have "Loving our Kids on Purpose" on my e-reader, which is sitting uncomfortably.  I have the feeling the author has a different definition of punishment to mine, and the idea of a two year old only allowed to be with their parents if they are "being fun" just frankly pisses me off.  His heart is in the right place though, and I'm persisting - I will have teenagers some day and he seems to have a real love for young adults.

I am hoping...  for enough sun to dry the indigo wool and take some pictures of it all.  Oh and some sleep would be nice.

I am looking forward to...  tomorrow's planned walk and yarn shop trip.

I am learning...  to speak softly.  It is the work of a lifetime for me to be able to return a gentle answer.

Around the house...  Morgan has a pile of rainbow alphabet cards and is making words out of them.  She is sitting up in the window, behind the curtains, with them in her lap.  Rowan is standing on a stool with a bowl of cereal, wearing a pink beaded necklace around her head like a crown.  Talia is stacking bricks and knocking them down with some glee.  

Papers litter the mantle, and every shelf in the house needs tidying.  The doll house stands empty with its wooden furniture in a heap on the floor in front of it, abandoned in some kind of game.  The picnic basket is in the middle of the floor with a selection of books inside it.  The airer is drying silk bunting and knitwear.  There is chaos and colour all around.

One of my favourite things...  Talia's left dimple.

A peek into my day...

Simple Woman's Daybook