The STUFF Sisters

I Love Books

I love books. Opportunities for uninterrupted reading in my life are limited. It seems I have stacks of books, newspapers and magazines everywhere. I even get excited when I travel by airplane – I get on the plane carrying a giant bag and hit the recycle bin on the way off, dropping the 15 to 20 magazines I finished during the flight. It is bliss when I find myself at home, childless for an evening with time to read.

When I read Nathan Turner’s response to what was on his nightstand in this quickie interview in LUXE magazine, I smiled a giant smile. It made me think of what makes me feel comfortable in someone’s home: comfy chairs at the dining table, eclectic art, big water glasses, pets, and books – lots and lots of books.

It made me think about the many “reading lunches” I have had with one of my good friends. We plan a lunch together and choose to read in each other’s company instead of having conversation. It is wonderful.

Casey

A Few of My Favorite Things . . . Today’s List

Here are my favorite things from today.

1. Blushing. Definition: Speaking publicly with my sister at lunchtime and watching both of us become so passionate that different parts of our faces become reddened. (My cheeks, her neck.)

2. Art. Description: Finally making it to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and touring the American Indian Art Collection with my two main men. (Below are my top picks, but nothing in the rooms let me down.)

3. Treasuring. Explanation: Knowing that the hand that occasionally reached out at the gallery to hold my own doesn’t know that the young man to whom it belongs will continue to grow up and find the comfort of touch far from his mother. (And that’s the way is should be. But it doesn’t make it any easier.)

Sloane

Colors of Winter

I have said for years that snow makes the Midwest much prettier in winter. The other three seasons of the year are beyond pretty in and around Kansas City, but winter can be gray, brown, bleak and dismal without the cover of snow.

I found our blizzard two weeks ago delightful in what it left behind for us to look at. It coated every branch, blade and rooftop. Even where the snow blew it from those perches, it took it to where it could form drifts and deep piles. The nights were clear, and the snow shone rather blue and silver in our urban setting. It reminded me of rides I took between Boonville and Jefferson City, Missouri, while a child.

My grandparents lived in each of those towns, and the journey between them at the holidays from my vantage point in the back of my parents’ car was amazing. We took a two-lane road that lead us through small farming communities and mile after mile of family farms. The snow whooshed and swirled across fields barren of their row crops and formed the most wonderful castles of snow on the shoulders at the north and west sides of the road as the wind worked its magic through the taller weeds and fences. It could look like icing dripping down the side of a cake or bubble bath left to swirl and foam in a filling tub.

Once, on a rare trip between the two places with my grandfather, he pulled over so that I could see just how tall and deep those castles were. When I stepped down into the ditch that makes the edge of most secondary roads in Missouri, I was engulfed in snow to my midsection. I remember vividly being elated and wishing I could tunnel deeper into it right then. A big, great hand pulled me up and out and back to the waiting car. One word describes that experience to this day: fantastic.

I like snow. I can even, most days, embrace cold temperatures. Both make me happy, but I’ve mentioned the cold part in earlier blogs.

What I have not liked in the past week is what the slightly warmer temperatures have given us – huge melting piles of snow and, sticking out of it, miscellaneous detritus carried to the pile by snow plows. The piles aren’t so much melting as looking like they are experiencing atrophy with a touch of gangrene. The piles are black and gray and ugly. Some have even taken on the appearance of that lovely landscaping folly of the 1970s – lava rock. Not our best look.

And the warmer temperatures this early in the winter game make me worry that the flowers and trees will start a journey to spring that will be cut short by what I am sure will still be a bit of winter.

I have always stayed warm and hopeful for spring by surrounding myself with great colorful scarves, socks, and the occasional brightly-colored sweater. I’m still saving my money for a once-in-a-lifetime sweater from the Oslo Sweater Shop. My retail research leads me every year to their website, the Gorsuch catalogue, and, sometimes, L.L.Bean. I am still building in my head the perfect sweater. Is it a cardigan? Is it a pullover? Is it tunic length? I’m getting close…

All I know it that I will be wearing it when my son and my niece and I tunnel our way into a monster snow mound on a cold winter day within the next few years. The snow plows have been building a great one near our public library on the Plaza, but I’m keeping my eye out for one formed by nature that looks like the one I keep near my heart, on a back road in Missouri not too far from home.

Sloane

Angel Mine

At work things get broken. Some break in the store, and others break in transit. A basic fact of retail life.

This angel, which you can’t see entirely, had a wing broken on the way to stuff. She holds a bird, and the base she is standing on is simply inscribed with the word “peace”. She was cast as one piece – wings and all – in all-weather resin. She stands almost 3 feet tall.

I seldom bring broken things home from stuff. Not because I don’t enjoy the things we sell – broken or whole – but because I am not crafty and don’t salvage broken things very well. I can re-purpose things beautifully however – pitchers as vases, wind turbines as sculpture, vintage soda boxes as recycling bins – and our house is full of those playful and useful twists.

But when I found this angel in two pieces in the shipping box, I knew she was going home for a little artistic triage. One wing was broken off, and right then I knew exactly what she would look like when I was done. I knew I could take a hacksaw to the other wing and, from there, fill the holes with twigs to make her fly again. The hacksaw part was easy. It was the twig part that took six months to achieve from the date of her second amputation.

My angel and her new wings at peace in the snow.

I wasn’t happy with my initial twig findings. I went looking but never found just what I was looking for – pretty much the case when you’re hunting for something specific that you have seen only in your mind’s eye. Then, on a walk with my dog on a still chilly spring morning, I found the trimmings from pruning in the little arboretum just south of the main shelter house at Loose Park. I knew they were perfect. I was also pretty sure I would not really be able to decide right them what few small pieces I needed, so I took the whole pile. My type A personality was in full bloom while I was wrapping them in a cotton sheet and delicately shoving them into my car. The dog didn’t even blink when I made him ride in the front seat with me so as to not hurt the trimmings.

When I got home, I chose well, snipped wisely, bundled the two sides carefully, and secured them in the two holes my angel was harboring with Spanish moss. My husband has lived through a few of my artistic and crafty endeavors, and he knew that chance of this ending well was slim. But what cracked him up was that I kept a small pile of “replacement twigs” for the future.

That was over a year ago. I keep my perfect angel where I can see her in all seasons. She makes me incredibly happy.

In this picture, you can see her in all her winter glory. Enjoy.

Sloane

My Christmas Break

It came to me last Tuesday night – a full week into January – that I was finally on Christmas Break. I was sitting on my sofa reading How the Grinch Stole Christmas with my niece before bedtime, and it hit me: I was on vacation.

Here’s how it came to be that I had an unplanned five-day winter vacation last week with my son and my niece: It snowed. A lot.

Our almost-one-story icicle and its friends.

It all started back on Christmas Eve when we had a joyous white Christmas. The snow stopped after dumping a nice amount. New Year’s rolled around after a week of “holiday decorations on sale” at stuff and loads of paperwork to finalize for year end. It was very cold, and snow was still on the ground. New Year’s Day found Casey and me working at the store while it was closed and quiet.

Then Casey left on a vacation to the tropics and I got my best belated gift – my niece for a week. Casey had it all planned out on paper – where I was to have her and when, who I was to call for emergencies, what I still needed to set in place with her teachers and the school so that her school life fit my work schedule, and when to give her her medicine. I was going to miss a few work hours while she was with us, but I had it all planned out on my own pieces of paper and in my head. Perfectly planned and flawless on paper, I was going to be a mother of two for a week.

Monday, my first full day of mommy-for-two duty, was the last day of the children’s winter break, and I had taken the day off from work. We played, ate French toast late in the morning, baked cookies, and colored with crayons. The kitchen table was our playground.

On Tuesday, they both went to school as pre-ordained on the aforementioned papers while I went to work. We had dinner as a family. My son did a “first day back at school” load of homework, we had baths and accomplished all the other various bedtime routines, and we were all put to bed at a decent time.

When the phone rang in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, the message informed us that snow was coming; school was canceled for the day and they would see us on Thursday. And then it started to snow and didn’t stop for over 24 hours. A gorgeous snow that caused another snow day, so the children and I were at home again on Thursday. Then phone rang again on Thursday night, and the recorded voice of our dear head-of-school told us to stay home on Friday as well and that, after a nice extended weekend, she would have the school ready for us all on Monday.

We live in a hundred-year-old historic home. All homes can be drafty, but older homes can be gusty. When the temperature drops into the single digits, as it has this past week in Kansas City, you find yourself hunkering down into several rooms. We chose the kitchen, and all magic was made from this room and transported to others. The dining room was our art gallery after we had completed our masterworks in the kitchen studio. The living room, where the TV is, was our movie theater, and we dressed warmly to “go the the movies,” covering ourselves with blankets when we got there. The kitchen table held all the daily detritus from killer games of Go Fish and lengthy village building sessions with Lego. The great outdoors is where we ventured when cabin fever hit record highs or when the dog needed walking. We ate grilled cheese sandwiches, baked cookies, shoveled snow occasionally, sang songs, and laughed, and we were always a little sad when the sun started to go down. Several days were so cold that I boiled water in a big stock pot for moist heat, and, on the one day my husband joined us in the kitchen, he turned on the ovens and opened their doors.

The house was cold in places, the snow deeply covered everything outside, our beds were piled high and warm, our hearts were happy, our tummies were full, and Christmas was still with us in the form of new toys and the remaining decorations. I left the Christmas tree up way past New Year’s Day and turned its lights on daily.

Dr. Seuss was right. My Christmas wasn’t about the actual day and all its trappings at all. Christmas means a little bit more – in my case a very late Christmas break in my own kitchen with two children I love.

Happy New Year. Stay warm.

Sloane