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My Retconned Writing Desk

Sierra — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 05:48:29 +0000

Typing at my new writing desk

I have a beautiful antique writing desk. It’s not especially finely crafted. In fact, it’s downright wobbly. But it’s mine and I love it.

When my hands started acting up a few weeks ago, it seemed like I would have to give it up. Part of the problem with my hands is clearly neurological, but part of it also seems to be mechanical: a repetitive strain injury from too much typing in the wrong positions. That had to change.

The desktop is simply too high for an ergonomically sound keyboard placement. I was hunching all the time reaching up for my keyboard. Modern computer desks put the keyboard in a tray closer to your lap.

Trying out a few at a furniture shop made it clear they would be much better for my hands. But they were all ugly; all flat lines and shiny materials. Nothing at all like my beloved writing desk with its roughed up wooden surfaces and cubbyholes and drawers.

Looking online turned up writing desk replicas that were secretly computer desks. The drawers pulled out to reveal false fronts that held keyboard trays. Pretty slick. For about $400 I could keep the aesthetic of my desk, but get the ergonomic support I needed.

Then I had a great idea. A $400 idea. Or rather, a $385 idea. I took the center drawer out of my desk and gave it to my husband, who sawed the front off. Then we bought $15 worth of parts at a hardware store and put the front back on with hinges. Presto! I am now the proud owner of an old school writing desk with a secret keyboard tray, just like the fancy ones at Pottery Barn. Only mine cost $75 on CL and an afternoon’s labor.

I’m ridiculously pleased with how it came out. I wanted this post to be an instructional manual on how to do it, but it’s really dead simple:

Cut front off drawer
Install hinges
Sand rough edges
Place keyboard in drawer
Enjoy!

Having access to power tools obviously makes this job much, much simpler.

Anyway, I hope you’re hacking your own desk right now if you need to. Doing this was a huge step towards saving my hands, and fun besides.

The Zebra and the Train: A Tale of Two Costumes

Sierra — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 06:22:58 +0000

Serena is going as a train for Halloween

A week or so ago, Serena announced she wanted to be a zebra for Halloween. I smiled, nodded, thought she’d make a cute zebra, and promptly forgot about it.

Until tonight, after dinner, when she smiled sweetly at me and said, “Mommy! Tonight while I am sleeping, I want you to sew a zebra costume for me! Or a giraffe costume! Or a train, like Greta. Or a zebra.”

Um, sure. I’ll get right on that. With my mad sewing skills. And all this zebra-print material I don’t happen to have lying around the house.

Actually I forgot about it again ten minutes later and went about my evening. That’s how being the ADHD mama I am rolls.

A few hours later:

“Oh FUCK! Serena needs a Zebra costume!” I wasn’t even home then, so I turned to my host and said, “I need to make a zebra costume out of things I find in your house.”

‘Cause I’m classy like that. He’s a sweetie, though, and always willing to help. Together we started ransacking the house in search of zebra parts.

“I think I could use some black yarn,” I said. “And a white bag. Or an old T-shirt. And a sharpie.”

He rummaged through a closet, and a bin of old clothes, and came up with some stuff. The haul:

A cowboy hat
A pair of 3D glasses
Fairy wings

Me: Have you ever seen a zebra?

Things got desperate. I got ready to head home. Even though it meant interrupting his jam session, I texted Martin.

We had this text exchange:

Me: Dude! Serena needs a zebra costume.

Him: She switched to train (like Greta). I am almost done.

I have no idea who Greta is, but I love her and her crazy choo-choo Halloween costume. Almost as much as I love the man who skipped guitar practice tonight to build this monstrosity.

Take that, Disney. My daughter is going to be a train for Halloween. Not a princess, or a fairy, or a mermaid, or a ballerina. Not even a zebra with a cowboy hat and fairy wings. A train. Because she has the Best. Daddy. Ever.

This Haircut Deserves Its Own Theme Music

Sierra — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 14:28:51 +0000

Just in time for BlogHer, I have an exciting new haircut. This is what happens when I walk into the salon and tell my stylist I’m going to a business conference for the weekend and need to look professional. I love this woman. If you live anywhere near me and are not getting your hair cut by Christina at Salon CU, you should change that.

Tiny Tutu Flash Mob!

Sierra — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 13:00:31 +0000

Inspired by Tutus For Tanner, I decided I wanted to make a tutu to kick off the spring running season. Because making tutus is totally more fun than, you know, actually running.

In fact, since a friend of mine had turned me on to the incredible ease of the No-Sew Tutu, I was hubristic enough to imagine that making a tutu would be so easy, so fun, I could do it with my kids. Who would want tutus of their own, in fact.

This idea was So Good, I had to share it. I invited several friends over to make tutus with me. Because ten minutes from now is often sort of beyond my planning horizon, I carefully organized this event by shooting half a dozen people a text message after lunch yesterday that said, “Tiny Tutu Flash Mob! My house, 2 p.m.”

Then I went shopping for tulle and ribbons. With a friend of mine, who happens to be a Burner.

We got to the fabric store, explored it vigorously for awhile and eventually found the racks of tulle at the end of the rainbow. I did some quick mental math figuring how many people we were expecting at our tutu party and how big they were and how many yards of tulle per person and threw out a number.

My companion nodded. “Great. We’ll get twice that.”

I probably went a little pale. “Um…why? What? What are we going to do with that much tulle?”

He smiled at me. “You’ve never been to Burning Man, have you? That’s like asking what we’ll do with all the extra play fur.”

“OK. You know what we’re not going to do with all that tulle? Store it at my house.”

Pretty soon we were home with about 60 yards of tulle in 13 colors. (Hot tip: all but the tiny amounts that left on baby tutus is still sitting in my living room. Anyone local who wants to make a tutu, please come over.)

We cut it into long strips. I’ve seen beautiful tutorials on making tutus that show the tulle folded carefully into measured flat strips before being cut neatly. They mention that it’s OK if the strips are a little uneven.

I am here to tell you, it is OK if the strips are a LOT uneven. It is even OK if, hyopthetically speaking, you try rolling them into “sausages” to cut, but it turns out you’re scissors are dull and your hands are small and you’re only five years old and you just kind of hack your way through a wadded up pile of tulle.

You’ll still end up with perfectly useable strips, which you then tie onto something to make a tutu. If you’re an adult, you probably want to use a decent quality ribbon because it’ll be more adjustable. If you’re a kid, the elastic headbands you can buy at CVS are about perfect. They’ll stay up, and you dont’ have to fuss about tying it on or keeping it tied.

We made them in an array of colors. The shades of purple were most popular. Next time, I’m going to use some EL wire and make them light up. Because I can.

The tulle made a glorious mess, but actually took only a few seconds to clean up. Of course, it turns out that even my princess obsessed little girls would rather play with a pile of wet rocks from the garden than the magical tutus mom just made for them. But all the adults had fun.

Now I have my running uniform and good weather. The only thing I’m missing is motivation to, you know, actually run.

Beauty All Around Me

Sierra — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 23:10:51 +0000

I’m having a craptastic day. A day that is as out-of-focus as this blurry photo of me. A photo I took last weekend at a clothing swap where I was feeling beautiful but then it came out all wrong. Which is kind of how I feel today: I should be beautiful, but I’m coming out all wrong.

I wasn’t even going to post today, because I just felt like I couldn’t get up the writing verve to do it.

Then I read Her Bad Mother’s post about beauty. Which is, you know, beautiful. And inspiring. She extolls us all to tell someone we know that they are beautiful. So now I’m dragging my cranky ass fingers across the keyboard to tell three women I know how beautiful they are.

Mom. My mom is, of course, the epitome of beauty to me. I love her long hair and her soft hands. She has strong legs and big beautiful blue eyes and the kindest voice I have ever heard. When I’m scared or sad or fucked up, I wonder what my mom would do. Following in her footsteps has never yet steered me wrong. Speaking of her footsteps, her second toe is longer than her big toe, just like mine. Almost all of me looks just like her, because I got the winning ticket in the genetic lottery. If I keep playing my cards right like she has, I’ll be a total hottie when I’m 60.
My best friend. I am leaving aside the details about how she’s always been the pretty one, the tall willowy blonde who got her picture in Seventeen Magazine when we were in high school fliering for some environmental cause on the street. She’s the kind of beauty strangers fall in love with from across a room on a regular basis. Forget all that. You should see this woman with her baby. It’s like there’s a winged light fluttering in her chest that just radiates out. It lit her up when she was in the NICU with a little girl so sick no one was allowed to hold her for days after her birth. It lights her up when she’s at the end of a long day teaching and the baby spits up on her good pants. Every time I see her, she’s got this calm, sweet radiance that surrounds them both. That’s beauty.
Molly. Molly’s superpower is making you notice the beauty all around you. I think this superpower stems from her own beauty: she’s not only gorgeous, she’s also confident and creative and joyful to her bones. It’s like she casts rays of beauty on everything that comes near her because she is just that awesome.

OK. I could go on forever about how beautiful the people in my life are. But now I’m going to play with the little beauties whose light I chronicle here almost every day.

Your turn. Go tell someone you love how beautiful they are, or tell a total stranger. And if you feel like making me smile, use the comments to me about the beauty all around you.

Never After tonight!

Sierra — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 14:31:35 +0000

My good friend Colleen Campbell has written a musical. It’s a lesbian fairy tale with dragons and princesses and stuff, and it’s being performed in concert tonight and tomorrow at the Somerville Theater. I’ll be there for both shows, and I hope all of you local readers will be as well. You can buy tickets or get more information about the show here.

Backyard Burning Man

Sierra — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 22:51:53 +0000

Serena with the hoop

Among the many exciting circus themed adventures the kids and I had this weekend was Backyard Burning Man, which was exactly what it sounds like: a miniature version of Burning Man, scaled down to a single afternoon and evening in a suburban backyard. There was a bouncy castle, body painting, stilt-walking, juggling and hooping. Also lots of food.

The highlight, for me, was getting to try Miracle Fruit, which I have wanted to do for a long time. It’s a fruit that turns sour tastes sweet, and has been a fad at hipster parties for awhile now. But I don’t normally get invited to those parties, so I just get to read about it in the New York Times.

The effect was oddly disappointing. I ate whole lemon wedges and they tasted like lemonade, but I could have gotten the same thing from putting a pinch of sugar in my mouth before biting down. Everything else I tried – pickles, vinegar, some random stuff – tasted sweet but bad. I don’t like sweet pickles, and the vinegar tasted like off wine. It was still the high point because it was a Totally Novel Experience. I love those, and don’t get to have them very often.

The low point of the event: Serena peed in the bouncy castle.

Many thanks to our gracious host, who a) made this event happen, b) took this awesome photo and c) thanked us for our company even *after* the peeing incident.

In praise of simple toys

Sierra — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 19:08:48 +0000

Toys

Dr. Rio is performing surgery. She has a pencil, a rubber band, a kitchen apron and the laser-like focus of a professional deep in her work.

“Hold still, Mama!” she says. “This is very important.”

Of course, her medical career is just one aspect of her life. My young doctor is also an artist, a hairdresser, an explorer and a tired little kid who does NOT want to put her pencil and rubber band away at the end of playtime.

I’ve always been a lover of simple toys for children. The beeping, blinking, bopping plastic stuff that crowds the aisles in Big Box stores is personally annoying to me. It’s also far outside my ethics: a lot of disposable plastic crap produced by cheap labor through environmentally vile practices. I’m no more likely to buy it than I am to buy disposable diapers.

Like many parents, I was drawn to the high end, hand-crafted, sustainably produced toys promoted by my stepson’s Waldorf school. My house is full of wooden trains, chunky wood puzzles, felted dolls and animals, spools of yarn and baskets of beads. A lot of these toys sit, disused, alongside the My Little Ponys and Disney dolls they’ve received as gifts. (While I was typing this, Rio ran into the room to empty out her art kit and use the case as a blanket for her Ariel doll’s bed).

The kids don’t care if their toys were handmade by elves in German forests or pressed out of a factory by child slaves in Cambodia. They don’t, after a day or two of excitement, care if the toys look like a tiny pastel gnome or their favorite cartoon character. They’ll use whatever is at hand. First, to explore their world. Later, to fuel the worlds they imagine.

The expensive, carefully wrought toys I bought these kids as babies share this in common with their annoying plastic counterparts: they reflect my desires at least as much as they do my child’s. (Just now Serena has interrupted me, presenting me with a tiny wooden bowl full of socks and asking for a spoon).

And this is the real stuff of play: a sock, a spoon, a brightly colored bit of fabric. As Karen Maezen Miller says in the absolutely delicious Momma Zen: Walking the Crooked Path of Motherhood, “There is nothing wrong with a gift or a toy, but don’t append any extra value to any of them as needed or educational. It is the things we don’t have, after all, that are truly educational. They help us see the chains of our dissatisfaction and, ultimately, encourage us to step free. What a priceless gift to the ones we love.”

(and in the next room, the game seems to have reached a climax with Rio’s doll agreeing to marry her rescuer with this little speech, “OK, I’ll marry you, but I’m still going camping by myself,” and then flying away to the piano.)

Stilts!

Sierra — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 06:53:00 +0000

I got to practice walking on stilts today for the first time ever! It was fun, , and I have a lot more respect and sympathy for the toddlers I work with now. Learning to walk is hard! I did fine though. I just mimicked Serena, waving my arms around like a monster and taking big stompy steps.

There are pictures of me doing it somewhere, but I obviously couldn’t take them while I was doing my toddler impression. This is a shot of the people who taught me. (You guys rock. Thank you!)

No related posts.

Sock Love

Sierra — Thu, 07 May 2009 05:22:40 +0000

Sock Love, originally uploaded by MzMuze.

At some point after the Sock Wars, but not directly related to them, I found a bag of sock yarn I bought a million years ago in Vermont. For values of a million years ago that are “before I was ever even pregnant with Rio”. A geologic age ago when Ian was a cute tow-headed kid who liked to knit, and we had a plan to make socks together.

A plan that never came to fruition because I fell down the rabbit hole into motherhood and suddenly Rio is almost five and that bag of sock yarn is still at the back of my closet. In a neat little bag with a sock pattern and a set of double-pointed needles.

Generally, I love knitting because it looks incredibly hard and is actually dead simple. I can knock out a cable-knit scarf and collect big oohs and ahs, but it’s no harder than tying my shoes. No harder than tying my shoes a few hundred times in a row, which can get tedious but is in no way difficult.

Socks, it turns out, are not that way. Socks look dreadfully difficult to make because they are dreadfully difficult to make. I had to knit this one about half a dozen times before I got it right.

Very early in the process, Rio caught me at it and asked if she could have that sock. Conveniently, I was making it for her, in her size. She found this news staggering. Every night since, she’s had a little ritual where she comes and sits on my rocker and tries on her unfinished sock by sliding her foot between the needles oh-so-carefully. I’d hold her on my lap, and we’d both see how the sock had grown.

When I finally finished the sock, her little face filled with wonder. She wore her new sock (and only her new sock) to sleep in that night. I may never see it again, but I’m hard at work on its mate.