It breaks my heart. I loved living there. Durham NC is one of my most favorite places on the earth. Breaks my heart.

I wanted to share with you something my dear friend Marie wrote on her Facebook page. I had to read and re-read it. It gave me goosebumps. I read it to everyone who would listen. Marie is one of my closest friends. She is my mothering icon. She has raised a pretty fantastic teenager. Funny, smart and full of sass. She did it on her own. She is an awesome, brave and funny woman. I was so happy that she shared this about her life. I am reposting (with permission).

” I think today is a good day to thank my mom. She removed me from a violently abusive “traditional” household to be raised by her and her partner. They gave me everything I needed including love, food, an education and a life without violence. Shame on you North Carolina you might have denied this right to some little girl in your state”

Yeah. Amen.

When I think of home I think of New York City. I grew up in West Bloomfield Michigan. I moved to New York when I was 17 to go to art school and stayed for 20 years. New York is the first place I CHOSE to live. I never quite felt like West Bloomfield was my home, it was just someplace I ended up living for a long time. I CHOSE New York, or New York Chose me. We spent a lot of time there when I was a kid. My grandparents lived in Coney Island, Brooklyn. You could hear the Atlantic Ocean from their high rise. It sounds more glamorous then it was. A lot of Russian, Polish and Yiddish speaking Holocaust survivors moved to Coney Island after the war. My grandparents lived in New York for almost 60 years and spoke very marginal English. So New York was the place we traveled to on vacations, we used to take the subway into Manhattan. It was very exciting.

I moved to New York to study photography. I stayed until I was 37. I have friends from High School who followed the same route, so some of my oldest and closest friends live there.

Andy had a freelance gig in New York and I literally begged, whined and pouted to bring Davy and I along. I knew it would be a different trip with a toddler. The last time I was in NYC we were waiting to hear about our Court date to go to Ethiopia. I need my yearly fix. I needed to see my friends. The only time Portland feels far away is when I think about how long it takes to get home.

So we packed our bags, our light weight stroller, the Ergo and an armload of sippy cups and headed to the big city.

Here is what I learned. New York is hard on a little one. It’s loud, filthy and full of stimulation. We little rolled our stroller over the same flattened rat everyday. I think you almost need to be born there in order for you to tune it out. I was very worried about our little one. Also New Yorkers are happy to give you their opionion no matter what. Andy was on the subway letting Davy play with his phone when a woman, a total stranger leaned over and said “I hope that’s educational”. Screw you total stranger.

There were some amazing upsides to our trip, friends who have never met Davy got to see her in her giggly glory. Davy working her charms on a gaggle of total strangers on the subway. The butterfly exhibit at the Museum of Natural History. Zabars. Eating bagels in Central Park, black and white cookies. The thin sweet coffee I love (but really IS NOT good coffee). Diversity. A giant Elmo that totally terrified Davy. She is a little young to totally enjoy the magic of the city. I am just hoping that we can go back enough so that NYC and our dear friends is in the lexicon of her childhood.

Hi my name is Lisa and I don’t cook. I am actually a disaster in the kitchen. I am (self admittedly) lazy, messy, dyslexic and kind of a flake. All of these positive attributes make me a total loser when it comes to cooking. I don’t read directions well, the abbreviations for tsp and tbsp makes my head hurt. I have poor spacial relations so I ALWAYS use a bowl that is either two sizes two mall or too big. I am a cooking dork. I love to eat though, and frankly drink.

That said I have cooked twice this week. Davy has been really grooving on beans over the last few weeks. She even starts singing the little song I taught her “beans beans the wonderful fruit…”. Which makes me laugh. Also all the protein and fiber are good for her little and ever -growing tiny body. Andy has been out of town and since Davy and I usually eat like college students when he is away (unless we have dinner at our friend Lori’s house- who gladly feeds us all the time).

Also my sewing machine is DEAD. DEAD. DEAD. I have been really into sewing and quilting lately and its been really frustrating. I have gone back to spinning yarn and embroidery, to fill the void, but its not the same. I think cooking and sewing (for me) use the same parts of my brain that need exercising. Sewing is a lot less messy though.

SO this week I cooked twice. That might be really a record. First I made Ethiopian lentils. It came out good and we have been eating off of it all week. We have a fairly large Ethiopian population here in Portland and the spices are really easy to obtain. I didn’t bother making rice (because I am lazy) and meant to get some injera but didn’t (because I am lazy). So we just ate it and it tasted good.

Davy was at daycare today so this afternoon I got more ambitious. I tried my hand at Peanut Butter Amaranth bars. There is a vegan bakery near our house that makes them. I am a little obsessed with them. I get them several times a week. Davy loves them too, and because they are a little pricy- I usually share mine with her. You know its good when you don’t want to share with your kid. So I went online and found a similar recipe. I didn’t look hard- it was more assembly then cooking. So i thought I would try it.

The recipe calls for puffed Amaranth. This is where the troubles began, because you have to puff it your self. You basically have to pop it in a pan like popcorn. However, in teeny tiny batches because once its puffed it burns. I found a recipe for Amaranth puffs here. They did it in 2 tbs increments but I actually did it a teaspoon at a time because they didn’t burn that way. Uh the recipe calls for 4 cups of puffed Amaranth, so it took like an hour to pop 4 cups of the stuff. Also the bag broke half way in and a bunch of it when flying all over the kitchen. I decided to get the new dirt devil out to sweep it up only to slightly melt the tip. I then had to open up the house and turn on all the fans so the smell of toxic melting plastic wouldn’t permeate through the house, thus killing us. Good times. Why I don’t cook.

The rest of the recipe was pretty easy. You had to boil honey, which was okay although i used a saucepan that was too small and it ALMOST overflowed, but not to much.

The bars are cooling now. They are a little too sweet, but if I should ever try them again (which I may not) I would add more peanut butter and less honey. We will see what the kid thinks.

As an update to my last post. Andy has taken to calling Davy “the Honey Badger” which makes me laugh. She is throwing her sippy cup less and while she isn’t hitting less, I think I have found a way of disciplining her that doesn’t make her laugh in my face (time in, no attention). So that’s good right?

Even though cooking is not my thing, I do have some mad clothes making skills. I made davy this poncho. She just got those boots and loves them. I think they are hilarious. I think she looks like an extra from The Hobbit in it. Jinkxy Hobbit. Jinkxy Toddler.

When I lived in New York I had a corporate job doing Public Relations and Marketing. I was there for a long time and it was a difficult job. I had many bad days there, but there was this one day when I had a breakdown at my desk. I was working on a project, pushing to get it done, my boss left me a voice message saying that it totally sucked. She had seen it a million times at that point (and was fine with it), it was due in 2 days and it just “sucked”. She didn’t tell me how to fix it or even if I had to fix it. She wouldn’t answer my phone calls. It just sucked. I was exhausted, emotional, and burnt out. After I got her voice message, I just cried my eyes out. Not the highest point in my professional career. Actually, after that job I don’t really have a professional career. I can’t stomach it, or who I allowed myself to become after working there. I like to count that moment as one of the low points in my life. Not because the project sucked, but because I let it get to me.

The last few weeks with Davy have been really difficult. Almost as hard as that day at my former job. Davy at 16-months is turning into a tiny adorable handful of trouble. She has started hitting and having tantrums. I know this is normal stuff. Maybe a little young, but normal. As a new mom who is almost 41 years old- I am kind of at a loss as to what to do about it. I have been removing her from the situation, holding her so she looks me in the eye and say “no hitting momma”. Everybody I have talk to says we are doing the right thing- just being consistent about correcting it. When it happens she has been laughing at me. LAUGHING at me. Is this what I have to look forward to for the next 18 years? Probably. I know this is the job I signed up for.

This problem is compounded by the fact that Andy has been traveling almost every week for the last month and will continue to do so until mid April. This might be part of the problem, I am sure she misses her Daddy. She is a total Daddy’s girl. She has a lot of language, but isn’t really able to express herself at this point.

I was hesitant to write this post because I know its hard to put out there for people to read. Blogs and Facebook are meant to celebrate the finer things in life. I understand that. When we were in process for adoption I remember hearing people bitch about their kids and think “Stop bitching at least your kid is home”. I don’t want people to think for a moment that I don’t love this child of mine or that I don’t have love that she is in our life. I do. I do. I do.

It’s just that some days this job of mine is a toughie and there isn’t really anything I can do to immediately fix it.

Last week was the Portland Yarn Crawl. I worked the whole weekend and missed most of it. I asked people in the shop to name their favorite and most surprising yarn store, many mentioned the yarn store in Oregon City as a favorite. SO I convinced the husband and the child for a short day trip to see Oregon City.

Wynona Studios in Oregon City is totally adorable. They specialize in eco friendly- repurposed yarn. So cute, and so worth the trip.

Also their dog and my daughter totally had matching outfits.

We also visited the nations largest, free-standing municipal elevator. Yup.

View from the top. We are a funny hat family

Then we had a proper wonder around town. Saw some super cute antique shops and took photos, including a giant panda bear pouring himself a drink

Eighty-two Channels NO WAY

Davy touched a beaver pelt

We visited a mural (insert Parks and Recreation jokes here)

It still bugs me out that she is walking everywhere!

Finally, our little home looked mighty inviting!

Grandparents in town. Seventy degree weather. The beach. Hand knit sweater. Pink Boots.

For those of you who don’t know this, Portland has more yarn stores per capita then anywhere else in the United States. The yarn stores in Portland are all unique and have their own personality. What I like about them is that they (like Portland in general) are typically friendly places that lack pretension.

So last night I was very surprised when one of our local yarn stores posted something that I found racially inflammatory. It was a photo of a man dressed in head to toe crochet, crocheting on the subway. The caption was “Knitta please” and the photo was taken by “future felon”. I understand that it was a “yarn joke” and that is why they posted it. I gave them the benefit of the doubt that they didn’t think it through. I am usually not an alarmist but it really hit me in the gut. I commented that I thought that it was really insensitive and inappropriate. What got me is that there were several people who “liked” the photo and thought it was hilarious after I pointed out that it had very racist implications. I did email the store owners off line with more details. They know who I am, I have been going there for years.

To their credit they did take the post down right away. I did get a very nice apology from the owner saying that she felt like she made a really big mistake and was really sorry. She also gave me her personal number saying that she would like to apologize to me in person. I did appreciate that but told her it would go a long way towards mending ties if she could publicly apologize for the post on facebook. She promptly did and it was a heart felt apology. What still makes me sad is that there were people who commented on her apology that “they still thought it was funny” and that she “shouldn’t have to apologize” that the people who were angered by her post should “apologize to HER”

Here is what I think, every once in a while you meet someone who makes a mistake and then learns from it. The owner of the yarn store is one of those people. It took a LOT of balls to publicly apologize for being wrong on such a personal and politically loaded subject. She is a nice person and got caught not thinking. When I see her again, I am going to thank her for “getting it” and learning from it. That is a rare quality. The other folks who thought the photo was “hilarious” even after the heated debate- well they can go fuck themselves.

Beti Rooney came home just a month after Davy. Actually, I got to hang out with Beti’s momma Lori (and my very good friend) in Ethiopia when we were there in May. Beti is six. She is mature, self possessed, goofy, smart and beautiful. She is big sister to the handsome and charming Abe Rooney. Davy thinks that Beti is just the bees knees. Beti always takes time to play with Davy whenever we are together. She always looks out for her. In turn, Davy can’t keep her eyes off of Beti. When I tell her we are going to see Beti- her eyes light up and she says “Beti”. Beti Rooney is Davy’s first rock star crush.