For The Love Of December

There I go: prattling on about the stress, the finals, the nostalgia, the bittersweet, and I completely neglected to mention the good stuff December has given. So here goes.

Indie Sacramento (do you remember that forever ago? When I was all excited about the craft bazaar?) was wonderful fun. A little bit smaller than the previous year, and a little less rowdy (or maybe it's just that I showed up late). But excellent all the same. In fact, in ways, even better this year. Well curated and spot on.

These cool Christmas craft fairs always make me wish I had a shopping list full of people who loved cool handmade gifts. You know? Somehow, when I’m there, I feel like Rick and I are the only people in my real life who would appreciate the time, the special, the craft. And it seems wrong, really, to transfer these wares from the hands that lovingly made them into hands that think “oh, this?” (Have I underestimated my family? I hope so.)

So, I spoiled the shit out of myself.

I bought one skein of handspun, in a colorway called Valentine. And a super-sweet print that conjures for me all the soft joys of hanging laundry out to dry in Bologna. Don’t laugh. That’s one of my favorite memories of my six weeks in Italy. Kendra and I would stand on either side of the balcony to give her black pants a good lengthwise tug. Or else they'd – I don't know – become shorts, perhaps. And we'd pull the laundry line back and forth, clipping wet clothes or collecting dry ones and patting them into folds. It was one of the few real quiet times when we could gossip and share intrigues. (Also, I remember how pretty her underwear were. Is that a universal that I’ve missed out on? Am I the only woman in the world who clings to her uber-practical, uber-uninspiring cotton briefs?)

And – oh and this is a big one – I won something too. I never luck out when it comes to raffle prizes. But this time, not only did I win, I won the exact prize I was wishing for. Proof? I took only one picture at Indie Sacramento, and it was this:

Meet my new squishy bear. Yippee!