Maybe because my sister Becky is moving to a new house, I have been thinking about houses and homes lately. A quote I love about where we live:

Home is a place where you can catch a dream and ride it to the end of the line and back. Where you can watch shadow and light doing a tight little tango on a wooden floor or an intoxicated moon rising through an empty window. Home is a place to become yourself. It’s the right spot, the bright spot, or just the spot where you can land on your feet or recline in a tub of sparkling brew if you’re so inclined. It’s a place of silence where harmony and chaos are shuffled like a deck of cards and it’s your draw. It’s somewhere you can close a door and open your heart. (Theo Pelletier)

and a bit of poem, from Anne Sexton’s "Welcome Morning":

All this is God,
right here in my pea-green house
each morning and I mean,
though often forget,
to give thanks,
to faint down by the kitchen table
in a prayer of rejoicing

Today’s prompt has to do with houses, obviously! Writing about place is essential, no matter what kind of writing you do. What would a novel be without a setting, a travelogue without a place traveled to, a biography without a description of the house the subject grew up in? Places help to define us, and perhaps our home defines more than anything. Onto the writing!

Today’s Writing Prompt:

Pick a place in your home that has a significance to you. Describe it, but also push past appearance to explain why the spot matters and to illuminate why and how it helps to define you.

Here's mine:

Once I’ve dragged myself out of bed each morning, I walk down the hall and, through the frame of the doorway, look across the front room and out the window to see the type of weather the day might hold. Then I turn and walk into my kitchen, around the table, and to the back door. I stand there and look. Looking starts my day. Sometimes I press my forehead against the glass pane; maybe I am wearing slippers or socks or maybe my feet are bare against the wood floor. The back doors are the French style, made of glass and framed with white that needs, desperately, to be painted; usually they are smudged with children’s fingerprints. Beyond the doors is the back porch, which is sometimes a place of refuge, sometimes a peaceful spot for contemplation. When I am in a sleep-walking span of time, I tend to end up there often in the darkness, muddled with laughter and confusion when I wake. The kitchen behind me is one of my favorite parts of our house, its purple paint, its accumulation of good meals and arguments and laughter and sicknesses and homework at the table, but for the beginning moments, even if just thirty seconds, what matters is the exit of the kitchen, the looking outward.

I take the temperature of the mountain every morning, through the view of my back door. I note the progress of its snows (rising or lowering upon its flanks, depending on the season) and of its scant greenness; I measure the day’s possibilities with the length and breadth of blue (or grey or cloud or white wind) along the peak. I take a deep breath, I draw my gaze downward into my own realm, my oddly-shaped backyard with my family’s marks left on it—sidewalk-chalk portraits, flowers I haven’t deadheaded yet, brilliant green lawn, someone’s flip flop buried in new snow, the neat winter stackings of patio furniture. My own yard full of memories.

This morning looking done at the portal of doors, however short it lasts, helps focus me. It brings the peace of nature into my heart, which gives me courage; it reminds me that our struggles are small compared to the world and also that our small struggles are all we have. All we are, and so are the most important thing, too. It brings me solace when I am discouraged and adds a silver edge when I am joyful. It is inward and outward, all at once.

(I am trying a different linky because the other one didn't seem to be working...hopefully this one will!)

It's grey and dark here today—that temperature of light that makes you turn lights on, even during the day. Sleet, snow, rain, hail, and wind. Driving the carpool this morning in this weather, I found myself daydreaming about our February trip to California. It wasn't hot weather then, but it was definitely warmer than the end of winter in Utah. The air there already smelled like spring.

A fragment of Elizabeth Bishop's poem "Questions of Travel" came to mind: "and then a sudden golden silence in which the traveller takes a notebook, writes." Right there, in the car at the stoplight by the McDonald's where eight or ten school buses visit every morning, I decided to change today's writing challenge. First, a recap of the rules:

The writing exercise rules:

1.Write for at least ten minutes.

2.Let the topic be a starting point and see where it takes you—if you veer off in an entirely different direction, that's fabulous!

3.Keep writing. Don't let your fingers stop. If you run out of ideas, simply transcribe the thoughts in your head.

4.NO EDITING! Don't backspace or cross out or stop to look up how to spell a word. You can do that after your writing time is up.

5.If you want to publish what you wrote—on your blog, or on the Textuality website, you can edit. But only AFTER the writing, not during!

Today's writing prompt

Here's mine:

As if some great wave had picked us all up and then randomly spread us out on the beach, we are scattered like seashells ourselves as we look for seashells. Kendell is near the pier, with its glimmering shadows and the teal underbelly of waves wrapped around the poles, ostensibly watching the pelicans, which stay always one step ahead of you, but only one, and seem to be tripled: their shadow, their reflection in the thin sheet of water they stand in, and their very bodies—a heavy machinework that seems too bulky for flight.

Really he is talking on his cell phone.

Jacob is racing the waves, trying not to get wet but not caring if he does. Nathan, halfway between his older brother and his dad, probes the sand with his toes. That blonde hair seems to make him the epitome of a California surfer but really, he's probably shivering, even with his sweatshirt. Haley, far down the sand, flips to a different song on her MP3, caught in her individual beach experience, blissed out from being at her favorite place in the world but still annoyed and prickly. Kaleb, who was toppled by a wave when we came to the beach three days ago, has been my shadow, glued to my side, but while I have been looking for everyone else he's gotten braver, wandered ahead of me, and is now almost caught up with Haley.

So I run.

My feet are bare. I'm wearing a swimsuit and a sweatshirt and goosebumps; the wind catches my hair up into Medusa swirls and maybe the light—which is so beautiful, glinting off the waves, bronzing the sand, tripling everything—catches it, too. I run for three minutes, and then for five, past Kaleb, past Haley. Not breathless, my heart barely seeming to pound even though I am sprinting. I'm running as hard and as fast as I can, not for the exercise or the conditioning but just for the sheer joy of running, of freedom, of being alive right at this very second. It is painless, effortless, joyful running, the way I run when I am dreaming, the way I wish running could always be—movement as a translation of joy. I sprint down the sand, everything (children and husband and obligations and sorrow and aches, those awkwardly beautiful pelicans) behind me, everything in front of me (time, distance, water, wind).

On my shelf of favorite books, I have a stack of books about writing. A twelve-books-tall stack. And I am 100% certain of one thing: every single one of them says, it's this: if you want to be a writer, you have to write. Here's Brenda Ueland, for example (whose book, If You Want to Write, is one I think every creatively-minded person should read): "Writing, the creative effort, the use of the imagination, should come first, at least for some part of every day of your life. It is a wonderful blessing if you will use it. You will become happier, more enlightened, alive, impassioned, lighthearted and generous." Or Marge Piercy: "The real writer is one who really writes." Or Natalie Goldberg: " if you want to become a good writer, you need to do three things. Read a lot, listen well and deeply, and write a lot."

If you want to write good journaling you need to practice writing.

This Textuality class (which you can still register for, until the end of Wednesday, if you're so inclined!) was a different sort of class for me to create. My other Big Picture classes are writing classes, built on my belief that everyone can learn how to write good, strong journaling. Part of that belief is knowing that to become a better journaler, you have to practice writing—you have to work at it. Of course, writing is one of my favorite types of work, but still. People who are successful writers don't just pick up a pen (or plunk down in front of their keyboards) and spit out a Pulitzer. They write and they work at it, and somewhere in the process the novel starts to emerge.

In my other Big Picture classes, I included a daily email with a writing prompt, something to get people thinking about what to write that day. The point of writing practice isn't necessarily really good writing. Instead, it is more about playing with language and words and syntax. Practicing description, practicing metaphor, practicing rhythm and pacing and rhetorical techniques. And sometimes, having an assigned topic to write about helps because you can move past the "what should I write about today?" anxiety and lets you get right down to writing.

So! To celebrate and work along with my Textuality class, and because it didn't fit exactly with the scope of Textuality but I still want my students to practice, I'm going to be doing a series of writing challenges/exercises three times a week. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I'll post a new writing challenge. I might even work an extra one in on a weekend or two! I'm trying to design them to help you jump right in and start writing. First, though, I have to share this idea, from writer Ander Monson's   book Vanishing Point:

"the pockmarked surface of the I: that’s where all the good stuff is, the fair and foul, that which is rent, that which is whole, that which engages the whole reader. Let us linger there, not rush past it.”

When we journal for our scrapbooks, we're often writing about someone else—our kids if we have them, our pets or spouses or friends. It becomes difficult to write about ourselves, as if it's something we need to apologize for. But I think Ander is right: within the I, within the self, is where the "good stuff" is—the interesting, intriguing stuff. It is OK—good, even—to linger with the I. Plus, there's that assumption that everyone who scrapbooks does it for their kids, which is simply incorrect. Plenty of people who don't have kids scrapbook. So the writing prompts are going to be designed to make you think about you. You could alter them, of course, and write about someone else. But I think if you focus on yourself just for these writings, you'll be surprised at what you discover. There are things we can learn about ourselves, I am convinced, only through the process of writing.

The writing exercise rules:

1. Write for at least ten minutes.
2. Let the topic be a starting point and see where it takes you—if you veer off in an entirely different direction, that's fabulous!
3. Keep writing. Don't let your fingers stop. If you run out of ideas, simply transcribe the thoughts in your head.
4. NO EDITING! Don't backspace or cross out or stop to look up how to spell a word. You can do that after your writing time is up.
5. If you want to publish what you wrote—on your blog, or on the Textuality website, you can edit. But only AFTER the writing, not during!

Today's writing prompt:Describe some small moment from the first hour of your day. Rather than listing the the things that happened, try to describe: what you saw, felt, heard, tasted, and/or smelled.

Here's mine:

A rare moment. I woke up feeling bruise-purple. Driving Haley to school this morning felt luxurious, as all the trees on the tree-lined streets have burst open with new leaves. They are tiny and bright green, small daytime stars littered across the blue sky. The street a spring-green arc, an event made of precise timing that sparks a sort of hope in me. She bustled into the school, arms full of her student-council campaign materials and my stomach bunched into anxious nerves for her. She never seems nervous, at least not in my presence, but confident and outgoing. I am happy to feel nervous in her place, and hope she can hold on to her confidence, win or lose.

But the rare moment: at home, I found Kendell was in the shower, and the boys still asleep—even Kaleb. Silence, and a few minutes all to myself before I needed to start the morning rituals. I couldn't decide: crawl back into bed for a few more minutes of sleep? Write? Eat breakfast? Read? I'm not sure if it was really a decision, but I found myself sitting on the front porch with my few minutes of solitude. Just sitting. My little bluebells are blooming in the front flowerbeds and they caught the morning sun, the delicate blossoms beaming that spring color of light. Which is silver, its own unique whiteness, so different from fall's gold-tinged light or winter's blue. Cold seeped in: up through the porch into my hipbones, across my cheek on the wind, down to finger joints. There was that spring fragrance, which here is a very slight floral and the cold smell of mountain snow still deep. Dust, and wet dirt, and damp, chill grass. I imagine somewhere else spring smells differently. I had woken with a feeling in my heart just like the dinosaur in Geisel's My Many Colored Days : On purple days, I'm sad. I groan. I drag my tail. I walk alone. What does it say about me that I have that page memorized? I don't know. But it started as a purple day. Will the light—the stars of new leaves, the glimmer of whiteness through purple flowers—brighten my purple shadows? I don't know. It was time to wake up the boys, but I went into the house a shade more lilac.

That's it! If you blog your entry, leave a link so others will find it, too (just click to add your blog):

In 2003, Easter fell on my birthday. It was a gorgeous Easter Sunday, sunny and warm, and Haley—who was just a day away from turning eight—was playing outside with her cousins at my mom's house. She fell off the swing set and, we discovered the next day, broke her arm, a buckle fracture on her left radius. Right where she'd broken it when she was six and exactly the same spot she'd break two years later, on April Fools' day 2005.

Apparently, though, she's not the only one who prefers my birthday as the day for breaking arms—Nathan made it a tradition last night. We were getting ready to leave for dinner at Texas Roadhouse. Kendell was rounding up Kaleb, Jake was finding something clean to put on, and Nathan and I were waiting outside. "Mom!" he said. "While we're waiting let me show you what I can do!" He climbed up the sycamore tree and then monkeyed down the radiating limbs. Then he ran over to the apple tree. "I've done this lots but watch me this time!" Then he jumped.

The apple tree in our yard is ancient. We've lived here for almost twenty years, and it was old when we got here. It is shaped perfectly for climbing and swinging and has served as a friendly spot for reading and playing since the kids were three or four. Because we live on the corner lot of our neighborhood, we get the privilege of having all the extra stuff in our yard. The fire hydrant and the phone cables box and a big electric box. this is right under our apple tree and has proven to be a great launching pad for jumping onto the tree limbs. There's a shorter branch and a taller one that the kids jump onto from the box; they grab it with their hands, swing a bit, and fall. The taller one was the branch Nathan jumped for.

He hit the branch with his wrist. His palms nearly grabbed it—but didn't. I watched him fall with that slowed-down sense, knowing it wouldn't be a good landing. He hit with his right hand first, and before he crumpled into a pile there was a snap like I have never, ever heard. I knew instantly that something had broken. I suspected his elbow, having seen his arm bend backward at the joint. I scooped him up and took him to the doctor. (It's always, always after hours when we have our accidents.)

After two consultations with Dr. Broken Leg (seriously! That's her name! What other profession could she have chosen?), a series of six excruciating X-rays, and a long wait for the results, we learned Nathan's arm's fate. I was certain his elbow was broken—that sickening bend, that unforgettable snap—and had already conjured up a surgery or two, weeks of recovery, and months of physical therapy. So I was relieved to learn that his elbow is not broken, but his radius is.

He's in a splint and a sling until tomorrow, when he'll get his cast on. He's in plenty of pain and is worried about missing school. I suspect there'll be a lot of hanging out together until he gets that cast on. And honestly: I'm hoping this is one birthday tradition we could stop carrying on...

Last night when I got home from the library (I work late on Mondays), I opened the door to a surprise. Kendell and the kids were sitting at the kitchen table, with all the lights off, just a candle burning on a cake. They started singing happy birthday to me, and I (of course) started crying. It was a sweet moment. Haley had hung up a sign, and they'd strung streamers:

and everyone had made me a card. We ate cake and ice cream, and talked about their preparations (Haley forgetting to grease the cake pans and how Kendell managed to get the cake out unbroken anyway, the shopping, the deliberations in the card aisle, hoping I wouldn't be home late) and our day.

I tend to get a little bit bristly about my birthday as I get older.  I don't want it to be a big deal because it makes me uncomfortable to be in the spotlight. Still, I am relishing today anyway—the Facebook birthday wishes, the texts and phone calls from friends, and just the idea that it is OK to celebrate a little bit. Even Mother Nature seems to be saying happy birthday today:

That lone tulip (I need to plant new bulbs) and the bleeding heart bloomed just this morning; the flowering plum is, while permanently disfigured, still beautiful, and those yellow jonquils simply make me happy because they exist—they are tiny things, the size of my thumb, and I didn't plant them. They just showed up a few springs ago.

I keep thinking that I should have something profound and wise to say today. At least something witty. But all I have is this strange and happy hope that is burbling around in my heart this morning: that things will always keep on getting better, that I will be able to realize my before-I-turn-forty personal goals (the marathon, the novel), that my family will be happy and my kids continue to progress. That hope is exactly all I need.

So, this has been a crazy-busy weekend for me, but I've managed to get a TON accomplished. (Well, if you call normal stuff like laundry, cooking dinner, 50-ish pages read in the three different books I'm working on, and a photo shoot a "TON" of stuff...but it feels ton-ish to me.) At any rate, the winner of the stamp set is:

scrappinglib, who said:

Which is funny/cool because at church today I was thinking about her comment when I found myself repeating "balm of Gilead" simply because of how it sounds. Scrappinglib, email me with your snailmail address!

As for the rest of you...I was blown away by how many comments were left! I hope a few of you stick around and comment more often! ;)

Back when I was writing my Big Picture class called Write Now!, I had a vague idea of including a bonus handout that focused on using words in layout design. When I started working on it, though, the idea ballooned, much too large for just a bonus handout.

And the nebulous idea for Textuality was born.

Textuality has handouts. It has mulitple handouts. And multiple bonus downloads. An exclusive font  And lots and lots and lots of ideas for using words and letters on your layouts. Words: titles and text elements and how to make your journaling spaces more than just a box on the page. Quotes, too. Letters: in almost every format imaginable.

Today I'm the  guest blogger  at the Big Picture blog, writing about (you guessed!) Textuality. To celebrate the class starting next week (which means there's still plenty of time to sign up!), I'm doing a give away. Here's what one lucky commenter will get:

• an acrylic block
• a stamping pad in Sweet Leaf (my favorite Close To My Heart color)
• this acrylic stamp set:

To be entered to win, leave a comment with your favorite word, quote, or font. To double your chances, spread the word about the give away on your blog. Drawing closes on Saturday, April 17  at 8:00 MST.

BIG P.S.!!! A couple of people have asked me if this class is for traditional scrappers, or if it would work for digital scrappers as well. My answer is...sort of. I don't really do digital layouts, so I don't think that I think like a digital scrapper does. My approach is traditional—the only software I use for layouts is my word processor. That said, some of the elements in the first three weeks are universal to all scrapbooking denominations. The first three weeks focus on making your journaling more visually appealing, creating text elements, using other people's words (quotes, song lyrics, poetry, etc), and creating titles. Within some of those topics, I DO focus on using traditional supplies, but, again: I think the basic ideas could work digitally, too. The fourth week focuses nearly exclusively on using traditional letter-based products (chipboard, letter stickers, alphabet rub-ons, etc) and so might not be as useful to a digital scrapper.

(Goethe)

Yesterday was cold here. We woke to snow and wind; clouds and rain kept the morning dismal. In the afternoon I set myself the task of organizing the toyroom shelves; when I came upstairs I found the clouds had lifted. The air was so clean that Timp seemed only inches away from my fingertips. Kaleb saw me standing at the back door and came to see what I was looking at. "Mom!" he said. "How did that mountain get closer to us?"

Although it's partially blocked by an ugly power line and my neighbor's walnut tree, I cherish my view of the mountain.

In a few months, our ward is going on a pioneer trek. This is an experience where we retrace the trails some of our ancestors took as they moved across the midwest to settle Utah. I'm lucky enough to be going as the historian, which really just means I get to take the pictures.

It also means, though, that I need a pioneer wardrobe. As does Haley. I finally started working on this project over the weekend, beginning with the skirts. I've overheard a few people wondering about adding pockets to their pioneer skirts (which are made with a fairly basic two-panel pattern), and since Haley and I wanted pockets in our skirts and I managed to figure out how to add them, I thought I would share the instructions.

Before I do, though, I'm adding this disclaimer: I'm not a very skilled seamstress. If you are, and if you can see I did this all wrong, feel free to enlighten me. Nicely though—I'm fairly aware of my sewing limitations! 

1. Make a pocket pattern. You want it to be about as wide as your hand with your fingers outspread, and as long as the measurement from the tip of your middle finger to your forearm. Ish. I actually have no real clue what shape the pocket should be, but that was my best guess based on the shape of the pocket in the running pants I was wearing when I was sewing. Also, I slightly angled mine on the straight edge, so that the pockets would fall down, toward my toes (or up if you sew them on wrong).
2. Fold the fabric with right sides facing together, then cut out the pocket.
3. With your skirt fabric still folded together, cut a small notch through all four layers of fabric, exactly where you want the TOP of the pocket to be.. Where should you put the pocket? This is another guess on my part. I folded the top of the skirt down to estimate for the waistband, then I cut the notch so the pocket top is right about where my hip bone is. Again: I don't know if this is right, but it worked on my skirt.
4. Start pinning the pockets on in pairs. Take the top from each pair and pin it to the TOP of the front skirt panel, with right sides of fabric facing. Align the top of each pocket with that notch you cut in step two. Then pin the bottom of each pair to the back skirt panel, again with right sides of fabric facing. Make sure, if you angled your pockets, that they are pointing DOWN. (Totally pointless aside: Whenever I sew with my mom, she points out that I put the pins in wrong. However, when I am sewing I can never remember which direction they're really supposed to go. So I just pin however and take the pins out as I sew. So! If my pins are in the wrong direction, well, you and my mom can both point it out. Or tell me again which way the pins are supposed to go?) Here's an image (I totally put the pockets too low on this one, but luckily I had enough length that I could cut some of the top off and it worked out OK):
   
5. Sew each of the pockets onto the skirt. I used a 1/4" seam. (More guessing.)
   
6. Line up the front panel of the skirt with the back panel, pin (however you want), then stitch the pockets together.
   Just the curved part of the pocket!!! Not the straight part, or your pockets will be sewn together. I tried to line up the start of the sew-the-pockets-together seam exactly where the other seam was, from step 5.
7. Use the stitch that sews three stitches right in a row, if you have it. Here's what I mean:   
     I like this stitch for the inside of the pocket because it makes a heavy seam
   that maybe won't be as likely to rip through. You could also sew along the seam twice to make it sturdier.
   
8. Sew the sides of the skirt panels together, starting at the top and stopping at the pocket. I made a 45-degree (ish) turn to match up the seams.
9. Voila! Turn your skirt right side out and you've got a skirt with pockets. Well, a skirt with pockets that still needs a waistband and a hem, but a pocketed skirt nevertheless.