5/30/2010
My sister and I took my son to a children’s ballet earlier this spring, and it was so wonderful and I realized looking at those graceful girls that she and I were never lovely. When we were kids we were tough, resourceful, hilarious, dirty, smart, cute and kind, but we never had the kind of loveliness young ballerina dancers have. But it’s not too late!

My knitting bag for this project was a bag my sister made me for Christmas. It has a photo of her, no more than 4 years old. She had drawn some pictures on the garage door with crayon, and my mom screamed at her, handed her the comet and a rag, and told her not to show her face until it was clean. You can see her eyes are puffy and her face is covered with an acrylic machine knit ski mask in the Southern California sun.

It’s a sad photo, but also hilarious. The plaid pants and the cubs shirt crack me up, but you gotta wonder about a mom who makes her kid cry so bad she wants to hide her face in shame, then runs and gets a camera.

I won’t be that mom. She won’t be that aunt. There’s still time to be lovely.

8/17/09 update: half way done, hopefully I’ll have it by her 41st birthday! I am hoping the second half is less tiresome that the first half-- pretty petals

4/9/2009
Can I finish this by my sister’s 40th birthday, in 29 days???