to make a home

Today, a break from the usual, I will not be joining SouleMama for {this moment}.

Just over one month ago we moved into this lovey new apartment in Chicago.  At our very first (and only) showing, I fell in love with it after about a minute.  It speaks to me of my childhood with its very high ceilings, heavy pocket doors, tall windows, crown molding and quirky modernizations.  The home(s) that I spent my early days in were both Victorian and that's what this apartment is also.  I was just a baby at the time, but I'm told that my parents and grandfather did a huge amount of work on our first house to make it a home.  This apartment that we're in now is beautiful, but it has clearly been lived in for many, many years and has not been updated or cleaned and decorated (and redecorated) with its best interest in mind.  A few examples would be - the electrical wiring is all on the outside of the walls, there are layers of paint over all of the light switches and cover plates (though thankfully the switches still work), the tiles in the bathroom are loosing their cheap exterior, some of the walls are very cracked and totally uneven, there is a "closet" in the middle of the kitchen that holds the hot water heater.

Essentially, our place still feels like a rental unit, not quite our home.  Of course, we have all our furniture in here but it's all things that we bought to fit our previous apartment, which may or may not fit properly in this apartment.  We know we want to paint a few of the rooms but we're having trouble settling on a color and my mind keeps moving from one style or picture that I like to another.

I have a number of interior design books that I picked up second-hand a few years ago in the hopes that they could feed my creative side.  Creating a space, especially in a house {to make it a home}, is important to me and it is not always easy to do.  Then, through a rather odd connection I ended up doing a creative advertisement job for Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan [long story short, I was in New York on my semester off and a college friend was his child's nanny; he needed advertisement for his website's color contest and our "theater company" needed money so I painted all of my visible body blue and went with friends to pass out fliers on the streets of new york].  I had no idea who this man was at the time, but I ended up with his book, Apartment Therapy.  Turns out he runs a very popular business and website of the same name.

I've owned the book for a few years now and finally picked it up last night.  It has struck a cord with me.  Maxwell has worked as an interior designer and a Waldorf teacher before launching this apartment therapy business and subsequent website/blog.  His training culminates in an understanding of home that is both spacial/aesthetic and spiritual/emotional.  He talks in this book about the "energy" of a home and warns that when we alter our homes and seek to make changes, changes should be expected to appear in our lives.  Our homes are part of who we are and they are deeply emotional places as well as physical space.  This is the only book I've read so far that talks about home from this perspective [although Home Comforts comes close and will be a good companion in this effort]. 

The subtitle of the book is "the eight-step home cure."  The majority of the book is devoted to helping you restore health to the organic space that is your home.  He leads you through self-examination (of yourself and your home) and then helps you diagnose yourself.  Based on the result, you either follow the deep-treatment steps or the one-room steps.  The first is meant to bring big restoration and change to your way of living in your home and making long-put-off changes to it; the latter is for when your home is relatively healthy, but a certain room needs an update.

After taking the quiz, it looks like we'll be in for the deep-treatment.  On the surface, I really like our home but I think we need to focus on the big things before we get to paint colors.  And Maxwell was right ... it brought up some serious emotions thinking about the state of my home and what I wish for it - insecurities, childhood dreams, even a bit of confusion over what my "style" is.  Grady will take the quiz too and then we'll find out where to go from there.  My hope is that we will start the eight steps (which take 1 week each to complete) towards a cure soon!  We don't have much by way of funds and we rent this place but I'm willing to stretch my imagination as far as possible to make this space feel more like our home.  We'll see what's in store!

cider

 About a month ago, we started brewing ourselves some cider - at home - for the first time (post here).  I'm not going to pretend that we really have any idea what we're doing in this process, we just do an internet search every time we reach a new step or have questions and sometimes we just wing it.  It seems that the process is rather flexible though, which works out well for us.

Through the process of brewing, I've read over and over now how cider was the preferred beverage of our American forefathers - apples, of course, being a mainstay in early homesteads.  It reminds me that they couldn't just have apple juice any time that they wanted it and they had to find a way to preserve the wonderful, fruity sweetness - and so we get hard apple cider.  I'm not a historian, but it makes me wonder if we have some misconceptions about people of old drinking fermented beverages.  I sometimes hear about the origins of beer, wine and cider and imagine someone in knickers drinking the stuff and stumbling around drunkenly.  While I'm sure that happened, I don't think it's fair to consider that the norm. 

As I said, fermentation was primarily a means of preservation, not simply the creation of an intoxicating beverage. And here's one thing I do understand (I think!) about making cider: the more sugar you add at the beginning, the higher the alcohol content at the end.  It is possible to make cider with as low as 2% alcohol content - which is quite low - by not adding any or just a little bit of sugar, enough to preserve the juice but not so much that you can't enjoy a glass without feeling the effects.  I say all of this to say, that when we pursue home brewing {we may try other beverages in the future} we are not after the alcohol as much as we are interested in the process, ritual even, that humans have been conducting for many, many generations.  I also see it as a step towards self-sufficiency in that we would like to eat in season, which means that we refrain from buying apples and apple juice almost any time but the fall.  So, if we'd like to have some sweet, slightly tangy juice, we'll need to learn to ferment it.  And I must say, it's quite delicious!

Last night, we moved to phase 2 of our cider making.  We "racked it off its lees" into a new container, where we will let it sit for maybe a month and then we will probably bottle it.  For reference, we decided to use an ale yeast, called East Coast Ale Yeast, that functions best around 70 degrees because that's the temperature we keep our apartment.  From what I've read, many people who add yeast add Champagne yeast.  Each kind of yeast will turn out a slightly different end product.  You can also vary how long 1st and 2nd fermentation are, you can add spices and more or less sweetener, and you can age it for whatever period of time you wish.  It is also possible to make fresh cider from organic (and it's very important for the process that they are organic!) apples and rely only on the wild yeasts on the skins to achieve fermentation.

 

We've been told by multiple sources that cider greatly improves with time, so we just tasted a bit to see what it was like - not bad!  We were also told that we should be able to save that gunk at the bottom of the jar and use it to ferment another batch of cider.  I appreciate methods that allow you to reuse your inputs.  But for now, it's back to waiting.

warmth for the cold

Good morning!  Today in my part of the world it is rather deary outside - gray and raining - which makes it the perfect day for knitting and wearing wool socks, in my opinion.  Perhaps a good book should also be included (though dinner preparations may say otherwise).  Days like today remind me that winter really is on its way.  Soon it will be snow and not rain that's falling outside. 

Although all of my family does not live near me, they {almost} all live where winters are blustery and snow piles high, so I decided to pile my knitting stash high in order to equip them for the season.  {If you are an immediate family member reading this blog, you should take this to mean that I'm knitting you something for Christmas - sorry to partially ruin the surprise} 

All 100% wool, all very very soft and, as it happens, all are made by Cascade Yarns.  I guess I just love their colors or texture or price - something.  Almost all of my knitting so far has been with Cascade yarn.  Now to turn all of these woolen balls into something wearable!  Follow me on Ravelry if you'd like to know more.  Otherwise, you'll have to wait until after Christmas!

{this moment}

A Friday ritual. A single photo capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember ~ SouleMama.