where i've been and what i've been up to...

i didn't realize nearly a week had gone by without a blog post until a friend asked me when i thought i might write again. i miss your blog, she said and until she said it, i hadn't noticed it'd been a while since i'd written.

in the meantime, i've gotten a lot done.

my grandmother's old kitchen cupboard has been scraped, sanded, primed and painted and ive got the stencil patterns all picked out. ive decided much as i like the cute cream-colored knobs we put on last year, i need simple silver pulls for the new look. so it's off to ace hardware this morning - im hoping the pulls i want are so simple even the local place has them. i'll post before and after photos when im finished.

i've also been sorting through the last of the boxes from my grandmother's house. i have to admit i teared up as i opened them - for some reason they all contained the simplest and homiest of her possessions: the things i remember using all the time, things familiar by touch, by smell. a few things broke in the shipping, a few things i'll offer to the kids. a few i'll give away. a few i'll keep for me... like the knives that always stayed sharp, despite the corrosive ocean air.

i asked my grandmother once how - or where - she sharpened them. i don't sharpen them, she answered, looking slightly shocked, as if i'd inquired into some intimate personal habit. then how do they stay so sharp, i pressed. i don't know, she replied, with the faraway look she wore when she didn't want to tell me the truth. they just do.

i wonder if they'll stay sharp for me.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.