Blowing the Embers of Curiosity

On health challenges and scratching creative itches

One of the quilts I made, using Civil War era reproduced fabric patterns

First days of summer, or so I’m told. Overcast with intermittent breezes off the Puget Sound, I find myself snugging the hood of my charcoal sweatshirt around my neck while outside in the early morning, tending to the garden.

The garden is lush now, greens of all shades and textures crowding the galvanized raised beds. A young man soliciting business yesterday at my door gaped at it all underneath his blue logo’ed cap, “What’s all this?!”

I semi-shrugged and responded, “I like to eat.”

I hired him to clean the cobwebs off all the eaves of the cabin and to set traps for rodents outside the edges of our livestock fencing, partly to keep the conversation going about homesteading but also to hopefully inspire him to continue to work with his hands and mind, expanding his business. Anything, I think, to offer up a beautiful way to live such as picking one’s own salad for the evening meal right out the kitchen door after months of tending soil and seed and moisture and (his particular specialty) of keeping pests at bay, even if any of that seems a less marketable or noteworthy way to live.

Later, I could almost hear our home expand and sigh with satisfaction, freed of tattered and withering webs.

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When I first arrived at this cabin in the woods, I hardly noticed the cobwebs. The marked water lines on the wallpaper in the basement were more of a concern, as was the rust on the legs of metal furnishings from the 1970’s. We immediately set out to rectify the situation, and much of the bottom third of the walls down there are still exposed, now freed of hideous and moldy insulation that was lurking behind the interior siding.

Later, we replaced the roof entirely, another problematic area of longstanding water damage that was obvious from the lines running down some of the interior cabin’s walls. The structure of the roof itself needed to be redone, as the initial build was done incorrectly and was the root cause of the ongoing water damage above.

Almost three years later, there is still much to do: every sink in the house has issues, for example. So I might be forgiven for allowing the spiders their reprieve in the meanwhile.

I think about all of this, and how with the right camera and equipment and lighting and editing software and babysitters and perhaps the right outfit, I could monetize the entire cabin remodel with the right backdrop music. It makes me laugh to think of it. To me, homemaking and repairing and remodeling and mitigating problems and cleaning is simply normal behavior for most women outside the western world. In 2025, it seems that sort of culture has become valuable to content creators here in the United States. Is traditional homemaking in our own country having its own moment right now? Methinks yes.

I’m actually happy to see it. I tune into those content channels, too.

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Speaking of channels, all of the new threads and yarns and little packs of fabrics in my home is Kiko’s fault. I stumbled onto her channel while on one of my treadmill walks.

Ok, I didn’t stumble. The algorithm served it up on a bespoke platter and I didn’t want any more news, health tips, or music meandering (I find Rick Beato’s channel fascinating, and I’m not at all a musician).

Anyhow, I watched Kiko’s hands crochet small flowers and like poor, lost Mole in The Wind in the Willows, my nose picked up the scent of home and all of the homeMAKING activities I have done in the past. My entire heart, mind, and body pined to Go Home. In most rooms in this house, and on one wall, for example, are quilts I have sewn. On another wall, a handwoven nettle and linen hanging. In my kitchen are jars of homegrown produce, herbal preparations, and a stash of the last of my handwoven dish towels. In my closet, knitted sweaters and shawls, crocheted or handwoven scarves, sewn tops and bottoms. Above the piano in the living room is a large (2.5 by 5 foot) mixed media art painting on wood, of some creature none of us know but like to guess at. There are yarns I have spun, baskets I have woven, leather journals I have bound, books I have written, and flowers I have grown. I am curious about everything and especially how things are made/grown/baked/created/constructed, and love the excitement of learning something new to do with my hands that will further the good of my family and home.

In all of the moves we have made since leaving the big house (three homes in eight years, adding two babies during that time), I have downsized many, many, many tools and supplies. Unregrettably, as it was the right thing to do at the time(s), and no one can disperse the warmth I received from blessing so many others because of it.

Still. I watched Kiko’s hands and my own began to twitch.

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I discover I have to consider not only the mold in the house, but also in my body. One of my labs show extremely high levels of a particular sort.

“So, I’m not really losing my mind?” I ask the doctor, who is young enough to be my daughter.

“No,” she assures me. “I think once we clear this problem up, your other symptoms will abate.”

Fourteen days into a gluten free diet, I am clear minded enough to do some extensive botanical research. I didn’t even realize it until I stepped away to start preparing supper and noticed my notes and all of the open books splayed across my desk. Hmm, this is noticeably different, I thought.

Thirty-eight days, twenty-seven food avoidances, and eighteen supplements later, I remembered (remembered!!) the names of three young adults visiting my older children.

“I think I’m getting my brain back,” I tell Tom.

I can’t currently enjoy anything that makes up a decent cheeseburger except the actual patty itself (no lettuce, tomato/ketchup, vinegar/mustard, eggs/mayo, dairy/cheese, wheat/bun, or onions!). But I do have the blessing of not only being able to abundantly share with my family and others the foods in my garden that I cannot at this time eat, but of exploring the cornucopia of other foods the Lord has provided that are still on the menu.

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Last night, I watched a solo baker in the woods baking magnificent bread.

(I know, I can’t eat bread right now. It might of been mean to me.)

I watched Trent working methodically, churning out close to seventy loaves twice a day. Then I watched another bakery video, this one also in the woods but powered solely with fire and solar. I was mesmerized by the community connections, the celebration and sharing of such a basic food as bread, the concern and enthusiasm for not only the craft of baking in the ancient ways, but the LOVE of the craft and of doing it well.

I assured myself, “I will not be bread-free forever!” I also dared to revisit the itch of having my own outdoor wood fired bread oven, and allowed myself to consider what it might look like to do so, and where I’d put it. In my daydream, I hear the crackle of the wood fired crust as I slice into it in the kitchen. Perhaps even (my eyes growing wider at the thought), I will spread a slice not only with a thick slab of butter, but with homegrown honey.

The blessing, possibility, challenge and pleasure of working with my hands in new ways at times leave me giddy if not at the same time completely and deliciously irrational for the season I am in. I am glad I have the Lord to reign me in!

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I shyly prepare for smirks and purchase a small, used floor loom. As mentioned, I had sold most every textile tool and supply I had, only two short years ago.

On Letting Good Things Go

One reason I did that was in an attempt to further dig into my girls’ communication goals and their own special needs (both have Down syndrome, and are nonverbal). But the downsize was also probably a response to my own physical issues I had no awareness of, but was now in hindsight affecting my motivation, energy, and mind. Like cobwebs on a cabin, underlying challenges brought uninvited pests that dragged down the health and wellbeing of my body AND mind.

I am reminding myself that getting healthy, staying healthy, isn’t selfish. It isn’t lazy to take time to rest and recover. Sometimes, our health, whether physical or mental (or both) is actually the hardest thing to turn around or to keep, and takes the most energy. This sounds logical, but in the midst of an underlying and unknown symptomology, trying to apply logic takes an energy that sometimes isn’t there to begin with. So, I assumed in my downsizing that having and doing less, especially less of the creative arts, would equal more rest and thus feeling better.

Sometimes just getting healthier equals feeling better, no matter what or how much stuff you have or have to do. Sometimes it really is all about the discipline of taking a daily walk, choosing better food, going to bed early, and taking time in the day to sit down and read a book in the sunshine. But, and this is important, getting labs and looking behind the siding is also very helpful to understand what is happening as well.

As it turned out, my spending more mental and physical time on those communication endeavors with my girls over the last couple of years hasn’t sped up their progress and in fact at times has led to more frustration and discouragement. I find myself coming to grips with two things being true at the same time:

1. If I spend even more time and effort and work even harder on things that the Lord isn’t blessing, perhaps that work has become more about my own standards of how things ought to be, and less about the goals of the work itself. As one of my friends likes to say, “It is what it is.” Perhaps the way things are are the way things are and how they are meant to be, and I just need more humbling to appreciate and accept it as such.

2. If I spend less time creating, I turn into an Eeyore and not nearly as endearing as he is. I’m the one who weaves the basket and lines it with a handwoven linen cloth, for no other real purpose except to carry potluck items in it to church on Sundays. I also not only see a need for bathroom curtains, but see the pattern for it in my head. I’m not going to try to the solve the question if this is a blessing or curse. It just is what it is, and I am who I am.

In any case, also true, I’m enjoying more of an analog life. Sitting here at my girlhood desk with my Bible, wooden pencils, snail mail, various dictionaries, my notebook open and my mug full of herbal goodness…well, I am quite happy. And happy is a fine mental state to be in and enjoy, even if my body feels bleh.

I pray the work of your own hands will be blessed, and if they haven’t yet found a satisfying use for them outside of swiping and scrolling and texting and typing, that someone like Kiko or Trent would interrupt long enough to blow the embers of whatever curiosities are lying latent in your heart and mind.

Sweet little 4 harness Gilmore, my new friend :)