Alison: How I spent my summer vacation.

I have always preferred The Brothers Grimm to Hans Christian Andersen.

And I have to admit, I love elves and fairies. In the sense that they live in the little holes made where the roots of a tree are exposed in a forest. Germany has elves.

I sit in a church and feel the layers upon layers of lives and history, and the energy of spirits of people who have lived so many hundreds of years before me.

I had time to myself for a while, and I'm keeping a journal. A soft black leather one with a long strap I tie around the journal. So in the quiet I sketched. And made notes. I love it here. It fits my personality. I love the depth that time has here and I love the art that comes from all that time.

Here is where I stayed, in Leipzig.

Isn't it beautiful? Romantic cobblestone roads, a bakery right across the road, 15 minutes by tram to the center of the city, great food right around the corner, a fruit stand on one side, a flower shop on the other and a bohemian type commune on the bottom floor of this building. I feel like Audrey Hepburn in Funny Face except this is not Paris. But it is Europe.


Leipzig is (well was, really) the home of J.S. Bach. He knocked around on the organ in Tomaskirche:
(That's a side door and a remote corner of the church.)


These are a few of my inspirations. Colors in Dresden (which is mostly a grey city, really),


A beautiful costume in a crowded festival in Dresden,

Lyrical fairy tale statues, also in Dresden,



The play of morning light on a building in Leipzig,

Funny little characters on signs advertising children's books,


I love the light in this church in Dresden. Most of the walls are new, as this church was badly damaged in WWII. It is called the church of the cross because a splinter of Jesus' cross was given to the church in 1200. I like the play of the hanging light against the windows.


We spent a day in Berlin, where I had an amazing currywurst mit brochen, weisswurst und pommes in Leipzig, and the brochen is always good. It will be hard to leave this all behind.

But my flight leaves tomorrow. And I am looking forward to working on my dolls again. This trip has been really good.

Kelee: Secret Stella Stuffie

I am secretly embarrassed by how much I like my dog and my husband. I think any sort of public adoration of these two species is redundant and lame. What can I say that someone hasn't already said and better? Of course I think they're the bee's knees; I'd get rid of them if I didn't. Besides, I'm usually annoyed with one of the two.

The furrier one has issues. Lately she's been standing right in front of the wall beside the door while waiting for me to open the door. Even after I'm standing there holding the door open. That is compounded by her normal issues – the shivering, the yelping, the panic howling, the stegosaurial-like fur that stands up on her back when she sees another dog. She's pretty much a weird cat in a weird dog's body.

The husbander one recently shaved his mustache for snorkeling purposes. He looks like he could be the bass player for some weird metal band that only plays songs about extinct African birds. Eco-Afro-Avian-Metal. It could be a thing.

That is why I've been hesitant to show you what I made.

A Stella Stuffie.

I put the girlchild to work stuffing it.

From the back, it even looks like a cat.

Of course, Stella loves it.

She said that it helped her fulfill her lifelong goal of chewing on her own ears.

I'm considering wiping some corn chip crumbs on the stuffie's paws to make it more authentic.

Are you now wondering if I also made a husband stuffie?

Alison: Shelburne Farms

My daughter is leaving for Leipzig, Germany tomorrow. She's spending her sophomore year of high school there. I will go too, and spend a week with her to see that she's settled in.

Before she leaves, he wanted to go to Shelburne Farms and walk the trails. She has known Shelburne Farms her entire life - when she was just an infant, her dad worked in their cheese division and lived in a apartment in the "big house." Before that her uncle was master gardener there. Zoe and her dad have spent many hours and days wandering around the property, and he and I always took her to the Inn for her birthday dinner.

This year she turns sixteen and this will be the first year we won't be going there for her birthday. So, maybe because of that, we spent a day there.

I will miss my love, but I know she will be experiencing something so rich and mind expanding by being in another country with its politics, culture and history.

To my sweet pea: Have an awesome time. I love you.

Kelee: Summer Crafting?

There are things about my life that if I share them with you, you will never be able to see me the same way. Like if I told you about when I used to blog for my dog, you will never be able to hear me complain about being busy without calling me a big, fat liar. Which, I think, is a little harsh on your part. Or if I told you that I never put gasoline in my car until I went off to college, you will never be able to hear me whine about my hard childhood and cruel father (who made the make-it-move liquid magically appear in my car throughout high school) without chanting "Liar, liar pants on fire" at me. Real mature, by the way. So I'm nervous about telling you that the reason I've been blog-slacking is because I've been very busy this summer dealing with repressed childhood memories.
Actually, I've been busy doing super fantastic things. Like camping and sitting by various lakes and learning to snorkel in the same various lakes and eating creemees with my kids and installing new kitchen flooring and buying new glasses and being busy at work (and since we're self-employed, this is super fantastic). I've been spending all my spare time (between trips to the lake and home-improvement projects) crafting like a crazy crafting fool. I just got a big ol' box of yarn, which I've already cracked open and started using, and a big ol' box of clay, which I'm excited about cracking open. But summer is short and the creemee stands are only opened seasonally, so I'm hesitant to spend too much time writing about making stuff when I could be making stuff. Or at the lake. That's why the national craft council invented winter.

At the risk of being braggerific, here's a little taste of summer in Vermont.