This article caught my eye last week, and at the time I found it a bit twee. Today, the reality of working mostly from home for the next couple weeks has my mind just reeling with all the knitting, gardening, and cooking that is possible between emails, Slacks, conference calls and production work.
Really, the biggest gain are the 2+ hours of commuting every day. I’m excited to have time to cook weekday meals, which have become a rarity at Chez Vee.
Years ago, a fellow waiter asked me what my superpower would be if I had one. I proudly replied, “The ability to create tasty and nutritious meals with barely anything in the cupboard.”
He blinked at me and said, “How sad.”
I disagree. After all, an apron is just a cape on backward.
I have a lot of great stuff to cook, but am also excited to dust off my cape and use my super power.
I cannot believe I started this blog 15 years ago today.
Bean & Noodle started as a Typepad blog in 2005 and is now a blog + online shop for my letterpress cards and silverware.
There are many reasons people blog. Some people blog in hopes of landing a fat book deal. Others blog about specific subjects and somehow become regarded as experts in the field. Some may actually have the expertise to back it, some just have experiences to share and a voice that makes people listen. Artists, designers and stylists blog because it’s a super user friendly way to show their work instead of a website.
Why did I start blogging?
Mine is a more personal reason. I started blogging to share my life with the women in my family… most importantly, at that time, my mother who I met in 2004. My sister and I were reunited with our mother who had given us up for adoption in the 1970s. We had spent the three years prior to adoption with an amazing foster family, with whom we have always remained in contact. We had not seen my mother since I was almost 5, and my sister was almost 2. When my sister found her, we traveled to New Jersey to visit her for a week. We knew she’d been a musician and artist (my parents were folk musicians in the 1960s… I was born in ’65, my sister in ’67). We discovered that she had been a weaver.
This struck a chord with me as I had always been drawn to textiles and had no idea why. My sister shares our mother’s love and talent for photography. I taught myself to knit when I returned home and have been knitting almost daily since. I feel I am tapping into some genetic memory every time I pick up my needles and yarn to knit.
I won’t go into much more detail, because this story belongs to my sister as much as it belongs to me. I mention it only to shed a little light on why it was so important for me to embark on, what seemed to me the ultimate narcissistic endeavour. I mean who really gives a shit if I finally finished my alpaca shawl and that after a long, crappy day only the comfort of a simple roast chicken and mashed potatoes would feel like a hug?
I can count on one hand the number of people who do.
Facebook and Instagram lured me away from here for a while, but this past year I have found I like sharing here more than ever. I’m no writer, but I like to write and share things that I find funny, beautiful, or helpful. It’s also fun to look back at older posts. If you follow the link at the end of this post to my first ever blog posts…. you’ll find I still blog about knitting, cooking, and digging in the dirt.
Today I realize the real reason I started blogging was to show Toni that I have a good life. I am happy, have a wonderful husband, dogs and cats, that I am creating stuff all the time. That her decision did not destroy our lives.
And I pray every day that it did not destroy hers.
Melissa Ladd’s work spans many mediums. She has studied painting, drawing, printmaking, photography, and film.
About her work in the following images…
The series these photos came from started in 1995, and were shot over the course of the next 10 years. All were shot only in film, 35mm and Medium format and developed in darkroom. All the photos were expressions of Melissa’s own journey in marriage and tragic death of a dear family member and his wife. The photos helped her work thru grief, change and acceptance. Most of the images don’t have recognizable faces, so the impressions are left to the viewers interpretation. I also made a short film titled “Trainride”
She lives in a lovely studio home on Main Street with her dog Rosie.
1. Why did you move to Elgin?
I wanted to do a real estate project and learn about contracting a building or remodel job, saw opportunity in Elgin and went for it. And loved the powerful women that I knew here and the example they had set for living and thriving.
2. What compels you to spend time creating?
It is an inner need, that often has a very strong voice that takes over and leads me. Thru the years that voice has manifested in various ways, photography, print making, screenwriting, film making, even contracting a building remodel was very creative brain process.
3. Tell me three things you’ve learned in the past five years.
To be comfortable with uncertainty, To trust myself fully whether a decision is Ok or not….And the love of a dog makes me a better person.
4. What are you currently making, reading, watching, or listening to?
Tinkering with a story about my building and Mrs. Jones and the Jane Doe body they found near here years ago. Reading lots of yoga stuff, in teacher training until March…Baron Baptiste, Sutras, and anatomy. Watching lots of Netflix and amazon prime movies and series. Most recently a doc about Gywneth Platrow Goop experimenting with alternative healing modalities
5. Cake or Pie?
CAKE as long as there is plenty icing, preferable Chocolate!!
Bean & Noodle 