1. I think this #40bagsin40days thing will be quite good for me. Neel and I are generally pretty ruthless about clutter, but as I said sometime earlier, it has been weighing on me. That clanking, heavy-petticoated Victorian skirt, you know. So #40bagsin40days is the brainchild of Ann Marie at White House Black Shutters. It's her Lent. MJ of Pars Caeli tipped me off, and I'm so glad she inspired me. I'm all about intention, and with clutter, sometimes intention is just the thing I need.

2. I think my scrappy little hometown seems to be coming into its own these days. Neel and I took advantage of our childless weeknights to try out several of the new restaurants in town, and they're really cropping up all over. We hit up Norfolk Pendulum, above, for lunch Thursday. Norfolk Pendulum is a butcher/sandwich shop selling locally sourced meats, cheeses, eggs as well as oils and salts and breads. Its exposed brick walls and roughly-hewn floors perfectly proclaim the vibe of rustic and cool. This is a place that celebrates meat of all sorts and treats it sacredly. That's a pretty good thing.

We tried a couple of other new restaurants in town, and I'll save them for another day, but recently an olive bar and a new produce shop have both opened up. These two things I am eager to check out. You guys hear me talk all the time about how restless I am, yearning to go. This place doesn't feel fun. It doesn't feel like a place anyone would want to visit. But you know what? When I look around me, we have a lot going on.

3. I think, tucked in the back of my brain, are thoughts I never thought I'd have. I had a conversation with a friend a few days back, wondering if blogging was dead. Dead? Hmmm. Well, part of me hopes not since I'm signed up to teach a class next term! (wink) What I do wonder, is has my relationship to blogging changed? Why do I do it? I started blogging to record my family's life and to have a place to process ideas and thoughts. It became a forum for photography, and at its deepest level I'm here because of the relationships I've developed. Of course. I was never doing this to brand myself or make money. I get the most ridiculous clearly-you-didn't-even-LOOK-at-my-blog--before-you pitched-me emails (I'm sure you all do.), that I barely glance at before hitting DELETE.

So why am I here? And more importantly, should I stay? My life is changing and my family is changing, but I would miss chronicling it. I would miss having it chronicled. Equally importantly, I would miss you. But lacking real direction, and sometimes getting caught up in the pettiness of it (and knowing that's not a place I want to be), I wonder. But enough about me!

4. I think we've had a great first few weeks of our Ditch Your Gear class. We discussed composition last week and sent our students out to study leading lines, the rule of thirds and my favorite, negative space. This week we'll play with some editing apps. I sometimes wonder about teaching a class like this online, but I'm not quite sure how to go about it. And when I dream my big dream I have a studio where we teach all sorts of classes and Annie comes to design it for me.

5. I think I can't believe how quickly we've come to the end (sort of) of the General Assembly Session. Cal's time there, sadly, is done, but there still seems to be some wrangling over the budget. Cal would, I think, gladly volunteer to stick around and help out! We go up today to watch the Mock Session where the Senators act as Pages and Cal presides over the Senate as Lt. Governor and tomorrow morning he graduates. I have so much to say about all of this, and you can expect a full recap soon. Cal has promised to write us a post as well. He has so many great stories! All I'll say now is that I couldn't be prouder of my boy. Really, really.

I mentioned on Instagram a few weeks back that I was slowly replacing our tired and worn out forks with some random forks I'd found at a local antique and gift shop here in town called Table Seven. I love this place. I'm not a real antique-y kind of person, but they seem to have the perfect mix of quirky rather than fussy antiques (fabulous barware, for example) that's always right up my alley.

We were in at Christmas time when Neel and I spied this basket of random flatware by the front door. Since we were already at our budget for the holidays (ahem) and not doing any spending on ourselves, I let it go, looking longingly at at the basket as we left. Our forks are in bad shape. We've had them a long time, what can I say? But after the holidays I sneaked back. I'll replace a few at a time, starting with the forks. Neel thinks we only need to replace the broken forks, but when you see how pretty and different they are, it's a little hard not to completely infiltrate, you know?

So when I bought my first round of forks, the woman who helped me, turned that fork over to show me the back. "See how lovely it is?" she asked. Apparently, in a somewhat ambiguous "back then," tables were set with the forks facing down, so the flatware makers made sure that both sides were beautiful.

I loved that story, and it got me thinking. What's the deal with the fork?

In the treasury of our utensils, the fork is the baby. Knives, basically tiny axes, have been around forever, and even the Greeks were using spoons to scoop their liquids. Forks? Derived from the word for "pitchfork," early use of forks was considered immoral (as compared to eating with your hands, I suppose) and therefore limited. During the 15th century the two-pronged utensils became more common among both the merchant and noble classes where the forks were used primarily for foods that might stain one's hands. Forks, still considered somewhat immoral, were shared among several diners.

Catherine de Medici brought the fork to France upon her marriage to Henry II, and after that, well, the rest is history! By the 17th century people were carrying their own utensils (thank the good Lord), and the two-pronged fork, good for scooping and not much else, was being replaced. A third or fourth tine, now slightly curved, made scooping easier and it less likely for food to slip through.

So how about them apples? Looking into the way we eat with forks (the French transfer vs. the American) and the carvings on flatware could be an entirely different post. So much fascinating history.

And you know what? We're still low on forks, which means another trip to Table Seven for me!

I found my information on the history on the fork in all sorts of places on the web, including a Slate article and another on Design Sponge. There are some great books available as well, like this and this.

five things, march 7

forked, a brief history {life}