mostly plants

We’ve seemed to reach our semi-annual desire for Great Changes.  At Christmas, it was our reworking of routines and general organization.  Here in Spring-Almost-Summer both Devo and I have our minds on road trips and camping, and food.

I haven’t been doing a great job of feeding my family recently.  One Sunday I was griping to Devo (it truly was a gripe) about my dismal meal planning and pantry stocking of late.  He kindly began to offer ideas on how to be more efficient (you know, meal planning and scheduled shopping).  I interrupted him with a hand in the air.

I don’t really want to talk about the details right now.  I just want to do some self-bashing. 

I almost gasped as the words that came out of my mouth reached my ears.  Self-bashing, what a ghastly, ugly, damaging past-time.  Of course I know when I’m participating in self-bashing.  But to have the truth of the matter come, unedited, out of my mouth without warning – it was sobering to see that nasty habit in the light.

I’m taking a tighter rein on my self-talk.  Again.  Weird how it starts out so innocuously and spirals so quickly down to loathing and despair.  Trippy.

But back to food.

 

I took a look through the documents on my computer this weekend, searching for previous meal plans for inspiration.  I found that we basically don’t eat anything that we ate eight years ago.  Or five years ago.  Even three years ago only has about half the meals to be what we would eat now.

Our eating style has changed so drastically that we have basically started from scratch.  Started back at basics with plants.

Eat food.  Not too much.  Mostly plants. -Michael Pollan

I’ve been vegetarian since I was 17 (Hong Kong chicken flu and Mad Cow disease in one year helped with that decision), and Devo converted around the time we were married.  During the gestational years, we did both eat some fish, but it seems that that has phased out.  (I am planning, however, to have some Alaskan salmon when we visit my dad in Anchorage this summer.)  The kids are vegetarians.

Dairy has slowly left our refrigerator.  A bit of Tillamook cheddar and parmiggiano reggiano.  Occasionally a tub of Greek yogurt.  Mayo is gone for good.

“Vegemeat”, long a staple food in my life and heart, was eliminated first for budgeting purposes and now because we are soy-free at home.

We eliminated soy at home last fall, due to concerns about endocrine disruption in our children and myself.  It has made a difference, I might add.  But I mourn the loss of soy milk and tofu (not to mention that it’s in just about everything).  And vegemeat.

And now, the most recent challenge is to move away from relying so heavily on breads.  Sandwiches and burritos have been the core of our meal repertoire.  But when I buy bread, it gets eaten for at least two, if not three meals a day.  Too much.

We’re sick of corn tortillas, and I can’t in good conscience have us eat so many white flour tortillas any longer.  My body rebels.  There are some good whole wheat tortillas, but they are worth their weight in gold and we eat a lot of food around here.

Which leaves us with Mostly Plants.  

 

For a long time, I have cooked under the following formula ::

One legume, one grain, one green vegetable, one yellow vegetable.  

It’s a wonderful way to start learning how to make meals that are not based around a main dairy, meat, or vegemeat item.  Tossed salads, grain salads, bean bowls, fried rice, pasta with vegetables, sandwiches, burritos/tacos.  All of these are great ways to use the vegetables that are on sale and in season at the grocery store/farmer’s market or that come in the farm box.

But I seem to have reached a point of stagnation.  With the elimination of soy and moving away from breads, I’m left without the foundations of our staple meals.  Also, this year has matured our family so that there are more apparent food preferences and aversions.  Our policy is that everyone must eat, without complaining, a modest helping of whatever is served.  But as main cook, I must say that I prefer a table full of enthusiasm and second helpings over grim endurance.

All of which means, it’s time for a change!

 

I’ve cancelled our farm box for the time being so that I can do some picking and choosing of my own at the grocery store.

I’ve signed us up for 30 Day Vegan.

Devo and I are seriously considering investing in our first juicer.  Recommendations?

I have planted 12 tomatoes, six cucumbers, way too much squash (Mom, you have to promise to help eat it), and seven bell peppers.

I’ve reworked and updated my perpetual grocery list.

I am trying hard to develop a manageable and tasty meal plan.

I’m on the lookout for new complete-meal recipes.  I enjoy cooking from whatever I’ve got, but it’s time to find and plan for full meals.  Preferably ones that everyone loves.  Or almost everyone.

 

Might I just say that eating with a conscience these days is a very very hard thing to do?  Eat in season, buy locally, buy organic, avoid cans, stay in budget, eat a balanced and healthy diet.  Just those criteria alone can leave us with hardly anything to eat.

I call for new criteria to eating with a conscience : use your brain! don’t get hung up on getting it all right!  eat well!

Anyone have a plant-based, fresh, simple and easy meal to share?

 

daffodil skirt

I’ve been an armchair sewist for about a year. Reading, scoping out blogs, finding a few favorite and easy things to make.  It all bumped up a serious notch when I got Gertie’s New Book for Better Sewing: A Modern Guide to Couture-Style Sewing Using Basic Vintage Techniques.

It was my bedside reading for weeks.  Tailor’s tacks, fabric guides, pattern drafting, bound buttonholes.  Sometimes I’d have to not read it before bed, because I wouldn’t be able to sleep after reading such interesting and exciting things.

Really.

From the introduction:

“While shortcuts and quick projects seemed to be the trend in the sewing world, I was spending hours overcasting seam allowances by hand.  I started to appreciate slow sewing and the beautiful garments it produced.”

I was always a part of the “shortcut and quick projects” crowd.  (I was trending!  How unusual.) I have a notoriously short attention span for long projects, I like variety and change.

(Scuba diving is one such evidence of my attention span.  By the time I’ve geared up and gotten in the water, I’m ready to be finished and go home.  Ditto with projects.  Give me results or give me…something else to do.)

This whole idea of slow sewing was a revelation to me.

Slow sewing produces beautiful garments (that don’t look “homemade” – hello unfinished seam allowances and poor fit).  Clothes that are designed, altered, and sewn to fit me.  (Anyone else despise clothes shopping as a futile effort in finding what doesn’t exist?)

I am also really drawn to the idea of slow sewing as a meditative act.  Being in the moment instead of rushing towards the end of the seam, the end of the project, on to the next thing.

And then I’ve been watching the Great British Sewing Bee.  It’s a reality show/competition to find Britain’s best home sewist.  I just loved it.  Especially Ann, the elderly lady who does yoga twice a week and has been sewing every day for something like 75 years.  She’s so classy.

The Great British Sewing Bee really fired me up.

I’ve been waiting to lose the baby weight, and then to lose the nursing fullness before sewing my own clothes.  Which I finally did – only to gain some back.  (Whaaa?  Am I experiencing the beginnings of middle age spread?  So many things about my body have changed recently and I don’t think I can chalk it all up to having four children.)

But what the hay, I think the extra random body mass won’t make too much of a difference in clothing.

I chose Colette’s Peony as my first project and ordered the pattern last week.  But in the meantime I decided to do a little project while I waited on the US postal service.

A while back I had bought some yellow fabric to make curtains for my kitchen window.  I’ve wanted corn-colored curtains ever since Pat and Rae had them at their bedroom window in Mistress Pat.  Unfortunately, the yellow just isn’t right for the kitchen (it needs something more mellow and with a small print, I think).  So channelled my inner Maria again and turned the curtains into a dirndl.

I followed Gertie’s instructions for a full, gathered skirt (which are also in the book, slightly modified).  I ended up lining it for modesty’s sake and putting in my very first zipper!  (Yes! First zippers are worthy of exclamation marks!)

Introducing, my daffodil skirt.  Poofy happiness.

 

photo by Levi

Summer

The calendar tells us that summer is approaching.  We have such lovely winter weather here.  A few days of “winter”, a few days of “summer”, and a lot of days of just perfect.  But the sun doesn’t lie, and the days are getting longer.  The kids are going to bed before the sun and we’re starting to wish we could stay outside in the garden just a bit longer.

I’m thinking forward to the dog days of summer and how we hibernate inside for the duration.  Maybe our routine could use a bit of a shift.  Spend time outside in the early morning and the late afternoon.  Do school work and activities through the midday.

Somehow we missed our window for a spring break.  Between the church schedule, the piano schedule, and the charter school schedule, our own personal spring break got scheduled right on out.  Homeschool blogs were talking about needing a break and a lift in February and March.  I’m a late bloomer.  Here in late-April I’m ready to scrap “rejuvenation” altogether and move straight towards our summer routine, with a significant let-up on the “should-dos”.

In the meantime, we’re taking a week off of piano practice and taking (yet another) week easy on school pressures.

Next year we’ll take a spring break.  Promise.

 

spring cleaning

In for a penny, in for a pound.  That’s the story of the garage of this, the first true garage clean-out (vs. garage clean-up) since we moved in 11 months ago.

All those pieces of furniture that I thought might come in useful have been patiently awaiting their verdict.  Quite a few pieces got the boot (particle board hand-me-downs…yuck.  and let’s not discuss why I’ve let them stay in our home for so long).  The nicer pieces got adopted by my artist friend Rebecca, who is going to turn them into pieces of happiness.

But I don’t want to give up my two wood bookcases, wedding gifts from my uncle, pretty and mellow, that have been part of our home for ten years.

So I had to find a place to put them.

And thus began the Great House Overhaul.  Yes, right in the middle of the Great Garage Clean-Out.  Haven’t touched the garage since I last mentioned it.  But boy, is the house getting a lot of attention!

The only place those bookcases could possibly go (and me remain happy) is in Kiri’s room.  But Kiri’s room was already occupied by four bookcases.

In a bold move, I moved the four bookcases from Kiri’s room to the breakfast nook-turned-office.  That desk had really been bugging me, the feng shui was off.  Emptying four full bookcases on a whim is always a bold move, but I LOVE IT.  That corner of the house finally feels right.

The thing is, those four previously full bookcases are now mostly empty.  The shelves are now mostly decorative instead of mostly functional.

Which means a lot of pruning, purging, tossing, sorting, reimagining, rearranging, reorganizing.  White space and margin, my decorating requisites.

After a week of diligent work, I’ve got it all put away in new places (said places also being subject to my Mad Skillz) — except for one shelf’s worth of books.  Can’t find a place for them.

Crumbs.

While I waited for the elusive solution to appear, I set in on the toy collection.  Remind me to tell you about the toys.  It’s an odd story.

In the meantime, we’re looking ahead to the summer.  My mom is coming out (early – yay! – for medical appointments – serious boo) and then once school lets out for the summer, we’ll have a few weeks with Liana here as well.  To make room for them, we’re going to make the transition to having Levi and Kiri in the same room, which has always been our ultimate goal.  Right after sleep through the night.

(I feel some trepidation about the potential loss of sleep in this transition.  But in my clearer, braver moments, I remember that they usually wake one another up when they cry at night anyhow, so it should just be like usual.  Only cozier.)

So we’re looking to set up Kiri’s room as a functional long-term guest room for two.

Which means…the beloved bookcases from the garage don’t fit.

Bwahahahaha.

What’s a girl to do.

I think I’m hitting an Organizing Slump.  Time to think of something else.  (Don’t you dare mention the garage.)  Like watching Frasier and soothing my frayed end-of-day nerves.  Hey, I finally got to the part where Daphne and Niles get together!  I hope I won’t be lame and lose interest now that the whole unrequited love bit is gone.

Anybody else gone a little crazy with their spring cleaning?

out and about

I’m always on the lookout for interesting people.  A few months back, I introduced the girls to the joys and laughs of people watching in an airport.  (Parenting perk – having the fun of teaching them how, and then a whole new set of people watching partners.) Figuring out who belongs with who, and how they’re related.  Looking closely at faces and extrapolating possible stories.  Where are they going, why are they going?  We never got to see who was going to pick up the extremely large and tall man with tattoos, dreadlocks, a big beard, and saggy pants.  We figured he was probably a gentle soul.

A couple of people around the neighborhood have caught my eye recently.

:: twins

There is a set of twins who I often see out getting their daily walk.  They must be in their 70s, dyed coppery hair (matching), sporty old lady outfits (coordinated), matching strides, walking close together side by side.

I love to see them, it brings a smile to my face every time.  I holler out, “There are the twins!” every time we drive by.  It bewildered the kids at first, but now they look for the twins as well as for our favorite resident snowy egret.

I like to wonder about these ladies, what it’s like to be twins for so long.  Do they have husbands snoozing in armchairs at home?  Are they both widowed and enjoying retirement, just the two of them all cozy in their gated community condo?  Or maybe they never married and this is just today’s version of an entire lifetime of daily walks.

:: water bottles, requisite

Another set of exercising siblings has caught my eye.  Two brothers and a sister (judging from similar features), all young adults, their early 20s, maybe.  All quite heavy.  Dressed in their t-shirts and cotton shorts, I see them out walking.  Always with their water bottles, usually with earbuds.  They don’t quite walk together, one walks a little ahead or one lags behind.  They have obviously made a pact to exercise together and they’re sticking to it.

I always feel so inspired seeing them, faithfully out for their walk with their ever-present water bottles..  Sometimes I wish I could stop for a minute and pass back to them some of the encouragement they give me.

:: wanted – headband and leg warmers

The house around the corner is getting a redo.  A new paint job (pepto bismol meets mud, delightful).  A new roof.

I just love seeing the contractor who’s been doing all the work.  Big poofy black hair.  Usually tamed (or shaped, rather) by an Olivia Newton John headband.  Dark skin, way too dark.  Usually no shirt, just a pair of shorts and the big boots.  Can’t get over the headband.  Just needs some leg warmers to make my life complete.  I’ll be very sorry when he finishes up work.

photo - knit your own!

spring cleaning (well, organizing)

Devo and I have laid siege to the Pit of Despair (aka, the Garage) this weekend.  It’s been liberating to air out the possessions, do some spring cleaning.  We bought a big pile of plastic containers and it felt great.

(Generally I believe that the answer is less stuff not more containers, but sometimes you need containers to easily organize the things you have.)

Some of those containers went to organizing our tool supply.  There is only so long that a gallon paint can works as a tool box.

Some came in to the craft cupboard, which has now been revamped and streamlined (no more things falling out when you open the door).

I have big plans for a few more of the containers to replace the multi-sized shoeboxes that some of our homeschooling supplies are in.  Hope to finally find a permanent place for those things, they keep wandering here and there but haven’t found a place that really works yet.

The garage has a lot more work to be done.  It’s been a catch all for months – all of the things I’ve moved out of the house have moved into the garage.  You know how it goes.

I made it through the kids clothes seasonal switcharoo, except for Kiri’s.  I was feeling good about it until we went to go hiking this morning and I couldn’t find anything for anybody to wear.  Got a little grumpy.  Got a little feeling like a failure.  Got a little how hard can it be?

We are going to have bins in the garage for these kinds of outings.  A bin of swimming clothes (already have that going) and a bin for hiking clothes.  When we get home from the outing, the dirty clothes/suits will go directly into the washing machine and then directly back into the bin.  No more hunting for clothes.  We are also going to keep the winter jackets and hats/scarves/etc. in a bin in the garage.  Easy access.

We are also going to set up a series of hooks by the garage kitchen door for all the bags that go on outings.  The hiking bags, the piano bags, the children’s choir bags, the church bag, etc.  I’ve been looking forward to this particular bit of organization for a long time.  Right now all the bags are tossed into the hall closet and often requires excavation to find the needed bag.

A friend wanted to know if we’re planning on parking both cars in the garage once we’re done.  No, siree bob.  A sense of spaciousness is what we’re after.  And we wouldn’t want to always be yelping, “Don’t open the door, you’ll bang the other car!”  which is totally what would happen.

catch-up

I wrote this post last week and never posted it.  I think I intended to write more, but life happened.  So here’s a bit of catch-up.

We had an awful winter of crickets this year.  Lots and lots of crickets everywhere, especially inside the house.  Luckily for our sanity, they were strangely lethargic (and therefore easy to catch/smash).  Now we have an influx of mosquito eaters, which are large, leggy things, also remarkably slow moving.

Unfortunately, the smaller members of the household have developed a shrieking, quaking, uncontrolled fear of mosquito eaters. And even more unfortunate is that the mosquito eaters tend to congregate in the bathrooms.  Which means that no one can go to the bathroom without a Brave Parent first dispatching all the insects.

We are not amused.

We are slowly recovering from the rigors of Easter week.  Known at our church as Four Days With Jesus (Thursday through Sunday), I think of it as Six Days Without Devo.  It was a perfect storm of events leading to the demise of motherly sanity.  Several days of ditching routine due to birthday celebrations, etc.  An ill-advised long late-afternoon nap kept Kiri and Levi up almost four hours past their bedtime early in the week – the effects of which made the rest of the week…challenging, shall we say.  Plus a few other things.  I am still recovering.

The weather is warm enough often enough to merit digging out the summer clothes.  This winter I reduced each child’s available wardrobe to four outfits per child.  Plus church clothes.  We’ve been very pleased with this.  Less laundry for Devo.  No more over-stuffed drawers.  And even if everything gets emptied out, it won’t take more than one arm sweep to put it all away.  As the four outfits get grubby or are outgrown, I can easily swap them out for a fresh item.

Amelie has requested dresses for the summer, and I’m thinking about what a great simplifier a wardrobe of dresses would be.  That would make four pieces of clothing for her, instead of eight.  I think we’ll try to do mostly dresses for all the girls.  Maybe even for Mama, who desperately needs some summer clothes.

I’m making a strong effort to pare down our boxes of hand-me-downs to only items that I like.  I tend to hold on to everything we’ve been given because, after all, what if we need it?  But the $12 it would cost to buy or make a new sundress is probably not worth the amount of crazy I become when trying to sort through piles and piles of clothes.

 

baby years and Amelie’s 6th birthday

Where have I been all these days?  Crying my eyes out, that’s where.

Kiri and I came to the end of our breastfeeding journey last week.  We had moved from on demand (demand being the key word here) to three times a day, Daniel style (morning noon and night).  Noon dropped out.  Then Devo started taking her out and distracting her in the mornings.  Then one evening I came home from yoga and they had read Goodnight Gorilla together and he’d tucked her into bed with her baby and her giraffe and she’d gone to sleep.

I was ready, she was ready, it was time.  I was ready to end breastfeeding a 20 month old.

But I wasn’t ready to end the baby years.  And that is what apparently just came to an end.  My inner self knew it before my outer self did.  I’ve gone into mourning, grieving hard over the end of something very beautiful and precious.

I have been creating and nurturing life with my body, in my body, for a little over nine years.  That’s over a quarter of my entire life.  And while, yes, I’m glad to be returning to a place of sanity and productivity and the joys of middle childhood, I am heart broken to leave the baby years.

Pregnancy, baby kicks and squirms, labor and birth, the miraculous first days and weeks, the sweetnesses of babies, plump cheeks, fat legs, cuddles under the blanket, nursing, kisses, every day something new, nurturing, our very own baby.

In many ways I feel very alone in this grief.  I think that is because, while others can empathize and support and understand, these experiences are uniquely mine.  They are physical memories.  These years have rent open my heart, my soul, my mind, and my body.  Oh, there’s nothing like it.

In other news, we have been celebrating Amelie’s sixth birthday this last week with a small party on Friday.  The theme was an old-fashioned garden party (of sorts).  We ordered umbrellas and fans for the girls.  The boys got plastic top hats and handmade bow ties.  I was hoping to make some new dresses for the girls, but contented myself with dressing up their old ones with bright new sashes.  Levi forsook his bow tie and came as Robin Hood.  Kiri wore one of Amelie’s baby dresses, like a little fairy child.

We had set up a stage curtain (which kept blowing over in the afternoon wind), and the littlest girls performed the most darling plays for us.  I always love being reminded how little Amelie still is, sometimes I forget.

Today was her birth day.  It’s kind of nice, because the kids talk about their birthdays so much and for so long before the actual day, that I become accustomed to thinking of them as the next year older before it actually happens.

So now she is officially six and outfitted with a new ballet ensemble, a selection of books, a big butterfly balloon, and a dozen cream colored roses.

According to family tradition, we watched the video of her birth.  The wild, noisy, fast, intense, hard two hours of labor.  The beauty of a home water birth.  The instant recognition and love.  Her first cry.  (I cried.)

We made spring-themed chocolate lollipops for Easter. (Molds in the shape of the desired traditional bunny are apparently impossible to find in-store during the Easter season.  Next year, order online.)

We also went to buy another butterfly balloon when the first butterfly flew away.  (It’s so nice to be able to easily mend a broken heart.)

We fed ducks with the left-over tea sandwich crusts from the party.

The birthday “cake” was a pumpkin pie.  Amelie whipped the cream all by herself.

This week the kids have started sewing their own designs, using the machine, and we had another sewing session today.  Lia can reach the pedal on her own, but all three are having a blast doing the sewing on their own.  I made a few fabric eggs when the machine was free, stuffed with rice they make enchanting hacky sacks.

We laughed through this “duck-umentary” over supper.  Highly recommend.

Edited to add the link for the duck-umentary, sorry!

pain and fear

I’ve noticed that my rate of posting here has slowed recently.  I think it’s because I have so many things to say.  I’ve been thinking many deep thoughts, and they’ve stymied the interest in writing about anything other than what must be said.

I have so many things to say that when I’m in the company of people to whom I could discuss all of these things that are speaking so loudly in my brain, I can’t seem to say anything at all.  So I sit and smile with my lips closed.

Most of these recent thoughts seem to be under the umbrella of finding a life of wholeness and freedom.  The topics seem centered around pain and fear, doubt and faith.  For today, pain and fear.  Maybe doubt and faith another day.

……………………………………..

I’ve had a number of conversations recently with people undergoing intense personal pain.  And they have no idea what to do with it.  Push it away, mostly, through inactivity or overactivity.  Does no one teach us how to deal with pain?

I began my lessons in dealing with pain at my mother’s proverbial knee.  My mom legitimized my pain and was brave enough to face it with me.  (She still is.)  I continued my education through books and listening and thinking and counseling and lots of practice.  Lots of practice.

Some thoughts on pain.

• When you block out pain, you block out joy.
• When you name something and speak it aloud, it robs it of its power, brings it into light.
• Release your pain from the constriction of fear, meet it with kindness.
• Pain + kindness > pain + fear
• Overcoming fear takes courage.  Courage, remember, isn’t the absence of fear.

• Be proactive.  Deal with pain when it appears.
• You can push it aside, but it will be back later.
• Notice what makes you cry.
• Notice what stories you tell make you choke up.  Dig there.

• Sit with it.  Feel it.  Don’t brush it off.
• Honor your pain by your presence.
• If it gets to be too much, too intense, you can take a break.  And come back later.
• If it’s still too intense, you can see a counselor and look at those things together, in a safe place.
• It gets worse before it gets better.  Like Pandora’s box, if you let one thing out, it all comes out.  This is a good thing.

• Examine the pain.  Follow it back to its roots. Dig like an archaeologist.  What am I feeling?  Why do I feel this way?  How does this connect to other things?  Follow threads until they exhaust themselves.
• Don’t try to force or convince yourself to feel one way or another.  This is honest time and you can’t be honest when you’re trying to be something you are not.  You might be (insert word here : forgiving, loving, able to let go) later, but you are not now.  Honor now.
• Journal.  Ask yourself a hard question and then answer it.  Give yourself permission to ramble, to switch thoughts mid-sentence, to follow threads, to jump in in the middle.  Tear up the paper when you’re done, burn it ceremoniously, delete the file.  Or keep it as a memento reminding you of the courageous path you’ve taken, or healing sought and received.

• Don’t be surprised when things that you thought were healed and tidied up need to be addressed again.
• Be ready to receive cleansing, relief, healing, joy, wholeness.
• Know yourself.
• When you open yourself to pain, you open yourself to joy.

 

Sundays, an update, and frasier

:: homemade pizza night, every other Sunday

One of our numerous new year’s resolutions was to invite people over more often.  We have been practicing hospitality faithfully since the start of this year.  Every other Sunday seems to be about right for us, manageable.

Technically, Sunday is our Home day – the day to take care of those honey-do tasks, work on home projects, work in the garden, veg a little.  On weeks when we are having guests for supper, we clean the house.  A decent cleaning every two weeks is just about right, in my book.  On the in-between weeks, we do larger house projects (next up: the garage, ew) and then my sister Liana babysits in the evening while we go out (or sit in the car).

We have so enjoyed having our friends over.  With having five pregnancies and four babies over the last nine years, there have only been a few months here and there where we’ve felt ‘with it’ enough to entertain.  Now we’re really getting into the groove.  Our biggest problem is that there are so very many people we want to have over.  Too many friends, a good problem to have.

:: voice lesson update

After a three month hiatus from lessons (not my choice, teacher’s schedule), I had my first lesson this last Sunday.  Right in time for another hiatus due to Spring Break.  (Well, at least I’m not being tempted to drain the family money pot with lessons right and left.)

My teacher’s name is Aram – he’s Bulgarian.  I love him.  One of the many many things I love about him is that he lavishes praise and affirmation.  Even his suggestions and solutions are bookended in positive things.  ”Beautiful, just beautiful.  Now this time, I want  you to…”  ”You could never make a sound that is anything less than beautiful, it can only have varying degrees of beauty.”

I bask.

And I laugh at myself, because I am so aware of how those compliments and affirmations buoy me up, build me up.  Maybe I laugh because we get the message that we are supposed to be impervious to compliments and impervious to criticism, and I realize that I am flying in the face of that.  But in the words of Jewel, I’m sensitive and I’d like to stay that way.  I’m like a little flower, soaking in the sunshine.

There is a theme in these lessons that wasn’t present in my early twenties.  Warmth of the 30s coming in to your tone.  Now you sound like a woman in her 30s, not a junior in college.  Your true voice.  

Your true voice.  I’ve been mulling over vocation and the concept of becoming our truest and fullest selves, and all the hindrances we work with.  It seems as though my vocal development is just another manifestation of this journey.

:: guilty pleasure

I’ve been watching reruns of Frasier in the evenings.  I must admit how comforting those 90s styles are to me.  Baggy pants, short shirts, short skirts.  Nostalgia.  I’ve been surprised at how much I am enjoying it.  I find myself laughing out loud, all by myself.

I still have not been able to bring myself to watch the last episode of Downton Abbey.  I know something terrible happens.  Sheesh, I know what the terrible thing is that happens!  But for Pete’s sake, it’s TV, can’t I just never watch it and start again next season and spare myself the anguish?

I love my little raised garden beds.  Yesterday we added some white and yellow violas, more green onions, the row of lettuce you see waiting in the foreground.  The broccoli is making actual broccoli and two of the six potatoes have put out their first leaves.

The carrots haven’t shown up yet and I’m a little worried.  But then again, I can’t remember when we planted them, so they could very well just still be germinating and doing their thing, unseen.

Two itty bitty nasturtium plants have poked their first green leaves out.  (More hope for the carrots).

Currently I’m working on the patch right between the girls, under the lilac tree.  Weeding out the terrible runners from the invasive weed we call grass, debating over whether to buy dirt to help the heavy clay soil loosen its suckitivity (spell check says that’s not a word), making the first section of the brick mowing strip that will eventually curve the whole length of the wall.  Feeling a little rising panic that we aren’t going to get the flowers in on time and will miss out on a whole year’s worth of flowers and hummingbirds and butterflies.  (This is a familiar panic, I’m hoping this is the year to overcome.)

There is lavender waiting, and the first batch of strawberry seedlings to line the flower beds.  Also coming soon, creeping fig to cover the unsightly (but sturdy) block wall.  Block walls make for yucky photos.

The kids practically live out in the backyard.  They love to go round and round, talking through some imaginary scenario.  Some days they hike mountains as adventurous naturalists with backpacks, yesterday it was a parade that ended with a dance fest (50s and 60s rock and roll), ballet-style.

(Sidenote: Devo has a recording of someone else singing the Beatle’s Here Comes the Sun that gets a fair amount of play time.  Yesterday the Beatle’s original came on and Lia was miffed at all the changes these musical imposters had made.  Haha.)

Working in the garden is never a sure thing.  As with everything else when there’s a baby around, gardening is an exercise (sometimes strenuous) in detaching from accomplishment and results.  But at least we can retreat to the ‘wing wing’ (swing), and pass the time lazily in the sun.

Next up, gigantic tomato cages.

Rockin’ with Elvis

Lia has developed a deep love of rock and roll from the 50s and 60s.  She assiduously studies Pandora’s little write-ups and has become a fount of rock and roll knowledge.  (She also applies her musical knowledge to her listening and informed me that the first interval to the 4 Season’s song Sherry is a Perfect 4th.  And so it is.)

The rest of us enjoy her stints as as DJ as well.  There are long dance sessions in the living room and on the trampoline.  Amelie has requested our favorite Pandora station as the background music for her birthday party.  Tonight, Levi’s song of choice for worship singing time was “a-wimoweh” (The Lion Sleeps Tonight).  Forgive us, we made him choose another.

Lia regales us with facts and interesting tidbits.  (And Devo looks over at me to see if she’s “true” or making it up.  I nod assuringly, our girl is a knowledge sponge.)  Sometimes she gets the names a little wrong, but I can usually ferret out who she’s talking about.

Yesterday she was talking about Frankie and how he died at the age of 26.  (Or was it 25?)  I couldn’t catch the last name she was saying and wondered if it was the Frankie who died in a plane crash.

“Well,” she said, “a plane crash or something else.”

A moment later she queries, “How did Elvis Parsley die?”

I let that one linger for a moment, a silent laughing spree.

“He died of a drug overdose.”

“Oh, right.  Yeah, Frankie died of a drug overdose, too.”

And there you have it.  My child now has the words “drug overdose” in her vocabulary.

And I will now always and forever think fondly of Elvis as Elvis Parsley.

Tuesday is Dress-Up Day.  Medieval Princess practices the piano in beauty and grace, swathed in a sumptuous red velvet cape lined with golden satin over a hoop-skirted ball gown.

Please note: the cape is made out of an old pair of curtains, the dress out of an old pair of sheets.  And bless those sheets.  It was a risk to make a play dress out of white fabric, but everything seems comes out of it.  So far.  I did note a spot of blue food coloring from the celery experiment today, we’ll see how the magic sheets deal with that one.

Our days are filled with excitement due to Amelie’s upcoming 6th birthday.  She has planned about a year’s worth of celebrations so far.  She brings up the subject, oh, 8 or 10 or 18 times a day.

Today’s big plans include balloons, water balloons, and candy corn.  With umbrellas and fans.

It will be a medieval party!  No, let’s do a 40s party with hair and makeup!  

She went to make herself an umbrella today.  And as she told me later, “It was harder than I thought it would be.”  As I peeled Umbrella Prototype A off of the comforter upon which -and to which- she had glued it.

Tomorrow morning she and I are going out for Mommy-and-Amelie breakfast.

(This week’s breakfast is not with Levi, as I had said last week during a brief (ha, brief, she says) mental lapse.  We do things in order around here.  In this case, age-order.)

We plan on taking a paper and a pen and making some real decisions about this celebration over our smoothies and pastries.

I’m a little nervous.

………………………………………………………………

In other news, Lia and I made this gluten/seitan today.  (Lia is a vegemeat fiend).  It’s so easy and uber delicious.  So glad we doubled it.  And cheap – holy cow, that much vegemeat from the store would cost upwards of $12 – I think I probably made it for $3.  I hope hope hope I get around to making pot pies tomorrow.  Yum.

mess ‘fess

Confession time.

I’ve been on a total freak-out about messes.  Like, I really struggle with this.  Really.

The usual angst has snowballed after too many Sundays where it took all day to simply put things (hundreds of little things) back where they belong.

I fall prey to the impulse to lecture before, during, and after every clean up session.

I’ve been doing some serious thinking about this recently.

I thought that maybe I could give up Cleaning Lectures for Lent.  Ha, what a joke!

Please note :

(a) You can’t get rid of a bad habit without replacing it with a good habit

(b) tongue biting generally only results in a sore tongue

For once, decluttering isn’t the answer.  (boo)

Okay, so the problem is me.

First thoughts :

(a) Allow more mess.  Raise that Mess Threshold.

(b) Spend more time cleaning.  (“But I don’t want to spend another entire Sunday putting away minutiae,” she sobs.)

Meh.

(c) Therapy?

(d) Hypnosis?

I tried to imagine myself showing up in my counselor’s office for the sole purpose of discussing the mess my children make.  Why can’t they just leave the toothpaste in the drawerrrrr?

I’m feeling my way towards an answer, towards something good to drive out the bad.

Name the gifts.

Not surprising.  One of the techniques I used during labor with Lia was to listen to the sounds close to me, the sounds farther away, the sounds beyond the window.  It kept me calm and grounded.  Noticing and naming the things around me seems to work in the same way.  I can’t maintain the anxiety and the noticing at the same time.

Embrace the mess.

So far this has meant acknowledging that there are six people here, living out their lives. Anything times six is fairly significant.  Just remember that.

On the whimsical side, I’m thinking that we should believe that our homes (as are our bodies) are beautiful as is.

Wouldn’t it be hilarious (and freeing) if we all posted photos of our houses as they usually look?  Even funnier if we took care to take a really good photograph – as though we had carefully staged everything?  Quick, take a picture right now!

this morning

Today was Mommy-and-Lia breakfast out.  Wednesday mornings, Jamba Juice.  Order anything you want.  Devo and I switch back and forth taking the kids–  one-on-one has to be scheduled in around here.  Next week, Mommy-and-Levi.

Chatter, chatter, our boots match!, with freckles sprinkled across her nose.

We squeezed in a trip to the used book section of the thrift store and added a like-new copy of Ramona the Pest to our permanent collection of favorites.

Back in time for Devo to leave for work, and school to start.  (Showers, breakfast, practicing, all done on time today!)

Kiri is entertaining herself.  Her activity of choice is to push a dining chair to a destination of her choice, climb, and get in to something purposely kept above the high-water line.  I’m keeping up with my exercise by lifting chairs up to the table, getting them down when the school kids need them, realizing the chairs have been abandoned and Kiri has requisitioned one for her own use, then racing around trying to put them all back up before she runs off with another one.

As Levi sounds out words, and Amelie dashes off a page of math problems, and Lia types away.

A lesson on chloroplasts leads to a study of Seurat, pointillism, and the color wheel, painting with dots of color.  And, of course, we have to try it out for ourselves with paint and Q-tips.  (Does anyone actually call them “cotton buds”?  Devo calls them earbuds, but he’s not from around here.)

Lots of roasted broccoli with garlic spaghetti and fresh parmesan for lunch.  With sauteed, salty mushrooms if you’re so inclined.

The kids and I tried out a friend’s soymilk maker to make almond milk.  Generally, we use the vitamix and a bag to strain out the solids.  Neither Devo nor I care for the zen-like process of squeezing the milk out in the midst of the bustling morning routine.  It’s fun for occasionally, exasperating for routine.  I think what we really need is a salad spinner-like apparatus that spins the milk out.

Almond milk for dessert, in fancy glasses and teacups.

An after-lunch, before-rest, clean up session.  I, again, contemplate therapy, seek a release from the daily freak-out (mild today).

Resting time is in full swing for the older three, and the Mama.  Devo works from home and keeps an eye on Kiri.  (A new and blessed commitment this year).  Always an hour rest after lunch.