Midwinter

Ms. Booshay over at Quiet Life issued a photo challenge. Post the sixth photo in your sixth folder. Donna's is stunning. Mine is eh. Though shalt not covet they blog neighbor's camera and photographic eye. ;-)

It's now day five of some illness that has me feeling less-than-healthy. I've been spending this week in bed with a pounding head, fever and chills, throbbing eyeballs and wracking cough. Yesterday, I finally went to the doc because I was fairly sure I had the beginnings of sinusitis and bronchitis. The doc agreed. While we were in there, Bo had his nostrils swabbed for a flu test, which was very unpleasant (so he says. I closed my eyes and could only hear the procedure) and came back negative. Negative! Today, he's feeling the effects of a bad cold, he says, but not the flu. Could I just have a very bad cold that carries with it the classic symptoms of influenza?

But, as I often say, things like this are God's way of slowing us down, and I have been slowed w-a-y down, what with this unfriendly visitor and this amazing Midwestern weather. We're actually having a winter this year, and it has everyone in a tizzy! School called off day after day (ours continues on, of course), meetings canceled, practices postponed. People are bustin' out the sleds and skis. My neighbor has been so kind as to plow my long, country drive, sometimes multiple times a day. But now that I'm a mini-van mom, I'm still stuck here until the man with the snow tires gets home. So I've settled in, have just about worn out my iPod and wireless keyboard, and have drunk more licorice tea in the past week than most people drink in a lifetime.

Believe it or not, I've actually enjoyed this winter, even with the illness. I've awoken to so many beautiful sunrises, and, as I type, I'm blessed with the view of a gorgeous white dusting of snow on the huge silver maples. I love the clean whiteness. If I could have my way, it would stay like this until April, when the crocuses start popping up from the earth. I know that we won't have Spring in January or February, so it's just fine with me if the land lies dormant under the blanket of white. It's when it all melts and we have two or three months of ugly, brown, litter-strewn mud to contend with that my sadness kicks in, that I feel the effects of that terrible bleak midwinter.

I do have compassion for those who have to navigate the roads and sidewalks in this weather. I wish there were some way we could all do the sensible thing and just hibernate for these months, but I know that it's not realistic (though I've never been accused of being a realist!). But even in my compassion, I can't hide my excitement when I see these incredibly big, fluffy snowflakes that are even now dancing outside my window.

While I certainly look forward to spring, I know that it's quite a ways away. So, for now, I embrace winter!

Atta Girl!

The amazing Bard was named to her university's Dean's List for the Fall 2008 semester!

She's enjoying school, taking voice and guitar lessons, is one of the producers for a weekly live soap-opera type performance, landed a role in God's Favorite--this term's theater production, sings with the Women's Choir, is enrolled in several Honors classes, tutors part time, and is double majoring in English and Communications.

Not too shabby, eh?

Happy Birthday, Baby!

While it's technically not The Baby's birthday yet, we celebrated on Saturday while her older sister was home from college (and continue to celebrate this week).

It's strange for me celebrating this birthday with my littlest little. After all, this is the first time in my life that my youngest child is older than four. With all other children, by that time, there was another baby here. So now, I have a six year old, and no babies. And this will likely be the last six-year-old birthday I'll celebrate with one of my own children. It's strange and sad and sweet and surreal. I'll miss having littles of my own around, especially since this age, five and six, are my very favorite ages.

A friend updated her twitter with a status about reading picture books to her youngest little, and how she'll miss reading them when her kids get older. It sent my heart racing, sent me into a minor panic. I hadn't thought of that! My youngest little is wandering right out of that picture book stage, and I'm not ready for that!

So today, we'll read a few picture books for The Baby (who will be given a new blogger name when she actually turns six), and Swallowdale for the middles, and I'll be assigning The Last Lecture of Houdin, my eldest boy.

Today's mantra: Embrace the Littles!

The Great Cupcake Adventure: Day Three!

Well, we're half-way done! Today, we made Pistachio Raspberry Cupcakes, and while they were really more like sweet muffins. they were certainly delicious (but the Ginger Molasses ones are still my favorite so far!). These cupcakes were unique from the others in that they were mixed entirely in the food processor. I used salted pistachios, since I couldn't find unsalted ones, and I omitted the added salt. Also, I used frozen raspberries because the fresh ones are out of season and quite expensive.

I can't remember what tomorrow's cupcakes are! I'll have to check with Sweetheart. Of course, I'll know soon enough, since tomorrow will come quickly!

The Great Cupcake Adventure: Day Two!

Today was a busy day, filled with doctor appointments, haircuts, fiddle lessons, a lunch outing and various errands. But we wanted to make sure we got our cupcakes in today, so we made them first thing this morning. What a wonderfully decadent breakfast!

Today's recipe was Ginger Molasses Cupcakes with Whipped Cream Topping. They were definitely a hit! I added four tablespoons of powdered sugar to the whipped topping. Just the right amount of sweetness. When we made the cupcakes, they really puffed up over the top, so I'd recommend only filling the tins half full. They also flopped when they were taken from the oven, which didn't affect the flavor one bit, but made them difficult to remove from the pan. I wonder if the "melted" butter was a typo? Not sure.

Anyway, they were very delicious!I venture to say they might end up being my favorite of all of them. Four more days and four more cupcake recipes to go! Tomorrow, Pistachio Cupcakes with Raspberries.

The Great Cupcake Adventure: Day One!

The Baby is going to be six years old soon. To celebrate, we decided to dive into the latest Martha Stewart Living Magazine and make a different batch of cupcakes every day for six days. Today was Chocolate Chip with Chocolate Chip Buttercream Frosting. The verdict? Very, very sweet! If you make these, add a dash of salt to the icing to cut down on the sweetness!

Tomorrow, it's Ginger Molasses with Whipped Cream frosting.

::: the best prayer ever :::

"Dear God, I hope you had a good Christmas and I hope you went to Jesus' house for His birthday."
~The Baby, Age 5

::: come on, baby, light my tree :::

It's not really something I want to do, but I've begun anyway. If it were up to me, I'd probably have twinkling lights dotting my home all-year-round. But I'm not sure I like the connotations that come to mind when I think about Christmas lights on my house in July, so I've begun the process of de-holidazing my home.

After a trip to the local Stuff*Mart for a heap of plastic boxes (how much money do they make selling these things, doyathink?), it was time to start disassembling the decorations I'd assembled just a couple of weeks ago. Well, okay, maybe it was a couple of months ago. But it sure doesn't seem like it's been long since Monet was bugging me about going out to cut down our tree, which was finally put up and decorated on Christmas eve. I actually think we got the last tree they sold, as we were on the lot as the place was shutting down the day before Christmas eve.

And today, while Monet was disposing of said tree, now brittle and prickly with lack of life, he stuffed it into the burn barrel, lit it aflame, and then watched in panic as it tumbled out of the barrel and rolled, constantly combusting, toward the big red barn just west, and downhill, from the burn barrel. Flames, he says, were as high as the first floor of the treehouse, which is twenty feet off the ground, and he panicked as he envisioned the barn erupting into flames. He made haste toward the house, not quite knowing what to say, and stammered, "Can someone help me with this?" gesturing toward the flaming tree in the barnyard. Bo, not knowing what Monet could possibly need help with, looked at him with mild confusion/frustration/condescension, and then noticed the twenty-foot flaming mass of snapping, popping holiday spirit through the kitchen window. General panic ensued.

It's a very good thing that Christmas trees are quickly consumed by fire. It was all over in a matter of minutes and the barn was largely unharmed, thanks partly to Houdin, who grabbed flaming, smoldering pine branches with his bare hands. He says he has blisters to prove it. I wasn't here when the whole thing took place; I was out buying large plastic boxes to stash away our Christmas joy, so I have to take his word for it.

After all of the fun and fire had died down, Monet came up with this little piece of wisdom. "You know, when these things happen, no one thinks to stop and take a picture of it, because if they're taking a picture, they're not putting out the fire."

Yeah.

Kinda makes a girl appreciate her vintage-seventies fake, white tree with its retro-rotating base. Less chance of it catching the barn on fire.

Hope your post-holiday happenings are flame-free.

New Look, New Problems

I've wanted to overhaul my blog for a while, so I decided to do it today. I've saved my old template html, just in case I totally hate this, but in the meantime, I'm going to try this out. The problem is that it's been so long since I did this thing, I can't remember my haloscan username, and blogrolling is defunct, so if you were on my blogroll before and you're still active, drop me a line and I'll add you to my new one. If you've made comments within the last few days, I've read them but now they're lost in haloscan land. I've enabled comments for blogger but they don't seem to be showing up in old posts, so I'm still trying to figure that out. Anyway, here's to a new year and a new look.

Sunrise

If I had a spell of magic
I would make this enchantment for you
A burgundy heart-shaped medallion
With a window that you could look through
So that when all the mirrors are angry
With your faults and all you must do
You could peek through that heart-shaped medallion
And see you from my point of view
~David Wilcox

::: wintery thoughts on a wintery day :::

It's a child's dream, a snow like this. We didn't get it for Christmas, but we're welcoming it all the same. It's the time of year when we discover that we don't have enough matching gloves and mittens, or someone is missing their snowboots, or that a pair of pants doesn't fit under the snowsuit anymore. The snow bikes, snowboards and sleds are dug out from the barn, ramps are made, shovels are re-purposed from digging holes to making ramps, and I, the mother, venture out long enough to make an appearance, take a few trips on the sled, and get laughed at for my lack of snow savvy.
And then I head back inside to make a batch of homemade hot chocolate with real whipped cream, a dash of grated dark chocolate and a sprinkle of cinnamon on top. Everyone claims their favorite mug while I revel in a job well done, listening to the "oooohhhh!"s and "yum!"s as they drink it up.

It's great fun to look out onto the hillside from the warmth of my house and feel like I'm lazing around inside a giant snow globe.

I wish I were independently wealthy. I'd love to take my children downhill skiing. It was the only "sport" that I loved as a teen, aside from fishing. Every Monday after school, all season long, a group of us would climb aboard the bus with our ski club advisers and make the long drive to the closest slopes (Ohio isn't exactly known for its skiing spots) where we would suit up, pull on those giant ski boots, and do that awkward, clomping ski-boot-walk out to the lift. For hours, we'd ride up, ski down, ride up, ski down, the time passing so quickly that it was always a surprise when it was time to leave. I could ski anything on the slopes, from cruising the bunny hops to carving the moguls, and never sustained any injury, aside from maybe my pride every time I backed onto the lift chair, which I never really could get the hang of, or the few times I fell getting off the chair, which were probably the two hardest parts of skiing for me.

Still, I don't remember being intensely fearful of the process, except for the time that one of my club mates broke her leg. I don't think it had occurred to me up until then that one could actually get hurt having this much fun. I may have had a bit more respect for the slopes after that, but never fear.

When I was a young mother with two toddlers at home, Bo and I took an evening to hit the slopes. I was so excited about getting out there, after having been off of skis for about five years. I suited up, pulled on those big ski boots, wiggled my fingers into my gloves, donned a warm winter hat, wrapped a warm scarf around my neck, and clomped awkwardly to the lift, preparing to race my way down the hills for the first time with my hubby in true ski bunny fashion.

But when I got to the top of the first slope, something happened to me. Something inside of me clicked, snapped, and locked up, and I found myself perched at the peak of a very modest hill, eyes wide, experiencing an unfamiliar feeling.

I was afraid of the slope.

Suddenly, the stupidity of this sport zoomed into view for me. A mortal being attaches long, narrow boards to her feet, perhaps even waxes them, puts her fists around two sticks that end in sharp points, rides high in the sky to the top of an snow-covered hill and, along with hundreds of other people she doesn't know and can't fully trust, races down an icy path. I began to realize how brittle bones are, and how vulnerable the back and neck can be, and how irresponsible it would be for a grown woman to leave her two babies motherless just because she wanted to get a little thrill by speeding down a snowy slope.

Nope.

I don't recall how I made it down that hill, though I'm sure I skied it. Did I enjoy myself, or did I pray for my safety the entire way?

Somehow, I got to the bottom, snapped off my skis, and nestled myself into a comfy chair next to the fireplace in the lodge with a cup of hot chocolate.

Every once in a while, the ski bug bites me, especially when I see Houdin and Monet out there trying to make jumps on our little hillside, and I want to give it another try, but now it's the cost of the thing that prohibits me. I should just put the trip on the credit card and go for it. After all, I can't take it with me. Of course, if I follow that plan, I might be leaving it behind a bit earlier than I had planned.

What did you leave behind when you crossed the threshold of parenthood? What did you pick up? What would you love to see your children do that you did as a child, but you just haven't done it yet? What do they do that you never would have dreamed of doing at their age?

Snow day!

All is quiet here, save the sound of the freezing rain tip, tap, tipping on my skylight. We're snowed in. Remember that feeling? Glorious imprisonment. We can't go anywhere, and no one can really venture down our long, hilly, frozen lane. Everyone is home, safe, and there's nothing on the calendar today, which is more the trend than not lately, thank goodness. I know that Bo would have appreciated another day off and would have welcomed this weather on a Friday or a Monday, but here it is, and we'll enjoy it. There's a chicken stewing on the stove for some homemade potpie and homemade pizza for breakfast, left over from last night's family night, which kept everyone up so late that they're still sleeping at ten in the morning. I sense some homemade hot chocolate in the plans, too.

What do you do with your snow days, if you have any? If you live in a warm climate, what is your equivalent of a snow day?

Stream of Consciousness Whilst Avoiding Cleaning My Room

I have a stack of papers on my floor that need to be gone through.
Most of them are probably trash, but I can't just throw them away.
I have to filter through them.
And then I have to burn the ones I don't want.
Identity theft is so stupid.
"Jesus in New Orleans" is playing on iTunes.
Some days, I want to clean.
Some days, I want to stay in bed.
Some days, I want to go away.
Some days, I want to stay inside.
What kind of day is this?
Bard is home for three more days.
Today, she's getting her hair cut and colored.
I have a grocery list the size of someone's arm.
Remember Ed Grimley?
That was funny stuff.
But I think it jumped the shark with the cartoon, don't you?
I mean, watching Martin Short himself was 98% of the fun.
Why animate that?
Who's your favorite comedy actor right now?
I think mine's either Jack Black or Steve Carell.
The Office is my current obsession.
HTML is amazing.
I need to dust.
"Stella's Tarantella" is playing now.
The Baby loves this song.
She's not much of a baby anymore.
Actually, she's a pretty amazing little girl who is almost six years old.
I love birthdays.
What will we do for this birthday?
When she turned four, my friend Kim painted her a picture.
It was a pink and purple birthday.
There were balloons, and windows, and buildings and guitars and a cake with four candles.
It's one of my favorite things.
It's hanging downstairs.
Are we still friends?
I miss our walks.
My running has stopped.
I want to run again.
Monet and I are hoping to train for a 5K, but we've not been doing very well.
I bought him a pair of running shoes.
I think we'll do it.
But when?
"Spark" by Over the Rhine is playing now.
It's one of my favorite songs.
Especially this line:
"Obsessions with self-preservation
faded when I threw my fear away.
It's not a thing you can imagine.
You either lose your fear or spend your life
with one foot in the grave."
That line was an epiphany for me.
Lose my fear.
What's the worst thing that could happen to me?
No one can steal my soul.
The next life is so glorious.
Eternal bliss.
Oneness with Christ.
Knowledge. Happiness. Freedom from pain.
Wake up dreaming.
Only love can turn this around.
Jesus was an incredible man.
I wish more people could see him and not what his followers do to him.
It's time to wrap this up.
It's time to love life.
Blessings on this amazing day.

What is this feeling?

While many people close to me have headed back to work, school and regular routines, I'm resisting. After moving at a break-neck pace for so long, I almost feel as if I'm suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome. Often when my day begins, I don't really want to do anything, just bask in the stillness and quietness of the day. I don't have any interest in interacting with people, really, and I don't feel like cooking, cleaning or going out. Some might say it's depression, and I have to admit that some days I think that, too, but then I wonder if it's not something else. Something less vile and destructive. What if it's a feeling that I've gone without for so long that I can barely recognize it for what it is. What if it's just contentment. Satisfaction. Wanting for nothing.

Peace.

I'm happy to laze in bed and watch an independent film while the kids do their lessons, and then read to them for a while, or watch a nature show on the Mac in my room, or just cuddle quietly. I'm happy for them to finish their lessons and then spend the afternoon playing with their new Christmas gift, the family Wii. The contentment and quietness pervades. Is that okay? Is it okay that right now, in the stillness of my bedroom, all I can hear is a yelling blue jay, the icy snow falling on skylight and the ticking of my clock? Is that acceptable?

It's so peaceful. It's what I want.

And yet, I find myself feeling guilty for having it. I should be...I should be...I should be.... The expectations, requirements and necessities pour in, and I struggle to keep them at bay. I'm content, and yet I find myself looking for ways to alleviate the guilt I feel for being content.

Is anyone starving? No, of course not. Crying, unhappy, bored? No. Are my children well-cared-for? Intelligent? Rested? Loved? Very much so. The grumbling recedes. The bickering ebbs away. We're in a sanctuary. A safe place. A respite.

The other day, Bo and I took Bard and her friend out for the evening so that Bard could do some clothing shopping before going back to college. While I was meandering around Target with my empty shopping cart, finding nothing I felt I needed, a familiar face came toward me, a family friend who I've lost touch with a bit since we've moved to the country. A hug. A talk. Catching up. His wife is one of my best friends, though, even in this age of communication, we rarely take time to talk. Still, I know that she's my friend. I value her friendship dearly, admire her greatly, miss her tremendously. And while I spoke to her husband, he listened to me tell of how we've cut back, pared down, retreated a bit. Things are slower now, I said. We're taking it easy. He told me that when his wife, my friend, would read my blog, read about all of the things we were doing and going to and being, she would question herself. "Are we doing this right?" she would ask her husband. "Are we homeschooling our children okay? Should we be doing more?" And he told her that, no, they should not be doing more. They were doing what was right. For them.

I often fall into the trap of questioning myself, second-guessing my choices. Shouldn't I be doing more? Accomplishing more? Reading more? Teaching more? Working more? Cleaning more? Usually those questions come from my inner struggles with comparing myself to others. What a dangerous thing to do, no? I need to do what is right for me, for my family, for now, for this moment in time. My child is not your child. Your house is not my house. We are not the same person, in the same struggles, with the same desires, goals, dreams, hurts, families, angers, choices, possessions, means, debts, beliefs. We are unique. I am. You are. My choices today are based on my knowledge, and yours have to be, too. We love our families. We are doing what is right for them.

When I was a child, I would close my eyes and press the heels of my palms into my closed eyelids. The pressure would send psychedelic colors pulsing into sight, busy and vibrant and symmetrical and changing. I would pretend that I was in another world, that I was falling through some type of carnival ride, fast and furious--everything was moving and morphing. And when it began to hurt a bit, I would take my hands away and open my eyes. Slowly, the real world would come back into focus, but there would still be flashes of light and blind spots for a few moments. I would still feel the affect of that pressure; it would take a few minutes to blink it away.

In this stillness and contentment, I still find myself blinking away the busy, vibrant, changing, fast and furious carnival ride I was on. I can't always see things clearly, but it's slowly coming back into focus.

Photos: View from My Bed, 1-7-2009