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

A good thought for this season...

It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life. Just make sure that you don't use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that's how freedom grows. For everything we know about God's Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you love yourself. That's an act of true freedom. If you bite and ravage each other, watch out—in no time at all you will be annihilating each other, and where will your precious freedom be then?

My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God's Spirit. Then you won't feed the compulsions of selfishness. For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These two ways of life are antithetical, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day. Why don't you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence?

It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on.

But what happens when we live God's way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity.

Galations 5, The Message

The day is new and fresh. Now what will I do with it? I have my plans, of course, as I normally do when I wake to the sun peaking over the hill. I have a lovely view of it from my bedroom window; on most days, I'm happy to greet it, especially lately as I've made the decision to minimize my stress by staying home more, making a commitment to say, "I'm sorry, but I'm not able to do that." I don't say no to everything, but I have cut way, way back on the things that I do as an individual and the things we do as a family outside of our home. Gone are the days of rushing around looking for choir uniforms, or making hour-long drives to this or that organization, or spending days at a time preparing classes for other homeschooled children who choose not to do their assignments anyway. My focus needs to be on my family, on my health, and on the things that I know I can dedicate my time to fully without stressing everyone out.

So, my days are less stressful now. I know that who I am is not wrapped up in my performances. I can have meaningful relationships with people without "proving myself" through committees and organizations and meetings and clubs and societies. And now, if you ask me to do something and I say, "yes," you can know that I mean it fully.

Which leaves many of my days open and flexible. I like that.

Today, for example, is Saturday. Last year, I would have woken on any given December Saturday with a feeling of dread. What long car ride or unpleasant commitment do I have to greet today? Moreover, regardless of how well I do my task today, someone will not be pleased and I will feel that I've failed. What a depressing way to greet the day! How many things I put on the back burner, like teaching my children basic household tasks, or writing an essay, or making meals at home so that I could "be there" for this or that organization, job or club.

But today, I sit at home inhaling the aroma of my son's breakfast-making--pancakes and bacon-- and listening to the sounds of the dryer running, a blessing that has come about because I stopped saying "not now" to the nine-year-old daughter who kept begging me to teach her to do laundry. She has become a maniac, a laundry-doing machine; she sorts, washes, dries, folds, hangs, matches and puts away clothes better than I every have.

Last night, Bo and I were marveling over Sweetheart's gift as a laundress. When she came into the room, we decided to let her choose what the family would do for dinner that night. She didn't know, wasn't comfortable choosing. Couldn't we ask someone else? Couldn't we take a vote? We explained to her that we were giving her this choice because she had done such a fabulous job taking over the laundry chores. She didn't need a reward, she insisted. She likes doing laundry.

She likes doing laundry.

She likes it.

She. LIKES. it.

And so, doing laundry is its own reward. No other reward is needed.

She likes sorting the whites from the darks.

She likes starting the machine.

She likes putting in the laundry detergent and the fabric softener.

She likes the routine of putting the wash into the dryer.

She likes taking the warm clothes from the dryer, smelling their freshness, folding them and ushering them off to their proper locations.

She finds the reward in the enjoyment of the task.

This is the lesson I'm trying to learn. I will say yes to those things I've been gifted to do, those things that bring others joy, certainly, but that bring me joy because the doing of them is my reward. Of course I have to do some unpleasant tasks, but I'm learning to even enjoy those, and to reap my reward from the task itself, not from what others think of it.

This morning, I have a Saturday, and I have a to-do list that is dotted with reasonable expectations, planning ahead, and relishing the process.

And tomorrow will be new, and fresh, and I will not dread it.

Of snow and scarves and hats and men

Man, check out that snow. It's like a shake-em-up after all of the big flakes have fallen and the after-effects of the giant hand have stopped. The air is almost perfectly still, and just the little bits and wisps of tiny, delicate flurries remain. The birds are totally into the feeders right now, especially the suet, and while I sit here, a little downy woodpecker is hanging off the suet grate, sending out gentle chips and chirps, not eating, really, but just hanging there, basking in the comfort that energy and sustenance is right beneath his feet.

It's a still and peaceful morning. Bo has trudged off to his new job (as of about five months ago) as the production manager of a local chocolate company, the children are nestled all snug in their beds (even the eldest, I'm sure, who is making the most of that bohemian bent she gets from her father now that she's a freshman in college), and even the dogs are silent, all six of them, dotted here and there throughout the house, some under covers with children, some snuggled together in a pile of cast-off clothing that's not good enough for the thrift store, and one curled up on the soft blanket behind me. Even my live-in father, who rises early to indulge himself in one of his favorite obsessive activities, vacuuming, is still off in dreamland.

It won't last long, this silence. In less than an hour, Sweetheart and I will be scrambling to get to piano lessons, stuffing ourselves into our winter layers and wrapping scarves around our necks. I might even wear my hat, which is something I love to do but am still not convinced that I can actually pull it off. Some people's heads are made for hats. Some people have just the right distance between their eyebrows and their hairlines. I, however, have eyebrows that get lost under ever hat I wear, and it makes me look like a very serious swimmer who has shaved off all of his body hair to gain speed. This hat, however, looks halfway decent on me. At least I think it does when I first put it on. After a while, I think it just looks silly, which irks me because I really want to be the kind of person who can pull off wearing a hat.

Scarves, however, I can do, because anyone with a neck can do a scarf, and so I proudly don the masterpiece I created in honor of Bo's 36th birthday. It's made of this beautiful natural, earthy brown wool from Australia, which has no meaning whatsoever, other than it's natural and it's earthy and it's brown. But everything else about the scarf has meaning, symbolism. It's 36 stitches wide, to represent the number of years Bo had been on the planet at that time. It's 6'2" long, which is how tall he was when he'd been on the planet for 36 years. It has 13 ribs, which represents how many years we'd been married at that time. And it took me for. eh. ver. to make the thing. Ribbing and I are not good friends. I've tried several ribbed projects and always seem to mess them up somehow. But I was determined with this one, so I kept at it. And now it's done, and it's still beautiful six years later. Problem: Bo doesn't really wear it. Solution: I do. And I love how I can toss one end ever-so-carelessly over my shoulder and the other end still hangs past my belly button. It matches my style, my general color choices (earth tones and blacks) and I am unabashedly proud that I made it. I used to resist wearing it because it belonged to Bo, but now I think it belongs to me. He's just not a scarf-wearer, even though he has a neck and everything. Even though I always knew I'd have a Great Gatsby dresser in my stash of immediate male relatives, I just don't. They don't like khaki pants, or crisp white shirts, or those very cool haircuts that men had in the 20's. For me, a pocket watch chain draped from a pair of tan pleated pants is such a turn-on, just about as much as a simple pair of jeans and a white t-shirt. Classic. Quite sexy. And while I've recently talked Bo into wearing white t-shirts (love it, love it, love it), I don't think the crisp dress shirt, pocket watch and khakis are coming along anytime soon, and it seems I'm out of men, with my sons prefering much more casual attire.

And now I hear the click of the microwave door as my father starts his daily rituals of coffee, the telling of terrible news stories, and reminders of what I must do today. And then the vacumming will begin.

The silence is broken. It's time for me to get going with my day.

one word

Where is your mobile phone? kitchen
Where is your significant other? gigging
Your hair colour? brown
Your mother? gone
Your father? childish
Your favourite thing? peace
Your dream last night? non-existent
Your dream goal? perfection
The room you're in? neglectd
Your hobby? postponed
Your fear? abandonment
Where do you want to be in 6 years? successful
Where were you last night? here
What you're not? attractive
One of your wish-list items? sectional
Where you grew up? ohio
The last thing you did? monkees
What are you wearing? earthtones
Your TV? off
Your pets? abundant
Your computer? mac
Your mood? defeated
Missing someone? no
Your car? gift
Something you're not wearing? spurs
Favourite shop? indulgent
Your summer? bountiful
Love someone? excessively
Your favourite colour? all
When is the last time you laughed? unclear
When is the last time you cried? today

Of pigs and bacon

It's fall, and winter's nosing up behind. I can tell it's fall without even opening my eyes, because I feel like baking cookies, and the aroma of granola is wafting through the house. A dish of roasted seckle pears and an acorn squash dotted with butter and sprinkled with salt are the most decadent dishes I've devoured this week. The nasturtiums are thriving in the neglect that occurs in the garden this time of year--no weeding or trampling, and no watering. My bag of garlic cloves and hyacinth bulbs are waiting to be planted, a task that must happen this weekend if it's to happen at all, provided my tiller can be repaired. The down comforter lies folded at the foot of the bed, and the extra quilts are dotting the house, sometimes seen draped around the body of a teenager hunched over a cup of soup or bowl of oatmeal. The pig, our very first, is ready for butchering. I made the call today, leaving a message for "Butcher Dan," a man who will come to our home with a butchering truck to do the deed right here.

It's a bittersweet idea, this hog butchering time. After all, the big black beast has been part of the scene of my kitchen window landscape for a year now. She has rendered the garbage disposal completely useless, which is great, since it decided to relieve itself of it's intermittent duty this past week. Why put through a mechanical chopper what I can feed to a live one, and eat later? I've always been very conscious of food waste, but now I feel justified when I toss out a cup of lukewarm milk or a pile of apple peels or a hunk of bread specked with mold. That beast will eat it up, and I'll eat it up when I enjoy that bacon on an icy day.

And yet, I still recognize the twinge of sadness that was my companion during the days of my vegetarianism. How can I not, when I can recall the last summer days, and how we all, as a family, gathered under the apple tree during Bard's last visit home from college, and filled buckets, baskets and barrels under the watchful eye of a beautiful sunset, keeping the good falls and dumping the bad into the pasture, musing over the swine's devouring of the fallen treats. Oh, to eat with abandon! And, of course, comes the joke of the apple in the cavernous mouth of the roasted pig; could it have been the end of the pig, the choking on the last of the fall fruits in its greedy hunger?

Today, as I mixed the granola in the large stainless steel bowl, pouring in sheets of local honey, smoky maple syrup and thick, creamy raw milk, I glanced out the window, taking in the glowing golden maples, and there was my pig, dancing in the barnyard, her squiggly tail flapping along behind her as she ran and spun and leaped in the coolness of the day. Who can help but think of Wilbur and his joyous romp as Charlotte proclaimed him to be Some Pig? And yet I wonder who would voluntarily feed a meat hog to its natural death.

I am no longer a vegetarian. Meat is not something I love, but it's something I sometimes crave and often appreciate, especially if it's very good. Pork, in all forms, is my favorite meat. A crisp bacon. A breakfast sausage. A cottage ham. A pork roast with warm sauerkraut, mashed potatoes and browned butter. And the bacon grease which provides a base for fried potatoes, scrambled eggs, spinach salad, green beans. I think of Laura Ingalls, and the day they butchered their pig, the girls clamoring over the crispy tail, batting about the inflated bladder, savoring the cracklings. I think of the pig pickins I've been to in my life, and the barbecue sauce that waits in a gallon jar in my fridge, leftover from my overzealous preparation for Bard's graduation.

Yes, I'm sorry that this pig is losing her life, but I'm glad that she's losing it to our family. There are few who will appreciate it like we will.

Feeling Like Fall...

The leaves are changing. The bag of apples is sitting in the cellar waiting to be pummeled into applesauce. The echinacea flowers have paled and become ragged...


The garden has almost stopped producing, save an abundance of nasturtiums, a patch of leeks, a handful of tomatoes, and some stubbornly persistent Brussels sprouts.


I'm feeling at once inspired and a bit depressed. I so love the process of growing things and things growing that I'm often tempted to move to a more temperate climate, somewhere I might be able to grow things year-round, or at least know that I'm able, should I want to, should I have the energy. A greenhouse, I think, would come in handy, but the cost is prohibitive, and the learning curve is steep, I fear. And maybe I'm also intimidated by the thought of performance anxiety. If I have a greenhouse, I confess, I may not be as productive with it as I should be. Not a failure I care to venture into. And yet, I know that I'm getting no younger. My knees and stomach and bladder and all else are aging so quickly that my mind can barely catch up with the fact.

A venture into the garden, however, proves that I should choose inspiration. Yes, there is an abundance of death and endings...

...withered tomato vines, faded scarecrow clothing...

...brown marigold heads hanging low, rotting apples lying all over the ground--and yet there is so much life, too. Honeybees hover lazily from one sanvitalia flower to the next.

A closer inspection of the prolifically blooming nasturtiums...

...uncovers another watermelon ripe on the vine, as well as a half-dozen volunteer mammoth sweet pea tendrils winding up their fence...

...a testament to the laziness that prevented me from pulling up the wire-coated supports or cleaning every last one of the spent pea pods in the spring. The climbing black-eyed susan vine that refused to climb all summer long has now taken flight, grabbing onto the nearby spikes of Victoria Blue salvia, lending their color to a lovely contrast.

Four O'Clock seeds sown and quickly forgotten have grown, thrived and bloomed.


I've not planted Four O'Clocks before, so a quick search lends a bit of information:

"Plant seeds in early spring or divide tubers any time. If you soak the large black seeds in water overnight before planting they will germinate quicker. If you get one that you like especially, you can dig up the tuber at the end of the season and replant it next spring. Four o'clocks will self seed."

Swiss chard, eggplant, Brussells sprouts and violas are all happily producing.

A pile of squash sits on the picnic table, eager for roasting.

The "Etain" perennial violas I plunged into the fertile soil of the perennial bed last fall performed in the spring and have raised their ruffled violet-rimmed yellow faces for an encore performance.

"Shapely are all till compared with Etain...Dear are all till compared with Etain."

And the Zebrina Althea is growing everywhere, thanks to the seeds it dropped last fall.

Of course, in their dying, the flower heads drop their seeds everywhere, eager to be fruitful and multiply, eager to fill the whole earth with their goodness.




The bronze fennel that flank my front stairs is proof of that, its ferny voluminousness lending a jungle-like quality to the garden, the seeds and leaves always there for snacking, happy to leave a licorice taste on your tongue.


And the beautiful fall bed rests in pastel wonder, soft greens, soft violets, and the oh-so-soft leaves of the lamb's ear blending with the pinkish purple hues of the flowering kale and cabbage.



And so, today, gentle reader, I offer to you the endings and beginnings of this year's garden. Send me a note at triple maple farm AT gmail DOT com, eliminating the spaces and replacing the words with the appropriate symbols, and I'll send you a smattering of my garden seeds, and maybe a bit of this or that as well.

Delight in the season with me.

Things I Love Right Now...

And when I say things I love "right now," I mean things that are particularly close to my heart at this time. The normal things that I love, like my family and life and God, go without saying. These are just things that make me all warm and fuzzy at this time in my life.

My new iPod Touch. This is just love, pure and simple. It's a thing of beauty. How did I live without this for so long?

Podcasts. I mean, wow. I know I'm W-A-Y behind the times, here, but there is just nothing in the world like listening to This American Life or The Splendid Table at my own convenience.

The Library. I go in phases with this one. Sometimes I love my library, and sometimes I leave her in the dust. Usually the latter comes after me misplacing some very expensive book for a great amount of time, or one of my children misplacing some CD for a great amount of time, and me being too embarrassed to pay the fine for it. But then I break down and return to the arms of her comforting shelves once again.

Books on CD. This is part of the loves mentioned above. The Library + Books on CD + iPod = lovelovelove. The problem is that I listen to go to sleep, and then I can't remember where I left off. Currently, I'm listening to Before You Know Kindness by Chris Bohjalian, whose book Midwives was my first exposure to him. I even got to do a little interview with him and get some signed copies back when I worked for an independent bookstore. On deck: So Brave, Young and Handsome by Leif Enger.

CDs. Another library/ipod combo. There are many CDs that I own but are not playable anymore, or works that I own on cassette, and then there are those things that I've heard smatterings of but would like more, so I find them at the library and pop them onto my iPod. Mmmm.

Interlibrary Loan. Pure genius. Makes all of the above even more fabulous.

iCal. This is a great Mac application that also happens to be on my iPod, so when I plug in my iPod, iCal syncs them both and I always have my calendar updated. Quite nice, really.

Electricity. We were without this for about a week when Ike swirled his coattails across o-HI-o. I was not a happy person while I was without refrigeration, water and computer access. Electricity is my friend.

Free time and The Jar. See my previous post about this one.

This gorgeous weather. I do wish I would get outside and enjoy it more. I love these cool, sunny days and could definitely handle them all year long.

Garden-fresh tomatoes with a sprinkling of kosher salt and feta cheese. This is food-love at its simplest.

Apple season. I can't wait to get to the orchard tomorrow and get some of the bestest apples on the planet.

Clean refrigerators. When we had our power outage, it forced me to clean out our three fridges, so now I have some very nice-looking appliances.

facebook. Yes, I have all but neglected my poor blog because of my new jones, facebook. I say new, but I've really been enjoying it for some time.

Text Twirl. A facebook application that is quite addictive. I find myself making words out of series' of letters wherever I am.

Raw milk. We had gone without it for a couple of months, but now it's back, and, boy, am I happy. That cream that sits on the top after the milk has been stored overnight is pure gold.

I think that's it for now.

What do you love?

Goals for a Homelearning Year

So, now that I have one daughter in college, things have changed quite a bit. One of the things I realized over the past two years that I promised I would change once she graduated was the amount of busy-ness we've been enslaved to. Running, running, running, and pretty soon, here's a stay-at-home mom who no longer stays at home. That means stress for everyone.

At the end of last school year, I made a commitment that I would say "no" more often, that I would stay at home more (a LOT more), that I would not take any jobs--part-time or otherwise, and that I would relax a bit so that we could have an even keel through the whole year, not a swan dive at the beginning and a nose dive toward the middle, leaving us all gasping for air by the end.

The extent of my planning for this school year included one sheet of legal paper, three mason jars and a new library card.

The legal paper looks something like this:


While I know it looks like scrawl to you, it's gold to me. Here. Let me see if I can translate for you:

Goals for This School Year:

*Read as often as possible
*Stay home as often as possible
*Do a lot of nature study/drawing
*Practice music often
*Art classes (talk to Fred D about this)
*Math curriculum--Teaching Textbooks, maybe?
*Keep journals
*Teach girls to read
*Sing together
*Take walks/ride bikes
*Have breakfast every morning (yes, sometimes we get so busy that we don't do this together)
*Take turns making Dad's lunch
*Keep regular bedtimes (not sure we can do this one with much success. I'm a sucker for learning opportunities, even if they pop up at midnight or 2 a.m.)
*Take vitamins
*Consumer math for Houdin
*Volunteer
*Lots of photos
*Houdin drives
*Dates with each child
*Write letters to people we love
*Cook together
*Five in a Row for The Baby
*Limit computer time
*Take day trips

And Most of All:

RELAX

Many of these things are continuations of what we do on a regular basis. Some of them, like getting walks or limiting computer time, are goals.

Because the computer, as you may know, is an issue--a distraction--for many of us. Including me.

So what I've done is fill a jar with a whole lot of little pieces of paper. Each piece of paper is a chore or activity for the person who owns the jar. Each item gives that person a number of points. Those points earn them clues. Those clues lead them to letters. Those letters make up a word. That word is the password for the day. That password gains the person access to the computer. Sometimes they just get the letters. Sometimes they have to go hunting for them. Sometimes the password is five letters long. Sometimes it's ten or twelve.

So what kinds of things do they have on their papers? Here's a smattering:

Wash a car (2)
Write or copy one poem (1)
Take a walk (1)
Dust your bedroom (1)
Do a nice thing for someone (1)
Play the drums (1)
Make rosemary bread (1)
Pull weeds (2)
Harvest cherry tomatoes (2)
Pick apples off the ground for 10 minutes (2)
Read a chapter of a book (1)
Take some outdoor photos (1)
Hug a sibling (1)
Take a shower (2)
Make sugar water for the hummingbirds (1)
Draw something (1)
Draw something from nature (1)
Do 5 situps (1)
Run around the house 1x (1 each time)
Burn the trash (1)
Dust one room (1)
Listen to a podcast that Mom gives you (1)
Clean the kitchen floor (2)
Clean 3 windows, inside and out (2)
Study 3 things in nature (1)
Do something nice for someone (2)
Hug a sibling (1)
Make someone smile (1)
Read one chapter of a nonfiction book (1)
Clean up a mess (2)
Cuddle with an animal (1)
Tell someone you love them (1)
Vacuum the bedrooms (2)
Scrub the sinks (2)
Organize shoes (1)
Clean the glass doors and windows (2)
Fill the birdfeeders (1)
Lay in the hammock for ten minutes (1)
Read your little sibling a story (1)
Write a letter (1)
Collect and identify five leaves (2)
Listen to a chapter of a story read by Mom (1)
Do a math project (1)
Find a location on the map given to you by Mom (1)

Each person has a list that's customized for them, so they already know how to do the things they're asked to do. Some things are easy. Some are a little harder. Some might take a second. Some might take all day. Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Read aloud books for this year:
Little House on the Prairie Series (no, shamefully, I have not read all of these aloud to my daughters yet. The eldest, who is in school, did read them all, and we quite lived on them for a while, but the youngers haven't had the pleasure of these in the fullest)
American Girl (these were Bard's soul history books when she was young Am. Girl used to have such a GREAT history focus when it first began, complete with a history club for girls. This all ended when they were bought out by Mattel).
Swallows and Amazons Series (we've just finished the first book and are moving on to the second)
Tales from Shakespeare or Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare
Charlotte's Web (we're halfway through this one)
There are many others that are part of Ambleside Online that we will also work through. Reading will be our biggest focus.

And that's it. That's our planning for this year. No more lesson books or elaborate lists or large bills for curriculum orders. No more expecting the same performance levels from everyone.

From now on, theme is RELAX.

::: late summer afternoon :::

::: i didn't shake his hand: on meeting author and prophet a.j. jacobs :::

When I met A.J. Jacobs this evening, author of The Know-It-All and The Year of Living Biblically and fellow blogger, the first thing I did was reach out to shake his hand. This staggers the imagination. It falls in line with doing stupid things like reminding yourself fourteen hundred times to pick up your phone on your way out of the house, or make the deposit at the bank before going home, or buy a bag of ice when you get to the cashier. You tell yourself over and over and over again, but you forget anyway. (By the way, when you get to the car after grocery shopping and realize you've forgotten milk, why does it seem easier to come back later and live for a week without milk than to walk from the parking lot into the grocery store and buy the stuff? Or is this just me?)

I first heard about Jacobs' book, The Year of Living Biblically, on NPR a year ago. I was enthralled and intrigued (which is kind of redundant, but I really was) since I was at a point in my life when I was beginning to take Biblical teaching--specifically the words of Jesus--very seriously, so I stopped immediately at my local bookstore to see if it was available. It was, but not at a price I could afford at the time, so I decided to come back for it later, but not before reading a few words here and there. Right away, several themes of the book struck me; first, Jacobs' willingness to learn and appreciate something new, and second, his desire to stick to something whole-heartedly for an entire year. I think I could commit to, oh, maybe eating and breathing for a year, but I'm not sure I'm all that great at committing to anything else for any extended period. I'm not even good at commiting to buying a book that I purposefully drove to the bookstore to purchase.

But I was able to pick up Jacobs' book The Know-It-All, about his determination to read through the Encyclopaedia Brittanica from A to Z (or, more precisely, from a-ak to zywiec), which smacked of the kind of wacky, immersive thing I would do but just hadn't thought of or had the guts to try and pull off. Reading what he had to say about his experience was like reading the book I would have written if I'd had half of his gumption and fortitude. Better yet, it was like reading what I would have found interesting and told people about without having to actually wade through all forty-four million words of the thing. It was like I outsourced my encyclopaedia reading to A.J. Jacobs.

And some of the things I gleaned from the book didn't really have anything to do with the encyclopaedia. Some of the most fascinating tidbits came from Jacobs' honesty about his own hangups. The transparency he allowed made me feel like I knew him, that I could really hang with him, that we could understand each other.

Insert creepy stalker music here.

But seriously, I thought that we'd have a lot of things to talk about if I ever met this guy in a conversational situation. We could discuss similar interests in historical quirkiness, or I could tell him how much I appreciated his chapter on school and the teacher's discussion of war. And one thing I absolutely knew, without a shadow of a beard, was that if we ever met, I would not, under any circumstances, shake his hand.

It's not because of any strange hand-habit that Jacobs wrote about in his book which turned me off from touching him. It had more to do with the fact that Jacobs describes himself as a hypochondriac and germaphobe, and I wanted to honor his hangups by not exposing him to my germs.

So, when the opportunity arose for me to actually meet this author, who would be within two-hours' drive time discussing his book The Year of Living Bibically, I ordered the tome from Amazon, read as much as I could digest (not in the Jeremiah eating-a-scroll sense, of course) in three weeks, which was to page 120 (what? It took the man a year to live it. I figure taking a year to read it is okay, too), and bought my tickets. As I dragged my dear husband along to be my driver, cameraman and general roadie, I instructed him firmly, "If you meet him, you must NOT shake his hand. He's a germaphobe." My husband nodded solemnly.

As soon as we entered the building, I saw Jacobs standing near the doorway. To my credit, I didn't rush him, although I did suggest to my husband that he could follow him into the men's room and introduce himself there. Jacobs couldn't soon forget that moment.

Insert the second movement of the creepy stalker music.

The presentation was decent, though it seemed to me that .9 of the audience hadn't read the book, because they laughed at all of the verbatim parts he quoted as if they'd never heard them before. I waited until the end of the question and answer session, mostly because I found it annoying that people kept shooting their hands up before he was finished answering the previous question. "I'll wait until they're all questioned-out," I reasoned. Unfortunately, the time was up before that happened. I figured I'd ask him my question, which pertained to what decisions he had made regarding the upbringing of his son (a topic he discusses in Living Biblically) when I would meet him at the book-signing table. And not shake his hand.

And, sure enough, he was at the said book-signing table. Since the last shall be first and the first shall be last, I was fairly close to the beginning of the line; I had been at the very back of the auditorium, right near the doorway where he was seated.

I knew I was going to have a few things to say, so I did, in all fairness, offer my space to the woman behind me who made a comment that she was in a bit of a hurry. She only had two books to sign. I had four. She declined, but at least I tried. It was in keeping with the whole golden rule theme. Having said that, I actually do try to live out the golden rule on a regular basis. It's as close as I can come to Living Biblically.

I saddled my husband with the camera and my other junk, instructing him to take several pictures. "And take them from slightly above, please. A modified myspace profile pic, except you're taking it and not me. I don't want a picture of all of my chins."

I was so busy giving photography lessons that I was actually caught off-guard when it came my turn to meet Jacobs. Instinctively, I stuck out my hand, and he reached for it. Almost as instinctively, I yanked my hand back before he had a chance to touch it. Unbelievable. After all of the reminders I had given myself and my husband, I had actually attempted to shake A.J. Jacobs' hand. But all was redeemed. I apologized, assured him that I wasn't actually going to touch his hand, because I know...I know...what? How he feels about germs? I don't know what I actually said, but I think he got the point, and I think he was grateful.

But here's the thing. I'm so accustomed to doing things a certain way, to meeting someone and performing the obligatory handshake, that I was taken aback. I had no idea what to do or say. Speechless, I stammered, "I'm a little lost, now. I don't know what to do if I don't shake your hand...."

At that point, he noticed my camera-wielding husband. Jacobs stood, and muttered that he was allowed to put his hand on my back, possibly as a consolation for not shaking my hand, and Bo took the shot.


Another brief exchange ensued while he signed my books in which he seemed genuinely interested, mostly, I'm sure, because I was one of the first people in line and not the 56th, though stamina and endurance do seem to be two of Jacobs' traits. Still, he really did seem interested. Here he is hanging on my every word. Ignore, please, the multiple chins. On me, that is. Mr. Jacobs' chins are just fine.


See the stamina? See the endurance? See the genuine interest? See the eye contact (Jacobs actually says that he has to work on *not* maintaining eye contact so that people don't think he's a psycho who keeps a cup of noses in his freezer)? Aren't these great traits? As are charm, compassion, humor and honesty, which Jacobs' also seems to possess, from my limited stalk...er, reading. Through his books and the answers to the questions presented by tonight's audience, I came to realize something about Jacobs that he may not recognize in himself, something that, in fact, he disclaimed. A.J. Jacobs is a prophet in his own right. What I took away from my evening listening to him was that he is a seeker of truth, a seeker of wisdom. He's not interested in retribution, ridicule, or setting people straight. "There are enough books out there that take the other side to task. I went into this wanting to understand." And what he learns, he shares. A speaker of truth, of wisdom, of understanding. A prophet.

Once I had left the building and climbed into my car, I opened my copy of Living Biblically to read a passage about Ecclesiastes (Jacobs' favorite book of the Bible) to my husband, flipping past the inscription. I'd almost forgotten it was there, so I flipped back and read it.



If he'd have known, he'd also have written, "And thanks for not accosting me in the men's room."

Insert final movement of creepy stalker music.