Everyday Life for Four Seasons

I took this last night in a very dark bedroom. I guess the girls got used to sharing a bed! I love them, especially when I see them like this.

We're having a good time here visiting my mother and stepfather at the Cape. Windmill Weekend is this weekend and we spent some time today watching (and imitating) the jumprope troupe.


There's a mouse in my bedroom though, and since we haven't caught it yet, I'm sleeping in alternate quarters. Mice are not my style.


Just when we were ready to head to the beach to play in the sand, the skies opened up and it downpoured. I headed to the kitchen cabinets and made playdough. What fun! We made lots and lots of stuff.

I'm savoring these last warm evenings of summer. Tonight we ate outside and for the first time used the placemats I had the girls paint specifically for use with our outdoor table. I bought these very sturdy placemats on clearance (like, what don't I buy on clearance?) for $1.98 each at the beginning of the summer with the intention of painting them and using them outdoors. Summer got away from us and the placemats sat and waited. Last week I took out fabric paints and let them have a ball.


I sometimes think back to the day last winter when Jeff watched the girls and I accompanied my sister Emily on a wedding gown shopping expedition. Jeff was thinking of things to do with 'A' and 'H' and since it was winter, I suggested that they do some painting. He called me after he set them up with paper and paints and said, "Now what?" And I laughed and laughed. If you've ever painted with children, you know that you are ON DUTY the whole time, taking finished works, supplying more paper, more water, more paints, wiping up spills, washing hands... and just when you think everyone is washed up and done, one of them gets the bright idea to start painting again....


I'm *supposed* to be packing tonight for a trip to the Cape to see my mother, but since I never actually do what I'm supposed to do, I'm here with you instead.

I'm looking forward to this trip. Jeff is staying home to paint the living room (A BIG YAY!!! We've lived here over three years and this is one of our last rooms to paint. We're a little too slow and relaxed sometimes. Most people I know paint before they even move in). Friday, Saturday and Sunday I'll be with my mother and Dick in North Eastham. This is Windmill Weekend in Eastham, when the locals all come together to have a parade and celebrate the end of tourist season. I've been there a million times for it and now that I live near Saratoga Springs, a tourist area itself, I'm more than happy to celebrate with the Cape locals. It's not that we don't like the tourists - I am the first to say I love the influx of new people breathing more life into an already vibrant area - it's just that it's nice to get "back to normal." You know, the same way I felt this week going to the library and the playground now that school is in session. We can MOVE!


On Monday we leave the Cape and head to my sister's home to see her bees. Emily keeps them and extracts honey from her hives every year. She's going to show us the bees and the honeycomb and tell us all about them. We'll sleep over (or stay over I should say. 'H' doesn't do much sleeping away from home). On Tuesday we'll bring Emily with us to Old Sturbridge Village to see how people lived in the "olden days." It'll be an olden days trip for me and Emily in our own way - when we were school-age kids, my parents had an annual membership and I swear, we used to go all the time. I hope it'll be good to see the Village with fresh eyes.


Have a great end of the week!

It seems that we've been doing so many fun things lately and I'm taking and posting a lot of photos. I started this blog at the beginning of 2008 in response to Photojojo's challenge to take a photo a day for a year as a way of expanding my photography "talents". I'm so happy I still do it and post it all here. It's a wonderful way for me to record our daily life. I'm not much of a sentimentalist and I don't do a very good job of keeping up with the baby books or scrapbooks, and this blog sort of fills in the blanks for me. It also helps me to keep my eye on the prize - daily life with small children can get away from me sometimes, because there are stretches where one day is exactly the same as the next. There are also stretches where I'm not fond of my full time mothering job, and this blog helps me to remember that all stages and phases are temporary, and if I just sit tight, my little ship will return to its safe harbor before long.


That said, here is another set of photos from today.


Jeff had a close encounter with two coyotes in the woods behind our house the other day. They don't bother people or children very much but they do eat cats. I'm at a cross in the road. Grace loves to go outside and would suffer terribly if she had to stay indoors. But if she were to be attacked and killed by one, she would suffer terribly at that point. What to do?

Fall is coming and she's getting pretty good at catching a mouse every day or so. Now when I see her with a live mouse dangling in her mouth, I warn her about karma. Do you really want to kill that mouse, Grace? Do you?


In our farm share today:
Tomatoes, Zucchini, Beets, Lettuce, Kale, Garlic, Edamame, Eggplant, Sweet Corn, and Sweet Peppers

My home is full of giggles right now, and I wouldn't trade it for the world.

We went to the library today, followed by a picnic lunch at the playground. At the playground, we ran into some moms and kids we know and that was a very nice surprise. 'H' is skipping her nap today (she begs to skip it every day and I usually convince her that it's in her interest to lay down and rest. Not today. She's having so much fun and I'm wondering if she's getting to the point of just napping occasionally). We leave for the farm soon to pick up our vegetables.


Dinner tonight is easy peasy: veggie burgers straight from the freezer over local salad with ratatouille leftovers on the side.


Apples are coming into season now. This year is supposed to be the best yet. Mmmm!

Every year my grandmother would freeze corn to enjoy during the winter months. She enlisted our help, because the job was a big one: shuck the corn, blanche it, plunge it in ice water, dry it off, cut the kernels off the cob, pack it into freezer bags, and enjoy the look of a full freezer!

I did almost two dozen ears today - my first time freezing it. It was an experiment. I can't wait to taste the fresh summer flavor long after these warm days have passed.

'A' had her hair cut today! I should have done this long ago. Her hair is like mine - too full near her face. It was too thick for a clip and it needed to be thinned out a bit. It doesn't hang in her eyes anymore. She loves it!


I was so proud of her. She got out of the car, went right into the hair salon ahead of me, and when my hair stylist called her over, she just went without looking back to see if I was following. Whoa, is this my girl? She loved the entire experience. I wish I could get inside her head and see why she loves certain things but not others. She did the same thing at the gym today - she went in ahead of me and had a wonderful time in the child care room with the other kids. I'm sure it helped that Rachel was working - she and 'H' adore Rachel.

Back at the gym, did I tell you I am back at the gym? I love it! Why did I ever stop going? I love that it welcomes me back with open arms. And I'm so happy to be there.

Home.

It was a weekend full of busy-ness and relaxation.... it didn't lend itself to picture-taking.


Beach. Dinner & wine. Some whine and bedtime. A game of hearts after the kids went to bed. The game was cut short after Jeff realized we were missing four cards from the deck.


Today we went to Foxwoods, the Mashantucket Pequot Reservation. I really wanted to go to the museum but it was closed. Gosh there is a lot of gambling that takes place there!

This is NFA (Norwich Free Academy), where I went to high school. It's one of the nicest places in Norwich. Students come from many surrounding towns, and the school is composed of many beautiful building that make up a campus. We always got some fresh air in between each class because we had to move to different buildings throughout the day. Fresh air! If I knew then what I know now about the relationship between fresh air and learning, I might have appreciated it a little more.


The road home.

Cooking food to bring with us this weekend:

*Pesto, made with basil cut today from our garden and 3 days ago from Denison Farm

*Hummus, loaded with cumin and lemon juice

*Whole wheat bread with just the right amount of flaxseed added to keep us all happy and healthy

*Pecan Mushroom veggie burgers, which are quickly becoming a favorite among my extended family members!

Happy Labor Day weekend to you!

Allergist today for 'A'. Skin testing for her food allergies. Huge reactions to eggs and dairy, borderline huge for peanuts. I'm giving up hope of her ever outgrowing them.


Gorgeous weather today. While I was taking clothes down from the clothesline, I thought about moving the garden beds over a few feet and essentially switching places with the clothesline. Their current location gets great sun in the early summer but as the season is winding down I've had a chance to see that the sun doesn't stretch over my tomatoes and peppers as much as it did before. The clothesline spot is prime sunny real estate. Jeff isn't going to be thrilled about the idea of moving them, especially since he wanted the garden at the clothesline spot in the first place. I'm not either, but I have to do what I have to do, you know?


Rhode Island coastline for the weekend: sunny beach fun, non-stop chatter with family, a chance to run around after my girls in the salty air, and the promise of late-night games with my dad and Marilyn and my sister and her husband. What could be better?

I was talking to a friend the other day about how it sometimes seems that when we have busy days full of things to do, the time goes by more easily and less stressfully than when we have empty days with no set schedule. I usually prefer to have no plans that are set in stone, but sometimes when I do "run, run, run" all day long, things seem to flow magically. Like today.

We got out the door early this morning and ran a few errands before visitng my doctor for an appointment, followed immediately by a trip to the state park for a two hour "Stream Exploration" group. The park outing went better than I had hoped - the girls were on the young side, but they participated to the best of their ability and they loved wading in the stream looking for bugs and little animals. I liked it too. They made me promise when we left that we would come back again soon for more water wading, so we will!

We returned home for some quick housework, stories, a nap, and a game of Chutes and Ladders before heading to the farm for our CSA pick up. The season of bounty is upon us! The boxes are fuller and heavier now, with so much variety. The farm trip was followed by a quick dinner before Jeff and I scooted off to a meeting at our Unitarian church.

I think the reason it all flowed so well today was that I was truly invested in each thing we did. I was happy to go to the doctor because I knew my good health depended on it; I was excited to explore the stream with the girls and expose them to a new type of activity; I love going to the farm, and as I become more aware of the benefits of eating locally, I find myself more and more excited to see what's in season each week; and I was happy to journey to the church tonight. Sometimes I have to "go, go, go" all day and there's nothing terribly exciting or compelling about the things I have to do, and it becomes a drag to get through the day.

Back to eating locally: I just finished the section on "small farm organic" in The Omnivore's Dilemma and it really got my wheels spinning. Eating locally is so good for our health, our planet, our economy, and more. I can't ignore the fact that Jeff's line of work involves moving food across the country and warehousing it. The current state of America couldn't exist unless food was shipped long distances. I wonder though, what would things look like if we all ate locally? I used to dismiss that idea and say that we would be sickly because we wouldn't get all of our nutrients, that we wouldn't have a variety of foods to choose from. But now that I'm learning more about what nutrients aren't in the foods that are pesticide-grown, picked early, and stored in a cooler for months at a time, while also learning about how intensive, grass-based organic farming can produce a higher volume of food, I wonder what would happen if we all focused on a different route.