Everyday Life for Four Seasons

We're visiting my sister. Today she showed us her beehives and told us all about how bees live and how honey is made. If you're wary of bees, you may not want to look at these photos.


I could tell you all about how beautiful it is, or how interesting the bees are, but I'll let the photos do the talking. Have a wonderful day!

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.