Category Archives: Books

winter days

The weather has been strange.  I seems like I say that a lot.  But sometimes, like this winter, it’s particularly strange and I find myself quoting Mark Twain in my head time, time and time again.  “If you don’t like the weather in New England now, just wait a few minutes.”

It keeps freezing and melting, snowing then raining.  One week we have record lows, the next record highs.  Iain and Elijah who are usually big fans of winter have declared this one a dud and are ready to move on to spring.  It was in the low 40′s here the other day and I seriously had to argue with all four of my children to convince them that they could not go outside barefoot.  They were quite convinced that I was being terribly unreasonable.  There was talk of going out and turning the soil in one of their garden beds.  I mentioned that we were supposed to be back in the single digits next week, but they didn’t seem to find that relevant.  The garden is once again under a blanket of snow so presumably out of sight, out of mind at this point.

With all of this melting and freezing, the ice has been terrible.  I’m afraid to go outside.  My hips and ankles are so unstable to begin with that I go through phases where I fall regularly walking on the nice flat, even wood floors of my home.  Things shift just enough out of place so that my feet don’t quite end up landing exactly where 30+ years of experience tell me they should.  So far I’ve always caught myself, with bruised and battered legs and arms to prove it.  But it doesn’t seem wise to take this slapstick show out on the ice.  Instead I go out and pace on the deck several times a day.  I probably look like a caged animal, but it makes me feel better.  I can see my frosty garden, the mountains through the trees and often watch children slipping and sliding and laughing on the ice below.  The fresh air does me good.  Yesterday was the first day that the ice had subsided enough that it felt safe to venture out.  Our road was in pretty good condition, but the path through the woods is still a sheet of ice, so there I had my stopping point while children ventured ahead to explore a bit.  I can live with not going out and about much; not often visiting with others, but not being about to walk around outside does feel like a hardship.

Indoors I’ve been cooking a lot.  Mostly hearty stews and things of that sort.  A friend sent me her recipe for celery soup and I made a big double batch.  I covered chicken and broccoli with the leftovers and baked that the next day.  Served over quinoa cooked in chicken broth, that hit the spot.

Window crayons, for a while the windows in our living room had a “horses of the world” theme.

Knitting, knitting, knitting.  Oh goodness, so much knitting!  At night I plug away at Galen’s birthday sweater, during the day baby knits.  Currently some spring green over-alls, though at the moment they are what Galen refers to as “over-halfs”.  The color is a nice change of pace.  Lately I seem to be stuck on shades of blue.  There has been French blue, robin’s egg blue, baby blue with flecks of cream, medium blue-grey, ice blue, sapphire blue, and uhm, other things that I haven’t gotten pictures of yet.  And before everyone says, “oh it must be a boy!”, the baby is the only one that I haven’t made anything blue for yet.  Though I do have a little button up vest in the softest of baby blues in mind.  These things happen.  A couple of years ago I think I went an entire winter knitting only in combinations of red, grey and brown.

Someone is excited for his birthday next month.

And sewing.  There has been a lot, a lot, a lot of sewing.  Rosebud sits beside me and stitches away with yarn on swaths of burlap.

Our ice rink may have melted all over the front yard.  Twice.  But our usual indoor diversions are thriving….

“Tea Party“ the game.

Drawing time

painting

making music (face crayon decorations optional)

and all sorts of pretend play.

And books of course.  Whatever would we do without books???  I’m currently reading “The Country of the Pointed Firs” by Sarah Orne Jewett.  It’s old-fashioned and quaint and charming, often rather slow and sometimes not.  I think I’m enjoying it.

 

By
Books, crafts, Food, Kids, Life, Yarn Crafts
2 Replies

little Rose Cheeks and how need became want

This year, when I started my Christmas gift planning, I was feeling a little scattered.  Some random ideas for random people, but no real cohesive plan.  I’m sure that by now, everyone has seen that “recipe” floating around the internet for holiday gift giving for children; something to wear, something to read, something they want and something they need.  More to just straighten things out in my own head then anything else, I decided to try breaking things up that way to see if it helped.

Something to wear was easy: Christmas pajamas for all.  We had something to read covered as well.  We kind of have a standard stocking formula: a book, a new deck of playing cards, candy canes (depending on the age of the child), some B-fresh gum (again age dependent), and art supplies.  This is generally how we replenish our homeschooling and art supplies each year.

For want, we tracked down a ping pong table on Craig’s List for the older boys to share.  Carrot the Prince was made for Galen.  Dear sweet Galen who always claims that he doesn’t know what it is he wants until he receives a gift, then, as if by magic, it always turns out to be just what he wanted, he just didn’t know it before!  Màiri Rose got a new tea set, as her beloved old one was missing several key pieces at this point, like, you know, a tea pot.

For need we replaced Iain’s old watch, which was to the point of being held together with duct tape and only sometimes actually telling time.  Elijah got a new winter hat (more on that later).  Galen recieved some buckets and boxes to organize the art supplies in his room.  And Màiri, oh Màiri, well Màiri is where things got tricky…

The original plan, that was well under way, was to make her a quilt for her bed.  There came a day where it was just the two of us home alone.  I went to throw in a load of laundry before reading her a book, only to find her poking about in my craft bags.  The canvas bags that I keep tied shut at that time of year, generally each containing a gift project, to be picked up and worked on whenever that particular child is not around.  She was holding the inner head for Galen’s doll.

The conversation that followed went something like this:

“what’s this?”

“that’s none of your business”

“I think it’s a doll.  I think you are making a doll.”

And then my reassuring her repeatedly that whatever it was, it wasn’t for her.  And from that point on, it was very common for her to say in a loud, exaggerated whisper, when I was just within hearing, “Oh, I hope I get a doll for Christmas!“  Right.  Now I had thought about Galen’s getting a doll and her not and how she might react to that and decided that in the excitement of the morning she wouldn’t much mind.  But now that the expectation of the possibility was there, well, that was a whole new ball game.

And so, a week or so before Christmas, I shifted gears, the quilt was abandoned and a relatively quick little dolly whipped up instead.  When I told Steve that it would go fairly quickly because the doll wouldn’t really have a body, he looked at me in horror and said, “you’re giving our little girl a dismembered head?!?”  I tried to explain, but finally told him he’d just have to wait and see what I meant.

She named her Rose Cheeks.  And yes, many a request for “Rose Cheek stories” have been made.  Turns out she is a cousin of Carrot the Prince.  And goodness, between the two of them this mama has been kept on her toes and needing to think fast.  The children decided that it would be fair if I told one story for each, every other night.  I’m really not sure that my tired brain can pull together 365 unique stories a year!

By
Books, doll making, Kids, Mothering, sewing, toy making, Waldorf, Yarn Crafts
5 Replies

domestic scenes

A bit of sewing, a bit of knitting, a little nature, some kid art (the wood-burned horse above was a gift from Iain), a simple experiment and some apple pie.  Oh, and that funny somewhat cryptic looking letter above?  It’s code doncha know.  The latest craze around our house involved various people writing messages in code to be broken by others.  With letters just randomly appearing where ever the intended recipient is most likely to find it.

I just finished reading Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui: Free Yourself from Physical, Mental, Emotional and Spiritual Clutter Forever by Karen Kingston, as highly recommended by a friend.  A bit of a mouthful that title!  I’m in the midst of a HUGE decluttering kick.  Call it nesting if you like.  It was a nice little motivator to be reading while working through things.  Anyone have any other simplifying/decluttering book recommendations?  There’s still a lot to be done here!  There are so many things in life, that I have absolutely no control over, that are so very painfully complicated.  This I have control over.  I don’t want my home and caring for it to be complicated.  Less is more.

By
Books, crafts, Food, Homeschooling, Housewifery, Kids, Life, sewing, snapshots, WIP, Yarn Crafts
2 Replies

birthday books and a giveaway

~click on the pictures to enlarge them~

I’m starting a new tradition; in addition to birthday sweaters, there will now be birthday books.  Just simple little photo books showing the year that’s past from the child in question’s point of view.  Their baseball games, dance classes, choir performances, horseback riding lessons, school work, hobbies, projects, collections, etc, all bound up together in a little book of snapshots representing that year of their life.  I think they will be well loved.  Above are a couple of pages that I’ve created for Galen, of his 6th birthday celebration, in preparation for his 7th birthday at the end of this month (note: I did leave some of the journaling off these pages as it was of a personal nature).

I’ve used a lot of different scrap booking products over the years.  From the good old-fashioned paper and pen kind to photo book products from many of the major retailers.  When I had an opportunity to review My Memories scrap booking software, I decided to give it a try with this project in mind.  I’m still experimenting and learning all about the program, but I can say there are a lot of options with this software.  So much more then anywhere else I’ve tried.  I know everyone has their own style and preferences, for me I often find the challenge is in being able to create pages that are basic enough to suit my own minimalist, photo-journalistic style.  I don’t like a lot of extras.  I want clear large pictures and not much else.  Not a problem!  As you can see I did play around a bit with a few backgrounds and some other stuff, just to see.  And of course I had to try the ric rac.  I mean, it’s ric rac….  If, however, you happen to like all of the bells and whistles, well, holy cow, feel free to spend a year or two browsing through all of the options, some free and some for a small fee.  Those are all of the add-ons to customize your style.  The basic software comes with many, many options to begin with (enough to last me a lifetime).  And it’s not just about photo books…you can create calendars, cards, all kinds of multimedia stuff that I haven’t even begun to delve into.  I’ve just discovered a whole collection of youtube videos on how to use some of these features and I’m looking forward to creating all kinds of interesting projects.

One of my goals with the birthday books was to capture some of the little details of that particular year.  The things they will look at years from now and say, “Oh yeah!  Do you remember the year I made all kinds of paper dolls?” or “the year I wove like, 40 potholders”.  I want pictures of favorite books and toys, all the small things that change so rapidly as a child grows and are easy to forget, but so much more pleasant to remember.  The pages below are pictures of Galen’s room in our old house, complete with peeks into work and treasure baskets.

These are the kinds of things that I think he will look back fondly on and be happy to remember.

So now, on to the giveaway!  One lucky reader will receive a copy of the full My Memories Suite software package.  To enter please go check out the My Memories site and leave me a comment on this post.  The winner will be announced Monday morning (2/11).

As a special to everyone here, My Memories is offering a $10 discount off the purchase of the My Memories Suite Scrapbook software and a $10 coupon for the My Memories store.  To redeem your coupon just enter the code: STMMMS99407

By
Books, celebrations and festivals, crafts, Kids, Mothering, Our Little Home, photography, snapshots
7 Replies

02/52

A portrait of my children, once a week, every week.

Iain: with handwork

Elijah: noticing a theme?

Galen: bathtub innovation

Màiri Rose: wants to know why her legs don’t get all wrinkly like the rest of her.

Steve worked from home all last week, limiting my computer time.  It’s very hard to beat a man who routinely wakes at 4:30 in the morning to the computer.  I can’t think of a single thing that would make it even worth trying.  Nor could I really be bothered to care either way.  I much prefer him home.  I’m somewhat lost in a book at the moment, a completely random acquisition from the library.  At first the writing style irritated me, but now I seem to be all caught up in the story.  It’s kind of the right time of year to get lost in a book I think.  The weather has been cold, cold, cold here, but today seems a little warmer.  I’m, very gratefully, up and around now a bit and doing well.  Thinking it’s high time I go make a pot of decaf Earl Grey steeped with half a vanilla bean.  Yes, I do believe that sounds just right.  Happy weekend to one and all!

By
52, Books, Kids, Life, snapshots
Leave a reply

Making Merry

1 & 2 There are paper snowflakes everywhere

3 why yes, that is a horseflake

4 & 5 gift making

6 & 7 and wrapping

8 late night knitting with coconut sugar cookies

9 sending off their first order

10 the kids had stamps out while I was addressing Christmas cards so I added some sweet little blue birds to the back of the envelopes

11 & 12 Golden Goose and Fairy trees seen while out and about.

13 nut butter caramel and red raspberry leaf and nettle chai

14 dreidel

15 late night knitting with orange

16 nativity by Iain

17 the enchanting Winter in White by Robert Sabuda

18 making music (why yes, those are more snowflakes on the floor behind him)

19 Crafts Through the Year

20 & 21 we made Swedish straw stars

22 & 23 while she made an empty yarn cone into a Christmas tree

24 We made a whole mobile of ballerina snowflakes.  They twirl and drift about gracefully and it’s like just before intermission at the Nutcracker. template here

By
Books, celebrations and festivals, crafts, Food, Holidays, Kids, Life, Our Home, sewing, Yarn Crafts
10 Replies

Week in the Life, Saturday

~I know I’ve mentioned before that my Middlest Boy has a great love of horses.

~Well, while we are not in a position to get him that pony he has always wanted, we have decided that for his 10th birthday, he is getting riding lessons.  He found out today, when we took them all on a visit to the horse farm.  He can’t wait to start.

~Màiri Rose was gifted a pretty green araucana egg.  I made a snack of it for the two littles, along with odd and ends thinned from my seedling trays.

~The big boys are off at practice again tonight.  The last one before opening day.

~Have I mentioned that my children are the owner/builders of the worlds most elaborate cardboard box house?  Work on the third addition has stalled out due to running out of tape.  There is however, a fireplace (complete with chimney) and some shelves inside.

~I finally got around to unpacking our books.  It was like greeting as many old friends.

By
Books, Food, Kids, Life, snapshots, toy making
2 Replies

Week in the Life, Tuesday

~Snow and sleet all morning.

~Elijah built the fire today.  His first.

~Pre-breakfast: banana, pear, orange and collard smoothie

~Actual breakfast: red cabbage, carrots, cucumbers, radishes, olive, guacamole and tulsi-mint tea with honey.

~Too wet to take sketch books out to continue our wildflower study as planned.

~A lot of the morning and early afternoon was much the same as yesterday; quiddler over breakfast, chores, more baseball play (yes, even in the snow), school work, etc.

~Everyone needs things for spring, so I’m trying to get a bit of sewing in each day.

~Library day, which just happens to coincide with a tea party at the library

~I wore the dress I made last week for the first time.

~So funny and a little nice to be introduced to all, as Mrs. —-.  I feel certain that Steve looked over his shoulder for his mother!

~the two small fry came back well fortified with A.A. Milne.  Rosebud calls them “knee-the-pooh books”.

~More horse magazines and “Caroline books” and “Rose books” (the series chronicling Laura Ingalls-Wilder’s mother’s and daughter’s lives) for the bigger ones.  They went through all three of the ones they brought home last week.

~The only thing I managed to grab was a couple of wildflower guides for school this week.

~It’s off to baseball practice for all of the big boys, including the very biggest boy of all.

~Working on Mother’s Day cards for the Grandmothers

~Dinner,Part I: chicken dippers and broccoli

~Littles to bed

~Dinner, Part II: the same thing two and a half hours later.  Only with tea this time too because I knew they would all come home chilled.

~Between the three of them I get an almost literal play by play of the entire practice.  Even though they are starving, it’s hard to get them to even sit down and eat, they are still so excited.  And while they eat they are constantly popping back up again to show me just how a certain play was made.  It was a very good practice!

~The biggest problem with us all sleeping down here is that this little munchkin:

is not sleeping!  Until the upstairs floors are finished we’re all sleeping in rooms just off and open to the kitchen/dinning room area.  Which means that late nights for them more often then not, inadvertently turn into late nights for him.  This photo was taken 3 hours after his bedtime.  sigh.  He would be watching us at the table, then every time I looked over, he would quickly lay his head back down.

By
Books, crafts, Food, Kids, Life, sewing, snapshots
Leave a reply

Week in the Life, Monday

 

~rain, blessed rain!  Rolling off the roof this morning and more importantly, sinking deep into our gardens.

~The house smells good after a night of broth bubbling on the stove and yams cooking in the crock pot.

~an extra little person showed up in my bed this morning, looking to be cuddled.  Then they plotted together and there was a conspiracy to get me to read.  Which I did, one book each; “Little Baa” and “Mother Goose”, the later turning into a sing along.

Little Rosebud’s favorite illustration

~Galen has taken to slipping my wedding ring off while I cuddle him and putting it on his own finger.  Then he asks me to tell him about it.  I show him the circle as well as the continuous Celtic knot pattern.  We look for a beginning and an end and never find one of course.  I tell him that it’s just like my love for Daddy with no beginning and no end.

~The other two get up early and read to themselves for an hour or two every morning.

~Iain built a fire.

~He  lost two teeth on Saturday and has two more loose.  Galen thinks he has a loose tooth (it would be his first).  He often asks if I can see it wiggle.  I can’t really, but I’m certainly not going to tell him that!  “hmm, I think maybe I might see something…”

~Quiddler with the big boys over a breakfast of yams, sausages, sauerkraut and green tea.

~Chores as usual

Màiri Rose with the nasturtium she’s growing.  She was able to taste a leaf for the first time today.  It’s a climbing variety and growing so fast that Galen is convinced he’ll be able to climb it like Jack and the Bean Stalk.

~Baseball fever is alive and well.  We’ve been doing their team’s warm up exercises in the morning before school work.

~outdoor play

~Making sauerkraut this morning as an activity with the little ones.  Really it’s an all morning affair, one that lead right into making lunch, followed by most of the dinner prep, since I know we’ll be working when Steve gets home tonight.  It takes a whole lot of peeling and chopping to fill that big crock.  We usually get around 2 gallons of kraut once it has all fermented down.  We never really make the same one twice.  Today’s is green cabbage, onion, garlic, turnip, radish and ginger.  I got a new little gadget that you crank to julienne things.  The little ones love making (and tasting) little turnip and radish strands with it.

Iain’s Nature Journal Entry:

Date: 4/23/12     Time: 11:42   Location: home   Weather: cloudy, 48 degrees

*Nothing is coming up in the garden yet.

* It is raining today.

*The woods are turning very green.

*My cherry tree is in bloom.

*Galen and Màiri’s peach trees are starting to bloom.

*There are a lot of birds singing today.

~Elijah’s entry by contrast started with, “My fruit tree is the only fruit tree that does not have any flowers on it.”

~Galen the faithful forager went out and gathered a whole bunch of dandelion greens, even though I said I didn’t have time to prepare them today.

~A game of skippo with Galen while the big boys do their math work.  The Wee Girl likes to play with the discard piles, sorting and arranging them.

~Lunch: kale salad with baby basil, pear chunks and maple-blueberry vinaigrette

~Iain and Elijah finished up the map of our property that they started working on together last week.

~the little ones did some coloring of their own.

~One of the big ones told Rosebud that what they were doing was more important because they were working, while she was just playing.  I scolded him and told him that play is the work of little ones and very important.  At which point she announced, with a rather superior tone, “I’m doing baby work!”

~Steve and I put up just under 150′ of fence around the garden.

~ dinner was asparagus soup with Jerusalem artichokes and fresh thyme from the garden.  It was lovely to come in to after working in the cold and damp.

~Steve is reading Peter Pan to Galen at bedtime.

By
Books, Food, Gardens, Homeschooling, Housewifery, Kids, Life, Mothering, The Renovation Journal
4 Replies