daysgoby

ziteous maximus

2012-02-26T09:49:00.001-04:00

I'm hiding behind my computer a bit today, a litle perplexed by the giant scab/dead skin patch on my chin where a rogue blemish lurked beneath the skin for awhile. Then I got impatient and rubbed at it, and now it looks like I've got some creative rug burn. Or something.

I'm forty, for pete's sakes. Why the acne now?? I thought I'd found a skin regime that would stop all this - this is my first breakout in three months, so I guess I can't complain, really...

Probably just couldn't compete with the news that the kids' school is on the review list. Again.

We've stopped this before. Clearly the odds are against us. But we have fire, and we have conviction.

And I have a zit. Damnit.

cat's in the cradle

2012-02-20T21:46:00.002-04:00

We told each other that things would never change. That living so far apart didn't mean anything - how could it, to such old friends? - and we'd always talk on the phone and be able to pick up where we left off.

There were phone conversations and months-long-comfortable silences and christmas cards.
And then things
went
dark.

She had a new marriage, a guy that loved her with his whole heart and soul, a new business and a new outlook and was refinishing her house and she had been a whirlwind always, surely we would connect soon? and we..just..drifted..apart.

Sure, there's Facebook, but being a voyeur into an old friend's life is strange and unsettling. I've never been more aware of the public persona, of how I come off when I post. How odd it is to know someone better from the outside, and to have only memories of the inside.

We haven't emailed or even facebooked in quite awhile. Still keeping tabs on each other, still whirling in our own little orbits, but so very, very far away from the chattering girls we once were, comfortable in our own skins.

And now, to further hammer home how our lives have diverged, there is a baby. A baby! I'm thrilled for her and wish her the very, very best.

But it was odd to first learn of the baby's existence with the birth announcement on Facebook.

(please understand this is less hurt than puzzlement - how on earth did we ever move this far apart? Our lives are completely different now, and that's the way it is and will be - I'm just becoming aware of the last few tendrils of things I called home snapping lately.So how can I be homesick, when I don't really know where to call home anymore?)

Is it October yet??

2012-02-17T21:12:00.004-04:00

You know how when you first start doing something, it's fun and wonderful and wacky and all-consuming?

Last year I helped out with the Halloween event at our school, and we've already started plotting...and the learning curve this year? DAUNTING.

Latex...pvc pipes. Welding, for pete's sakes! I have an entire weeks' worth of material to read about pneumatics. Until last month I had a vague idea that pneumatics were something that shut doors, or maybe some complicated pivot device that lowered rowboats. And now, this spring, I'm going to be working with people to fashion devices that will use these new technologies. It's a little mind-blowing.

Of course, we'll be doing a lot of scavenging too. (Because this halloweening of stuff? Is expensive.) Spring Cleaning should be fun. (Anyone want to get rid of any old plywood, ceiling fans, motors, pallets, foam sheets, plastic sheeting, circuit boards, or other assorted stuff? Lemme know!)

I hope to be sharing some of these new props as I make them (just to tease, you understand, to see the whole thing you'd have to come to the Shocktober event)

Cass is thrilled that his old mom is doing such cool stuff - while trying to talk me into using something with torpedoes in it, while Roo is steadfast in her head-tossing 'I will nevah go down there, Mama!'

We'll see.

Now, I'm off to figure out how to read about a bewitched shovel. (Delicious shudder.)

I can't wait to get started.

sitting on the side of the road

2012-02-08T22:41:00.000-04:00

I ran out of gas today.

Really.

There was a little bit of spousal involvement (Honey? You are always welcome to take the car I'm going to take to work the next day if you pay attention to how much gas is left in it when you get home, m'kay?) but I can't kick too much - he's the one who came and rescued me.

It was beautiful there - I was close enough to the side of the road so I didn't have to worry about being smushed, and close enough that I could (sneakily) people-watch. It was a sunny afternoon, clear and crisp. (This would be an entirely different post had I spent the time waiting for Galahad wet and shivering.)
Instead, though, I spent the time watching the people on the outdoor track, how busy and industrious and happy they looked, like a gaggle of robins, and made out a mongo shopping list.

I'm beginning to enjoy my enforced car time - Tuesday night is C's judo night, and the studio is juuust far enough away that driving home is ridiculous, so I've gotten quite happy with a book and a coffee and the stillness of the night around me. (I saw the most gorgeous moonrise last week. It hung in the trees forever with a pumpkin-orange glow, and took my breath away every time I looked up.)

Life lately seems to be a lot of hurry. Sometimes it's nice to sit and sip and stare at the moon and do nothing.

out of season

2012-01-30T23:48:00.000-04:00

The quince bush is confused by the harum-scarum winter we've been having ( or maybe not having would be more truthful) and is putting out tender new buds.

Buds. In late January. And they were pretty and new and breathtakingly sweet and a lovely harbinger of spring-yet-to-come

and it snowed this afternoon.

It was a quick storm, actually, threw first snow, then rain on the area then left, sullenly grumbling about coastal temperatures and tidal pulls, how inland there'd be woods and fields that would be fine dumping grounds, fine...then it blew itself gustily away and we were left with stillness.

Now the air is still and questioning and everything is crisp and hushed and waiting, somehow.

I know it's winter. I know.

*sigh* But I was rooting for those dainty little out-of-season quince buds.

i am lucky

2012-01-29T10:15:00.000-04:00

I am lucky to have this Sunday.

Sunday around here means hot coffee, something yummy for breakfast - today, cheese eggs and bacon - long deep draughts of fresh air and sunshine.

The woodstove roars as we plan walks and adventures for after church, our kitten-filled laps warm and purry and full of snuggles.

There is some out-loud reading. Barbie and the Princess School. An article from CNN.

The whole family kitted out in pyjamas and wool socks and laughing as we make plans for a sunny day.

Days like today, how could I want to be anywhere else??

things that go scritch in the night, or I get itchy just thinking about it

2012-01-15T22:43:00.000-04:00

I didn't get a lot of co-operation when I suggested ripping the bedclothes off and letting the beds air a bit today, (actually, I got the rudimentary beginning snortings of a snit from one and the total involvement in a video game from the other) so....

so I pulled out the big guns and gave them a science lesson about dust mites. How they live on dead skin. How a protein in their feces (we covered what feces were, too) causes wheezing and runny noses. How about 80% of the dust floating in a sunbeam is bits of dead hair and skin.

And when that wasn't enough, I showed them the weird, headless elephant pictures of microscopic dust mites.
Viewing those was a fine line between health hazard that you should watch out for and nightmare material that will wake you up screaming in the middle of the night, but I think they're both okay.

The beds were stripped. Windows were opened (briefly, my gosh it was -12C out there!) and dust wiped out of corners. Fresh linens on, we all checked our pillows (I sharpie-marker the date we started using them on the tags) for their sell-by date (2 years) and talked about how fresh air and sunshine was important for everybody, not just growing boys and girls.

It was a nice night.

Now up to a verah long shower and pj's fresh out of the dryer.

Goodnight, all.

and then we'll find shelving for the garage

2012-01-15T00:10:00.000-04:00

Or something.

The list for next spring is growing. Ominously.

Paint the house, including the trim around the windows.
Finish the ceiling in the livingroom
Choose a colour for the livingroom and paint it.
Repaint the bathrooms, the kitchen, the kids' bedrooms and the upstairs hall
Put MAJOR MONDO shelving into Cass's room
Put some bookshelves up in R's room
Hang R's chandelier
Bathroom floor.
Re-do front steps.

BUILD raised-beds for garden.
Figure out how to raised-bed garden, and DO IT.
Cass's bed.
Furniture-polish (anyone remember Mrs. Murphy's Oil Soap??) everything
Find and buy pot rack
New desk lamp
Build and populate chicken coop. (What?)
Graft and/or replace aging apple trees

Yes, there's a reason Bear goes pale whenever he sees me with my big pad o' things to do...

I mean, we'll get it done. We will. But right now looking at all of it, here in mid January, it's a whole pile of stuff looming into my sunny spring days.

most of the time, she looks like a cat

2012-01-10T23:57:00.000-04:00

but then at night when she sucks her toe before she falls asleep, it's obvious she's still a baby.

Sweet dreams, y'all.

love is...

2011-12-29T23:28:00.000-04:00

giving the dog a ham-bone, even though you are unabashedly a cat person.

Cleaning up dog sick this morning. What could he have gotten into? Oh, yes, the hambone...

Cleaning up great gouts of dog sick tonight while murmuring sweet things to the frightened dog, kicking yourself for freely handing him the bone.

Cleaning his kennel, scrubbing out all nastiness while the dog comes over for a pat, his eyes sorrowful and sad, leaning into you while you rub out smells.

No, wait a minute. That's not love. That's my stupidity, coupled with some duty and just plain old guilt.

Love is letting the poor dog stick his face in mine and burp.

Yeesh.

Why you should never use something given to you for blogging for a Christmas present. In one easy lesson.

2011-12-28T18:50:00.001-04:00

One word: Floorspace.

Back in September, I got a very nice email from a company that specializes in eco-friendly playstuffs asking if I would like a cardboard, paintable playhouse for R.
Something she could play in and colour? Where did I sign?

It arrived promptly and I tucked it away under my bed for a rainy day project and forgot it.

Until Christmas Eve.

Bear and I spent about a half an hour putting it up. Santa tucked some stuffed animals inside, and we left it in front of the tree. Overnight, it grew (it did seem that way) and when we stumbled downstairs in the morning we noticed it...well, takes up most of the available floor space in the living room.

But she loooooves it. Slept in it the first night. Has painted and colour penciled all over it.

See?

It's a great hang-out for a little girl to dream in. But it's just too big for my narrow little house!
So: a word to the wise. If you're not good with picturing how big something is going to be from the dimensions listed, don't use a freebie without planning. Even if it is a lovely freebie.

it must be Christmas break...

2011-12-19T11:46:00.000-04:00

Because Good LORD, my two have decided they are mortal enemies, MORTAL ENEMIES I TELL YOU, and that someone MUST BE STOPPED.

And no amount of 'Santa knows!' 'Santa sees!' 'Stop before I stuff YOU in a box!' is working.

I remember this: the sibling rivalry, how breathing the same air as your brother made you want to annihilate him for the simple reason he was there, how I swore up and down I would never, NO NEVER have more than one child because of all the horrible things my brother and I gleefully did to each other, and how I promptly grew up, forgot (whimper) all this, and had more than one spawn.

WHAT WAS I THINKING???

Truthfully (and now that the howling has (momentarily, I'm sure) ceased, I love them to bits and wouldn't change them for the world.

BUT.

Should school HAPPEN to open a few days early?

Their shiny keisters will be on the bus.

OH YES.

Well, that didn't take long

2011-12-11T21:15:00.000-04:00

What's Christmas without a little extra something in the tree?

too busy to blog

2011-12-07T21:49:00.000-04:00

But not too busy to have long, post-worthy conversations with myself. And definitely not too busy to miss it.

It's a rhythm, blogging. And sometimes I lose the thread of it.

Our Christmas tree is up, although it's unadorned and unlit - the two young cats have decided it's a giant toy that their humans put up, and have been popping in and out of the branches. Honestly, I may just leave it nekkid for awhile - watching Inky and Boo is more fun than worrying about ornaments plummeting to the ground.

Of course it will be a plastic/unbreakable Christmas ornament tree this year. I'll miss some of my favorites but not having to moosh (is so a word) all of them onto the tree will be okay.

I'm back where I was last year - staring down the barrel at Christmas as it roars toward me - and seriously I think I could give it a miss and I wouldn't mind. Not that I'm grinchy - peace on earth, good will to men, all that jazz - but I'm just so tired.

And, oddly, wishing for snow. (See, told you I wasn't right.)

I'll be back tomorrow. Because I miss y'all. And I miss blogging.

literacy rocks

2011-11-17T22:28:00.001-04:00

I did something I'd never thought of doing the other day.

I started a library.

Last summer, I contacted the local public library system here, and asked them if they'd be interested in setting up a branch in our village school. The mobile library is wildly popular around here, and pairing the books with a permanent home in our town's most easily recognizable and central building seemed perfect.

After many meetings and the forming of a committee and emails and some bated breath and waiting (not so good at waiting) our little Outreach Branch opened last night.We'll be housing the collection in our school library, in its own section, and it will be open to the public for a few hours each Wednesday night and Saturday morning. I applied for and received my own Village Library card last night - I'm thrilled and excited and have a feeling of this just being right.

I am so amazed and grateful to be part of the area I live in. And excited. Our school principal was enthusiastic about the idea from the beginning. We've had volunteers step forward to run it already. I am so lucky to be around people that work for positive change.

And literacy? Rocks.

i can be

2011-11-09T22:14:00.002-04:00

anything I want to be....

The song is a little annoying (especially when it gets stuck in your head and you're making up bawdy lyrics and humming because you can't remember the original wording) but it's unabashedly bouncy. Also, true.

Rosey has decided she can do anything. Or several somethings, all at once. She's got grit and determination, that one. She has several terrific non-traditional female role models in our family, and I think seeing that these women that she loves and admires can 'get 'er done' is a terrific lesson for her to absorb at such a young age.

My Barbie dolls were moms or cheerleaders when I was growing up. Roo has veterinarians that rescue avalanche victims on the side. Equestrians that still wear the prettiest dresses ever to the fair. She has Barbie the Builder that fixes everything with a tiny hammer and her yellow construction hat. There are teachers and test pilots, prom queens and gypsies. It was a complicated thing to teach her, that women can do everything but that not everyone believes that, and that there will be be people along the way that will question her when she says that she can. (It's a philosophy I didn't really think I was going to have to teach my seven year old.)

But believe it she does. And is quite happy to tell you that when she grows up, she's going to be a doctor. And a veterinarian. And a fireman, too.

And somehow, I'm pretty sure she will.

Go here to read about a new website that gives girls tools to use to grow up healthy and strong and teaches them that yes, they can be....anything they want to be.

dusk

2011-11-08T21:54:00.000-04:00

halloweens past

2011-10-26T14:58:00.000-03:00

My mom made all my costumes.

Well, okay, there was the one year I went as a bride and she had to cut down the Southern Belle monstrosity we'd found hanging poofily at the thrift shop, but for the most part? I was an original.

I don't make all my kids costumes, though. Crafty skips generations (or so I'm finding) and they're still delighted with bits and pieces. Last year, I made my son's costume (he was a zombie) and bought a wee witch outfit for R. The year before, he was a Transformer and she was a purple cat. (I didn't get the purple paint out from under my nails for weeks!)

Tradition-wise, we've started them young (they both went out their first Halloween (in costumes) - Cass was 26 days old, and Rosey just a couple of weeks) taught them the old-school spooky thrill of scaring people, hammered into them (or at least I hope so) the importance of saying thank you when strangers give you candy, and set them free to run in the joyous gloom of Halloween night. We live in a rural enough area that the houses are in places few and far between, and we usually end up taking our car. Wherever the houses are closer, the kids (and I!) hop out, and they swoop through the dark, looking for the next house with a light on, while B trundles behind, headlights on low.

The kids also like telling spoooky stories after the great candy hunt with only the light from the fire......great for sound effects and grandiose gestures (with the occasional crackling noise from furtive wrappers) and hushed, quiet, cliff-hanger voices that grow LOUDER at plot points and character changes.

After Halloween we say goodbye to the pumpkins and the gourds and the crazy spiderwebs hung over everything, and the world looks stark and plain for a few days.

But the candy goes on and on....

click here to read about more of our traditions and hear about what candy will be at my house this year!

life underwater

2011-10-23T19:30:00.000-03:00

One of the really beautiful, amazing things about living near a watershed is

You don't have to look up to see the sky.

kicking it with ponies

2011-10-22T20:05:00.000-03:00

It's been an amazing week over here. Last week, Cass went to his first judo lesson, and walked out an hour later beaming. He broke a board. WITH HIS FOOT. On PURPOSE.

This month alone, he's started drama club at school, a soccer program, and judo. He's trying new things and figuring out who he wants to be, and it's fun to watch.

Today, it was riding a horse. It was Rosey's birthday party, and nine of her good friends came out to eat cupcakes and hop up on the ponies. Most had never been on a horse before. They all did well.

Cass is very interested in riding. Rosey is too.

She's upstairs right now, wearing her brand-new Stables t-shirt, and ta-thumping her Barbie horses (and their riders) through their paces.

Welcome, horse-mad age! Welcome!

thanksgiving

2011-10-10T20:56:00.000-03:00

That was the best, the best Thanksgiving weekend ever.

My lovely-and-wicked-smart (and they are) sisters-in-law put their heads together and came up with a fantastic way to celebrate the holiday. Bored with the usual, they hatched a plan to get us all away from home - a way to have us all relaaaaaaaax this year.

Barely an hour from home, the spot we ended up in was amazing. AMAZING.

THIS is the view from the kitchen of our cottage.

And this is what you saw out the front door.

And if being tucked into a gorgeous cabin in the woods with water and myriad shades of fall leaves around didn't clear away all the cobwebs and stress, right down the road was...

the beach.

And now I have pictures of my children frolicking in the Atlantic ocean in mid-October.

Frolicking. Swimming. Running up and down the hard-packed sand and screeching with joy like young gulls and finding treasures and swooping from the water to the sand to where the adults sat with their faces tipped to the sun and back to the water again.

This beat turkey coma all hollow.

Magical, amazing, incredible.

My pictures don't do justice to the beauty of the place and don't show the depth of the absolute peace there. I'm homesick, and I can't wait to go back.

charmed, I'm sure

2011-09-23T20:10:00.000-03:00

I was cleaning the bathroom tonight and found, coiled in one of the wooden cigar boxes that hold my mothers jewelry, something I haven't seen in years. Something that I'm so glad I have of hers. I can still remember how it looked against her neck.

It started out as bracelets. Charm bracelets. Someone - Mom? - put them together and created a necklace, a chunky, fun piece that she wore with many different things. There were charms bracelets filled with charms from Grandma Gebhart (my great-grandmother) my grandmother, my great-aunt, my mom, and a small, uncluttered piece that held the few I remember from trips we took when I was small. A silver horse and carriage from Mackinac Island. A tiny flag from the Bahamas. A hoop-skirted belle from My Old Kentucky Home.

My great-aunt Alberta had great charms - even a tiny silver cocktail shaker that when pressed, opens and a little devil head pops out. (Bertie lived through Prohibition.) There is a wee class ring from my mother's alma mater on her string, and my grandmother has a fantastic spinning top. I love telling the stories to Rosey and wondering with her about the ones we don't know.

There are a lot I'll never know about, since both Mom and Bertie are both gone.

Tonight, though, is no time for being wistful for the past. Tonight is also eleven years since I took Bear's (slightly damp) paw and promised to love and cherish him. So I have some celebrating to do!

Goodnight!

do something little, help something big

2011-09-21T22:01:00.002-03:00

Go here to see how Energizer and Evergreen are teaming up to make our world a better, more sustainable place.

slipping in the snark

2011-09-20T23:41:00.001-03:00

It's hazy out here, where I've been lately. The weather is foul, murky-green shot through with bilious colours, and the footing is decidedly treacherous. If you ignore both the pond-stink of old water and whatever that was that just went squirming and shrieking off through the underbrush, it still looks sorta normal.

Kinda normal, anyway.

Ever get caught up in a relationship you look back on and know with a sick twist to your gut that you ignored your feelings, stuffed down the slightly-hysterical voice inside you that was giving you warnings, the i told you so i told you so i told you so clawing rampant under your skin? And then the ooze buuurps under your heels and you realize you're far too deep in to abandon ship now.

We bloggers get invested in each other. Hazard of the beast, really, when talking about our lives and families and children and carpool and work and work again. Then Facebook came along and catapulted us all into each other's laps, and I now know more about people I've never 'met' than some of the ones I've lived near for a decade now.

What do you do when you realize that someone you've looked up to isn't who you think they are? Someone who you've read for a few years, whose stories you've looked forward to and whose children you can call by name?

What do you do when the mask cracks and falls away and what you see beneath takes your breath away with revulsion - all the pretty stories sworn up and down to be truth exposed and crumbling in daylight, groups and websites sprung up to hammer home the point that you've believed a lie, a lie with a wide colourful bow, yes, but still a lie - what do you do?

I kind of wish I still was clueless. Because now? I gaze at my family in the light of the waning sun and know that I've lost something through this revelation, that the blogging community for me will never be the same again.

I mourn, yes.
And then I turn my back on the toad squatting in front of me and look towards the sun, clear at last.

**This has been bubbling for awhile, but I need to get it out and on the page before it festered from simple grief, disbelief and pity to hate**

purrs and mews

2011-09-12T23:40:00.000-03:00

Surprise! We adopted the kittehs. (You never saw it coming, did you?) They had their booster shots yesterday (and a feline leukemia test and a squirt of revolution) and were perfectly behaved, and now they're officially part of the family.

They're lovely and playful and fierce hunters of toes and a lot of fun. They spend less and less time under things (Jasper still freaks them out a bit) and more and more time with their motors running full-throttle, being petted and flopping with all feet in the air for belly rubs. Wish I was that comfortable with people! (Well, maybe not. I think rubbing my belly might be a definite mood-breaker during committee meetings.)

They've also taken over the sunny windowsills in the living room (Fine, huffs Lucy, lashing her tail, I'll go out to the one in the kitchen) and do a fine job of napping, little bodies all wound up together like a jigsaw.

Now we need to figure out the great de-clawing question. But that can probably wait for a bit.

We're busy enjoying all the purrs and mews.