"The dishes are done!" (Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead)
Friday: Totally crashed, I think...as though to exhale deeply between a few months of work and a week off. Watched the Tinkerbell movie. Lame. Had hotdogs for dinner at Tania's. Nice.
Saturday the girls and I took the train to see the Nutcracker ballet. First we met friends at a raw restaurant. Surprisingly filling, I had to take half home just like any other restaurant. The girls were impatient and then wouldn't eat their "ice-cream" for lunch. The ballet was lovely; we all enjoyed it. Charlotte fell asleep. They were starving. I tried to give them chewable vitamin C from my purse. Pathetic.
We had some time before our train home, so we stopped into a train themed diner where 50's music plays and every one's meal is brought by toy train. I carefully counted the singles I had left and the girls were vindicated. It was great.
Later that night we went to an open studio party.
Sunday I got up early and took the train alone to go to a local farming conference. The permaculture lecture was the big draw. Thrilling. Followed by vendor food samples. I thoroughly enjoyed the morning view of Millennium Park from the windows and my blessed solitude before other people arrived. It is also fun to be surrounded by like-minded locavore types. I made some interesting connections and arranged to barter art lessons for a B&B stay.
Part of my motivation to go was my tenuous interest in becoming a small farmer, but I don't think that's what I really want to do. My interests lie more within homesteading, without the pressures and debt of farming. Using permaculture design, I could feed my family on a half acre (including the house.) I envision chickens and a pair of dairy goats, as well as a garden including fruit, nut, and hardwood trees. Part of the permaculture retirement plan is planting valuable woods.
In the permaculture talk, I learned that first you determine what your needs are, then: the three principles are to serve the earth, serve people and creatures, and give the excess back to the earth/people/creatures. It is the opposite of hording/capitalism. You fulfill your family's needs and give the rest away. That feels very natural to me. Another prominent idea is to labor as little as possible because you have designed your personal, edible ecosystem beautifully and are working with nature and not against it. This also feels right, if not obvious. I enjoyed the speaker's anecdotes and clever solutions, born of calling your problems surpluses. For example, he suggested, if you had a slug problem, what you really have is a slug surplus, which is really a duck shortage. Get some ducks and turn the slugs into more useful eggs, feathers, and meat. ...He made it sound much more clever. His website is permaculture.com.
I'd like to take a design course around here, but it is hard to imagine taking 10 days away from my family and shelling out $1500. Maybe in a few years. I keep checking the design manual out from the library but it's not something you can learn from a book.
On Monday, we had a slow start. The girls are enjoying reading together.
After taking them to girl scouts, we went to five stores shopping for the best deals on Thanksgiving dinner items, and then bought a hamster. I was so pleased to get a turkey for 46cents a pound that I even filled out the store's card application, which I hate - why do I have to give them all my info to get their sale prices? - but I traded my personal data and ten dollars for a 22 lb turkey.
The hamster's name is Desperaux Tilling. The saleslady at the understaffed pet store, who smelled badly of cigarettes, told me all the things I needed to buy, which I discounted completely as bullshit, insisted that I buy water drops that cost almost as much as the hamster, so it doesn't get diarrhea. I chalked that up to a lack of confidence in their animals (probably warranted) and wouldn't you know it, 24 hours later that thing shit on Charlotte's leg.
Other than that, ( and I just hope it lives for awhile) it has been the thrill of the house. The girls set it loose in the dollhouse and we created a jungle gym for it out of paper towel tubes and an oatmeal cylinder. I watched it last night for awhile, and my imagine ignited, determining how I would rig three maze-like levels in what is probably just an old birdcage. (I secretly desire something like the setup Natalie Portman had in Garden State.)
We had a delightful play date today. I am quickly discovering what kind of homeschoolers we are, and what kind of person I am in context of the homeschooling women I have met over the last three months. To sum in three terms: independent, laid back, manners matter. Two parts unschool, one part old-fashioned, zero parts Christian. I am still reeling over learning that some Christian groups consider efforts to save the earth a sin. I sometimes have to make a concerted effort in my mind not to consider them an enemy. I want to live peacefully alongside people of different beliefs and origins and to model understanding for my daughters. But chalking up the greed and laziness that has led to environmental problems as dismissible because the earth is insignificant in our eternal lives and God has a plan, sounds like a shameful excuse for being irresponsible. How can people turn their backs on science so extremely?
I find extremists on both left and right sides and try to avoid both groups. I don't know if that's peacefully coexisting, but I do know that my family's happiness grows best in low to no drama. I'm not looking for a fight, and the older I get, the more I know I'm right. Isn't that pretty universal? Anyway, I think we've found a really nice family to hang out with who are extreme-free and have 3 kids the same ages as ours.
Last night we finally finished cleaning the girls' room (actually I still have garbage bag full of miscellaneous stuff from their room now hiding in mine) because that had to be done before they were hamster owners, and in doing so, I finally discovered the source of the mysterious fruit flies. I thought it was a little spilled cider that I'd cleaned up already, but they never went away. I never questioned the Dr. Seuss backpack, hanging innocently from the hook on the door. Opaque and seldom used. In my quest to organize, I checked it for books and it exploded in fruit flies. I briefly glimpsed something soft and blue, but slammed it shut and ran it outside to the garbage. The find was equally satisfying and repelling.
Later that night, watching House and having a rare beer with Chris, I laughed and laughed at the hamster crawling up the cage and falling over and over. Chris doesn't seem to want to touch it. Hee hee.
Today I began the morning with dishes while Eleanor ate a pomegranate and then read the story of Persephone, online. She said, "That's a nice story for when you're eating a pomegranate." Then we cleaned the house and I got a little cranky. I wished I had time for a shower. (I still haven't taken one.) They worked in workbooks until their friends came over, then they all played with the hamster until lunch, hot dogs in crescent rolls, then played with the hamster some more (no wonder it's sick...sick of them) then had a little art project that apparently contributes to a girl scout badge, then played with the hamster some more. After our friends left, Gracie took a nap, and the girls and I rotated learning to knit and creating the hamster jungle gym. It was dark and quiet and peaceful. I made elbow noodles with garlic and a roux and kale and a little chicken and craisins. It was good. I also reserved noodles for regular red sauce for those whose palates are not as sophisticated as Gracie's and mine. The girls practiced typing with a kids' program and then we watched The Polar Express and drank hot chocolate.
Chris and I are going to watch Forgetting Sarah Marshall now.
That hamster wheel needs a little WD40 or something.
The hamster's name is Desperaux Tilling. The saleslady at the understaffed pet store, who smelled badly of cigarettes, told me all the things I needed to buy, which I discounted completely as bullshit, insisted that I buy water drops that cost almost as much as the hamster, so it doesn't get diarrhea. I chalked that up to a lack of confidence in their animals (probably warranted) and wouldn't you know it, 24 hours later that thing shit on Charlotte's leg.
Other than that, ( and I just hope it lives for awhile) it has been the thrill of the house. The girls set it loose in the dollhouse and we created a jungle gym for it out of paper towel tubes and an oatmeal cylinder. I watched it last night for awhile, and my imagine ignited, determining how I would rig three maze-like levels in what is probably just an old birdcage. (I secretly desire something like the setup Natalie Portman had in Garden State.)
We had a delightful play date today. I am quickly discovering what kind of homeschoolers we are, and what kind of person I am in context of the homeschooling women I have met over the last three months. To sum in three terms: independent, laid back, manners matter. Two parts unschool, one part old-fashioned, zero parts Christian. I am still reeling over learning that some Christian groups consider efforts to save the earth a sin. I sometimes have to make a concerted effort in my mind not to consider them an enemy. I want to live peacefully alongside people of different beliefs and origins and to model understanding for my daughters. But chalking up the greed and laziness that has led to environmental problems as dismissible because the earth is insignificant in our eternal lives and God has a plan, sounds like a shameful excuse for being irresponsible. How can people turn their backs on science so extremely?
I find extremists on both left and right sides and try to avoid both groups. I don't know if that's peacefully coexisting, but I do know that my family's happiness grows best in low to no drama. I'm not looking for a fight, and the older I get, the more I know I'm right. Isn't that pretty universal? Anyway, I think we've found a really nice family to hang out with who are extreme-free and have 3 kids the same ages as ours.
Last night we finally finished cleaning the girls' room (actually I still have garbage bag full of miscellaneous stuff from their room now hiding in mine) because that had to be done before they were hamster owners, and in doing so, I finally discovered the source of the mysterious fruit flies. I thought it was a little spilled cider that I'd cleaned up already, but they never went away. I never questioned the Dr. Seuss backpack, hanging innocently from the hook on the door. Opaque and seldom used. In my quest to organize, I checked it for books and it exploded in fruit flies. I briefly glimpsed something soft and blue, but slammed it shut and ran it outside to the garbage. The find was equally satisfying and repelling.
Later that night, watching House and having a rare beer with Chris, I laughed and laughed at the hamster crawling up the cage and falling over and over. Chris doesn't seem to want to touch it. Hee hee.
Today I began the morning with dishes while Eleanor ate a pomegranate and then read the story of Persephone, online. She said, "That's a nice story for when you're eating a pomegranate." Then we cleaned the house and I got a little cranky. I wished I had time for a shower. (I still haven't taken one.) They worked in workbooks until their friends came over, then they all played with the hamster until lunch, hot dogs in crescent rolls, then played with the hamster some more (no wonder it's sick...sick of them) then had a little art project that apparently contributes to a girl scout badge, then played with the hamster some more. After our friends left, Gracie took a nap, and the girls and I rotated learning to knit and creating the hamster jungle gym. It was dark and quiet and peaceful. I made elbow noodles with garlic and a roux and kale and a little chicken and craisins. It was good. I also reserved noodles for regular red sauce for those whose palates are not as sophisticated as Gracie's and mine. The girls practiced typing with a kids' program and then we watched The Polar Express and drank hot chocolate.
Chris and I are going to watch Forgetting Sarah Marshall now.
That hamster wheel needs a little WD40 or something.
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