negative

We saw the how to train your dragon movie today for Nate's birthday. It was awesome. We wedged it right in there between a bike ride to Alex' baseball game and picking Eleanor up from camp. So far I do not like this camp or anything affiliated with this theatre group. Never again. As a hater and non-participator, squatting off to the side of this type of group setting of parents more of the soccer set is like tickling a raw nerve. Clearly the problem is me, but I don't think my children need these sort of expensive, "organized" activities to turn out alright. I'm only taking her there because I couldn't get a full refund from the first class I signed her up for (and ran from screaming - no I won't sign your contract to volunteer 20 hours and pay that much money and tolerate this level of chaos after seeing how terrible the last play was at this location [if I only saw our local group first, and not the more distant, far superior sect - I never would have signed her up]) ... and she wanted to go.

Last night Chris and I had a rare date. I started out very crabby because I have developed a worse than usual body image problem. Halfway through dinner we were having a good time and then we went to see Greenburg. Save your money and just watch the trailer online. That's all the good parts. The character development was good, I could understand the urge to make such a movie, but I had my own urge to just turn it off at some point.

Two words. Carol's Cookies.

I am still working on mailing out my Christmas packages to Japan.

I'm in a desperate, anxious race to get organized but I'm running through mud.

Dropping off neat little parcels of negativity makes me feel lighter.

For lunch today we had miso soup, seaweed salad, rice with furikake, and longings for Japan. I want to go back so bad.

I instituted a new schedule this morning - only schoolwork and chores before lunch. I feel very productive and am enjoying a break before dishes. The girls are playing Mario Brothers right now which doesn't feel too bad since they did French and Math and History and Writing already. Charlotte picked up and Eleanor did laundry and changed the hamster cage. Gracie made things very hard especially during history, grabbing my face and pushing it into hers, squealing and climbing on my lap and springing back when removed, while the other two asked for different spellings at the same time. For a moment I thought I would cry for auditory overload, but we plowed through and studied ancient China.

Dell-icious

We went to the Dells this weekend. I felt like we were rich people, being able to go up there for the night and eat out and stay at the water park. Thank you, tax return. The trip was clearly for the kids. It was so crowded Sunday - overwhelming. Long lines of crabby white people and big hairy potbellies bouncing around like those colorful punching bags you run through as a kid. As much as everyone else walks around the hotel in swarms like they're leaving the fireworks all at once and in nothing but their bathing suits, I found it totally humiliating to traverse the halls in a T-shirt and my cellulite. I don't want to go back, but if we do, I'll spring for the cover-up dress. There was a gay Manhattanite in my head screaming incredulously at the dearth of style amongst the ten thousand or so people there... beating me up in my mind. I am every bit as Midwestern as everyone there, except I'm one of the ones who knows better - you think I'm in a coma but I hear you. I was so stressed out by the crowd and my own body image issues and Eleanor's sass, that by the next morning, I broke down crying in the Indian Trading Post over some cheap Native American dolls that reminded me of one I got when I was little. I left without it, then went back in to get it, then came back to the car and saw how cheap it was and wanted to get rid of it. I asked Chris to return it for me. "No way." me: "I can't have this thing in the house reminding me of how crazy I'm acting this morning." him: "Send it to your sister with a note that says remember going to the dells when we were kids." me: "Good idea." We went to McDonalds where I watched footage of the earthquake damage in Chile and thought our money would have been much better spent sent to Chile or Haiti for aid. I finally relaxed briefly in the wave pool later that afternoon. My idea of a relaxing vacation involves exploring nature with very few people around or exploring culture with very few Americans around. The water park capital of the nation is the opposite of that. If we ever save up enough for Disney World, I'll probably hate that too. But you know what the kids' idea of a great vacation is? Indoor water parks and Disney World.

I got to pick out 30 varieties of tomatoes for the farm this week. I picked seven different color cherry varieties. I picture them together in baskets like big juicy marbles - striped varieties too.

We had a productive day today. The girls did French and math and read independently - one Little Women, and one Anne of Green Gables. They're reading the condensed children's versions. I didn't ask them too. I just bought several in the dollar aisle at Target last year and they just now bothered with them. Eleanor sat in a sunny corner of her room yesterday for hours reading Little Women. Today they squeezed this in between watching Shirley Temple shorts first thing in the morning and then spending all afternoon at Tania's. I've been freaking out about homeschooling lately. I swing between thinking I should offer them some kind of University of Chicago lab school experience and some kind of Waldorf-y unschool experience. I'm either totally confident or a totally depressed failure. Artists classically put the whole pressure of their worth into whether their work is good. Not only do I think I suck because I haven't made work in a year, but I lock in my self worth to how well I perceive myself to be educating the girls. I don't need a supervisor at work or as a home-educator (I don't have either) because I beat myself up harder than any boss would. I'm aware that this is wrong but I don't know how to tease it apart. I'm feeling a little better today. I exercised.

Charlotte kept crying because Gracie kept knocking it down. In the background it can be seen that I am still lazily contemplating making the sari curtains.

The girls made paintings for their book reports for history club. This is Eleanor's. It was her idea to take a photo, then print out copies to cut up as puzzles and bring for the other girls to make her report more interesting. She had very clear ideas and I tried to stay out of her way.

We visited my brother and his family and Gracie really loved holding her cousin Charlie.
We went to Starved Rock this weekend to see the eagles and hike. We didn't do too much hiking, but my dad treated us to lunch at the lodge. I was excited because I always wanted to eat there as a kid and this was my first time.

Aw hell's yeah. Look at this link on design milk brought to my attention by apartment therapy. Flaming Lips house.

And Chris can't see why I'm interested in cob.

The other week I was really excited about the idea of making marionettes and putting on crazy shows - which would take performance, sculpture, painting, sewing, writing, collaboration - I love to work across media! - but this week I'm really thinking about making clothing. I envision a very limited line - skirts, day dresses, aprons, flowers for pins/hair, scarves - and MAYBE printed T's, but everyone has those - they'd have to be truly fantastic - and if we were a store, pause to visualize, we would also carry tights, cardigan sweaters, and really great boots. Everything would run from size 18 months to size 18, cause I think this is a good look for girls of any age. There is a blogger, dottieangel, that works this look just right for my taste. This is the look I've generally been shooting for for about 16 years since I discovered my first 60's house dress. It was the first of a horrendous collection, found in the basement of my punkest friend's apartment. The rest were mostly bought around Clark and Belmont in Chicago. So ugly. And always with a vintage cardigan sweater or a hoody. I am ready to graduate from hoodies just now, but I never returned to old house dresses after junior college. I don't have a single one left. Anyway, I was re-inspired because for our anniversary Chris bought me tall pink Hunter wellies! Yay! Great with a skirt and wool tights, great in the rain, and GREAT for mucking around a muddy farm. But I don't have any skirts, so I thought I would make one.

Right. at this very moment. I am eating banana cream pie. Marie Callendar's frozen pie. And at the same time, my obliques ache in a really good way because I'm on week seven of insanity. That's the kind of asshole I am. If you come to my house, I will offer you celery juice and chocolate chip cookies.

We had an earthquake last night. Like a 4. Chris and I both woke up and he said it was an earthquake. That seemed absurd to me so I declared it was a giant salt truck (the roads were really bad when I came home last night) and went back to sleep. It sounded more like an explosion, but there were no lights or sirens or voices, so . sleep. Tania called me in the morning and asked if we felt the earthquake. So exciting! Like a snowstorm in the South. Naturally, Bumblebee spent the morning reading and discussing earthquakes and plate tectonics and Pangaea. Charlotte had knocked out her math before I woke up again and I used Eleanor's stopwatch to time her on her math. The idea of beating her time with each math page was very motivating for her. 11 minutes total. Normally well over an hour. Then she did math drills on the computer and fired up the French on her own. Meanwhile, Charlotte played intensely with legos. I made walleye and tiny potatoes for lunch. The roasted carrots that Eleanor peeled weren't ready in time. Then I forgot them. Some of them are very sweet and delicious if you scrape them off their charred half. After lunch I folded all the laundry while we watched The Sound of Music. I haven't seen it in years; its a family favorite. When we were kids, my cousin Tania, two years older, made us sing So Long, Farewell at every family party. I was always the older boy. (Adieu, adieu, to you and you and you) Beth was always Liesel. Chrissy was always Gretel. I noticed so many things in the movie that I hadn't as a kid or teenager. I love that movie like an old family quilt. Tania called about two hours into it and invited us to dinner. I love my family.

My mom met the girls and I in the woods for a walk last week.

The snow was rainbow glitter.


These were the tracks of field mice dragging their tails.


Eleanor took some nice pictures.


She also pretended to be a moose.


The girls, thanks to the generosity of my brother and his wife, started French via Rosetta Stone. Eleanor really shined here. She seems to be very motivated by the game-like nature of the program and because I told her that fashion designers should know French. Eleanor wants to be a fashion designer. We looked at Tim Gunn's 10 classic pieces today and picked out daydresses for ourselves. When I say "picked out" I mean we surfed around and said what we liked. We like different things.

I'm going through a late-blooming francophile phase. As I tiptoe into middle age, I'm thinking about the sort of woman I want to be and this appeals to me more than ever. Something to do with inner confidence and lifelong sexiness, helped in part by good skincare, good underwear, and a good haircut. I tell myself this fits in just fine with farming because French women are more in touch with traditional eating and cooking from scratch and where that scratch comes from. Of course I can grow food and look great. I'm not becoming a monk. I'm just going to need a big hat.

I went to a farm workshop last week. I learned so much and walked away believing that I can really be a farmer. I also met a chef last week who seemed interested in ordering produce from the farm I'm working on this summer but I haven't heard back from him so my excitement has waned.

What I love about eco-ag farmers as a group is their relatable balance of pragmatism and dreams. In the context of some pretty dry and practical information sharing, I met another person who dreamed of an artist residency on the farm and a woman who was adding a vegetable farm to her zen retreat.

Game of the week: using ONLY what we have in the house to eat this week. While the impetus for this clever game is having ONLY $30 in the bank for the week (for gas) (and no credit cards) - (and because as an adjunct professor, I do not get a paycheck between Christmas and Valentine's) - I still think its sort of fun. Today I made chili, in part with beans I boiled from dry and then froze in jars - at least a year ago, and a strawberry rhubarb crumble with strawberries we picked in June but have been too lazy to use since I froze them in two big gallon blocks. Tomorrow, I thaw the cheese collection, including triangles of cheese I saved from the baby shower last month.

We picked up my mom at the airport and she took us to Russell's for lunch. I haven't been there in forever. My Grandma went there after her prom. I could see our family eating together with her and Pa when we drove past the picnic tables outside. It still looks the same.

Per my game rules, we can accept a meal, but not money, so Russell's - OK.

Last week Charlotte woke up, dressed, and did her math before I got up. Since then, both girls have been doing math every morning, first thing. The schedule is evolving, so far, to follow with breakfast, quiet novel reading, my workout and their playtime - although they're starting to join me, and then history or science or literature discussion and writing in their journals. The dining room table has been covered in paints, embroidery, etc. for at least a week, so they are revisiting that quite a bit.

Gracie is sitting next to me playing carnival games on the DS and sucking on a candy cane shotglass. I asked how old her cabbage patch baby was today and she said 24. Her speech has exploded and I think she's grown two inches since thanksgiving. I don't know. Maybe one. She just looks older.

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Kids in bed. Reading them a folk tale before bed each night from a collection - tonight: Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. Pretty violent bedtime reading for three little girls... Last night was my favorite so far - The Son of Seven Queens.

The dishes aren't going to get done tonight either. I'd rather practice the guitar. Chris probably won't find that as amusing as I do. I am running around picking up before he gets home. ... I'm not above kicking loose change under the couch.