i am happy

This morning I got up before dawn to go to my favorite yoga class - for the first time in four months. I stepped out into the dark, cool morning and into a face full of spider web. I recoiled and from a different angle could see a penny-sized spider just at my nose level. I went in to tell a sleeping Chris about this problem but came to my senses, turned the porch light on, and threw the broom at the whole giant orb web and spider like some kind of javelin. And ran to the car. Yoga was great.

The girls and I did a little clean up this morning and then headed out in the rain to pick up some planters from a freecycler. I love meeting these nice people. Then we went to the Children's Museum just for a little bit. Great. We picked up bread and then had grilled cheese and tomato soup and little sundae cups that we also had bought - which I normally wouldn't because of excess packaging, but - live it up! The girls played math games online and I did the dishes. Gracie amused herself sitting under the table and then at the dollhouse. Lastly, we dipped the leaves we found on our block in wax and investigated what tree they were from. We settled on Red Maple and Green Ash. This was my favorite website for our investigation. We planned on going to the woods to collect a better variety but it rained too much so we'll go tomorrow. We are planning on doing some wood construction to showcase our waxed leaves and accompanying paperwork (read: mostly crayon rubbings) for our science fair of sorts with the unschool group.

I really like this song right now.


This morning my yoga teacher told me I look golden, compared to how gray I looked back when I was applying to nursing school. This made me feel good even though I thought it was probably just a brassy dye job at the roots. At school, a student told me my hair was green, which I've been afraid of, and also gray. Is gray in? he kept asking. I told him I was giving him an F. He actually made me feel a little bad, but then another student told me I was the best teacher and his other art teacher tells him to stop doing graffiti and I told him I was just looking at these books right now and this site is cool. That made me feel good. I get mad when punk gang kids tag my neighborhood, but the gang problem does not wipe out that what a lot of my kids are doing is art and worthy of praise. I read a long time ago that the way to read Shakespeare is to annunciate each word in specific description of that word, poor example: say the word 'loud' loudly. I think that what they try to do with letters is to annunciate each one, personify it, so each letter can tell the story on its own.


We had a little party this weekend and went apple picking. The best part was, after playing along with the whole over-priced agritourist destination, we passed a farm that was selling gorgeous pumpkins for one fifth the price. I turned around and chatted it up with the lady and bought as many as I could fit in the trunk. I take great pleasure in their smooth, flourescent orangeness.

Do you know why I'm writing this all out? Because otherwise I will forget. (It sometimes seems I can't remember anything. I assimilate new information very quickly (unless I'm tired) but I can't retain anything I don't use regularly. I am afraid I will have Alzheimer's some day. I already have Gram's teeth and ears and anxiety. )
And do you know why I take the pictures? Because at the end of the day, I can flip through them and look dreamily at my children and love them so much they take my breath away - which I don't have time to do when they're each pulling me in a different direction a lot of the day.

I just talked to Chris and confessed very guiltily that his mom left us two little bacon wrapped steak leftovers when she dropped off the kids and I ate one and then let the kids eat the other one and now there's nothing but canned peaches and beans and old guacomole. Poor Chris.

In other news, I finally posted the chore chart and the girls are very excited to get a sticker and a penny for each thing they do (get dressed, brush teeth, shower, pick up toys...) and another sticker and penny if they do it without being told. WOBT. Like WWJD, only better. If they are perfect, it will only cost me $2.80 a week. We are also learning about money and budgets and I am explaining every daily cost to them and want to start paying for everything in cash so they can get a better idea. Today we spent $8 on stamps, mailed a $52 check for tickets to 3 different theatre presentations for kids, and $10 on bread and sundae cups. Most days we don't sped anything. ... Is that true? We'll soon discover as we continue to log expenditures together!

I am so happy to have them with me. We NEED this time together to establish our familyness, boundaries and expectations. There are some children I see who have the most horrible manners. I cannot bear this fate for mine and this is the only way I know how to tackle the task. To spend so much time together - just break through the initial period of thinking you can't do it, can't resist state-mandated free babysitting, and take the hard way out. It's only been a month and I am joyous.

oh rasberries

The debate is in half an hour and I feel the sense of anticipation which I imagine some feel before the superbowl. I even thought about making cleverly shaped baked goods and hosting a get together, but I only had about 7 hours to plan.

Chris joined us at an apple orchard this morning before he went to work. We picked rasberries and bought cider and raw honey (they say local raw honey can help allergies - and its delicious) but skipped the apples for today. The girls and I are going again with Grandma on Sunday.

...

Debate's over. House is messy because I ignored kids to watch TV. I'm really tired but I guess I had just enough energy to color my hair. I tried to leave just the bottom part behind my ears pink, but I ran out of color, so now all the ends are still pink. We'll see how that turns out. douchebag. Maybe instead of sitting in my underwear with saran wrap on my head at the computer, I could chip away at the clothes carpet. Might have a party tomorrow.

...

I'm back. There are three books on my 'to read' list. You Are Here, The World is Flat, and, in looking for this last one, The World Without Us , I stumbled on the Voluntary Human Exinction Movement and I'm feeling kinda bummed out now, feeling guilty for having three kids. I knew about zero population growth in high school and after we had two kids, I declared to Chris that we were done, regardless of how he felt. After a year I started to plead with him for one more. Why did I want a third child? Try for a boy - yeah, I guess that is sexist. And I love having all girls now. Feeling guilty for telling Chris we were done and thinking he wanted one. At some point missed having a baby. I wanted to do one right, now that I knew how and didn't have two babies at once. Definitely wanted a big family party atmosphere feel. I grew up as one of four and my mom was one of ten and all the cousins and the big family were so valuable to me, to us. My mom was also disdainful toward non-parents. The more Chris said no, the more I needed to have one more. When I finshed grad school and the pressure that had pushed me into an obsessive compulsive madness was over, I felt I had two choices: be an artist who has kids, or be a mom who makes art. I felt like having another child would seal the latter and force my hand to be the mom I had been too distracted to be. When I was pregnant, I felt guilty and was afraid I had made a mistake. Of course Gracie is a delight, even though I wanted to name her Pearl and for the third and final time Chris bulldozed my names. Wanting to do the right thing, I bought cloth diapers and sewed my own wipes and read up on elimination communication, but I also taught class before she was a week old - no time off for adjuncts who are too broke to take the whole semester off - and always desperately piecing together a hodge podge schedule of babysitters - no woman already doing me the favor of watching now three, was going to use cloth diapers. So that didn't last long. Even the people closest to me gave me so much flack for that. My only advice to new mothers: Fuck all that advice you didn't ask for. Isn't everyone just an expert when you have a baby? So, we have three kids now. I felt painfully suburban when we went to the farm today. We don't drive a minivan or SUV, so at least there's that. My mother also held disdain for those wealthier than us, so I have never aspired to material wealth, or cared about money, and it has been very natural for me to become pioneer thrifty. Most of the time. I bought hair color and foundation at Target today, and let the girls pick out nail polish. I did, though, research both products on makeup alley first to avoid misspending.

I read things like, the environmental impact of two suburban kids in the US is like 60 kids in India or 600 in Kenya and I think, well what can I do to make my three have like, one tenth of the impact. I'm not doing an awesome job yet. Things we already do:
Drive the most efficient vehicle we can afford - a used civic
live in a small house - 800 sq ft.
use flourescent bulbs
compost
usually use reusable grocery bags
avoid processed, over packaged foods
wear clothes out
never use plastic water bottles
eat meat infrequently
try to support responsible companies
subscribe to a CSA
never go to the mall (to avoid creating desires)
plant vegetables
limit travel
bike to work in the summer

Things I want to do:
build a cob house
build a root cellar
grow my own fruits and vegetables and preserve them
have my own chickens
keep bees
build a rocket stove
use passive solar
use solar power
catch rain and use greywater
use a composting toilet
and I want a dog

I see it all clearly in my head. Chris cannot see living this way. I want to know how to survive off grid, seperate from society, not because I hate society, but because having the skill set makes me feel empowered. And I could really get into the sculptural art of cob. I can see building other people's houses for a living. There are apprenticeships for this, but not realistic for a mother, not for me, anyway. I will add it to my list of what I can look forward to when I'm 50.

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

Claudia said, "But Mrs. Frankweiler, you should want to learn one new thing every day. We did even at the museum."
"No," I answered, "I don't agree with that. I think you should learn, of course, and some days you must learn a great deal. But you should also have days when you allow what is already in you to swell up inside of you until it touches everything. And you can feel it inside you. If you never take time out to let that happen, then you just accumulate facts, and they begin to rattle around inside of you. You can make noise with them, but never really feel anything with them. It's hollow."
E.L. Konigsburg


Today we brought Margaret cake and sang to her at the picnic table. It was so hot. I missed Gram. I thought that if no one else was there, I would crawl onto the bed where she died and lay there to be with her. Instead we put on Sponge Bob and I dozed off in the chair for a few minutes. Before we left, Margaret said how many times did she have to tell me not to wear oversized T shirts and I said I only have three shirts I like and this is the fourth day of the week. She went upstairs and she gave me a shirt and a bra from her suitcase and when I was getting in the car, ran out with a pair of purple flats, which I received a compliment on from a student as soon as I got to work. Without her, I would sink into the abyss of styleless, rational Midwestern thrift. I love my sister. I noted that she, Gram's namesake, tried to keep me neat and stylish just like Gram did.

I forgot Margaret's present, a wrapped box of TLC oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, but did bring her a kale salad to have before cake.

Awesome Kale Salad
One bunch kale
massage with sea salt...1/2 tsp?
Taste it after it has wilted from the salt and rinse it if you overdid it
Squeeze half a lemon on
Scoop out an avocado
Moosh it around.
Add about a quarter cup each of walnuts, red onions, and red pepper.
Margaret says this is a dish best served cold.

There were A LOT of power shovels in action along the highway today. It was thrilling. In addition to loving the shape and the action and the animal quality of these tools of destruction and construction, I noticed I also like the kind of men -from a distance- who work around them. Manly men. Only I would want one who is into art and music and who is sensitive to liberal politics and culture. That is Chris. and more. Chris is great. I am in love with my husband.

Margaret's Birthday Cake

best carrot cake ever.
Preheat oven to 350.
Grease and flour a bundt pan.
Beat together 4 eggs,
1/2 cup canola oil,
1/2 cup applesauce,
1 cup brown sugar,
1 cup white sugar,
3 tsp vanilla,
1/2 cup crushed pineapple (w/o juice.)
Add 2 cups flour,
2 tsp baking soda,
2 tsp baking powder,
1/2 tsp salt,
1 tsp ground cinnamon,
1 tsp pumpkin spice and mix around.
Add 3 cups carrots run on 4 through the vita mix,
1 cup shredded sweetened coconut,
and 1 cup chopped walnuts.
Bake 1 hour or till knife is cleanish.
This does not need frosting, but if you drizzled cream cheese frosting on it, I wouldn't say anything.

Today was a great day. The house was still clean from yesterday. It rained this morning so we sat on the porch and read 6 library books. The first of the rain hitting the dirt is my favorite smell ever. I relished this time. After this we picked up and did dishes. The girls are becoming ready cleaner-uppers. We cleared off the dining room table mountain and I went through my work binder that still had three semesters worth of papers in it. Just a few more piles to go, and the clothes carpet. I did two loads of laundry and threw them on the pile. What an ass. Really, though, I feel great. I'm experiencing that rare clarity where I realize it doesn't have to be perfect, I'm taking small steps forward, and it will work out after a while. Today I found the Rick Bayless tickets for last week. heh. (they'd had our name from the credit card.)

DOH! I just remembered I forgot to bring a CD due to the library today. I've had it in my purse for days now. It was awful, too - some cheesy Broadway version of Disney's Little Mermaid - all new, terrible horrible songs. I also still can't find Clifford and the Grouchy Neighbors. Serves me right if it's under the clothes carpet.


We went to our group at the park. I really enjoy this group of people and so do the girls. It is very easy to just slip right in even though we are new. Margaret met us there with v. I would really love it if they lived here. I know her work is in NYC and I can't hassle her about it, but it would be so nice if we could be weekly friends and Gracie could grow up with her cousin.

Work was cool tonight and when I came home, my MIL had bathed them. YAY! I LOVE coming home to a clean house full of clean kids. I never imagined that would be my favorite feeling as an adult.

I would like to add that I just put most of the 'feeling squashed muffins' in the freezer because nobody wanted to eat them but me.

chubby birds

today was better. We kept the house clean. We went to the bank and then grocery shopping, all four of us with dum dums. The girls read. We did not do too much; I wasn't overwhelmed. I did get too many phone calls. Maybe I will shut it off during school hours. Sarah watched the kids tonight; it was awesome. She bathed them and washed the dinner dishes. It felt great to come home and relax instead of shoveling them all into the tub right away. I may paint a rain barrel for an auction. That has inspired me for the evening. My sketch for a barrel turned into sketches for a tattoo. I can't get the design right. It involves power shovels and a chubby bird. I have a chubby bird for Eleanor and Charlotte each and want one for Gracie. I am considering including part of an abstract self portrait Chris did when we were dating and some large cherry blossoms that would reference our time in Japan and visually tie the design together. It's all about color. I have been tossing this combo around in my head for two years now and trying to wear Chris down for his blessing on a half sleeve.

feeling squashed muffins

This weekend we OD'ed on family. The extended kind that, as I get older, I can only take in small, infrequent portions. Like lactose. We got together with my mom's side two days in a row to see Grandma one day and Grampa the other. I was very crabby by the second day and only went because the kids already knew there would be a jumper. I was way out of my comfort zone at a church, in the heat, and with too many uncles around. After that, we drove out to my dad's for his birthday, which was nice. We ate at our favorite Chinese restaurant and got together with his side of the family, who I don't often see. I love Pa.

Saturday my sitter called and basicaly told me she couldn't do it anymore, a week into the semester. This stressed me out. This week my mother in law and sister in law have the girls, but that is not permanent, so I have the dreaded task of finding another sitter. The last two years they went to a different sitter each day of the week. I felt guilty about the inconsistency and felt terrible that I only saw Eleanor in passing. That was a big motivation for homeschooling this year. I heard a public service announcement on the radio today that kids who eat dinner with their parents 5 or more times a week are half as likely to smoke and do drugs as kids who eat with their parents 2 or less times a week. We never eat dinner together because of work schedules, so I am trying to make up for that during the day. I let a kid go from my class today because he came high. Because it's only the second week of school and I haven't turned the roster in, I'm wondering if I should fail him as it states in my syllabus, or just pass him off as a no-show. No show. We drew outside today and there were some thug teenagers pacing back and forth by my students and I almost called the police, but my phone was dying.

Everything I did felt like a failure today. Chris thinks this homeschooling is like a useless extension of summer vacation, and somedays it does feel like that. I considered sending Eleanor back to school today because she has been biting and kicking and hitting Charlotte and has been very out of control with her feelings. I told her she couldn't have something in the kitchen and was able to physically restrict her from getting it anyway, so she looked at me explosively and grabbed everything she could on the table and slammed it on the floor. She bit Charlotte almost to bleeding because Charlotte was looking at her funny. I asked her why she did that and she laughed. Sometimes I'm afraid she is not capable of considering other people's feelings. I tried to talk to her after I sent her to her room and she told me she isn't bad at school because she doesn't want to go to the principal's office, but at homeschool she is naughty.

We started the day with some painting and drawing and listening to classical music. Eleanor wouldn't put pants on because she said she couldn't find any. This was sort of true because of the clothes carpet- which makes me feel awful. The girls have started reading independently. Tonight I kept telling them it was time to shower but they wouldn't put their books down. So that is somewhat successful, but other than that, after the mess making, the taking care of Gracie, and cleaning up half of each mess all day, running to work for four hours, then the downer of coming back home to the mess of all those half not cleaned messes - we have done very little. There's still a lot of Cheerios on the floor.

I think I can. I have enough energy to plod along making small steps forward, but I don't have anything left to explain to Chris why unschooling isn't a terrible idea.

We started a new bedtime book this week, From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E Frankweiler. It's pretty unschooling, actually. The kids run away to stay at the Met and embark on their own research project.
Since I've started reading them chapter books to put them to sleep, about a week after Gracie was born, we've read
every Little House on the Prairie Book except the last one
Charlotte's Web
Stuart Little
A Wrinkle in Time
Charlotte's Rose
some garden prose book
where the sidewalk ends, a few times
Anne of Green Gables
The Melendy Family book of Saturdays
Pippi Longstocking (which I liked as a kid but not as an adult)
Meet Kirsten - thinking we'd get into the american girl series, but it was sort of weak

This weekend I made blueberry cobbler with a whole gallon of the organic berries we picked this summer, which I am eating now and which turn my teeth blue. And a chili from the beans and corn emptied from cans to accomodate the 'knock the cans down' carnival game we brought to the first party this weekend. And the rest of the bean salad which nobody really liked this time. I don't know why. Bad limes? And ancho chiles I toasted and pureed as inspired by Rick Bayless last week. The chili is OK. We had it again today but this time I served muffins. What didn't fit into the first baking, I added serranos from my cousin's garden, and some of the mozzarella I made for the party this weekend (that I was openly annoyed that some people would not try.) eh, whatever. This pepper cheese loaf was good, and not really hot, considering how it made my nose burn and run when I cut open the serranos.

Squash Muffins
Acquire too much patty pan from your CSA over the summer
Cut into large chunks and roast with a little olive oil, salt, and pinch sugar.
Let this sit in the fridge for a few days because nobody but you wants to eat it.
Puree this half gallon of squash in vita mix.
Add enough flour to fold into a muffin batter consistency, kind of a lot.
Add a palm each of baking powder and soda. I think.
Add a little salt and whatever was left in the sugar container - maybe scant 1/2 cup.
Mix till moistened and bake at 350 till they look done.
Realy good.

bean salad

I bought new needles but the sewing machine is broken. Tension problem? aahg. I don't know. Yesterday my MIL took Eleanor and Gracie, and Charlotte and I read books and took a bike ride and did flash cards and looked for right angles at the park and had tuna sandwiches together. On the way back to grandma's, she laid across the back seat, basking in her solitude, and declared that this had been the greatest day of her life. Next week will be Eleanor's alone turn. You know what's easier than three kids? ONE! Awesome. One kid.

Today Chris took Gracie so the girls and I could go to the library. We read books out loud together and then brought like 17 of them home, nevermind there are already four lost in the house. We always lose 13% of library books till after the due date. 13.

It was a great morning. It was sunny and I love to have Chris home. He asked me to make bean salad for him to take to work because his friend always feeds him and he never brings anything. I made tacos too and tried the oatmeal shake again. I am using ice and milk and horchata powder and oatmeal but I haven't got it right yet.

Bean Salad
2 cans black beans rinsed
2 ears sweet corn, cut from cob raw
1/2 red pepper diced small
several key limes juiced - # depends on the limes
sea salt to taste
2 cloves garlic
3 green onions or 1 palm red onion diced
1/2 cup loose pack cilantro cut small with scissors
2 jalapenos diced, use seeds and ribs of one
drizzle olive oil
one avocado diced and added last to avoid mushing