photo catch up

Theresa's funeral was a really nice party. I think she would have been pleased. This is my Pa.

I bought the girls matching black dresses because I wanted them to make a good impression and I felt that Gram and her sister would have appreciated how sweet they looked.



highlights of our trip to farm camp:
the 1AM walk to the car in the dark because our tent was soaked - The four of us girls, by the light of the moon, a couple of blocks worth of country, so peaceful and all to ourselves. It felt like traveling. The same sort of exhilaration as when I locked the keys in the car in Hawaii and had to walk a couple miles down a lava road and then caught a ride in the back of a pick up. Peaceful walks spurred on by stupidity and a lack of choice are apparently my favorite kind.


when I went looking for Charlotte and heard her in the goat pen, alone, singing "Tomorrow" to her favorite baby goat. We also had a chance to milk the goats and make cheese with the fresh milk.




seeing the baby calf that was born during the 24 hours we were there.


It rained a lot here for awhile. One afternoon, the girls danced in the downspout in swim goggles and filled up my pasta pot with rain and bobbed for little plastic toys.


We caught the end of the strawberry season at our favorite organic pick-your-own, Rosey's Berry Farm.


The berries are so close to the beach that we always have to stop at the dunes.



Chris and I went to our friend's wedding in Washington DC. It was good to spend so much time together without the kids or the house to worry about. We drove Friday, went to all the Smithsonian art museums and then the wedding on Saturday, and drove home Sunday. The wedding was so nice, well done, great people, and we stopped by Chris' aunt and uncle's on the way home. The museums were great. This picture is of a sculpture at the Hirschorn.

The house is a mess.  It's been a busy week - my sister has been in town for our cousin's wedding.  Saturday, Tania and I went to get pedicures in the morning.  I've only done this a few times now, but i don't like it.  It's so humbling and personal for a stranger to touch my feet.  And I think they are judging me and talking about me in Korean.  And I can do just about as well myself.  The wedding took all day and my dad watched all four girls.  I felt a little guilty about this.  I became very crabby after the ceremony, and realized later that it was because I had been picturing my late cousin Chrissy as the bride and imagining if that was what my aunt was thinking too.  My sad emotion is not wired properly and will show up as crabbiness, inappropriate laughter, or take chargedness.  My sister talked me into sending Chris home to relieve our dad and going out with her and the cousins.  I felt guilty about this too, especially after I ruined our last wedding experience a few weeks ago.  Because of this, I didn't even ask if we could go to the party at my dad's the next day and instead went to his parents.  Before we headed to his mom's though, we spent a few hours at the Japanese garden, a Frank Lloyd Wright house, and a windmill that we climbed up and out onto the balcony of - which was especially exhilarating and powerful because it was quite windy.  Eleanor cried and refused to walk back to the car because she was too tired and as such, lost quite a bit of her allowance.  

I have started a new allowance system for them.  They each receive 50 cents for each year old, just for being a cooperative member of the family.  They are expected to help out around the house, but I don't want to train them to think I owe them because they have cleaned up their own home.  If they refuse to listen or if they hit, they lose a quarter.  They decorated 3 envelopes each which go in file folders which record their earnings.  The first quarter of each dollar goes into giving.  We have begun to talk about what they can use this on - maybe saving up for a flock of chicks through Heifer International.  The second quarter of each dollar goes to long time saving.  Charlotte suggested hers would be for vet school.  The last 50 cents of each dollar goes into the spending envelope.  In less than 24 hours they both used their spending money up on ice-cream.  Charlotte's already had buyer's remorse regarding her $1.75 tweety bird ice-cream bar.  Excellent.  

Yesterday we met my dad at the river and took turns in the kayak.  It was so quiet and relaxing, so peaceful to see my locale from an untouched perspective.  As I pulled back around, the kids came out of the woods like natives on the Amazon, or at least like Von Trapp children in trees.  We all had a nice visit with my sister and niece.  We stopped to see Tania's son's baseball game, where the girls blew their earnings at the ice-cream truck, but he got hurt and we left early.  

Work was great today.  I had the kids make Andy Goldsworthy inspired installations along the bike path.  They did a great job, passersby enjoyed their creativity, and I loved walking around outside all day.  When I got home, the water had been shut off because we forgot to pay the bill, but it wasn't a big deal.  The kids played with the neighbors and I started talking up another block party.  Wendy came over and we ended up at the mall because it seemed like rain and I had nothing to eat at home... and the messy house was making me uncomfortable.  It was fun.  The mall is cool as long as you don't go more than twice a year, don't try to shop, buy the kids something to eat, and let them play on the equipment as long as they want.  

we are going to washington DC and I wasn't excited because we're leaving the kids and I won't be able to nurse Gracie and we'll miss an opening that my student and I are in - but.  I just found out that the museums are free there and now I'm giddy.  We only have six or seven hours to sightsee and Chris has told me he wants to RELAX - but.  I think we can squeeze in a few art museums.  

It's been a busy week.  Thursday and Friday were an ongoing funeral extravaganza.  Saturday held  a baby shower and a graduation party, and Sunday was a graduation party for my brother.  Monday morning we left for a camping trip at Angelic Organics, didn't sleep at all because our tent soaked, and today, Wednesday, rode our bikes to an Earth party.  Tomorrow we plan to go strawberry picking and to the dunes.  

For the three weeks before this, I didn't eat any sugar or starches and felt awesome.  The last week I ate anything and I have stomach aches and bloating and I feel tired an crummy.

today was Theresa's funeral and her birthday.  We had a wonderful lunch at Maggiano's and spent the last two days with family.  I met some new cousins.  Gram has another sister who looks a lot like her, only bigger.  and I looked into her face and ached for Gram.  Most of the time I live a pretty Buddhist mentality of letting go, so this wanting-feeling surprised me.  I also visited her grave for the first time today.  She died four years ago.  When I was a kid, I used to cry myself to sleep imagining she would die someday.  

I got it into my head today that I would like the girls to attend a private college prep high school. I went to one the first two years of HS, then to a public school.  I saw an old friend (from my first school) yesterday for the first time in ten years.  The level of vocabulary in her chit chat and how well her family seems to be doing made me think maybe I've just been slumming since I left that first school.  

I have more energy and feel more confident and in control since I stopped eating sugar and flour and started juicing.  It's the little excuses throughout the day that stop me from attaining my goals, and this diet change feels like enough to push me back on track.  Today, though, I celebrated and enjoyed all the selections offered.

resin painting

Here's what I've learned so far:

 Castin Craft, which is $82/gallon and the cheapest and almost only thing they had at the best art supply within an hour of my house - is NOT what you want for coating a painting.  You want epoxy.  If you do use castin craft - the catalyst instructions are vague.  think 1% catalyst in the solution.  

Work smaller so you can afford the epoxy.  (I'm doing 18" square - next time I'll do 6".)

Wear gloves even if you were just looking at it for a second and didn't think it would get on you.

Disposable gloves.  Maybe doubled up.  Or just use and throw out the blue kitchen kind.  

If you do it in the basement, even if you close the vents upstairs and open all the windows, it will still stink up the house and make you worry that you're killing the kids.

Making a frame of tape around the edge of the painting so that resin doesn't pour off is a bad idea because it will fall toward the surface of the resin like a magnet.  I think I'll make a wood frame.  I bought cradled boards.  I should have just turned them upside down.  ...  I should have used them upside down.  ...ugh.  next time.  

My workspace is a sticky disaster.  (We can''t exercise because it's the same space.)  This is the messiest medium I've ever used because it's so toxic and takes so long to dry.  And because it poured off the sides of the paintings in puddles that spread on the shower curtain I laid down.  I don't think the floor is level in the basement.  Next time I would use a level for where I laid the substrate.  

I used more catalyst with the second pour so it should be OK to work on tomorrow morning.  I should have turned them upside down.  They're a wreck now.  The tape pulled up most of the edges like gelatin.  

nutrient dense little debbie brownies

in a mortar and pestle:

one medjool date

four walnuts

drizzle of flaxseed oil

1/8 tsp vanilla

1 T of cocoa powder

mash, then form into familiar looking rectangle.  

I try not to discuss diet beyond recipes because it's so very boring, BUT - feel free to skip ahead - a week ago I told myself I was ready to fast.  ( I even put vinegar on my nipples to help Gracie wean but it didn't dissuade her for a moment.)  I did the master cleanse for about 6 hours....  I decided, from the vantage point of eating nothing, that I would add in the diet of a raw foodist, fruits, vegetables, some seeds and nuts, and also eat some cooked meat and some cooked vegetables and beans (I researched the raw meat diet, but couldn't bring myself to do it.)  I feel great.  Watermelon is my new favorite food.  I also like to have a smoothie of 

1/2 cup plain fat free yogurt

drizzle of flaxseed oil

large handful of BABY spinach ( must be baby or tastes like ass)

one mango

for breakfast.

I am in the middle of some paintings.  I've finally put together an installation I can live with that uses the photo that's already in the exhibition catalogue (that I no longer want to show.)  I bought 18x18 cradled boards, a little paint and a gallon of resin.  The resin was 80 bucks.  I have been obsessed with the idea of visible layers for years and wax was not expressing that the way I'd hoped.  I spent four times as much at the art supply store as I could afford; my dad was generous enough to pre-purchase a painting to help me out with this.  While I was at the store, I was wearing my painting overalls, it was hot and I smelled bad, Charlotte kept hounding me to buy her crap, and I blabbed to the clerk that I had a new series to paint for a faculty show in ten days.  I wished I'd kept my mouth shut.  I feel so much pressure to do a good job because I'm supposed to be a professional, but I'm out of practice.  I had a bit of a panic attack this weekend about this.  Feeling better now.  Hope the resin works out.

I took the girls to the Art Institute Friday on the train.  This is an ambitious undertaking and I felt very angry when, after taking three children on a long train ride, walking them a mile to the museum, and waiting in line for nearly an hour to get in first, the staff demon told me she could not check my backpack, filled with a carefully planned raw picnic.  Only hermetically sealed foods, like granola bars, could be checked.  Fresh, whole food in tupperware, in a backpack, in the bag check room, compromises the integrity of the conservation of the art.  I stabbed her with my eyeballs as she spoke down to me, as though I knew nothing of art and didn't care to.  

Free day is never worth it.

We had our picnic early in Millenium Park, where the girls love the Crown Fountain, along with every other wet kid.  They loved the bridge from the park to the third floor of the new modern wing, where, by this time, the museum was a complete madhouse.  The saving grace was the kids' area on the first floor.  They loved the kids' library, where we met our friends and played for at least an hour, and I stumbled across a teacher's resource library, where I got free annual membership to the museum because I could prove I'm an art teacher.  That's $80!  I'll be back.  

Sometime I would like to stay as a family at the hostel downtown and visit the sights, go to the beach, and pretend like we're backpackers.  I pretended that a little bit on Friday.

The girls walked in the Memorial Day parade, today.   It was cold and started raining toward the end, but still fun.  Charlotte tied a laundry basket to the porch steps, with a rope and her shirt sleeves, and played basketball.  I was delighted with her ingenuity.  

My favorite painter is Hung Liu.   I am leaning on her style from several years ago a bit to get through this series fast.  ... mine will be a lot different ...also not as good.

This is one of her "bastard paintings," which is a print from her collection, covered in resin, then painted on.   

I got my hair done while Chris took the girls to a play last week (High School Musical.)  (Scheduling woops, thanks Chris.)  But I found my hair lady!  She does a great job and we have things in common.  She has a nice arm tattoo and I told her about wanting a half sleeve for years but my husband won't let me.   I hated the way that sounded so I came home and got into an argument with Chris.  He'll "let" me, he just won't like it.  Doesn't matter anyway.  We don't have any money.

I went out with Wendy Saturday night and had a good time with a group of people I didn't know.  I always feel better when I leave the house.  (I think moving to an isolated farm would be a mistake.)