Mothers Blessing

Some of us thought we had been transported to the south of France: the beautiful and delicious food, the picnic tables underneath the apple trees, a nicely sunny/shady yard, and the company of wise, beautiful women in abundance.

It was potluck Mothers Blessing for a dear friend, due to bring a new sweet girl into our midst any moment. The organizers of this event sent out a muslin square (hemmed!), so that we might embellish them with our wishes or prayers or inspiration. We each had a moment to introduce ourselves and show our squares, sharing wisdom or a funny story or a hope for the new baby and family.

There were a few babies to celebrate the occasion (we did remember not to eat them):

the dimpled hands?!

Even though I think there weren't supposed to be actual gifts, I always assume this doesn't apply to handmade items. So I shared some homemade laundry soap (new babies make lots of laundry and so do five other people!). And I made the Amy Butler Apron Overlay for her also.

Because I remember how you give birth and then that one pair of maternity pants (your favorite) is still the only thing that fits or feels comfortable and pretty soon you are. hating. those. pants! And the baby will throw up on them right as you are leaving the house, and what are you supposed to wear then?! So how perfect to have an apron that is REVERSIBLE, with small prints to disguise stains, something fun and feminine and pretty to spice up your postpartum wardrobe. It could be a whole new thing in women's fashion.

~Oh wait. Did I mention this was a party at which TWO types of quinoa salad AND beets were also served? My kind of party indeed. The kind of food women will prepare for each other and themselves when no one is around to complain.~

Competition

On one of the most stellar days, one of our most perfect days in May, in Maine, we went to Blue Hill to watch this year's Pentathalon: the wind was light, the sun was warm, and the bugs were nearly nonexistant, making the day of outdoor spectating an absolute pleasure.

At Waldorf Schools, in 5th grade they study the ancient Greeks: their civilization, art, myths, political structure, and the events of the Pentathalon. As a culminating experience, many schools organize regional Olympiads (Wrestling, Long Jump, Discus, Javelin, Relay, and Sprinting), and train for the event all year. The trainer records the times and distances for each athlete all year, charting their progress and identifying their unique strengths. The focus is on beauty and form, as much as distance and speed.

Above, Jonas with the discus, his special event:

amazing to watch

When the five schools joined together last week at the campus of our gracious host school, The Bay School, the children were divided into City States...not by schools, but randomly.

So Jonas was on the Athens team, which was comprised of students from Maine, New Hampshire, and Quebec. (There were several Quebecois students who did not speak English! There was an interpreter!) In the above photo Jonas was wrestling with fellow Athenian, Seneb, from Quebec, who as you can see was determined and really very strong. Jonas held his own for quite some time before being overcome.

The city states spend the day competing with their team mates, but actually only against themselves, since the times and distances are measured against each individual athlete's former scores. The scores of an entire team are added together for a combined group score. Jonas was on the Athens team. Though javelin (above) was not his special event, he was so beautiful and bested his previous distances!

long jump

The mood of the day was reverent and filled with beauty. The children presented gifts and recited odes to the Gods, passed the Olympic torch around a circle of 80+ students, cheered for each other, and strived for their own personal excellence. In the spirit of the original Games, this was a festival of peace and fun. Jonas presented his school's gift for the Gods: a lovely Moss Garden made by the children (it was two stories, he tells me).

Each child had so much to be proud of throughout the long and strenuous day and I felt privileged to be present. It was a good day to be a mom, admiring her handsome, graceful, and talented boy.

Robots R Us

Inspired by the glorious robots of Miss Smith, the movie Robots, and now this book, Sylvan and I have developed a sort of sweet, collaborative robot-drawing habit. Sometimes he'll suggest that we draw robots together. Sort of on a whim. And most times, when I am asked this type of question, I try to drop everything and draw.

robots of people we love: the Rozabot and the Theobot

You can't see it here, but the dog's tongue is wiggling;

what you really can't see is that when Sylvan was drawing this,

he paused to pant himself, as though getting the right idea

for how to make the tongue look wiggly.

We have our favorite robot-drawing pens. I favor the Micron, extra fine point: nice flow of ink, the right thickness of line. He likes a gel pen that has a retractable tip so that he doesn't have to keep track of the cap.

is this one dancing, or roller-skating?

I love the movement

We'll often begin our own individual robots and then swap and work on each other's robots in process. Or sometimes, we just stick with our own visions.

I started this funny little female robot, below, and Sylvan suggested she be parachuting because she was on an airplane and was being so rude that she was just thrown right out. It's nighttime, as you can see by the moon and ZZZZZs from the town below. Notice the detail that he added, the harness on her legs to keep her parachute attached.

Collaborative drawing never happened with Jonas. He always had (and still does have) a very very specific picture in his mind, a vision, that only he can realize. In drawing and in life. My early attempts to "help" were usually disastrous and resulted in an even more ruined drawing. Oh those difficult years when his vision did not match his abilities! Agonizing. Now, at age 11.5 (almost), he will sometimes ask me to help him sketch out parts of his main lesson pages, to resolve a troublesome foot, or help make a figure in motion, or to make a good-looking nose. I am always so flattered to be asked and try to tread carefully around his developing artist's ego.

So. Robots. Give them a try!

Assorted delicious.

the photo I would have taken, this one by my dear husband:

chubby baby hand

holds umbrella in the rain

chilly May day in Maine

Happy Mother's Day to you. I got just what I asked for: a sleep-in morning and nice breakfast (scrambled eggs, danishes, coffee) and a big day of housecleaning. Because in May, when we are so busy having festivals and baseball and parties and birthdays and someone is trying also to finish her semester, the housecleaning falls by the wayside.

Sylvan is trying out the position of catcher!

Random things sit in random places. Multiple loads of laundry in need of folding are the norm and occupy a large portion of the floorspace in my bedroom (like the photo from last post).

men who knit!

I married one.

Today we asserted order into our house of entropy.

typical May day celebration in Maine:

dismal 47 degrees

And then as I was cleaning the bathroom, on a whim, I decided to paint.

local Maine ingredients augment these fine chocolates

from Black Dinah's Farm Market Collection

You haven't ever ever seen our bathroom, blogfriends, because it is awful. It is small with weird striped wallpaper, not vintage, just cheap. Also, there was this terrible brown-beige trim around the window, edging the doors, etc. (WHO uses brown to prime?!) Plus, the wall behind the toilet was not wallpapered (OK, fine, it was ugly) and was just plain white sheetrock. And out of all of the rooms in our house, it is the one that has not been touched since our first summer here, almost eight years ago, when we made shelves in it. (There was a linen closet, strangely, with no interior shelves. It made us wonder about the former residents.)

mother's day gifts:

alphabet wine (totally librarian, right?)

PG Tips (without it, I am nothing)

So I painted. We had white paint---imagine!---that I used to prime the wall behind the toilet and the trim around the window. It looks clean! Neat! White! And I figured that getting a small start on this project would then inspire more work when I am officially done with school for the summer. I just did it and it felt SO. GOOD.

There was also some mowing and bike-riding today. Sylvan, recovering from a touch of fever-y virus, bundled himself up quite well on this breezy, chilly spring day: here he is, wearing two adult-sized down vests over his sweatshirt, down earflap hat, with ear-protection muffs.

The apple trees are in bloom, which I love. Not so many blossoms this year and perhaps this means we should have pruned better.

Hanging the Laundry

Today is a perfect laundry day: sunny, dry, windy. I think you already know about my love of clotheslines and hanging my family's clothes outside. I like the whole process, from the pins to the colors to the way everything smells when I take it in at the end of the day. I especially love it when I round the corner on the road and see the clothes on my line flapping there, colorful and cheery. Here's a painting that I love by the artist Edith Vonnegut (yes, daughter of Kurt) called Hanging the Laundry. My mom owns it so I get to admire it when I visit her!

What I really hate is folding a big pile of clothes from the dryer, like this mountain of clothes.

This is unless I have an audio book to listen to on the iPod, which I don't at the moment. Right now I have been listening to this wonderful foodie podcast by Molly Wizenberg, the author of a Homemade Life. It's called Spilled Milk and you can subscribe to it for free! (I am partial to the episode they did on Junk Food. Which is OK, since I am not eating it, just enjoying it vicariously.) The two hosts, Molly and Matthew, are funny, quirky and I feel like I am hanging out with friends in the kitchen, cooking.

Here's another thing I love: Making my own laundry detergent. Sure, as a cost-saving measure, but also to know exactly what goes into cleaning my clothes. I got the recipe from the magazine Mary Jane's Farm, and it is made from a 76 oz. box of Borax, a 55 oz. box of washing soda, 2 lb. box of baking soda, and a 12 oz. bar of soap (grated, I used Tom's of Maine lavender). It makes about 1/3 of a 5-gallon bucket (total cost about $10), which is what I mixed mine in, and get this: you use 2 TABLESPOONS per regular load. Seriously. And when I put it to the test (sweaty work-out clothes, grass stains) the results were fab: clean clothes, no weird chemicals or additives. ***The one thing to note is that this is for cold water washing only, as there is some sort of potential for Borax being partially converted to hydrogen peroxide at warm/hot temps.***

Do you have a clothesline? Do you have a method to your clothes-hanging madness? (Organized by type of clothing, the person who wears it, whatever the heck your hand touches next in the basket, etc.) Do you fold your clothes outside or bring them in to fold? Readers in foreign lands, do please tell us about your clothesline experiences! I would love to know.

Some sewing, some cooking Redux

new bag:

The Multitasker Tote by Anna Maria Horner

Well, it seems that I am up to my old tricks, naming this post almost the same as this one, cooking and sewing in between working and studying and all that. The cooking and sewing looks better on film though.

Sometimes I like to cook with sugar, you know white, refined, and much like cocaine (in terms of how bad it is for your body).

Other times, I like to cook without. And lately, we are also doing wheat-free baking for one family member who is less itchy without it. Here are some sweet potato muffins, Jonas's favorite.

JONAS'S Favorite and Mostly Healthy Muffins

• Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
• Grease your muffin cups or use liners.
• Into the bowl of a standing mixer, put in:

1 c. cooked sweet potato

1/3 c. vegetable oil

1 egg (if you are going for vegan, just substitute a couple of tablespoons of flax meal)

1/2 c. maple syrup (or other liquid sweetener like honey or agave nectar or whatever you have)

1/8-1/4 c. molasses

• Mix this up.
• In another small bowl, or if you are a cheater who doesn't like a bunch of dishes, just use your measuring cup:

2 c. flour (wheat or gluten-free or spelt, whatever)

1 t. baking powder

3/4 t. salt

1-2 t. cinnamon (we like it spicy!)

grated nutmeg (as much as you can stand to grate. I usually tire
of it after about 1/4 t., but I am a fan, so do more if you can)

allspice or cloves (a tiny pinch)

• Add your dry ingredients to your wet in 3 additions or so until
  

there are no obvious lumps of flour.

• Throw in a handful of chocolate chips, or raisins if you are
  

feeling virtuous. Mix.

• Plop in muffin cups and put in the oven for 20 minutes or so.

Here's my new spring/summer tote! Laminate fabric on the exterior for easy cleaning, nice roomy interior for all the stuff that goes along with me to the beach.

looking inward, from above

These four little exterior pockets, which I am loving, are perfect for your sunglasses and keys, ie. those things that are frequently hard to find in your voluminous pouch.

The little owls on the interior pockets, leftover from the Letter Pouch. I have to say that I really love the Anna Maria Horner pattern because it's written well and easy to understand. I will definitely look for more AMH patterns out there. There were some quirky steps in this bag, but I felt confident because the pattern was so well done. And I am really happy with how it turned out. In fact, last week I was able to go to work with just TWO bags in hand (a record), instead of the usual three.

As you probably already guessed, I had a really nice visit to Alewives Fabrics lately to redeem my Christmas gift certificate! (Can you believe it lasted so long?) So nice to see the lovely ladies there, as always. Rhea, the owner, is wonderful, and she seems to have a knack for hiring helpers who are equally so. This linen with the birds on it is a Japanese fabric and will be a new summer Barcelona skirt; A-line, not tiered this time. Can you tell I am looking ahead to summer sewing projects when I am not in school?

And some more of that owl fabric, to be a new pair of PJs for my very long-legged boy, Jonas. Notice those sweet Matryoshkas? Also a Japanese fabric, it's so so so soft that it is screaming (ever-sweetly) to be a new hankie. I am pondering a giveaway of hankies soon (a Matryoshka one will definitely be in the mix!), just as a thank you for reading gift, so keep checking in.

When she perches up here,

she usually thinks about flying down for some time,

and clucks very loudly while she contemplates

Finally, how is our friend Puffkin doing? The ongoing saga of our sweet hen continues. In the warmer weather, I removed the Chicken Cozy Neckwarmer and upcycled a tee-shirt sleeve (men's) to be a little protective covering that fits under her wings and over her healing parts. She lives in this little box in our woodshed and in the nicer weather we let her free range in the yard. The other chickens are securely in their chicken yard now, since my husby fixed their fence! So no danger of Puffkins being bullied or treated poorly by her feathered colleagues. For now, she seems content to go it alone, and when she's ready, we'll reintroduce her to the flock.