~snail racing~

Two snails were racing as the tide went out the other day.

According to The Week-End Book, snails travel at 1.916 feet per hour. Does this figure reflect the speed of snails at leisure? Or an average of sauntering snails and snail athletes? Because these two contestants here appeared to be hustling.

I don't know if they made it to the water before the tide went all the way out. Maybe you'd have to calculate the rate that the tide was going out, and this might involve calculating the slope of the beach, and I'm more content to have born witness to the moment that these snails and I shared. Even if I don't know the outcome. Life is uncertain, after all.

Sand forms. This is part of the Waldorf curriculum: making amazing beautiful free-hand forms, sometimes mirrored, or not, and the idea is that you don't lift your crayon (or stone, in this case) once you have begun the form. You are committed. Being there in the moment helps, trusting your hand and eyes to work together. I asked Sylvan to make me one to copy and this was what he made.

Some of our party balanced stones as per usual. Though the Stillmans were notably absent on this day, it was really otherwise perfect. (We felt you with us in spirit! Note to S: The water was actually delightfully swimmable, really pleasant even, and not at all ankle-numbing.)

::the summer of::

wasn't on purpose, 

just ended up with a loadful of Common Ground Fair Volunteer tee shirts

(because the cool kids volunteer)

Green smoothies, are my new favorite summer breakfast. And let me say that my idea of a green smoothie is maybe different than other ones, my concept is that it can't be OVERLY green-tasting! Or else: blech, I won't drink it. Which gives me zero health benefits. I use my Cuisenart because I do not have a Vitamix. Here is the rough guide for a recipe:

Pineapple-Kale-Chia-Mint Smoothie

2 T. chia seeds, presoaked for 5 minutes or however long it takes you to do the rest of the ingredients-gathering

2 cups fresh, RIPE pineapple, in chunks

Some (1-2 handfuls) baby kale leaves (chard is good too), de-stemmed and torn

Fresh mint leaves (I like it minty, so I am generous here)

1 cup or so fresh coconut water that you made yourself (below)

Maybe a splash of almond milk

Ice if you can stand the clunking noise your Cuisenart makes when it chops it

Put it all in the Cuisenart, including the soaked chia, then give it a few good pulses. Delish!

Coconut Water

1 cup unsweetened, shredded coconut

4 cups warm water

Mix together in a bowl and let sit for 15-20 minutes. Then strain the coconut meat out. Voila, your own coconut water, a raw food! Store it in a jar in your fridge and use for smoothies when you like.

This was a strange adventure in culinary practice that we were inspired to try by a friend who has a yummy vegan food blog: GRILLED WATERMELON. Well, it was too weird not to try it! And I liked it, especially the yummy limey-spicy dressing. The leftover dressing could have made an awesome addition to my bubbly water, but someone had dumped it before I could get my hands on it!!! It was a fun addition to our non-vegan burgers on the grill and I would like to try it with a minty-limey-spicy dressing next time. (OK, I'm crazy about mint!) Read WhollyEats' blog entry here.

It's the summer of learning to roller skate. I am learning to be a roller derby referee for our local team, the Rock Coast Rollers! Learning to skate is a big one for me about conquering fears: of things that are new and things that are physical. There are lots of rules, people, and reading them is one thing, and then learning to SEE them in real-time is another thing. I am learning a new, visual, very physical language.

It is not. like. the. roller. derby. you. saw. on. TV. The analogy is televised dramatized fake wrestling is to actual skilled athletic wrestling. Same thing for derby. These athletes are all ages and shapes and it's an actual sport, with strategy (and lots of rules); it's not about beating people up on roller skates. Practices are all about drills, skills, and sweaty bodies, like any other sport. Have you let go of your previous associations yet?

One night a week, Sylvan is allowed to come to practice with me. He is, of course, brilliant. Which makes me proud and sometimes a little bit jealous, because it is just so effortless for him, so graceful, intuitive, and fearless (without being reckless). 

Here are his new 10th birthday wheels! Brand new Atom TrakAtak wheels for a boy who likes speed. The amazing owner of Turn Two Skate Shop in Portland researched wheels that would be right for his smaller sized skates and the wheels arrived in record time. We stuffed ourselves with birthday dinner and cake and ice cream, but then we just had to go to practice last night to try those puppies out. He's getting the feel for them, and the feel is very different from his old ones, so he took a couple of exploratory spills.

Just look at him, running on his toe stops like a pro.

There's that handsome boy, whose roller derby name is SylvInsanity, on his birthday:

Leaping through the air and life, as always...

The bluebirds are back! They were here ten years ago when we first moved here, tapping on the windows on the morning of Sylvan's birth.

Now they are nesting in the box on the end of my clothesline, overlooking our garden. The papa bird is not thrilled when I hang out the laundry, so he swoops around, and I just keep assuring him that we are so happy his family is here but also that hanging the laundry and weeding the garden are part of the rental agreement.

ah, summer

 mr. twinkle eyes

The baseball season wound up with success. The main success in my mind is kind coaches and good spirit of the game, plenty of runs, catches, surprise double-play unassisted (!), even a rainbow. A very dear young fellow who was sometimes kicking flowers and dirt and other times making some awesome plays, best smile on the team! And my very own sweet guy was a team leader, praised by his coaches for his sportsmanship and manners.

We spent the day as a family on Mount Desert Island to celebrate 13 years of marriage. We hit all the high points (ha!): Pirate's Cove mini-golf (I got a hole-in-one!), then lunch at our favorite beach with plenty of rocks to skip and balance, then one of our favorite hikes up Parkman Mountain, catching up with friends, ice cream, dinner, and a surprise chance meeting with a dear, dear friend on the street!

 these two beauties were collected, then lovingly grudgingly tossed back 

when informed of the "remove no rocks policy" of the park

 he listens to the rocks

 kiss sandwich!!!

And now, summer vacation. I made it through my first teaching year! WooHoo! And as it turns out, I have a new adventure coming for the fall... I will be the school librarian at a school for 8th/9th graders in the same district as last year. This is thrilling on a couple of counts. 

 red leather chairs for reading: 

yes please.

First, middle school (early high school) students are my favorite age group. They are prickly and interesting and hilarious and it's sort of a precious time in their lives, one that can be awkward and awful sometimes. (And I love reading YA literature.) There is so much that is possible in middle-ish school that becomes harder with older high schoolers.

Second: ONE SCHOOL instead of five! One learning community that I can be part of on a day-to-day basis! Hoorah! This is quite exciting, to think of the possibilities for spur of the moment exchanges and developing relationships with teachers and students that I will see every day. I feel so lucky. And am devouring a lot of YA books this summer, which is awesome.

I visited a very venerable library in Boston this past weekend and I wasn't supposed to take pictures, but I took some before I knew... It was a librarian's geek-out holiday.

And finally, because we've had a lot of rain and gray already this summer, I wanted to show you something blue and summery. Rafter's delight and lots of silliness and the water was warm enough so I could even stay in and play and be part of the shenanigans. This was a rare moment of calm...

one fine day

Thanks for your kind words about the last post. I kind of jinxed myself with it. We were all horrible and stressed the whole rest of that day. It was the little things that turned into big things, like who got to watch a movie, who was kept in the dark about it, who wanted ice cream, who felt like too many people were making demands and didn't deserve things if they were going to make such a big deal of it. Those kinds of days make you glad to get into bed early to try again tomorrow.

This day was a lovely, fine day of celebration with friends, however. And everyone was nice.

 baby strawberries

Some people have little daughters who are camera-magnets for me. (She takes the same two fingers as her sister does.) I love how you can see the smile starting in her eyes.

 the shadow of my big boy Jonas against that gorgeous knit blanket makes me swoon

And now for a gallery of feet pictures, with a side order of sweet dresses and skirts:

You know I fall for the tiny floppy-floppies every time. Perhaps I need a blog dedicated to hands and feet. If you can think of a good name that wouldn't attract the wrong sort of people, please do post it.

Delicious wood-fired pizza was served up by the nice folks at Harvest Moon. I fell off the dairy-less wagon and ate some and it was perfection in the mouth. Crispy crunchy melty savory bites of awesome. Then later came the unhappy side-effects: sneezy and stuffy.

 the tiny dancer stole our hearts

Thanks to our gracious hosts who asked that I bring my camera. There was a lot of wonderful happening all over the place.