31 years, 31 things to be grateful for~

Something of a birthday tradition for me, in no particular order.....


*french toast and good coffee
*a week at the beach with my loves
*and all the other time I get to spend with them, as well
*a birthday dinner of fresh scallops (which I wonder, every time I eat them, if there is possibly another single food flavor that I enjoy more...) and clams dug hours ago by my main squeeze and I
*that we had an hour and half or so to ourselves this afternoon to run together down a mosquito infested path out to the sound, where we happily dug for the little bottom feeders in knee deep water and talked about things big and small
*our home
*our health
*the occasional treat of losing myself in a good book
*having those moments to myself in which to do so
*that I live in a place where each season is distinct and wonderful
*having found a job that allows me to be a mother and work simultaneously, except for the days Claire stays at home with Mike when he's off~  (and that's great, too)
*living in a town that I feel has a real sense of community
*the learning experiences that have come in the past year from tending bees and hens (and a growing toddler)
*the way Claire and I can now communicate.... really and truly
*music, sweet music
*salty ocean air
*our many wonderful local farms, and being able to support them
*same goes for the local breweries
*that my girl likes broccoli, kale, tofu and other things of that nature (but no doubt she can put a cookie in it's place)
*that she calls cow's milk "cow's milk" and my milk "milk"
*speaking of milk, let's add cheese to this list~ maybe dairy products in general....
*CHOCOLATE MALTS
*receiving real mail, by which I mean a hand written letter  (it happens occasionally)
*the USPS, for making it possible to send such things to loved ones for less than 2 quarters
*my families, by which I mean the one I was born into, the one I married into, and the ones I've created through lasting friendships
*the huge pile(s) of wood ready to warm our home this season (and next)
*and, um, the heat pump...... for picking up the slack in the cold early morning hours when we can't coax ourselves out of bed to feed the fire
*and other convenient modern marvels, like running water and electricity and such- things I sometimes like to think I could do without and would maybe even enjoy doing without, but really, honestly? Probably not so much.
*the sun, for peeking out this afternoon so that our sweet little walk on the beach was a bit more enjoyable than it'd have been otherwise (and of course for all the other, way more important things we have to be grateful to the sun for)
*and also for the rain
*the full (and much appreciated) use of all of my senses and that they allow me to deeply enjoy so many of the wonderful things offered up in this beautiful, beautiful world


Last year I made a similar list and I intend to do so every year from here on out.  I'm hoping, of course, to have many, many more years of making these lists and I like to think that instead of it becoming increasingly difficult to create them, it will become easier and easier because I will continue to be  surrounded by great things and will learn how to see and appreciate them all more fully as I age.

beach bound

All that talk of fall yesterday and here I am packing for a trip to the beach.

Of course, fall is the best time of year to go to the beach, if you ask me.

We are heading to Ocracoke Island bright and early Sunday morning.  We'll catch a 4pm ferry in Swan Quarter, NC and sail across the sound for 2 1/2 hours to reach the island.  There is usually an alternate route involving a bit more driving and a shorter ferry, but that route has had loads of sand dumped on it thanks to Irene's traipse across the Outer Banks several weeks back.

I'm not sure why we don't usually opt for the less driving and longer ferry route, actually.  I'm rather looking forward to it.

Claire and Wolfie are gonna like it, I bet.  Hope they don't mind dogs peeing on the ferry deck, because I'm not so sure he's got the toilet thing figured out all that well.

Anyway.... packing.  For the three of us plus Wolfie, for a week at the beach.  (We'll be in a house this time, not squeezing into a teeny tiny backpacking tent like last time)  This will be the third time we've rented the same house and I'm excited to be going back.  Though I spent years camping when I visited Ocracoke, I am most certainly glad to be checking into a house instead of a campsite these days.  At least until we're done with the diapers, I think.  So... what to pack?  'Enough' clothes (which is, of course always way less than you think it is), diapers for that baby bum, toothbrushes, camera, books, hats, food...... etc, etc, etc.  There are stores on the island, of course, so it's not that crucial that I don't forget the toilet paper or mustard or dish soap or what have you.

Nana is coming for several days of our trip and she has so kindly volunteered to bring along most of the groceries.  Lovely nana.  Must remember to request some good Jersey bagels.  Nothing against the south, I'm quite happy here and I do so love me some biscuits, but the good bagels are generally north of the mason-dixon line, I do declare.

We usually bring along the laptop.  I do try not to spend any real amount of time on it while there.  What with it being vacation and all.  Unless it's for looking up recipes for shrimp and grits or the best way to prepare scallops or whatever fresh seafood we bought from the seafood market that day... that is perfectly acceptable vacation internet time, you know.  Vacation is a lot about relaxation, sure.... but mostly it's about eating, right?

And then there's music.  Of course we want to bring along our nearly 9000 song iTunes playlist.  And yes, surely I'll check my email from time to time.  But not too much.

So, maybe a postcard or two from the beach here and there over the next week.

And surely huge sharing of photos and stories when we get back~

For now, a look back on some good times from our trip to Ocracoke last fall.  A trip where Claire learned to crawl and rode on a bike seat for the first time.

that's papa out there raking for clams~

and here we have said clams along with previously mentioned shrimp and grits~

Welcome, fall

Welcome, my most favorite of seasons.  I've been thinking about you a lot and am so very happy that you are here!  I can't wait to share you and all of your fabulousness with my loves, big and small.  

We will hike through the woods and watch as the leaves change, then fall and crunch underfoot, then begin to smell sweetly as they lay on the forest floor.  We will camp together, the three of us, at least once this season.

We will smile at the big, blue sky and run around in fields with our sweaters zipped up to our chins and our scarves (well, I'll be wearing a scarf, anyway) flying in the autumn wind.

We will have fires, indoors and out.  We will bake breads and muffins and cook big pots of soup that simmer all day long and nourish and warm our bodies and our souls.  Mama's consumption of hot tea will increase dramatically and get back to where I like to think it should be.

We will visit farms and sink our teeth into juicy apples, Claire will very likely decorate her first pumpkin, and we will drink delicious fresh cider.  Maybe even find some of those tasty cider doughnuts, if we're lucky.

We will gather beautiful fall flowers,

display them alongside acorn "hats" and pumpkins from our garden in our kitchen window,

and we will drink good coffee and eat fresh-off-the-tree apples with friends.

Ahhhhhhhh.  Fall.  I intend to drink you in deeply and let you sink into my bones so that memories of our good times help get me through the colder months ahead.

But for now, fall.

little gym

Earlier this week Claire and I took a drive to the other side of town and met up with some friends at The Little Gym.  It was her first taste of a class of any kind and of having access to all sorts of cushy, tumbly, bouncy, fun.  It was very low key and casual, with a bit of singing and music-making, a little bit of group time, and a lot of free time exploring the space.

She LOVED it.  She was glowing, clapping and squealing with delight the entire time.  She was incredibly confident and brave and while I know by now not to be surprised by her physical capabilities, I was.  She is absolutely her father's daughter.

Her favorite was the balance beam.  She wanted to walk across it over and over and wanted no help at all.  She probably could have done it just about all by herself but I insisted on spotting her.  And she insisted on swatting my hand away and saying "No Iyonnuh doIT!"  She says that a lot these days.  

Afterwards, the 4 of us mamas who had met up (along with our 4 little ones, of course) ate at a wonderful Mexican restaurant just down the way from the gym.  Avocado burritos, tortilla soup, bean dip.  Mmmm mmmm good.  

Even better since it was washed down with a healthy dose of feeling so proud of my girl~

adventures in kombucha land

Though I've been somewhat familiar with it for years, I hadn't actually tasted kombucha until a few days ago.  A friend of mine has been brewing her own for a while and had kindly offered up some of her extra kombucha "SCOBYs" (an acronym for "symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast") and brought along some of her ginger-infused kombucha for me to taste when we got together recently.  I was pleasantly surprised.  It reminded me a lot of the ginger-plum dipping sauce for the spring rolls at my favorite Asian restaurant in Asheville.  Though a bit fizzier and not as thick, of course.

After a lovely little play date between she and I and another good friend and all of our babies, she handed me the "babies", 3 discs of kombucha in a little plastic container, told me what to do, and wished me luck.

I said that they looked a whole lot like bologna.  My directions were, in a nutshell, to brew some tea, sweeten it, let it cool, add the "babies", and wait.

So off I went to feed my bologna babies some sweet tea.  I could do that.  My mom is from Tennessee, after all.  I do know how to make some decent sweet tea.

I can't really tell you much about kombucha.  I'm still a bit uninformed, aside from that big jar brewing on my kitchen counter, that is.

For now, I'm just going to watch and wait.  And maybe do a little reading.

the state of things~

This not writing very often thing is kinda throwing me for a loop....

I had come to rely, in a way, on the daily practice of taking a bit of time to myself (well, sort of... "to myself" meant quite loosely... I do have a 19 month old, after all) to write and reflect on our days and look through the photos accumulated every other day or so.  To get down in writing the things I wanted most to remember about our days and the stories that make up our world, to make note of recipes, adventures, gardening successes and woes, challenges and significant milestones.  Et cetera.

But there's the work thing now.  And yes, it is quite part time, but still.....  we kinda had a groove before.  One that we'd had going for a while.  And so I'm not rushing the process of discovering our new groove.

But psst!, we're almost there.  I think.

I think this is the case because:

There were more nights than not this week where dinner actually resembled something that would pass for dinner instead of a last minute jumble of whatever was on hand, I was less often required to wake Claire from her nap in order to get her (and me) to work on time, she is finding her comfort zone in the art classrooms and is starting to wander a bit more freely, less anxiously...... I'm sitting here, at 10:24pm, writing instead of fretting about lesson planning (though I actually could stand to think a bit more about what I'll be doing in class tomorrow), and the piles that I have created around the house are being tackled.  You know the ones.  "Miscellaneous paper", "clothes to be put away", "stuff to put on craigslist", etc.  I'm mindful to not make piles in every room though.  I'm also good at griping at Mike about the piles he makes in places that I really don't want piles.  Like on the kitchen counter and in the bedroom.

My griping about those piles has been pretty nonexistent lately.

Ever since I noticed that I was indeed the maker of most of the piles in the house and that he doesn't gripe about it to me one bit.  Even though I'm certain some of my piles are probably in places that he doesn't want piles.

Ah, marriage.  What a funny little balancing act of forgiving and loving and keeping our mouths shut at the right times.



So anyway, onto the state of things.

New groove? check! (almost)

Fall garden? Peas are sprouting, leeks are sprouting, spinach is doing nothing (as it usually seems to do for me) and I'm waiting for the collards to germinate.  The last tomatoes are ripening, beets are ready to be pulled, and a couple pumpkins are almost where they need to be.  And of course I am already planning next year's garden in my mind and thinking about how absolutely wonderful and perfect it will be.  That's what I always think!

Bees? Not so great.  We've seen a decrease in activity, no honey to really speak of seems to be stored up at this point, we've spotted a few varroa mites and we are wondering if we need a new queen..... And so we've put a feeder at the hive entrance to get them storing more honey so that (fingers crossed) they can make it through the winter and come out strong next spring, we're gonna make some grease cakes to try to keep the mites from getting any worse, and we'll have to do a thorough queen search soon, I suppose.  We could be better beekeepers, I'm sure.  But we could be a lot worse, too.

Chickens?  One of our new girls is laying now and so that brings us up to 3 out of 5 laying, with one not quite of age yet and good old Pearl who is just either past that stage in her life or just has something wonky with her egg-laying parts. (I hope no one ever talks about me that way behind my back)

Market?  I'm taking a 3 week break to enjoy leisurely Saturday mornings and catch up on some making.  (or that's the plan, anyway) I've not been bringing many little handmade animals with me and so I've been relying mostly on card sales to carry me through the market days.  It turns out that people don't eat their cards and then come back next week for more as they do, say, goat cheese or tomatoes.  Of course, I don't think they are eating my owls and bears either, but it will only help for me to bring a bigger variety of goodies to the market when I return for the final 4 weeks.

Early fall vacation?  Check!  We are heading to Ocracoke Island in 10 days to enjoy a week long family vacation at one of our favorite places.  We've gone the last few years and I'm so excited to get back there with my loves~  Nana will be joining us for most of the week and I'm excited to see how this year's trip differs from last year's.  I'm sure it will be huge, seeing as how Claire learned to crawl at the beach last October and now she is climbing up the metal bars at the playground.

General outlook and such?  Pretty darn good, I must say.  The weather is shifting, we are healthy and happy and have full bellies when we want them, work is going well for both of us, Claire is amazing and fun and challenging and the object of a more intense love than I ever knew possible, and I've been able to talk Mike into playing cribbage with me regularly instead of starting a movie while I get Claire down, leaving me 20 or 30 minutes in and too confused to care to catch up with the plot.  Pretty damn good.

I suppose that about sums it up.  One of these days soon I think I'll be able to get back to my normal writing routine, but for now this will have to do.

Cheers~

good old buddhist wisdom

Not so long ago I read Present Moment, Wonderful Moment by Thich Nhat Hanh and shared some of my favorite verses from it here.  To share them and largely to have them written down for myself to look back on in the future.

I'm about to do the same thing.  I just finished reading hand wash cold by Karen Maezen Miller and found so many wonderful passages throughout the book that I just don't want to forget, some for their humor and all for their wisdom and simple messages.  If you are interested in the words that I found to be so lovely in the pages of her book, read on:




page 6, on how we like to think life, meaning, fulfillment are "out there" and not part of our ordinary routine and life


"You might think, for instance, that the life you have is not at all the life you had in mind and so it doesn't constitute your real life at all.  Your real life is the life you pine for, the life you're planning or the life you've already lost, the life fulfilled by the person, place, and sexy new front-loading washer of your dreams.  This is the life we are most devoted to: the life we don't have" 




page 68, reflecting on a solo trip to Italy that was meant to be with her ex and on how she'd hoped it'd go but didn't


"This was not how it was supposed to be, this trip of a lifetime to northern Italy, the ripened hills that had awakened a thousand years of passionate appetites.  I should have been accompanied.  I should have been accompanied by a man, preferably younger and fashionably bohemian, someone who would stir my fearlessness.  As fantasies are prone to do, my imaginary companion had failed to materialize."




page 80, on parenting


"We expect it to be the way we want it to be; and the way we want it to be is the way we call right.  In other words, my way.  My way is what you have before you have children.  There is no right way to parent; there is only a right-now way.


Like it or not, this is the offering that children give us, over and over: right now.  We reflexively swat it from their hands- I can't deal with that right now!- since we are, after all, busy strategizing their brilliant futures.  They return with the gift again, in fresh packaging.  Children always show us the present moment unfolding.  Our full attention is the only thing of value we can give them in return.  Good thing too, because it is the only thing that makes a lasting difference."




page 99, remembering her grandmother


"My mother's mother set her bread to rise each day before the sun had yet dared to dawn, wrestling two loaves into the oven before a shadow had stirred.  She saved a handful of the dough to roll into the morning's coffee cake and topped it high with buttery streusel.  By the time I tramped into her ancient kitchen on summer mornings, the air bloomed with the sweetly sour greeting of yeast.  It was breakfast time.


Her house is flattened, ground into the dust of the earth's eternal crust.  She is gone and the time has passed.  But what she fed me still ferments on my tongue, and I recognize my place and lineage.  Having the good life can be so simple when you savor the one you have."




page 106, on living in the moment


"The truth is, there is not a single person on this planet who is living anywhere but in the moment.  It's just not the moment we have in mind.  The moment we aspire to live in is a different kind of moment, a better kind.  A moment of solitude, perhaps, of quiet satisfaction, of thrilling accomplishment or satisfying retribution, of deep confidence and unshakable certainty, with children asleep and ducks lined up and ships come in and gravy, yes, that extra spoonful of gravy on top.  That's the moment we are waiting to relish.


In the same way that we misapprehend "the moment" as any time but now, we misconstrue "the now" as any place but here.  Calling it "the" now suggests a certain kind of now, a different now, a better special-edition now that is attained by secret knowledge or effort.


It is the effort of lifting your eyelids.


No one has to master living in the now.  It is impossible to live anywhere else.  Just as you can never leave now, no one will ever take away your past or withhold your future.  Effortlessly, your past accumulates.  Instantly, your future arrives.  What matters is that you notice your life while you can still call it "alive".  That's now.


"Now" might not be all it's cracked up to be, but the real problem with it, I suspect, is that we think it's not enough."




page 154, on life and death


"Death serves as the notice of life.  And when we notice life, really notice, it is the birth of everlasting goodness.  We might see through the illusion we've created for ourselves, as separate and inviolable, and do something nice for a change."








And there you go.  Now I won't have to search through scraps of paper when I want to find one of these passages scribbled down for safekeeping.  Thanks computer.

in remembrance

If there is to be peace in the world,
There must be peace in the nations.

If there is to be peace in the nations,
There must be peace in the cities.

If there is to be peace in the cities,
There must be peace between neighbors.

If there is to be peace between neighbors,
There must be peace in the home.

If there is to be peace in the home,
There must be peace in the heart.

-- Lao Tzu (570-490 B.C.)

10 years ago, I was woken up by a phone call from a friend.  I was 20 years old.  A senior at Cook College, part of Rutgers University, located in New Brunswick, NJ.  


I answered, still half asleep.  "Can you believe what's going on?" she asked.  I had no clue what she was talking about.  I asked her and she told me to turn on the tv.


"what channel?" I wanted to know.


"doesn't matter" she said. 


And then I knew.  Knew what was happening just 35 miles away.  I watched with so many as the first, and then second tower fell and people ran through the streets of New York.  Sky blackened out and ash and dust hanging in the air.  For days.  Weeks.


Friends made calls to check on loved ones.  One friend's dad worked in one of the towers but had gone out for coffee, or a meeting, or something.... and he made it out alright.  So many stories like that. 


And sadly, so many not.  So many haunting images from that day.


Mike came home (yes, the very same Mike.... aside from a brief few months, we've been together since our freshman year at Rutgers) shortly after I'd received that phone call.  Classes had been cancelled.  And we did what so many others did that day.  We held each other close and watched television for hours, not knowing what else to do besides that and talk to our loved ones.




Ten years is a long time and it isn't.




Today the Asheville Fire Department held a memorial ceremony for the 10 year anniversary and also for their own loss of a captain in the line of duty less than 2 months ago.  Others were recognized for career advances, professional accomplishments, and life-saving acts.  Mike held Claire as I pinned his badge on him in recognition of his promotion over the last year to engineer.

I then watched other wives pin badges onto their husband's uniforms and my heart ached for the widow of the captain recently lost, sitting in the front row, watching.  I remembered watching just weeks ago as the department chief handed her a flag and her deceased husband's helmet.

She was stoic.  Strong.  I think the love and support that surrounds us in those times must be such strong medicine to carry us through such sadness.

Like everyone, everywhere, for all time, we move on.  We make it through, sometimes just barely, sometimes quite gracefully.

It's all we can do.

We honor life by looking at the world around us, feeling deep gratitude for all we have, and deciding to do what we can to make it even more beautiful.

this (long) weekend

Having been home with Claire for the last 19 months (plus a month before she was born), and being married to someone who works on a rotating shift cycle, it's been a long time since weekends have had any real significance.  But now that I'm back to working part time, I am rediscovering how to treat the days a little differently depending on where they fall during the week.

This weekend started off with this yummy bolognese on Friday night,  made with local ground beef and basil, garlic, and tomatoes right from our garden.  The pasta came from a box (or was it a bag?) but that didn't detract much from the delicious sauce made with a blend of tomatoes, cream, herbs and spices, garlic and red wine.  Mmmmmm mmmmm good.  I ate a lot of it.  A LOT.

On Saturday, Beeba (that's the name Claire has given to my mom, in place of grandma) joined Claire and I at the market and then came back with us for a little sleepover Saturday night.  Mike was at work so it was just us girls.  Thanks to the extra set of hands I was able to turn the last of the apples we'd picked a few weeks ago into a few jars of apple butter.  We napped, ate, sang, read, played, ate, slept..... a most exciting evening.

Mike came home Sunday morning and made coffee and breakfast (whole grain pancakes and bacon) for everyone before my mom had to head home.  Actually, he started the coffee before I even came rolling out of bed.  He's very good at that.  At making breakfast when we have company.  He is also good, of course, at making breakfast just for us, but I think he finds a certain pleasure in cooking for others.  I do love that about him.

Afterwards we took Claire to the fabulous playground up the road in Montreat and there we bumped into our pals Michelle and Keegan.  We tried to wear her out a bit and after we were back home and she was napping soundly, we headed out into the yard to address our garden and start the process of making it into a fall garden.  We pulled old plants and stakes, Mike gave the compost a good turn and put in new supports for fall peas, and then he got a start on planting some of them before the rain started.  I pulled the dried bean pods from the vines and together we plunked the dry seeds for next year's garden into a little bowl as we watched the rain from inside.  Tomatoes and basil were picked for some salsa and pesto making in the near future, and I made a list of things not to grow again next year (celery, cabbage, carrots) and things that I missed growing this year (green zebras, potatoes, onions and to my surprise, summer squash).  Now it isn't that I dislike celery and cabbage and carrots, not at all.  It's that I don't seem very good at growing some of them and others (cabbage) I eat so little of that it doesn't seem worth it.  It was a good year for me in terms of deciding which crops I really want to put my time and energy into and which others I am happy to purchase from others when needed.

Claire woke up in time to help with some of the gardening, to try her rain jacket on for the first time, and to be given the honor of carrying one of our new hen's first eggs (!) from the coop over to mama.

A mama who was waiting eagerly and perhaps just a bit nervously as she watched those 19 month old hands holding and turning that lovely little egg.  Claire delivered it in perfect condition.  The egg was laid by this beauty, a Silver-laced Wyandotte who is as yet unnamed (as far as we know).

She likes to roost in the Rose of Sharon and is the most nervous of our girls and a bit dainty.  Except that is, for when she laid that first egg.  Nothing dainty about that.  She spent a good hour up in the roost (I didn't have the heart to tell her that wasn't where she was supposed to do the deed) and then came running down the ramp squawking and practically screaming about that little egg.  She went on and on, clearly quite proud of her entrance into henhood.

Good job, pretty black and white hen.

Sunday afternoon we rearranged some furniture and moved Claire's mattress into "her" room.  I spent some time in there daydreaming of where I'll put this or that and making a list in my head of things I need (want) to pick up or find for her room.  Some picture frames, a little wooden table and chairs, the perfect shelf to hold her toys and some of her books, mini clothespins for displaying pictures and art, a sweet duvet cover for her bed....... and so it begins.

Of course she didn't sleep in there last night.

She slept in our bed.  Which is where she napped today and where she is sleeping at the moment.

I knew it'd be this way.  After all, part of the rearranging involved moving our bed and putting a bedrail on my side "just in case" she ended up in our bed still.

Just in case.  That's funny.

It isn't that I'm not ready or anything like that.  You are silly if you are even thinking that could possibly be it.

It's just that I'm not ready.

Oh, I'm ready to finally start sleeping a bit more at night again, for sure.... but now that I have an awareness of how fleeting her babyhood is and I finally believe that she will not in fact be nursing forever and waking me up forever, I just don't mind the interrupted sleep as much as I used to.  I won't go so far as to say I enjoy the multiple (yes, still) night time wake ups, but I will say that, on most nights, they don't seem so bad anymore.

On most nights.

Today was a rainy unofficial end of summer and Claire and I spent most of it hanging around inside reading books, eating, watching bread rise, baking bread (it had been way too long since I'd made our bread and the cooler weather gave me just the kick in the pants I'd needed), listening to music and napping.  I joined her for a much needed long nap today.  That's part of my new way of looking at weekend days- take the opportunity and nap with her!

Do you see that little orangey-red leaf right there?  Proof!  Fall is on it's way.  Oh, sweet, sweet, sweet, long awaited lovely season~

Tomorrow, back to our new normal.  Whatever that is.  We're getting there.