100 things to come....

Yes, I have been away from this space for far too long. I am, as always, rushing around like a chicken after a beetle and can't seem to keep up. But life is relatively good. The kids are happy and curious. I don't have time to stew and we plug along.

I manage to find joy in silly little things and was inspired tonight when I googled "things for kids to do on a road trip" brought me from a list of car games....One click to a link on the page brought me out of curiousity to "how to survive in prison" and then on to "how to survive a high fall". Next was "The life of Viking Women" and then "100 things to be happy about".

I vaguely glanced at the list until I got to #74. "Glueing Things". Five minutes later and I am still giggling. Was this person running out of items for their list or did they truly enjoy the act of using a sticky substance to adhere to items together? Or were they running out of things for the list? I will never know but it reminded me of lists I have made in the past of things I like/dislike.

I suppose these lists were a form of identification for me as a teen. I was motivated to make these lists for the same reasons that I was motivated to do those quizzes in teen magazines. To find out who I was and to mark that identity in some way.

Now, in my mid-thirties, I feel that I have a real grasp of "who" I am most of the time, but I still like to remind myself and have moments with myself where I say, "Wow! That's true! I really dislike that texture....I suppose that is why I am not so fond of potatoes..." Agreeing with myself somehow gives me pleasure.

So for the next few days, as long as I don't forget or get swept up in the tide of all the things that must be done/fed/walked/worked, I am going to create my own list of "100 things to be happy about". I'll let you know if I discover if the writer of the first list was truly a lover of stickiness or merely a glue sniffer....

#1. Making lists.

fabric kanzashi flowers

A friend of mine has a four year old daughter who has a white plumeria flower barrette that I secretly covet. I imagine what I'd where it with - a tan, a strapless sundress and my pair of orange leather flip-flops. I have searched for ideas to make my very own substitute for this much loved hair accessory.
During my hunt, I discovered Kanzashi flowers. Although the ones I have discovered a far from the traditional Kanzashi worn by Geishas, they are truly awesome!
After showing Liv some of the photos of them online, she and I decided to give our hands a try at this type of art.
Although there are a tonne of tutorials out there, we are adding yet another to the abundant craftiness.....

Materials:
8 squares of fabric (we used 10 cm X 10 cm pieces found in fat quarters)
A needle and thread
Button for the centre
Glue gun
Alligator clip
1. Fold one piece of fabric in half diagonally.
2. Fold it in half yet again.
3. And again.....
4. Bear with me, this part is a bit hard to explain in words....Fold the two sides of the fabric down as if you are folding a paper airplane....
Get it?? It should look like this on the other side.... 5. Push your needle through the side making sure to pierce all pieces of fabric so it will hold together once they are all strung on.
6. Repeat this seven more times and add them to the thread.
**Do NOT knot between each one as you want them to be able to slide along as you position them correctly at the end!!
7. Once they are all on, your thread gently making sure to not snap it and push through the first "petal" once again so that they arrange themselves in a circle.
8. Once secured, put all the points together.
9. Using very sharp scissors, cut the rough ends off.
It should look like this.
10. Rearrange the petals in a circle and ensure their proper spacing.
It should look similar to this.
11. Pick out the button/s you want to decorate the centre of the flower.
12. Using your glue gun, make sure you get glue on each petal nearest the centre. You want to make sure that they are all secured by the glue.
13. Squish the button on. Large buttons work best!
14. You can actually attach the flower to almost anything - a hairband, a hair elastic, a purse, a shirt, etc. But we decided to attach it to the alligator clip. This allows for versatility because once on the alligator clip, you can clip it to any of these things are remove it to attach elsewhere later on.
15. Using plenty of glue, again try to make sure you touch each petal to ensure that it doesn't fall apart later on.
16. Stick the alligator clip to it. **We stuck a piece of cardstock in between the alligator's "mouth" to make sure that any extra glue wouldn't stick it shut.
17. Once it has cooled and hardened, remove the cardstock and VOILA! A little piece of decorative hair heaven!
Although these look quite difficult, they are crazy easy. Liv and her friend really enjoyed making them and have been wearing them since. I would NOT hesitate to make them again. They took about 30 minutes to make with the girls. I am sure an adult who had made them before could bang on off in 15 minutes or so. SO fun!!!!!!!!!

amazing mamas

Yesterday, my kiddos and I attended the Bethlehem Walk at our local Baptist church. While I am FAR from religious, it was so historically interesting and allowed me to have a conversation with my kids about the origins of the Christmas tradition.
The kids loved 'everything' about it, although I think Liv enjoyed the small, fresh loaves of bread the best judging by her pleas to go back for more. Briar really enjoyed collecting stamps on his Bethlehem map throughout the 'marketplace'....and then hoped to look at them while laying in bed (I didn't tell him that I had thrown his muddy coat in the wash upon walking through the door not realizing that the 'map' was in his pocket. I am SO hoping he forgets before I have to explain him that the hard piece of whitish lint at the bottom of his pocket was once his beloved map.)
As we walked through the ancient town, we had been instructed to keep an eye out for a baby named Jesus. Halfway through we came upon a young couple in wonderful costumes amid the hay bales depicting a barn-like scene. "Joseph" was very believable in his performance as he greeted us with "Shalom" and brief small talk about the tax man. His poor wife, however, was struggling.
"Mary" was a very young mama who was trying to breastfeed her hot, tired and altogether annoyed little one. As an audience stared on, she attempted to calm her baby with her breast without giving these onlookers something they hadn't anticipated - a flash. She seemed to be trying to look "Mary-like" - calm, serene and with a instinctive mothering knowledge that could subdue her baby with just a soothing word and mama's milk. As a mom, I could see through her thin facade to the panic and frustration she was feeling and as I led my children to the next vendor I thought of all the things I wish I had known before having my babies.....

• Wear slip on shoes - you will always find your hands full of baby paraphernalia, car seats and bags when you suddenly realize that you should be equipped footwear as well.
• Make sure to cross your legs when you cough, sneeze or laugh really hard - I don't know that any explanation is needed here. Oh! And say 'goodbye' to your days of jumping on a trampoline.
• Do you remember those catty girls in junior high who gossiped about everyone no matter how perfect and fabulous they were? Get ready for round two. Mom's can be harsh to and about each other. Find a group who is as self-deprecated as you are and don't take the others opinions too hard. You're doing a great job - the best you can. And really, they worry about their inadequacies as a mom as much as, if not more than, you do.
• You are amazing. You created a life within your body. Yes, the skin on your stomach resembles the face of a Shar-pei - but for very good reason. You made a tiny HUMAN BEING within it!
• You wouldn't know if your baby was ugly. It's better this way. Who would want to snuggle a trash can lid? You will stare into those shiny little eyes and know that this is the most amazingly awe-inspiring little one ever to have graced this Earth with its' tiny feet and mustard coloured poop.
• When people have issue with your breastfeeding in public, stare at them and speak loudly at the person with you, "I can't believe they are eating in public! How disgusting!!" I believe breastfeeding is normal, natural and healthy. It seems that the over-sexualization of the breast in our society has done terrible things for our children's eating habits. Would you eating your lunch in a dirty, public bathroom stall? Blech.
• Everyone may have an opinion on what you do and how you do it. YOU are the expert on your children. Trust your gut as you're the one who loves them the most and have their survival and mental well-being first and foremost....and you'll presumably be the one paying the therapy bills when they hit their teens.
• Also, though you may be feel judged while others look on as your sweet, wee one pitches a holy fit atop the wood chips on the playground thus embedding thousands of tiny slivers beneath their soft skin to ensure a long and drawn out reminder of this damned humiliating venture to the local park; they most likely are just reminiscing over the fact that the only way to soothe their child's impending tantrum at the grocery store recently was to allow their kiddo to plunge a damp, chubby finger into their parent's nostril as they strolled down the aisles in the shopping cart....while all the other parents stared and thought about their most recent brush with 'CIH' (Child Inflicted Humiliation) .
• Play with them whenever you can. Even singing "Super Planet Janet" for the fifty millionth time while you secure their lifejacket before swimming at your summer cabin will go a long way to defining you as a great and attentive parent.

jackie genius

We've been having some difficulty with remembering to close the chicken yard door after ourselves. We used to allow our 'girls' to roam free in the whole yard often. This relaxed attitude has fallen by the wayside with the arrival of Caleb and his adoration of the flavour of chicken feces....and then his desire to wipe his pink drippy tongue over our faces, hands or bare toes.
I had been loathe to attach a bungy or some sort of spring for fear of squishing little fingers...or faces in the door with such an abrupt closure.
After much thinking....and then viewing a very similar system in a magazine (this isn't the genius part), I came up with this little beauty.
The magazine version had some sort of glass ball attached to a beautifully topped fence post.
Ours is much more....utilitarian but, still, brilliant.
We've used a branch found in the woods behind the house, some twine, a mason jar and two eye screws.
Briar and I dangerously used the reciprocating saw to create a pointed end on one end of the branch and a flat side on the other.
I pounded it into the ground using a sledge hammer about a 60 cm (2') away from the hinge of the gate.
We attached an eye screw near the top of the post and another near the middle of the top bar of the gate.
Liv punched a hole in the sealing disk of the mason jar with a nail.
Folded in half we fed a small amount of the twine through the hole in the lid and the sealing ring. In the loop under the disk, we fed a bent nail to anchor the twine in the lid.
Briar filled the jar with soil making sure to remove as many 'critters' as he could find so as not to subject them to a harsh and untimely death inside the jar of doom. The jar was screwed into the lid. (The jar was the genius part....although anything heavy would work...but I still think it was mildly brilliant....)
We tied one side of the twine into the eye screw on the gate about 60 cm down and after holding it at various lengths at the post decided on the best length for the twine to be most efficient and useful.
Ta-da! Genius at work!!! Smooth, slow closing......

living again

I am loving our new life.

Although I am finding the cost of living here more than I expected, I am finding that this life in the town I grew up in to be so much more fulfilling and exciting.

Striking out and building a life that includes Jeff and the memories we have of him, but built around our needs now and our new future has been exhilarating.

I find myself wondering what is around the next corner....and not always with dread or fear. I have hope for joy returning to our lives and the little things that maintain our happiness now.

Having the forest and the ocean just steps from our doorstep is how I imagined my children growing up. Exploring, building, imagining, creating. It makes up in (small) part for the loss of my ability to stay home with them 24/7.

And on that front, I have to say, that (and I feel immense guilt saying this), that I am enjoying my time away. I come home with stories for the kids of what my day was life, what I did and how I perform a blood occult stool test (yes, this involves poop). I love having grown-up conversations, feeling in control of our income, feeling valuable and using my brain for something other than remembering the recipe for fabulous bubbles (10 parts water, 1 part Dawn or Joy dish soap and .25 part glycerin). I know that my job as a mommy is the most important thing I will do in my life.....but I also think that I need some time to just be "Jackie" and without having someone to spell me off when I need time to myself, I feel intense frustration at times. With this frustration comes guilt and feelings that I am not a good and selfless mother. I have to remind myself occasionally that Liv has had me home for seven years and Briar for four - This is entirely longer than the standard one year in Canada and the six weeks in the States.

Life is still a bit off-kilter as we settle into our new house. We are almost finished unpacking. Most of the pictures are up. The linen closet is organized. We are just fine-tuning now.

The fresh air is fabulous. I SO love the cool breezes and foggy mornings. Being in the village brings remembered faces and a sense of comfort in knowing where everything is and the names of all the streets. The kids are loving having friends close by and frolicking in the woods....Where they find strange and amazing things - abandoned cabins, huckleberries, cathedral-like beams of light streaming through the trees, gnome stumps, deer trails, little streams and "Barbie doll graveyards".

I have started working on the garden, built a compost and have started planning the garden for the start of the next growing season. I've built a larger chicken/duck yard and all our poultry buddies are pleased. The kids and I climbed through some of the bushes on the property trimming out the underbranches to enable us to put our toadstool stools under the leafy canopy for a pretend fairy home for the kids.

I am happy. The kids are happy. Life is good.

the new digs

We're finally in the new house...every night. The shower is fixed. The beds are in their permanent positions and the playroom is festooned with all its' miniture household items.
I have been unpacking like a crazy person. I am determined to have the house functioning in an efficient manner before I go crazy. I dislike the temporary and chaotic feel a house has until all the garbage cans, towels and books have their spots. I like to know where the scissors live so that when I need them, they are where they should be. Finding them wedged between the wall and a cardboard box just doesn't do it for me.
Anyhow, the house is getting a more 'homey' feeling and I am feel less panicked.
I have started my new job and am really enjoying it. I am working in a doctor's office as an M.O.A. (medical office assistant). My favourite parts are smiling at the little ones who come in a bit fearful and hopefully making their visit a little less scary. I find that if I tell them about my kids, they seem to trust me more....and I LOVE doing urine tests. I never thought I would love doing something that had to do with someone else's bodily secretions....but it's really COOL!
I am enjoying learning and am finding that I sleep better knowing that I'll be able to buy groceries without having to do the financial juggling act I usually have to.
I don't like being away from the kids....but I love getting home and telling them about all the new things I've learned.
The chickens and ducks don't have a permanent housing arrangement yet as we still have to get a fence up in the backyard. So far it's only deer netting that is keeping them somewhat contained.
We've walked to the beach a few times and collected so many salmon berries that Liv has taken to making 'jam' for on her toast.
I haven't yet had a moment to complete my assignments for the organic master gardner course that I finished....but I am hoping to have them done in the next few weeks.
Liv is LOVING the backyard, the deer that meander through, the GIANT mushrooms to look at in the woods and looking into the stream.
Briar is enjoying riding his bike up and down the driveway, spraying the garden hose on anything and everything and cuddling with the chickens (as always).
I think we're going to like it here. I think we're home.

lucky ducky

I had thought my favourite farm animal/bird/white noise was the chicken. I adore their soft clucking. I enjoy the versatilityof their eggs and the meals I can create with the central theme of 'egg'. I love to carry one under my arm and feel that I am not just talking to myself about the minutae that happens in my day. I think it's genius that not only do I get food from these creatures, but I get fabulous compost material from them as well. Watching their daily activities is calming and peaceful.

Although I still have such large affection for my chickens that it verges on 'odd', I have found a new obsessive love. Ducks.

The only time I have ever had ducks/ducklings in our home was the short span of time that our poor ducklings were hatched from their shells before 'Freckles the Duck-Killer' broke into the warm, seemingly safe haven that was their incubator and annihilated them all before they had even a chance to dry off after the tedious chore of hatching. "Welcome to the world, Duckies!! Chomp! Chomp!"

Ducks are certainly cuter when they're dry.

I have noticed that the chicks find any morsel of difference between them and peck at it. Although they aren't doing it maliciously, they have been known to kill each other just by obsessing over a piece of shell stuck to another chick's back....or possibly by 'gang-pecking' the man-made orthorpedic shoes on one of their nestmates. In fact, the reason that a brooder lamp is red is to discourage the chicks from noticing bits of blood or slime on their sibling's bodies after hatching.

But ducks? No, they are so much more community minded. As you add another newly hatched sibling to the brooder, the small flock welcomes them in, absorbs them into the fold and allows for differences and individuality in their goo-patterns. Immediately they are all part of the clan. With chickens, you often have to slowly introduce new flock-mates to ensure that no one is harmed. But I suspect that with ducks, it's all good.

I have never attempted putting a chick in a bathtub of warm water but I can bet it wouldn't end well. But add a duckling to the bath and you have reason to never regret disconnecting cable. Although a beak sort of hinders their ability to smile, you can tell they are giggling and grinning as they frolic in the tub. They dive under like mini feathered submarines. They duck their heads into the water and then throw their heads back with glee. They paddle around with their tiny webbed feet fluttering beneath the water.

Although we had planned to give away all our little ducklings once they were big enough to not have to be kept warm under the brooder lamp....I have to say that we are now keeping 2....maybe 4 of our new little buddies.
I LOVE me my duckies!!!!!!!

birthday ring

One of the fabulous things that I love about Waldorf education is the emphasis on tradition and rythmn. One of the wonderful Waldorf traditions that we have adopted in our home is the 'birthday ring'.

Twelve days before a birthday (or other looked-forward-to event) the ring is pulled out and set up. Each day a small gnome is pulled from the bag and fitted into one of the slots on the ring.
On the final day, a small candle is placed in the last empty hole and lit. The kids love the build up of anticipation to their day....and it seems to make it all the more special.

I got ours off of Etsy (of course) from a seller called Mamaroots. There are various types of rings available when you start to look around. Some have all candles, some have small wooden figurines, some have both....

Today, ours looks like this as we wait for Briar's fourth birthday to arrive.....

powerless life

I'd like to purchase a hand-crank blender. Get rid of all my electrically power appliances. Use a rotary dial phone.
We've had a windstorm here. Large tree limbs and plant debris litter all the roads. It smells like Christmas outdoors due to the snapped pine boughs. The power has been intermittent and all the home appliances have been silenced.
Liv has been in heaven. She and Briar all perpetually begging to have candlelit dinners, olden days evenings and scheduled time to unplug every electric convenience. Each time the power has been restored, Liv has groaned and sighed despairingly, "Ahhhhhhhhhh....I was hoping it would stay off for ten days!!!!!"
I have to admit that although the laundry hamper has been suffering from the weight of its' overly abundant load, I have been enjoying the silence. The lack of 'need to's. The pondering that takes place while washing the floor on my hands and knees rather than with a steam mop. The reconnection with my home. The time spent being present in my house while not being entertained with electronic devices. The satisfaction and joy felt when helping the elderly neighbour repair his fence. The enjoyment felt when playing 'Hi-Ho Cherrio' on the kitchen floor with the kids or playing hide-and-seek in the backyard (with the time I would have been studying status updates on Facebook).
In all honesty, I had thought that we were pretty 'unevolved' in this sense. Although we have a computer and a dishwasher, we do not have a Wii, a breadmaker or even, cable tv.
I make our laundry soap. I scrub the soap scum from the bath using Bon Ami and elbow grease instead of the tempting and toxic sprays that foam and lift all organic material...even skin from your hands. I feed the chickens our leftovers and compost the rest.
But really, I'm just barely scratching the surface of self-sustainability.
I have found the frequent power-outages of late have caused me to work hard....with my body. I am reminded of the satisfaction of making something myself....instead of having a machine provide it for me. I have stilled my thoughts and quieted the worries without the sounds of the dryer, the fridge, the vacuum all humming in the background.
This all has me thinking about solar tank heaters, larger veggie gardens and more 'family time'. The need and happiness found within our communities. The ability to be found within ourselves to provide food for our families. The satisfaction in being able to 'do it ourselves'.

P.S. Check out this podcast with Cam Mather - pretty cool and informative!!!

wordless Wednesday