tree frogs

wedding video

Why don't we ever get invited to such fun weddings?

Brian & Eileen's Wedding Music Video. from LOCKDOWN projects on Vimeo.

what a day

The day started out lovely with the morning spent at the Huntington. There's nothing like seeing the kids run around in the grass, hiding behind trees, getting excited over seeing a beautiful bird. Today I took Henry's shoes off so he could walk in the mud along the pond. We saw a giant orange koi that Henry was ready to climb on the back of and swim away. We saw baby ducks.

Then we got home.

Henry didn't take a nap until 2pm...he usually naps around noon. When he woke up he was in a terrible mood and I could do nothing to help him. What finally worked was pulling out the vacuum, turning it on and letting him play with that for about 20 minutes. He was a new man.

We also somehow dirtied every dish in our house in this one day, I made meals that no one would eat, and Ollie had diarrhea all day.

Exhale...I think I will go curl up next to Henry now. My little Wonder Boy.

matryoshka

party's over

Our lovely long weekend is over. Zach is back to work.

This weekend I pulled some weeds in the garden and almost slid down the hill. I also found an old iron birdcage next to someone's trash this afternoon, threw it in my trunk and dropped it off on my friend's porch....she loves it! I went to Anthropologie bought a pair of pants that are too big and I'll have to take them back and exchange. Saturday we went to a party where our friend's mother who is visiting from France, made fresh crepes for everyone. They were delicious.

Now, the French have the custom of kissing on each cheek when saying hello and goodbye. I love this but I am sort of used to the one cheek kiss, so while saying goodbye to a gentleman who was not French but married to a French woman, I assumed it would be a one cheek kiss goodbye. No, he went for the other cheek and I had started to move away and so that was awkward. Why can't I ever get it right? It bugged me on the way home, but I got over it.

And other big news...Henry is walking! Yes! He is still not feeling too confident and is very aware when he is not holding onto someone's hand, but he's a champ and looks as cute as can be walking across a room.

Hope the weekend treated you well.

Have a happy Tuesday and a fabulous short week!

beautiful boy

james

Did you know that my little brother is a hip hop star?

James and I have different mothers. He grew up in Eugene, Oregon and was raised by my dad from about the time he was 8 (or 9 or 10). I met him during a summer visit to Oregon when he was 11 and I was around 20. At that age he was passionate about music, skateboarding and graffiti art.

A few years later during another Oregon visit, James was around 16. He shared with me a notebook of his writing. Pages and pages of lyrics, poetry, written in pencil, with the occasional illustration. His words were sometimes serious and sometimes silly, definitely older that 16. I knew his passion for music and his writing ran deep and he would live his dream to create and perform.

James stays in touch, but a year or two will go by without any word and without any way to contact him. A couple of winters ago he showed up in LA on tour with his crew, Animal Farm ( I hope that's the correct term, I'm not very hip to the hip hop lingo) they were playing at The Knitting Factory. We were able to spend the day together, he filled me in on how our dad was doing and as always we laughed and had a great time. And then he was off to another show.

James is funny, smart, charismatic, and super sweet. I love him and am so proud of him.

Here is one of their songs from the YouTube machine.

James chimes in around 2:01

oh nothing...

i jumped

into a flickr pool today.

flip flop

greta's new do and a scary spider tale

Ready for summer.

Tonight as I was folding laundry I discovered a HUGE black spider sitting right next to me. I gasped, did a little freak out dance, then composed myself and caught it under a glass. The room was dark but I could see this spider looked a little strange, like there was a large growth on it's back. Turned on the light to get a closer look, hmmmm very strange indeed. Then I seemed to remember a book I read with Greta about how different animals carry their babies and I recalled a picture of a thousand or two baby spiders riding on their mama's back. The illustration trying to make them look really cute but still creeping me out. Could that be what was up with this black hairy beast under the glass? I usually take the humane route and scoot them out the door, but the thought of all these babies potentially making their way back into my house was enough to choose the flushing method. As soon as I dropped the spider into the toilet all those babies fell off her back and started swimming for dear life. I gasped again and flushed...twice.

I'm going to have nightmares and maybe a little bad karma, but it was worth it.

Isn't Greta's hair cuuuuute?! She looks like a Gramma Peg when she was a teen.

who needs it

Along with ditching the dryer this summer, I am thinking of ditching shampoo and conditioner. What?! Yes, thats right. It has come to my knowledge that you can effectively wash your hair with a scoop of baking soda and warm water, then rinse with apple cider vinegar when needed. How simple. I love simple! Baking soda gets all the dirt out without stripping your hair of all the good oils it needs to be healthy, and therefore doesn't require you to condition every wash.

I learned of using this miracle household item from Angry Chicken. She turned me onto ditching mainstream deodorant (Tom's of Maine) for a home made version with a shea butter base. Angry Chicken makes her own, but I buy mine here. It works great and isn't full of ingredients I can't pronounce and that aren't very "natural".

I'm looking forward to trying this baking soda and apple cider vinegar thing out. Thinking I will add some essential oils to the vinegar so it smells... not so much like vinegar.

It will be an experiment, can't make any promises.

Want to learn more about why it might be a good idea to ditch the shampoo? You know you do!

Final thought:

Since I was a teen I have wanted to be one of those people who grow their own food, make their own clothes, live off the land, don't own a car but ride a bike everywhere, make their own deodorant, and wash their hair with baking soda. I guess you can say I wish I were a hippy living in the woods, teaching my children from the earth each day. And Zach would work from home or as a park ranger.

And well, I am not that hippy. For now I have a car, I buy my produce and clothes, I live in the big city, I've had a pedicure. But I am a hippy at heart and am always trying to find ways to live simpler with the earth in mind, as well as the health of my family.

Here's Hen being all cute and stuff.

Happy Friday!

sweet, funny, and true

The Lanyard - Billy Collins

The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly—
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift—not the worn truth

that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.

maggie is cool.

baybee qwilt

I whipped up this baby quilt last week for my friend Kelli. Her second baby girl will be here in June. She's having her baby at home with a midwife. How wonderful is that? She's one strong mama. I have a feeling her labor will be shorter than mine. Piece of cake.

Zach says this is his favorite quilt out of all the ones I've made. It was a very simple design using favorite bits from my stash. The back and border is a beautiful Alexander Henry fabric with white birds in flight on a yellow background. Love it.

ditching the dryer

Well, I guess we'll keep it but use it a lot less this summer.

You see, I just finished ordering a retractable clothesline for our deck! I have fond memories of rusty old clothesline posts out in the yard growing up on the ranch. All of the old houses had them.

So this summer we'll save a little energy, a little money, and wont have to hear that dryer going all the time. clink clank clunk go the buttons.

I was close to buying a washboard too. Thought that might come in handy for those hand washables, and Greta's doll clothes. Could be a hoot.

Zach says I'm like Laura from the Little House books. He's reading them to Greta right now.

I can't wait to use the clothesline, I really am excited. I'm starting to feel silly for even ever using a dryer. Isn't our sun amazing?!

Happy weekend, people!

one year ago today...

I woke up early, sat in the red chair and put the final stitches in Henry's quilt.  Peggy was with us for a few weeks to help out. Greta, Peggy, and I headed out that morning to see the midwives.  They checked me and I was 3 cm!  Exciting!  It was the day before my due date but I knew I could be at 3 for days.

After the appointment we went out for breakfast. During this breakfast I started feeling some discomfort, I convinced myself it was gas. After breakfast we took Greta to an indoor playground for some crazy jumper fun. I was still having the pains. Just gas...or was it?!

With Greta I didn't have that slow, easy labor that gradually gets stronger. With her, my water broke and I went from 0-10 in 30 minutes. So, I wasn't really sure what I was feeling and didn't want to cry wolf.

We arrived home and had some lunch then took Greta down the hill to the park. I figured the walk might get things going. It did. While at the park, around 4pm I called Zach and the midwives and told them what I was feeling, just to give them the heads up.

As we walked up the hill I finally knew that this was it, this was labor, I had been in labor all day! I told Peg she might want to start filling up the birthing pool when we got in the door.

Peg and Greta filled up the pool, Greta got into her bathing suit and did some splashing around.

Once we got home the contractions started to really feel intense. I stayed on the phone with the midwife so she could hear my voice during contractions. While on the phone with her I had a contraction and my body was pushing on its own. When I told her this she said calmly, "we are coming now."

Zach arrived home and made the bed. I was moving all over the house and for some time I was standing outside on the deck.  It was a beautiful, cool, and quiet afternoon.

I moved into the bedroom. The midwives arrived, checked me out and saw that Henry's head was right there and he would be born in about 10 minutes.

They worked like graceful ninjas, got out all of their equipment, asked Peggy to boil some water ( she thought they only said that in the movies).

They reminded me that this was a big baby and I was going to have to work really hard.

It wasn't but a few minutes and Henry was laid on my belly. His cord was short so he stayed there until it stopped pulsing. Zach cut the cord and Henry was placed at my breast and started to nurse. I can still feel that warm squishy little body. I was in awe. There was a surge of adrenaline that I will never forget. I held my boy and was so thankful to be home and to see him and was amazed by his lovely orange hair.

Zach had to be with Greta outside as he was born, she was very scared for me.

But as soon as he was here they came in and she was okay.

Grandma Lisa arrived shortly after he was born with dinner for all.

Henry David weighed 9lb 12 oz. Born at 6:19 pm.

What a gift my Henry has been to me and our little family. Words cant express how happy I am to be his mother, and trying to come up with them is making me cry.

My beautiful, sweet boy.

I love you little Hen.

most playful dog ever

new day

Greta loves to wake up at Gma Lisa's and spend a few minutes gazing out the window next to her bed. There are birds and squirrels to watch, trees to admire.

Henry joined in.

Here I am in doing the same...10 years ago in a cabin on a lake in Quebec.

ATW

garden gnome