The Wind Up

Birthday Bowling

The girls were invited to a birthday party today. It was at the bowling alley. They both insisted on really dressing up for the event.

The dresses, party hats, and bowling shoes made for quite a look.

Preschool Day Two

Alexa was much less nervous today to head to preschool. Ah, what a difference a day makes. Before it was even time to leave she was wandering around the living room like this...

Of course this afternoon she was wandering around the yard like this...

I present Alexa the bug catcher.

That is one heck of a tool belt.

First Day

Alexa had her first day back to preschool today. She was nervous. She picked out a new outfit for the first day.

Notice Cabbie needs to say good-bye too.

Rainy Day Baking

It is a damp rainy day. The perfect day for doing some baking. Somehow I just can't bring myself to bake in hot weather. Nothing says just eat a salad like hot days of summer. So as soon as we get a cool day I am happy settle in and get some baking done. The first thing I needed to tackle was zucchini bread. I had two rather large zucchinis that I had brought back from my mother's house a few weeks ago. They had been hanging on in the refrigerator waiting to be made into bread. So this morning I started my day with a bicep workout called grating the zucchini. I had enough for three loaves. Two of which will be heading into the freezer.

The next item that needed to be dealt with was the over abundance of cherry tomatoes. I took these pictures of Alexa picking some a few days ago. She looks like she is lost in there doesn't she?

These things are extremely sweet, but there are so many we are not able to keep up with eating them. I did a little recipe hunt on line (prompted by a conversation with my sister Cherie) and decided to roast and freeze them. We had about three quarts from picking this week.

I first had to slice them all in half. This is a lot of slicing.

I then decided to mix in some olive oil, garlic, salt, and pepper. I poured it all onto a cookie sheet covered in foil and baked them at 220 for about 45 minutes to an hour.

They tasted yummy! I am hoping that this preserves some of the really great taste to fresh tomatoes well into the winter when all you can buy are the ones that have no flavor.

Lastly I moved on to muffins. I have to go back to work this week, so the kids are headed to daycare and preschool. I knew the switch to early mornings again would make breakfast a bit of a struggle. I decided to to have some blueberry muffins on hand to put in lunch boxes. I keep them in the freezer and  toss one in each lunch box the night before. That way they are all thawed out by morning and the kids can have a mid morning snack when they get hungry.

In the end my counter looked like this...

Yes, I know the loaf of bread on the right has pieces missing. I got hungry.

Keeping Quiet

You know that old saying, "If you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything?" It is a good one, and, quite frankly, I haven't had a lot nice to say over the past week. It is OK; these things happen from time to time. At one point I found myself thinking, "Why does there always have to be something?" and I was reminded of some reading I have been doing by Pema Chodron. In one of her books, The Wisdom of No Escape,  she talks a great deal about this concept. In her discussion (much better stated than I will paraphrase here) she explains that there is an alternative to life's constant turmoil and challenges. The alternative to having the difficult things that life can bring to us is death. Meaning that there is no hiding place for life's problems. What we need to do each time things come a long and knock us down is be willing to keep getting back up and moving forward. So that is what I am doing at this point, getting back up and moving forward.

As always in difficult times,I am grateful for the support of others. Sometimes in the moments in life when we feel the most alone it is good to know that we are not. I have also been reminded that I have been through dark places before and come out on the other side in a much better place. A place where I have been able to be extremely grateful that life intervened and put me in a place where I am surrounded by a lot of love and laughter. A favorite poem of mine is by Mary Oliver. It is called "The Uses of Sorrow."

Someone I loved once gave me

a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand

that this, too, was a gift.

I am going to end this with one more passage from The Wisdom of No Escape . With the possible effect of having put more of someone else's words into this post than my own. It is a good one, and has been a good reminder for me that life is about experiences both positive and negative and our job is to use them well.

"What that feels like is a big wave that comes along and knocks you down. You find yourself lying on the bottom of the ocean with your face in the sand, and even though all the sand is going up your nose and into your mouth and your eyes and ears, you stand up and you begin walking again. Then the next wave comes and knocks you down. The waves just keep coming, but each time you get knocked down, you stand up and keep walking. After a while, you'll find the waves appear to be getting smaller. That's how karma works. If you keep lying there you will drown, but you don't even have the privilege of dying. You just live with the sense of drowning all the time."

Thank you to those of you who helped me stand up and remember to keep walking. The waves seem smaller already. Now can someone help me get the sand out of my ear please?

Alexa the Scientist

A magnifying glass is a wonderful thing.

Throw in a bug net and a bug house and you have yourself a fun morning.

At lunch time she said to me, "Mommy, even scientists need to eat lunch."

Things that Make Mommy Cry.. and Laugh

I wanted to call this post things that make Mommy cry. Chloe was adamant that we add the laugh part. I think my reaction was too painful for them. After all it has taken me an entire day to even be able to photograph and write about it. You see the girls came home from visiting their dad yesterday. They climbed out of the truck looking like this... 

Well, minus those sad faces. They were smiling. Up until the point that I said, "What happened to your hair?!" Apparently they got up one morning and decided they were bored so they cut their hair. Being that it was very uneven their dad decided to fix it. Thus, they now look like this. Needless to say I was near tears. I sat on the couch with them stammering things like, "Why would you do this? Oh my beautiful babies." and best of all, "Oh my God school starts in two weeks!" Alexa felt so ashamed she couldn't even lift her head out of my lap to look at me. They both kept telling me how sorry they were and that they wouldn't do it again.

I immediately began trying to figure out a way to fix it. Some way to send them out in the world and off to school without hair extending all of a half an inch on the front of their heads. So yesterday when we were out finishing up the back to school shopping we bought headbands. Nice, colorful, wide stretchy head bands.

Better. Of course each time they take them off and look at me Alexa says, "Don't cry OK Mommy?" I am trying... I really am.

Summer Sights

I have spent the last three days unpacking and setting up my new classroom. It is a lot of work, and (let's face it) I am extremely particular about how my room looks. At this point I feel like it has come together nicely and looks and feels like a nice space. In having to spend this time getting ready for the new school year it has made me feel like summer is over. It seems like it really just flew by. I know I did a fair amount of traveling (which I am happy about) but it still feels like it was gone in a flash. There are a few things that made this summer special and unique for the girls and I.

1. Smoothies. Alexa and I have become smoothie addicts. We make fruit and yogurt smoothies everyday. We both like to suggest different fruits to toss in and different yogurt flavors to try. After we dump everything in and puree it we sit on the deck and sip them. We watch the birds and dog and chat about things.

2. Bats. Please note I hate bats, but this summer I came to be able to observe them and not race inside to hide. Chloe was fascinated to learn that we had bats that flew around eating mosquitoes in our yard at night. So each night after it would get dark she gets up (puts her book mark in whatever she is reading) and shouts downstairs to me, "Mommy, Bats?" We then go sit out on the deck and watch the brown bats swoop through the yard eating bugs. We checked some bat books out of the library, and she read up on them. We sat and talked about all kinds of things while watching those bats.

3. Tomatoes. How could I not mention those when thinking about this summer. These things are huge!

Every other day we pick a bowl about this size.

I think the neighbors are starting to hide when they see me coming for fear I will ask if they want more. I have eaten so many I feel I might turn into one.

4. Flowers. I am so happy about how some of my flowers came in. These Zinnias out front the girls and I planted as seeds. They look like a bush and have been this colorful all summer long. Alexa likes to go out and cut some every few days to have flowers on the table.

The window boxes are doing well too. I planted purple petunias this year, but I love how some pink seeds from last year plants came up. They look so nice together. I couldn't have planned that if I tried. I even like how this totally random sunflower decided to grow in the front garden too.

My shed flower boxes both came in this year. Last summer a very annoying cat from the neighbors killed all my plants in the box on the left. I drove me nuts to look out and see one box with flowers and one with nothing. This year I blocked off the box with wire until the plants grew big enough. I am so happy to have my balance restored.

I also love how these seeds I tossed in the back garden came in. These are called four o'clocks. I had never heard of them, but they have done really well. They close up in the middle of the day and open in the evening and early morning. They have added such nice color all summer long too.

The Honeysuckle is huge this year! I planted this a few years ago and it was really nothing more than a stick. It actually looked dead at one point and I dug it up and planted it here. I think it is more than happy. We have spotted a hummingbird visiting it a few times.

This is Alexa's flower garden. Her morning glories are taking over. What is more fun for me are the flowers in front. I can't even remeber what type of seeds she picked out, but the package called them butterfly attractors. Now every time we see a butterfly in the yard she says, "They must be coming for my butterfly attractors."

Alexa and Cousin Sam...

Aunt Andrea Has Photo Evidence of our Maine Trip!

Finishing Art

It has taken awhile.. ok about 7 months, but Chloe finished her mosaic mirror that she got for Christmas. She started working on it right after she got it.

Looks thrilled here doesn't she???

Then she got mad that the kit didn't contain certain colors she wanted and refused to work on it any longer. The creative inspiration returned however and here she is putting on the finishing touches.

Beautiful! According to the directions I am now suppose to find some type of sealant to paint over the top of it. Then we can find a place to hang it.

On the Road Again...

It has been awhile since I last posted anything on here. We went away again (seems a bit of a theme this summer doesn't it?). We were in Maine for the 110th Annual Ladies Aid Fair on Cranberry Island. The girls love to go to it. This year Aunt Andrea was up from Phoenix and was babysitting for Annabel and Sam. They came over to join us for a day at the fair. It was a lot of fun. Would have been nice if I had remembered to bring my camera on this trip wouldn't it? Yep that is right the most photographed children ever have gone almost a week and not a picture has been taken of them. Shocking I know. You will hardly recognize them when you see them again. At any rate, we had a lovely visit lots of time to play with cousins and explore the beach. I always feel that I should post with a picture or two so how about these? It was a few years ago but really... the events pretty much looked the same, and you probably didn't get to see those.

Alexa 13 months...Chloe 4.

Alexa 2... Chloe 5.

There now... growing up on me aren't they?