From Where I Sit.

There is a pile of Cow Manure the size of a vehicle in my driveway, a wedding present from friends.

I feel excited to spread the manure into future vegetable/hop/grape/flower beds all around the yard.

Feeling glad it's aged a year otherwise between that and the roosters this year we might not be the best neighbors.

Feeling conscious of protecting my back while shoveling all of that manure.

I am happy that there are meringues cooking in the oven.

I'm even more pleased that Miss Ce. helped me bake them.

Am already missing Raf and Cecilia/looking forward to my solitude/knowing that it will happen too quickly.

Scared/eager to turn the heal of that sock!

Glad to have a blog to tell you all about it and am thankful that you're reading!

Improvements Continued

I have big plans for this weekend. Rafi and Cecilia are going to Massachusetts to visit his family for 3 nights, I am taking this opportunity to stay home. This will be the longest I've been away from the girl since birth. This will be a long time to be home by myself. I'm hoping to get a lot done and not go stir crazy. I'm worried about being lonely at night and cooking just for one. What I'm not worried about is keeping myself busy! Here's a list of all the home improvements/activities I daydream about doing when I have 78 hours to myself in my own home:

-Knit 1 Sock (maybe a pair?!)

-Paint/Decorate the Back Hallway

-Paint the Upstairs Bathroom

-Organize/Rearrange the Kitchen

-Make Our Empty Closet Functional

-Shingle The East Wall

-Make Sense of the Music Room

I know that I will spread out and drink lattes very quietly and go for walks to the New 2 You and talk on the phone and eat popcorn for dinner. I also realize I probably won't know what to do with myself and will miss them horribly and will be very ready for the chaos maker and my sweet husband to return home. However I will be sure to savor this time as well, you don't get 3 days to yourself, in your own home as a mama very often, I'll be sure to be just lazy and productive enough!

Perfect Foam

Sometimes we make improvements to our lives. It could be painting an old chair, or cleaning something that went for too long, or hiring a house cleaner (how fantastically bourgeois is that?). Maybe its making a phone call or writing a thank-you note that you were feeling guilty about. Perhaps it's getting some slippers on cold toes or putting a pillow behind your tired back. Getting a new toothbrush, washing the sheets, putting the laundry away, rearranging the furniture. Sometimes we organize a messy drawer or clean up the yard or clean the garage. There are so many things we can do to make subtle improvements.

These are quality of life changes, some are purchased, some are time, but all of them are a conscious decision to make a change to enhance our experience on this planet. Rafi and I made one of these improvements recently. We had been fumbling along with an old, leaky espresso machine, the thing had bit it. For people who drink 1, 2, 3 even 4 lattes a day it is a luxury, a treat, a joy in our days. It's gets us jump-started, makes us happy and holds our hand at 7am. It feels like this bubble of solitude, treat and sweetness every morning. When something brings you that much joy and the machine your using cannot deliver it becomes time to make a capitol improvement. So we did. We dipped into our carefully hoarded wedding money and spent $300. We got this, and this. So what I'm saying is that our quality of life has improved, over and over again everyday. We get crema every time, our foam is billowy and soft. Our tongues get used to the sweet, bitter flavor of the bean and milk, and we're transported to a luxurious place. Every time.

Improvements, big and small, we make them every day, what improvement to your quality of life will you make this week?

Tis The Season

For my favorite song!

Happy Thanksgiving to you all, Merry Holiday and roll in the New Year!

shhhhhhhh. (i love the snow)

I have some top secret information. I love snowfall. I love winter. I love the quiet that surrounds you. The gift of cuddling up in flannel a little longer in the morning. The familiar rumble of the snowplow. The idea that you can't go anywhere except by foot. The fun of bundling and bundling and bundling to go over to your friends house and then unwrapping a wet pile in their entryway and putting on your slippers and enjoying the fun of a snow day together. We can watch movies. In the daytime. With no guilt. That's fun. Or we can make elaborate meals all day and have a fantastic meal before the sunsets. Or perhaps we'll trudge over to the IGA (which never closes) and get chocolate chips and bake some serious cookies, or a serious sweet. Or we can roll around in the living room and play blocks and make a fort or a nest and read books all day.

What snow days give you is the gift of quiet time. It feels wholesome and reminds us of being children. It makes us stay home, get cozy and enjoy our families. And those are some of the secrets of loving the snowfall.

A Year Ago...

Fits so easily in the sink!
Away goes the old bed.
Everything is different in this room.
Sucking on a little applesauce.
Cutie Rolls.

How Knitting is Similar to Carpentry

These past few weeks I have found myself entrenched in a few new/different pastimes. Knitting and Carpentry. Knitting feels like an obsession to me. Carpentry feels like a pre-winter necessity. They are both fairly new things to me and they both have a pretty steep learning curve. I am learning both as I go; I note the places where I'm stubborn, where I have to start over and where I have a comfortable ease. Mostly I'm learning that they're are both fields where you can really compensate for your errors as you make them, or perhaps in a few rows or courses of shingles. I also have to watch the posture of my body while I'm working, a little preventative work saves a world of pain later on. It's also a magnificent feeling of accomplishment as you finish up bits and pieces of projects! How fun it is to see these two very separate worlds colliding.

Life in Image

Snotty Nose Girl puts herself in a cardboard box.
I attack Double Pointed Needles.
Gorgeous.
Blocks.
Progress!

The Smell Of Cedar.

I have developed a new skill. I can install shingles. I can also use an air compressor nail gun. I can put a dummy up by myself, space the shingles properly and affix them to the wall. I can insure that each shingle is cupped to the wall, that the edges do not line up with the row below it, or the row below that. I can handle cutting around little features like electrical boxes and porches. I can feel equipped well enough that I buy my own speed square, utility knife and measuring tape. My chamois shirt already has nails and a pencil in the pockets. I can do all of this relatively adeptly and swiftly. I can also make errors and learn from them and fix them. I can step back from the wall of my house and feel pride in the work I have accomplished.

From Where I Sit.

There are 2 hats hanging on the wall.

My daughter has switched from 2 eggs for breakfast to 2 bowls of oatmeal.

I have 3/4 of my latte left.

The radiators will hopefully be warm soon!

There are 3 less crowing roosters in our coop.

I'm feeling pretty excited about the 3 new skeins of Icelandic sheep yarn I bartered for from Kilby Ridge Farm yesterday. It feels like knitting Christmas presents is a gift that gives twice, first to me for having a reason to buy beautiful wool and then to the receiver... Now to figure out Double Pointed Needles!

I'm feeling thankful for a caring aunt concerned about my decisions in life enough to ask the really difficult questions and start a very helpful dialog about what this business idea means for our family.

Of course I can't stop this business plan from percolating in my brain!

The girl has a runny nose, but good spirits.

The Puppa gets his morning to stay in bed (after 4 mornings in a row of Ce care).

We're all still loving local agriculture!

A Created Game

During family hangout time before Cecilia bedtime last night we observed her create a game for herself. It had very clear, specific rules and occupied at least 10 minutes. It was the first time I'd seen her concentrate so completely on a self defined task. She had a medium sized wooden truck, and 3 animal figurines, an ostrich, a golden retriever and a Shetland pony. The ostrich was to lay on the bed of the truck, the pony on the hood and then the dog was to balance on the top of the cab. The game was then complicated by putting little foam shapes atop each animal once it was in place. She would then push the truck along and inevitably everyone would fall off and she would start all over again. I watched many times where she would put the pony on the bed of the truck and shake her head, remove it and put it back in it's "proper place". The balancing of each animal was tricky as her little hands are not entirely precise and would bump pieces as she went. What amazed Rafi and myself was how specific of a game this was, with very exact rules. It was incredible to watch her busy body slow down and focus in on her task. We were both so touched by her precise thoughts and actions, what incredible development!

The Observant Eye

Yesterday I was laying on the couch (after shingling for 4 hours) "watching" Cecilia who was very busy playing. All of a sudden I realized for just how long she'd been busying herself in her play kitchen and decided to peek over the edge of the couch to catch a glimpse of the play in full swing. She had a bowl of food pile high that she was putting into the stove. She carefully placed it inside, adjusting pieces that had fallen in transfer. She then closed the oven door and turned the knobs, waited a moment then peeked inside. After peeking she adjusted the knobs again waited another moment and then in one quick motion she decisively turned the knob off, opened the door and took out the hot bowl to cool on the stove top.

Life in Image

The house with the yellow back door.
Girl + Duck Wing = Content
A Puppa and his girl.
The delights of a new espresso machine.
Note slippers...

Supporting Locally

I've been doing a lot of consideration about supporting not only local agriculture, but local businesses. We don't go out to eat much (though we love to!), mostly because it feels expensive. It also feels like a luxury. However there are some really fantastic businesses open in Eastport supplying our community with services that we have been saying for so long that we desperately need. So we've made a family decision that we need to put our pocketbooks there. I feel like we can't afford for these businesses to go out of business. So once a week I'm going to get a latte downtown. And once a week our family will go out to dinner. We're also going to buy a modest amount a of fancy cheese every week when Raf is in Machias. This is important, this is quality of life. We make have made sacrifices away from our urban roots to live where we do and if we can have the option of lattes and lamb and mexican and gourmet cheese in Washington County then we better use those businesses or otherwise they might not always exist. Your vote matters, shop local!


(Everything is just fine here in HopkinsLand, we just had an early, long day away from the house and poor little Hearts in Cobscook Bay was neglected.)

The House With The Yellow Back Door.

It's a little thing really, on the scale of everything we've accomplished on the exterior of our home this year. It's just 2 coats of paint. It took less time than a sunny afternoon gives you to work with. You can do it with an 18 month old at your feet (or on your back, or given snacks at the table in sight of a working Momma). You can even chat while you do it. You can sing a song, or whistle or think while you do it. All it takes is a steady hand and a few inexpensive materials.

The color is yellow. It's a feels like an old Yankee color to me. Bright in the sunlight, but gentle in the shade. Friendly, warm and safe. It feels like home. It feels like our home. There is personality in the color... cheerful, historic and somehow modern. There's a bit of orange in the bright yellow, but also a subtle tone of grey. It's a mark of character on a white home. It's an individualized touch against cedar shingles.

It's actually quite a monumental thing to paint the entry to our home. It creates a sense of completion, of care and of detail on our house which often feels like a work in progress. This is where we enter our family, where others are welcomed into our sanctuary. This is the safe place in which we raise our child and ourselves. It is where our cats come home to, and where our friends knock when they are looking for us. It is a place which is sacred. So really this small bit of time, of energy and care is really quite large. The two coats of paint feel like a baptism.

We are home.

Surprises

Waking up earlier because the clocks changed back and having an extra hour each morning to loll about is welcome.

Walking outside and discovering you don't need the gloves that you have in your hands and shoving them in your pockets.

Seeing your shadow against the fresh, brand-new cedar shingles that you put on part of your house this weekend.

Knowing that you learned so much about being a carpenter in the last 2 weekends.

Walking to the chicken coop to let the girls out and finding not only an egg in the nesting box, but some of our new younger girls were hanging out in there; which is a great reminder that you may receive more than 2 eggs every 3 days from your 13 chickens some day.

The number of lattes you start drinking when you get a new espresso machine.

The fact that recipes in cookbooks are for a commercial 4-5# duck and not the heritage breed 3# duck that you're cooking for dinner tonight.

How flexible you can be when wanting to accomplish a dream.

That your daughter is capable of throwing real honest to goodness tantrums now.

Other people have excellent ideas if you're not too closed to accept something different than your idea.

Life in Image

Hello White House; Hello not falling in on itself porch.
Feverish Teething Girl in Sweater by Great Grammy.
Too Sweet!
Anne does Construction (and loves it!)
Top of Shackford with friends.

Catering part 5

I just completed my fifth catering gig of the season. This is starting to feel like a regular thing. It was another lovely event for The Tide Institute, a lunchtime, finger foods meal highlighting our local farms! Dream Job!

The Menu:

Pumpkin, Caramelized Onion and Colby Tarts
Lamb Cove Farm, Kilby Ridge Farm, Sonnetal Dairy

Roast Beef with Horseradish Fromage Blanc on Baguette
Tide Mill Farm, Tide Mill Creamery, Homemade in Dennysville

Dill Pickles, Bread & Butter Pickles, Brine Pickles, Pickled Fiddleheads, Dilly Beans & Pickled Hungarian Hot Wax Peppers, Homemade in Eastport

Chevre Platter, Greek Yogurt Dip, Sliced Carrots & Baguette
Gardenside Dairy, Tide Mill Creamery, Tide Mill Farm

Apple Crumble Bars
Maine Grown Liberty Apples, Maine Grown & Milled Flour, Kate's Butter

I absolutely love making local food for people to enjoy. I love it. It is my passion. However I am outgrowing my home kitchen, majorly. So what's the next step? I don't know yet, but something is hatching in this brain of mine. Between my growing buying club, my informal catering and the Starting A Small Business Class that I'm taking the gears are in motion. I feel empowered to make a plan, we'll start with the family plan and move on to the business plan. Wheels are turning...

This Piece and That Piece

Have you noticed how sometimes the universe manages to put all of the pieces together for you and you hardly have to lift a finger? I remember moving a lot of boulders at one point, and I can see a forest of trees down the line, however today I feel like I'm walking down a neat and tidy garden path. The questions of why and how seem to be being answered for me today, like the universe is giving me a green light over and over again. I welcome this. I am thankful for this. I love my family.

I Suppose I Should Tell You About Halloween

Cutie bug of the century? Well she was a strawberry. A simple piece of fleece with seeds painted on and leaves sewn around her collar, placed over a black turtleneck and tights. She tasted her first Kit-Kat, ate plenty of chicken soup and stood on her tiptoes to reach the plate of grapes on the table. She was extremely comfortable at the party, a delightful mix of independent and dependent. Wandering around, hanging with aunties and uncles and just generally enjoying herself completely. So satisfying as a mother to see her so self assured and comfortable in groups while checking in regularly with us.

And us Parents? Geriatric Nova Scotia Tourists. Matching sweatshirts, baby powder hair, glasses and blue blocker solar shields; cardigan, herringbone pants, a camera case and old man shoes for the mister; windbreaker suit, scarf, earrings & necklace, loafers, a visor cap, some carefully placed padding and water balloon breasts for the lady. We really enjoyed ourselves acting up the parts, hollering and bickering with one another. And I got really into shaking my padded butt. Our crowning achievement? We came in 2nd in the Costume Contest! I'm quite proud of this Old Couple this morning!

Halloween is so much fun with our friends and family!