Roll out of bed and commence learning

The kids are studying iguanas (Sag) and sharks (Gem). I remembered last night that we had this beautiful coffee table book, Spirit of the Ocean, that my dad had given them a year or two ago. I left it out for them and this morning they are poring over the amazing collection of photographs.

Shannon mentioned yesterday how much fun she and Owen and Bridget had at Adventure Aquarium. I think I see a field trip in our future!

A little brittle

My body started talking to me about fat on Friday. I had ordered a pizza for Sag, Lukas and Owen and after they were done eating, I had a slice. And it was good.

On Saturday, I added a dollop of sour cream to Melody's veggie chili. And it was good.

Yesterday, at lunch with Shannon, I had Thai iced coffee (made with milk). And it was good.

Yesterday, at dinner, I had an avocado roll. And it was good.

Then, I got my period.

No other recognizable signs of PMS. The feeling of being such a clean slate? Amazing.

I was very sleepy once the blood showed itself, but had a lovely hour or so hanging out with the boys talking and rubbing their toes, fingers, backs and ears. It's so cozy on their "bed" on the floor with the night light on and the sound machine playing "Asian Garden" (Gem's favorite) in the background.

Cap worked on me before I fell asleep which dispersed the nausea and back tension that started to build when I lay down.

This morning I feel a little brittle. And tired. And curled inward. Quiet. A wisp of melancholy.

Friendship

That there smile is brought to you courtesy of friendship. I had a 4 hour talk date with Shannon today. She drove over and we walked to Terra for lunch, Thai iced coffees and amazing conversation. Wow, that felt good. Thank you to Cap who knows how important this kind of time is...I wish he had more opportunities to get time like this with his friends.

(On these rare occasions, I love to take an extra few seconds to actually pay attention to what I am wearing... My necklace was made by Barbra. She had me choose the pendant stone and then she designed the necklace. It always makes me feel special when I wear it.)

Have you had one-on-one time with a friend lately?

This Is England

A rhythm that has been folded into our week smoothly in the last few months is Cap and my movie nights. Usually on Friday, but sometimes on Saturday, we alternate choosing a movie and watch it together.

It is kind of crazy how we've gone from spending so much time together to so little time together, as a twosome, in our nearly 20 years together. There is a part of me that very much looks forward to the kids growing up and a return to those days. Of course it won't be a return as much as a forwarding. We'll be in our 50s and have two grown kids!

The movies we've seen recently are: Rachel Gets Married, Big Man Japan, Synecdoche, NY, Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, I Love You, Man, and last night, This Is England.

This Is England was a haunting movie. Incredibly sad and painful, but with moments of warmth and stark beauty. The soundtrack was nice and I especially loved the last two pieces that you hear as the movie ends and the credits roll. It's a memoir film about a 12 year old boy growing up in Nottingham in the 1980s, trying to find his way as he deals with the gaping pain of having lost his father to the war in the Falklands.

Bobbing

Still feeling a lack of firm ground under the feet...or a firm tether to the soul. There's a restlessness and a wandering of sorts at play. It's not comfortable, ultimately, but I am being with it without stress or worry as much as I can.

I like the idea of pristine...in routine or rhythm. But life is messier than that, pretty much always. After a quiet Summer this Fall has been full of outward energy: making new friends and more activity out of the house. The Dragon's Way, which is demanding on the inside, but interfaces very much with the goings on of the outside.

Time is being disorganized in new autumnal arrangements for each member of the family. I find myself gravitating towards reading (current read: Pretties) and the dvr and Hulu (House, Glee, Modern Family, Amazing Race, Flash Forward, The Office, and my guilty pleasure: Dollhouse...my one show a week has morphed into 6 hrs.) for opportunities to "rest", by myself.

As much as I desire a rhythm, I often resist scheduling for the sake of it. But perhaps it's worth a try. Where to start? The daily walk I'd like, a cleaning schedule, a writing schedule, a cooking schedule, a Qigong schedule...

This week I'll start at the beginning. It's what came to mind first. A walk in the morning. Ease into figuring out a good time each day.

Little Read, farmer's market and birthday party

Checking in with the head volunteer. She was very nice and open...I was glad to meet her.


Anyone recognize the book? It's Julie's book, Wink! The Ninja Who Wanted To Be Noticed. :-)


It's so good for us to see each other in different lights, doing different things.

Our CSA farmer's stand.



This picture is for Wendy...

Montclair Bread Company's stand.

Apple cider doughnut. Sag has been wanting a doughnut for a real long time now and we still haven't made them at home. So glad he was able to have a yummy cider doughnut today. Cider doughnuts always remind me of a trip to Crane's Beach with Cap, Diane, and Erik Moore waaaay back in the Cambridge days. We enjoyed them on a cold, gray, Fall day.

The honey stand.



My man carrying organic, local, seasonal food and drink back to the car. What can I say, that's what's sexy to me these days.


I know. How the heck did I get a picture of Cap with such a big smile on his face?

The kid crowd at Mason's birthday party.

The gorgeous and delicious salad.

Pretty white flowers.

The tot crew. (The kids were not glued to the tv the whole party, not by a long shot. They watched some of Kung Fu Panda, but there was also lots of running around, a penguin pinata, Wii, hot dogs, make-your-own caramel apples, and ice cream cake. (The grown ups also enjoyed the aforementioned salad, quinoa with veggies and cilantro, and a veggie chili which had the perfect amount of spice and heat.)

Melody was so mindful of Aki's (and others') dietary needs. He had a peanut butter and sprinkles apple and lemon sorbet with two kinds of GFCF cookies (lemon wafers and choco chip). Thank you, Melody!

We had a great time making new friends and getting to know new friends even better.

The setting sun hung out with us for awhile on our drive home. It was much more orange in real life. Dramatically warm and luscious.

The kids are now watching Monsters vs. Aliens and we're winding down. What a great day. (Except now Cap has a lot of writing/work to do. It seems impossible for him to have a full home and full work life. I feel bad for him...)

Life is a pretty sweet fruit...

The Season 2 premiere of Star Wars The Clone Wars, hanging with good friends, yummy snacks...

(the title of this post is a Kids in the Hall reference :-)

Library

I love our library. This year, our library joined a consortium of dozens of other libraries and now it is super easy to borrow just about anything that tickles my fancy (books, cds, dvds, even items hot off the press). I have become a bit of a known entity at the circulation desk because there's always something waiting for me up there, ready to be picked up.

Cap is on the board of the library. Which seems impossible until I remember that we are no longer 25 and that he has a professional life and presence that extends to things like the larger community. This weekend, the library is putting on a fund raising event called The Little Read. Cap will be reading two books tomorrow up by Watchung train station.

The Little Read was kicked off this morning at the main branch of the library by my biggest celebrity in town: Stephen Colbert. He was down-to-earth and funny and read one of my favorites: The Story of Ferdinand.

Here are my shots from this morning. Our play date was canceled so we're home. Keeping us busy: Qigong, The Indiana Jones Ultimate Guide (scored at the library...sweet!), the DS, and chores and more chores.

Oh, and go here to see why Stephen Colbert will forever be my hero.

Quiet early morning alone

Cap and I have been sleeping out in the living room because our mattress liner is now residing in the dryer for its third day in a row. Personally, I like changing things up like that and have enjoyed sleeping in the pull-out bed.

When I woke at 6:30am, though, I realized that going to the computer, or practicing Qigong with the cd, were not possible without potentially waking the husband. So, I wandered into the kitchen.

It was lovely. An uninterrupted 90 minutes. I put away the clean dishes, utensils, pots and pans. I sautéed and braised eggplant (from Plympton), green pepper (from the farm), mushroom, scallion and garlic. I sautéed and steamed Swiss chard (from the farm) with garlic and pine nuts.

I had a breakfast of Dragons: warmed mango, the chard with pine nuts, and Cold Prevention tea (a Dr. Lu formulation) with honey and two capsules of Swimming Dragon herbs ( a cleansing formula for the end of this transition into Fall).

I washed the pots and pans and now have some veggies in the fridge for later today and beyond.

I turned my thoughts to the rest of the day: blogging, Qigong, Stephen Colbert at the library, our first playdate at Tiina's, the kids' appointment with Vinny, Youth Swim (which I think we're going to forego...Gem says he'd like some time to relax at home later), and Lukas and Owen coming over for dinner and the season premiere of Star Wars The Clone Wars on Cartoon Network.

These are some apples and pears from our fruit share this week. I will bring these with us to Tiina's. Along with some meatballs I made last night.

Addendum

Ha ha! Labeling the previous post "travel" just put it ahead of "sewing".

The new label "cloud"

It's not the cloud I wish it was...more of a label "block". I just noticed the tiny little "travel" at the very end. Sigh. There was a time when that word figured much larger in my life than it does now.

Some day...some day.

Focus

I've been kind of ignoring these beauties since Tuesday. They came home with our CSA share. But, tonight, as I was putting the kitchen in order while the kids ate a little something, I came across them again and I had to stop.

I mean, look at them. They are gorgeous!

Well, I have never cooked with, or used, a fresh hot pepper before. This will require some research. And care. Continued focus. And attention. Tonight, I collected them from the counter where they've been hanging out by the toaster and electric kettle, and placed them in a bowl.

What will become of you, peppers, the future is unclear. (Any suggestions will be heard with an eager ear. :-)

Streaming

I am a leaf, or a pebble, being buffeted about. Stopping here and there, but then being picked up by the breeze, the current, and moving along. Generally in a direction that is known, but the stops along the way are mysteries until suddenly there they are looming in my face. It is disquieting. But, held in balance by quiet.

I now have a running list of things I want to write about. But, am not finding the time to sit down and write. Maybe tomorrow. In the meantime, here is what's streaming by and through me.

Zucchini, walnuts and garlic sautéed in safflower oil with salt. Adapted from the Dragon's Way book. Very delicious.

These red slippers...I love having my day/night studded with moments of simply seeing them and enjoying them.

Floater Day: the quick synopsis. A couple of months ago, Sag spotted Labor Day in September on the Ugly Dolls calendar (a very funny calendar). He thought it said "Lotor Day" and then he thought "Floater Day". And that he thought was hilarious. (A "floater" for those of you who have blessedly been in the dark thus far, is a poop that you come upon left in the toilet because it survived the flush. I think it does also need to be floating, though I should not be quoted on the technicality of that.)

So, he designated September 30 as Floater Day and concocted a special menu of the day: lemonade and breakfast sausage. Cap surprised them with a special Floater Day dessert (shown above): floater shaped peanut butter cookies.

That was Floater Day. I'm not sure if it will be expanded to include other celebratory activity next year...or if we will even be observing it. Time will tell.

Gem has declared peanut butter cookies are his favorite cookie.

Andrea (who lives upstairs) made these fantastic Day of the Dead masks and gave the kids their own. Here they're being Cemetery Warriors from Kingdom of the Crystal Skull with their blow guns. Watch out!

This morning I spent some time in my local Social Security office. Waited 70 minutes and was helped in 15. I've been ensnared in some silly strands of bureaucratic bullshit that appear to have arisen out of other people's mistakes.

I bought some bread at Montclair Baking Company (one of the things I truly love about this town...which is a reflection of a greater beauty that exists here) and brought it over to Silke and Roger's. They were all back from Germany safe and sound. We hung out for awhile, but I had to come back and tag team with Cap so he could go play basketball.

I made a nice soup this afternoon. Scallion, garlic, ginger, fennel, carrot and zucchini. With homemade chicken stock, some water and a veggie bouillon cube. It got really caramel-ly because Andrea and I ended up talking for almost an hour when Sag knocked on her door to see how he could get some holes made in his mask so he can put a strap of some sort on it to keep it on his face. Quite a bit of the liquid cooked off, but, dang, it has an amazing texture to it now.

I'm off to make some meatballs for dinner and then to practice Qigong during the 5-7pm optimal window for practicing. It's gotten really chilly here! Holding off on turning the heat on... Hope you're having a good day/night. Peace and love.