Geography

We spent the afternoon in Central Park. My mother joined us in our ramble and a phone call back from Stephen set our course for Summit Rock. In a quintessential NYC moment the kids and I ran into Tobias and Elsa and their Manhattan clan. (Cap and my mom were ahead of us and had walked right by them.)

The park was full of dancing people, leafy whispering trees, a cool September breeze, sharp animal smells, drifting row boats, and old friends...so many feet taking so many steps.

























Back at my mom's we broke bread and then watched some home movies from our one and only family trip to Japan as a foursome (Dec 2001-Jan 2002). Very fun.












Full of memories, where we are reinforcing who that makes us, we went home.

Gallery walk

I haven't been taking as many pictures as I usually do, this summer. Part of it is my low energy and truly having the focus for only so much in a day. Part of it is that the kids use the camera a lot and so it is not at my disposal as much.

But, here are some photos, all taken in the last few weeks.

I was feeling a little blue one day and after my session with Vinny decided to stop in to Modern Yarn (the new space is much more to my taste and I really like it). There was a hurricane barreling up the Atlantic coast and the clouds in the sky were incredibly dramatic. The unusual and intense air pressure was probably impacting my mood.

I thought yarn viewing might cheer me up. I wasn't expecting to buy anything. I browsed peacefully, and just as I thought I'd be pushing on, I saw the balls of Zauberball Crazy sock yarn. And they put a smile on my face. One squeeze and I knew I'd come upon some wonderful fiber.

I cast on that night for a pair of socks for myself. And it felt good.

(The book in the pic, A Homemade Life, is a wonderful book that I unexpectedly fell in love with. Click on the link to read Chapter One excerpted in the NYT.)

Ceiling fan at night.

Dave came over for a visit. With many games in hand. Here the kids are playing Khet with him. It was great to see him. Sag, as you can see, is in a phase of seriously not liking having his photo taken.

Playing with the DS.

So close.

Baxter stayed with us a for a weekend. I love this dog. We all do.

I finally finished Jamie's socks. The colorway of this yarn is perfect for her. The content blend is, too. (OnLine Supersocke in Summer Color) They are in the blocking queue...an ever growing assortment of woolens.

Random moment of zen.

We received some nectarines in our fruit share last week. The kids thought they looked like apples and when I took this picture, I really saw where they were coming from.

Yesterday, I made a nectarine crisp. We're going to my mom's today and I thought it would make a nice dessert. I simply subbed the nectarines for the peaches in this recipe from Karina's Kitchen.

It was a use-what-you-have kind of day in the kitchen yesterday. So, in addition to the nectarine crisp, I made a potato salad, steamed Rattlesnake beans, and made a tortilla de patata. The recipe I use was lovingly passed along to me from Julia who I always think of when I make this. I baked this one in a cast iron skillet, the first time I've tried it this way, and it came out beautifully.

Ah, one more thing. We watched the movie Stardust last night and I was pleasantly surprised. It was much better than I thought it was going to be having read and loved the book a few years back (Neil Gaiman rocks). Here's the trailer...

Cue the choir

The boys and I went to the Lego store in Paramus yesterday. (Hear the choir?)

We were walking out of Vinny's, where they had just had appointments, when Gem spoke up and said with the allowance they were due that day, they would have enough money saved up to buy something Sag has wanted for a long time (but has been unable to find in a few trips to stores like Target and Toy R Us) and a little something for Gem.

So, could we go to the new Lego store?

Normally, going to the mall, or truthfully, going anywhere spur of the moment at 4:30 pm, is out of the question. My mind is heading towards dinner and the closing of the day.

Gem pointed out that we were already out, which gave me pause. It is true that I like to group my outings together as a way to save time and gas.

In the last week, I have been consciously slowing down a bit interacting with the kids attempting to be more open to them, in a deeper way. (Scott Noelle's Daily Grooves have been a great companion piece to this practice.)

Instead of reacting to what they say and do, I have been trying to see beyond their words and behavior and connect to what it is they really want in a given situation. When any of us does what we really want to, then we are flooded with an undeniable and instantly recognizable good feeling...we experience authentic alignment of our heart, mind, body and soul.

And, so, as the late summer light was bending low over the Garden State Parkway, I drove us over to the new Lego store.

I talked out loud/explained to the kids about the possibilities of traffic and the time it would take to find the store within the mall never having been there before. They, of course, took that in stride and I became aware of how my own negative thoughts and baggage can affect the outcomes of their day (what if I had insisted we not go because it was rush hour?)

As it turned out, we hit no traffic, our parking spot turned out to be in a good location vis-a-vis where the store ended up being, we found the store easily, we made it in and out of the store with minimal stress (the last time we were Lego shopping I had had to carry Gem out of the store as struggled and resisted and cried---he couldn't find anything he truly wanted that he could afford) and though I was nerved up during our serpentine exit out of the massive parking lot trying to make it out to the "better" ramp back onto the Parkway, success was had and everything was fine.

I don't know why I think things are going to be harder than they are. But, I sure as fuck don't want to impart that way of being to my kids. It's not too late, is it?

This kind of doubleness that works against me can be so subtle, so deeply ingrained. I think of myself as an optimist...I know I am an optimist, but there's this part of my personality that capitulates to pessimism in behavior... I want to shake it off, this negative-colored way of seeing possibility. Every moment is a clean slate and I can arrive to it ready to play.

P.S. Walking up to the store and taking it in...it was pretty amazing. I imagine it was for the kids what it feels like for me to be in a wonderful yarn store. It was bright, colorful, and truly, Lego heaven.

Raising Freethinkers

I've started reading Dale McGowan's book, Raising Freethinkers. I'm pretty sure Shannon is the one who firmly got Dale into my sights through mentions of him on her blog. I subscribe to his blog and watched one of his YouTube videos last night. He's speaking in Teaneck in October and I'm thinking about going.

(I have to say I'm kind of freaked out by how much of the book---I didn't check whether it was the whole book or not--- has been scanned in at Google Books. I've heard vague mention of this and am feeling the frisson of mixed emotions that accompanies changing times. I will always choose a book I can hold in my hands over reading off a screen, or printing pages and reading a sheaf of papers. But, nothing stays the same, does it?)

In a nutshell, Dale touches upon something I've wondered about since learning I was going to be a parent: as a non-believer, and living a life outside of the culture of a spiritual house of worship/community, 1) how do I encourage and nurture humanism in my kids; 2) how do I expose my kids to religion/spirituality in its various shapes and forms; and 3) how do I not indoctrinate my kids to my own way of thinking and believing?

(The video I linked to, is actually about Influence vs. Indoctrination vis-a-vis parenting a child/children. I couldn't concentrate on it completely with my kids buzzing about, being tired and wondering whether Cap was going to keep his class for the full 2 1/2 hours or not on the first night of class.)

(I've been going to bed around 9pm. Last night, Cap didn't come home till about 11pm. The kids have been going to bed around 10pm. Last night they stayed up, but started getting "scared" and coming in to ask me when Cap was coming home, wanting to snuggle, etc. I was so tired I kept falling asleep between their visits to me. It wasn't pretty. Not ugly either, but not pretty.)

The book is a follow-up to an earlier book called Parenting Beyond Belief. Which I haven't read. But, I think I'm going to request it from the library. Raising Freethinkers is more of a practical guide and something which I may want to have a copy of at home to be able to refer to periodically. As it is, I'm on page 7 and feeling like I need to start taking notes when I'd really prefer to just read.

(Like A Homemade Life, which I recently finished. I'd bookmarked practically every single recipe in the book. Which led to the thought that I should really buy myself a copy rather than have a stack of 20 odd sheets of photocopied pages. The book would be much prettier. And satisfying to hold in my hands.)

Here's something that resonated with me from Chapter One (The Inquiring Mind) of Raising Freethinkers:

"Developing and keeping a sense of wonder requires time, opportunity, and practice. Some tips:
1. Allow unstructured time.
2. Choose wonder-inducing family activities.
3. Shake up the familiar.
4. Point out the wonder in the everyday."

For each tip he goes into detail to flesh out his point and gives concrete suggestions/examples.

I'm pretty solid on the first and fourth, have long had an itch to better figure out and incorporate the second (and have worked on this a lot over the years), and the third...that one's a challenge. Familiar is my middle name and it doesn't come naturally to me to quickly be able to see something from a perspective that is not utterly familiar, or invites familiarity.

I liked having this pointed out to me while reading the book. I see a key now...and though it feels stuck and old, I can feel the energy creeping out to my fingertips to give it a jiggle and see what happens.

What are you reading these days?

Yellow

Yellow never did much for me as a color. As a teen it seemed forcibly cheerful. Going back further, it was a color that seemed impossible to truthfully represent on paper. Color pencil yellow was always too faint. Crayon yellow showed up waxy residue in a distracting amount. Paint yellow was either too opaque or too transparent.

But, Gem loves yellow. A lot. His love of yellow has me reconsidering this primal primary hue. It's a delicate and lovely thing, to be (re)introduced to something through the senses of someone you love. There's a poignancy when that someone is a child. We have so much to learn from each other and so much to share with each other, regardless of our ages and backgrounds.

I unexpectedly fell hard for yellow's cousin, orange, in my thirties. So something was beginning to unfold back then. It's interesting to think about what my favorite colors have been throughout my life...and wonder what connections there were to shifts in my feelings/understanding of my world, if any.

It just may be that I love color (which I do). Because it moves me. No further analysis necessary. Color is like music for my eyes... I'm guessing that similar parts, or similar-acting parts, of my brain light up when I hear a piece of music that leads to the involuntary closing of my eyes so I can listen "better", when I see a color that changes the way I breathe (which changes a lot of things domino-effect), and when I am wrapped around by a wind that invites my soul to dance.

I awoke disoriented today. I remembered tense dreams of drama and secrets, I thought it was much later than it was, my body did not feel well rested, and my mind was melancholy.

But, then this picture caught my eye. I took it yesterday, of Gem, on the condemned slide in the backyard. He was playing with his brother and some friends, choreographing a movie scene. Squeezing the last bits out of a play date, there was a lot of activity as the kids tried to figure out what they wanted to do, and cooperate, to get something done before we went our separate ways.

Amidst that, I experienced a small moment. I saw something, and took the shot. That image is the one that saw me this morning. A little agitated, mind a-jumble, and brought me to a pause. The yellow is what stopped me. And you know the rest.

Piano

I played piano for a long time starting at a young age. Maybe 5...or 6. My mother filled my young life with lessons. Piano, ballet, Japanese calligraphy, Japanese school, Sunday school...

Names like Hanon, Czerny, Bach, Mozart and Schumann would stare back at me from the covers of my piano books in various fonts. I liked my piano books. Smooth, soft paper containing bars of musical notation which I could transform into music via my brain and fingertips.

I adored my first piano teacher, Heidi. Having worked with kids and knowing my own children now, I see how very important it is that any student, but particularly a young one, needs to be able to love their teacher(s) at least a little bit for happy learning to occur.

Recently, I heard a piece of music for the first time and it flattened me...in a good way :-) It was like getting hit by a truck and I didn't know why. I just knew I was immediately transported and that I felt infinity in the space of a few measures.

This morning, as I lay awake before dawn, I remembered a piece of music that I learned to play as a child. It was the first piece of music I fell in love with as a piano student. I couldn't remember the title or composer, but I knew just where the piano books were and crept out of bed to retrieve them. (Okay, sometimes, there's a reward in remaining attached to stuff with emotional vibration, faint as they may have become to the conscious mind.)

I present to you, La Courante Limpide by Johann Burgmüller.



And here is the piece that shook up my memories to release the gem of my past.



Miles Davis playing It Never Entered My Mind.

Hello

I thought I'd be starting with more of a "writing" post (about my soft spot for second borns), but as sometimes happens, things change. Wait, sometimes? Always. Always. Things always change. Are changing all the time.

Anyway. I started knitting this wide...neck wrap a couple nights ago. Melody, an unschooler who moved to a nearby town from L.A. with her partner and three boys, brought me this yarn last week when she and her sons came over for Fiber Arts. (Which I no longer call Fiber Arts in front of the boys. They're going to figure out the ruse soon. I have a feeling.)

Melody got to know me through my blog and so knew I have a thing about knitting and fiber. And she brought me a very sweet gift. Four skeins of delicately hand dyed prettiness. The colors remind me of dried pink hydrangeas. I don't yet have a strong internal scale for yarn weight/yardage and being so "process" about my knitting, it doesn't occur to me pull out a scale or somehow measure the yarn as I am winding it. But, I am at a point where I knew that if I wanted to maximize the yarn, one option would be to knit some sort of lace pattern. Something with holes and open spaces.

I was thinking of the Diagonal Eyelet pattern that I used to make Karen's scarf, but then remembered having seen Sunday's simple lace scarf pattern while doing some reorganizing the other day and decided to try that. (CO even # of sts, *YO P2tog*, repeat over and over and over again... Simple.) As soon as the pattern started to emerge on the needles, it felt very right. The quality of the stitches melds with the color of the yarn to give the scarf an antique feel and look that is perfect. Just what I was looking for without even knowing it.

This baby is going to relax and stretch with blocking and the added stitch definition that I anticipate will just add more character and romance to the finished piece. I think it's going to be a short scarf. But, it will be longer than the neck cozy that I thought it might be. Depending on its final length, I will add a button or two...or some type of closure accessory.

Reporting in on my off-blog/line goals:

Sleep

I am actually sleeping better. Feeling relief and gratitude about that. I have spent the bulk of my life with no sleep issues whatsoever. So now having sleep issues is uncharted territory.

Although I think there have been various contributing factors to this recent shift, an undeniable one has been the decision to shut off the tv. Last week, I decided to stop watching tv at night. I ceremoniously (well, it was a private ceremony with an audience of one) deleted a bunch of stuff on the DVR and stopped recording my various shows.

I quietly said good-bye to Brenda, Nancy, Tim and Heidi, Tom and Padma. Oh, and Tommy Gavin. And the Entourage boys. And the folks at Hung. And despite their very recent return, I also said good-bye to Don Draper and co. I couldn't quite say good-bye to vampire Eric and Lafayette so I'm watching True Blood which is about to conclude its second season.

(And I'm quietly thinking that when Dr. Gregory House returns I'll be watching him. There's always "the One" you can't quite let go of.)

Since not watching tv at night, I've discovered that I get very sleepy around 9pm. I've been going to bed, falling asleep easily, and waking around 5:30 or 6:00. I have been LOVING the quiet and private time I get in the morning. The kids sleep time has seriously shifted over the last few months and they are both awake till past 10pm falling asleep probably around 11. The Y-chromosomers have aligned themselves and they don't wake up till past 9am.

Interestingly, I don't feel as well rested as I would have thought I would given the increased sleep I'm getting. Probably related to other issues my body is having at the moment, especially my stomach/digestion.

Finances

One day a couple of weeks ago I got the massive pile of receipts organized and printed out the debit card transactions for the last few months. That took a few hours and I didn't get past that point. I am going to dedicate time to this task today, it being the first day of a new month. I'm thinking new recording sheets and a binder rather than a notebook. I am determined.

Decluttering

Definite progress made. Notable and noticeable dents made in the living room and the boys' room. These rooms have a more open and airy feel to them and are/will be easier to keep clean and if not dust-free, at least significantly dust-decreased. We've got bags, boxes and piles of stuff that still need to be moved out of the apartment. The church thrift store in town, where much of the stuff is going, was closed for the month of August, but it's September now, baby!

As much as it hasn't worked in the past, I am thinking again of mapping out a cleaning schedule and trying to stick to it. A room a day? We'll see.

It feels good to be back. Off to practice qi gong. Love to all.

Just to let you know...

I will be updating my "Shared" items on the left side bar even as I am not blogging. :-)

Today felt quite different and productive. I think this will be a good thing. See ya!

Virtual vacation

...or rather, a vacation from the virtual.

In order to focus some much needed attention to some things in my physical world, I am taking a break from the blog and Facebook for a few weeks. I'll be checking e-mail once a day.

My three goals for the next few weeks, above and beyond my somewhat regular routine of cooking, cleaning and spending time with family and friends:

• improve my sleep

• catch up on the accounting from the last few months and get back on track

• make a serious dent in decluttering and getting the stuff out of the apartment and donated

My online time is such a source of comfort, fun and support, but because I spend so much time at home, it is all too easy to hop on and then end up sitting in front of the computer for an hour. I am feeling the approach of September, a time of renewal and "clean slate" for me. I was a kid who always looked forward to starting the school year with a new box of crayons and fresh, unmarked notebooks.

There's some stuff I need to get done here in order for me to have my fresh start come September-ish.

Hugs to you, I'll miss being here. See you in September. (If my resolve holds out...)

Dang...

I wish I'd been here this past weekend.

Auntie Makiko and Uncle Takio

My aunt and uncle are in NYC for vacay and time with their daughter, Momoko. They had not seen each other in 2 1/2 years. Momoko has been in the States for over five years now. She followed her dream of pursuing design studies in NYC and arrived as an 18 year old.

She is now 23 and through really hard work and significant raw talent, is a student of Interior Design at FIT, has a great internship working for an artist downtown, and earns extra cash waitressing at a Japanese restaurant. She has really grown up and it has been special having a cousin living close by.

We had a blast yesterday at my brother and Lisa's. My mom and Lisa made appies (a cheese plate, guac and chips and prosciutto wrapped cantaloupe), my mom made a pot roast, Sandy made poached salmon, and we brought veggies and pie. Everything was delicious and homey.

There was a lot of catching up and playing and simply relaxing and hanging out. Being family. How lucky are we.
























P.S. I think Auntie Makiko really liked her scarf. :-)

Woodland Scarf...whoa

Knitting is so cool. Apologies for the all or nothing lighting. The color of the scarf is truer in the darker photos, but I wanted to show off the stitch definition in the lit pics. I love this pattern and the way the yarn worked with it, and cannot wait to give the scarf to my aunt tomorrow!

Convergence

Things came together today.

Kelly and her girls were over yesterday. At one point, Kelly and I were talking about qi gong and she mentioned that she has been doing her qi gong while watching her mindless hour of tv at the end of her night. I had just mentioned to her the vicious cycle I was stuck in: too tired both in the morning and at night to do the activity which would give me more energy.

So, last night, as Cap and I watched Real Time, I remembered and did some qi gong. Today, I have had an unexpectedly productive day and have found reserves of energy I didn't know I had. Coincidence? I think not.

I bought ant traps and band-aids. (Is it wrong that I just noticed a small swarm of ants around one of the traps and felt some glee imagining the poison being brought back and fed to the Queen?)

I went to the library twice because as it turns out, they don't open till 1pm on Saturdays in the summer. (Picked up Coraline...very excited!)

I checked out Modern Yarn's new store. It is a great space. Bigger and with more natural light. I found this skein for 50% off. I'm going to use it to make myself a Woodland Scarf/Shawlette.

I went to the Farmer's Market and picked up cukes, garlic and sweet onions for more icebox pickling, red cabbage and sweet onion for tomorrow's family dinner, a big bag of haricot verts string beans for tomorrow's dinner (the batch I steamed for us this week was amazing), more Mutsu apples, a pint of blueberries, and fava beans and a tomato to make more Foul Mudammes (Egyptian fava bean dip). It's always nice to see Farmer John. I have great admiration for the work he does.

I also went to the non-organic stand I like and bought a few pounds of Jersey peaches for pie for tomorrow night and Jersey corn for dinner tonight.

Every stop I made, not only did I find free street parking, but twice, I was forced to park masterfully...and I did!

The humidity broke overnight and though it was sunny and hot out, it was dry. It felt very good to be out and about.

I came home and spent the afternoon in the kitchen. Made the dip, steamed the beans, cooked up the cabbage, and made the icebox pickles. We have decided to make the pie tomorrow morning.

Cap surprised me with these gorgeous flowers. We had Gerbera daisies in small pots on the picnic tables we set out for the party portion of our commitment ceremony (we had irises for the ceremony portion :-). Seems like a long time ago, but the memories remain strong. We were lucky to have had the day we wanted, made possible with the incredible support of our family and friends.

16 years ago today