I plan to stay on this cleaning schedule at least until March, to get rid of some clutter and also to get the house really clean in time for the gardening season, at which point I can disappear behind a pile of mulch and pretend like I don’t hear the desperate calls coming from the house for food and clean clothes. 

Seedlings will emerge, the days will lengthen, bursts of color will fill my yard and my mind, until finally fall will be here and my house will be full of cobwebs and dirt tracks (from me tracking through the house in dirty garden clothes) and I will live in an overwhelmed state of panic, dread, and probably a lot of standing and staring, until finally I realize, after a long winter of eating too much, that I probably should go on the so-many-rooms-per-day cleaning schedule so that I can be ready for spring.

And so life goes on.  And on and on and on.  A sane person might say, “What’s the point?” and just decide that cleaning is not worth it, and neither is gardening for that matter, and just give up the domestic ghost and live in a sea of crumbs.  So what if there’s a week’s worth of food on anyone’s clothes?  Does it matter?

Oh, but it does!  There’s something good about working and cleaning and taking care of things.  There’s something to being domestic and finding joy in polishing wood and spraying down countertops.   There is good in raising children to put things away.  (Even if I have one errant child.  But let’s save that for another post.  Okay?)

I surfed around some yesterday reading about domesticity and raising little homemakers.  All I’ll say is that it can be overwhelming to try to achieve another person’s concept of domestic perfection, but I think we can all appreciate the wonderfulness of doing one thing thoroughly and then standing back to admire it.   So I pried Michaela away from the animal rescue videos she was watching and we went  into the kitchen together and happily began to clean.

We sprayed down cabinets and counters with water infused with grapefruit essential oil.  We soaped up four cleaning rags from the “rag box” and put them under our bare feet and skated around the kitchen floor until it was smooth and shiny (as shiny as old can be).  

We stopped to dance in circles at one point at which Annie barked and jumped with excitement.   I called a halt to the festivities at a reasonable interval, reminding Michaela that we’ll be back in the kitchen next Monday, so let’s not go crazy.

I went to bed content that the two rooms on my list got cleaned–well, clean enough to mark off the list–and my daughter learned a touch about routines and being a little homemaker.  (I’m not sure why, but Frank Sinatra’s ”I did it my way,” is playing in the back of my mind.) 

The air was full of a clean citrus smell that even Michaela noticed and appreciated.  My oldest son remarked on how good the floor felt.  (Obviously my children have something to compare to!)  A Japanese-looking lantern sat in the upstairs window, flickering with a cinnamon candle, sending out a warm signal to passersby, at least I hope, that this is a home much loved and lived in.  We may not be domestic perfection, but we are happy and alive and trying.

January

Let’s go back with pictures.

I started 2010 with a beautiful, beautiful quilt made for me by my sister.  I lay eyes on this thing daily because I keep it where I can see it and admire it, but it was nice to really stop and appreciate such a precious gift. 

That’s my sister and me on our front porch, in the house we grew up in.

I don’t want to forget to love my family through 2011.

February

February brought the Five In A Row Art and Music Show, done with our homeschool co-op.  I was amazed at Michaela’s creativity when she created this hot air balloon from papier mache.  It was totally her idea and she carried it out!

I want to stay inspired for school, every month of the year.

March

March brought new baby bunnies.  Sometimes I tire of the responsibility of having eight bunnies, but when I look back on this, I realize all we’ve learned from them.

March also brought a hospital visit and emergency surgery for my husband, Thomas, the carpenter.  I sat by his hospital bed and doodled with colored pencils.  Every time I look at this little display of creativity, I remember the sounds and smells around me as I sat by his bed, wishing he wasn’t in so much pain and wondering if he’d be okay.

I want to remember to appreciate my husband like I should.

April

Ahhhh, the garden begins to wake up.  I had to laugh at how many photos there were in April.  And of course that would be the case!  The Little Wild Garden is beginning to bloom!

Again, we had baby bunnies, a large litter of tiny little bunnies that we were not expecting and almost lost.  How much we learned!

On the homeschool front, a trip to The Piedmont Wildlife Center stands out in my mind.  We saw some of God’s most splendid work, in my opinion, in these birds of prey.   If you’ve seen an owl or a hawk up close, and looked at their eyes, you have more respect for the poor little creatures that have to hide from them!

Herbal infusions, enjoyed in the garden.

We watched the bunnies grow.  Daily walks to gather greens for the bunnies helped me to stay sane.

May

The highlight of May was the North Carolina Homeschool Conference (thinking about a new school year, that at the time seemed eons away) and finishing up the 2010 school year (realizing that it would not have been such a success without our co-op and my dear friends).

We continued to enjoy our bunnies.

A school co-op wrapping up the school year and held at Few’s Ford on the Eno River would have to be the highlight of Michaela’s year. 

Ahhh, more bunnies, but that’s what happens when you buy a male bunny and a female bunny. 

June

Summer in North Carolina means spiders, and I love taking pictures of them.  Let me clarify.  I don’t want to hold them or have them on me.  I just like taking pictures of them.  This jumping spider was magnificent!

The garden.   Enough said.

The Standing and Staring Club took off with the publication of our club songs. 

July

Let me say about the summer months, it totally stood out to me how few blog entries there were compared to other months.  I think I mentioned paperwork a few times back then.  Life was a challenge for us through the entire summer.  A public blog is not the place to elaborate.  Think taxes, paperwork (lots of it), attorney.  Again, enough said.

The emergency of my Charlottes made me happy.

I realized just how much I love working with these pins and I began to meet with my mother at the farmer’s market each week.

Coco ganged up with her babies and escaped to the neighbor’s garden.  The carpenter, since I was out shopping, had to formulate and carry out a capture plan.  He said later that the bunnies scratched his arm “to pieces.”  

August

Now.  Were we not just talking about the school year seeming eons away?  And yet here it is, already begun, school pictures being taken, lessons being planned with excitement. 

Truly, life is flying by.

How could there not be a picture of Annie here?  She dominates year-round.  Here she is wondering why she didn’t get taken outside when someone went without her. 

I continued to work on my little doll houses, something I love to do.  This was for my dear sweet mother.  (I have the best mother in the world and I won’t argue with anyone about it.  But we’ve already talked about this haven’t we?)

September

September brings an annual trip for our family that is a highlight not only of the month but of the year.

As far as stuff around home, expanding the goldfish pond was the highlight of my September 2010.

October

In October I started an art journal, because I need my art.  I love my art.  No I don’t lift it up above other more important things, but it has brought a joy to me that I cannot really put into words. 

I contiued working with clay and made this little autumn fairy, Autumn Aurelia.  She was sold to a sweet friend.  She couldn’t be in better hands.  But I do miss her.

What’s fall without the state fair?

Of course, our October 2010 was pretty much marked by John breaking his arm so badly that he required surgery.  I am thankful that the operation went well, but sad that his arm will never really be the same.  There’s a difference visually to those looking on his arm, and there’s a difference to John–something he can feel on the inside of his arm.  I can’t help but wonder if there’s more surgery in store for him down the line. 

The silver lining?  That he did not land on his head when he fell.

Michaela and her friend started a blog on which they write stories and share their artwork.   It has a wonderful start and I hope they will continue to add to it and learn more about illustration and creative writing.

Work on the greenhouse was most impressive over the course of 2010, but it came to a standstill around the fall.  The carpenter says I’ll have it in time for spring.  We’ll see. 

November

The highlight of November was…

GASP…

discovering during Thanksgiving that greens are evil. 

My children sort of suspected it all along.

Our local FIAR group’s annual Family Event was of course a big spot in November!

More orthopedic appointments for John.

I painted an old white cabinet in my “art cove” to suit my mood most of the time these days. 

December

Here we are, closing up the year 2010.

My mom’s “bird tree” was a real inspiration to me, reminding me to create beautiful things with and for nature, even when it’s bitter cold outside.

How can you say December in the United States without thinking about Christmas?  Michaela decorated the house for us.

I completed another little house.

The perfect rack for my pins was awaiting me inside the store, when I spontaneously wheeled into a thrift store packing lot (my van does that a lot, for some odd reason).

I must wrap up the year with a picture of snow, because this has been the coldest, most snowy December that we have ever had. 

I do apologize for ALL the pictures.  If you’re still with me, perhaps you’ll allow me to add a few more words.  

This review has been good for me.  Really good.  I am aware, more and more, of how quickly times passes.  I am aware more and more that the accomplishments of a day are the direct result of choices.  I am often moved to think on that verse in Ecclesiastes about “time and chance” happening to them all, and that is to true.  We’ve had an appendectomy and an orthopedic surgery this year to prove it.  But I do believe that we have been given a great gift in our ability and freedom to make choices.

I want to love others.

I want to be careful with my time.  Time is so precious.

I want to be joyful.  I don’t want my children to remember me as sad and depressed and boring, but full of joy and happiness and enthusiasm about life!

I recently bought Kelly Rae Roberts book, Taking Flight, to help me pursue my art dreams.

I love what she has to say in the chapter called “Unearthing Buried Dreams.”

Do you have an inner voice, a gentle whisper quietly nudging you to listen?…It may just be a whisper, a small voice tucked deep inside the pockets of your heart, but really, it’s your life calling you.

I want to listen to the whispers in 2011.

It’s framed and sitting on my desk, to remind me of all the things I want to be.

Between planning for school, working, crafting, and tons and tons of paperwork lately, it seems I barely have time to sleep.  And housework.  Don’t get me started.  Let me just talk for a minute.  I do not have toddlers anymore.  So why is my house such a mess?  For some reason, teenagers, and even 20-something-year-olds, like to stay up late and eat.   At the same time.  And for some odd reason, teenagers, and even 20-something-year-olds, don’t like to bring their dishes to the kitchen when they are done.  What did I do wrong?  I mean, I know I did something right because they do remember — even my boys — to cut the Boxtops off the cereal boxes before they throw them away, but in other areas I have clearly failed.   Let’s talk about something else.

I had a good laugh today.  The phone rang.  It was a dear friend of mine.  She said, “We’re giving away Baby and we wondered if you wanted her.”  Good thing she didn’t say we’re giving away A baby, because I would have totally forgotten that I was an employee for someone, and I would have ripped my headset off and gone and picked up my new baby.  It turns out that they were giving away Baby, their dog.  Oh.  Now that’s a whole nother matter altogether, and I’d say I’m probably the last person on earth that anyone should offer a dog to. 

In fact, I have just spent the last half hour outside with Annie, a.k.a. Fatso Beagle.  She was tethered to the mulberry tree while I fed the bunnies.  Maybe somewhere in all of my babbling (see above) you’ll find a reason or two why I might be out in pitch black, at 10 p.m., feeding eight bunnies.  I actually just had the children look me over for large, creepy spiders because I know I ran through several webs out there, in spite of my flashlight.   I have no idea if Annie wet outside while we were out there.  I highly doubt it because I need to shampoo my hallway carpet, UH GAIN.

Oh.  Back to why no one should offer me a dog.  I cannot get Annie housetrained.  I don’t think I can say it any simpler than that, but I’ll try.  

I.  Cannot.  Get.  Annie.  Housetrained.  And I probably needed some kind of therapy before I even made that four-hour drive across the state to buy a beagle. 

The other night I had a dream that probably represents some deep unresolved issues.  Yeah, on the surface it might seem like it just represents my disturbed state over the relationship I’ve had to develop with the carpet cleaner, but really, I think there could be some more serious issues at play here.  Why don’t I tell you the dream, and maybe you could analyze it.  Give it a stab, won’t you? 

So I was at home doing my normal thing when suddenly my dream shifted and I was in front of the computer reading the posts on our homeschool group e-mail loop.  Wow!!  The group leader, in her abundant spare time (she only homeschools 6 children and does about a gazillion other amazing things) had decided to tear up her wood flooring and post it for sale. 

Immediately I picked up the phone.  (You know how dreams are.)  I told her I was very interested in her floor so I made an appointment to meet with her and her husband to look at it.  Nevermind that I’ve been on that very floor dozens of times.  (You know how dreams are.)  No.  I wanted to see that floor and probably buy it.  It was urgent.

When I got there, it was very formal.  She and her husband were waiting for me.  I walked in, and what did I do?  I went to a bin that held some fresh pieces of torn-up wood flooring and I broke off a piece and put it in my mouth.  Then I began to chew.  And chew.  And chew.  I could not really say anything because I was chewing.  I chewed for a long time.  On that wood.  That I had planned to buy.  

At some point I had to borrow a trashcan to start spitting splinters into.   Once again, I was speechless because I had to keep spitting out splinters of wood.  Believe it or not, I think the leader of my homeschool group and her husband were pretty speechless too.   Go figure.  It was some time around this point that they told me they had been planning on selling that flooring for $9,000.  Boy did I feel like a big ol’ wad of chewed up splinters.  Who would want to buy a floor with a bite out of it?  Then I woke up.

I don’t know.  I mean, I think there’s just a ton of deep issues that could be trying to surface in that dream.  But I don’t have time to worry about it right now.  I have more important things to do, like clean carpets and flail my way through big spiderwebs at 10 p.m. 

While you’re analyzing, let me just throw in one more dream.  Okay?  I’m not sure it’s as serious, but it could be.  I dreamed I was in a large airport terminal, totally panicked, because I had gone out shopping with a complete stranger (how we ended up in the airport is a mystery) and I had left a huge pan of bear meat in the oven at home, cooking at 400 degrees, and I was worried that the house would burn down while I was gone.  Meanwhile, there was a pack of mountain lions loose in the airport terminal and I was trying to warn people.  No one took me seriously.  At all.  In fact, the look in their eyes when I tried to warn them was yeah, she’s a psycho nutcase for sure.   I ended up hiding from the mountain lions, curled up in a little ball on a conveyer belt with a bunch of canvas bins that held airport terminal trash and dirty clothes.  By that time I did not care what had happened to my mystery friend who had wanted to go shopping in the first place.   I was just trying to figure out which would be worse: going where ever those bins were going, or facing a pack of hungry mountain lions.  Then I woke up.

I know you didn’t come here for this.  My readership of three probably just plummeted to one or two.   But I had to say these things.  I actually have a bunch of unposted pictures, and un-talked-about school plans, and more creature information, but I’ve just been so busy.  I promise to be a better blogger soon. 

I’ll leave you now.  I’m expecting some really good dream analysis from you guys.

Annie can vouch for me that I’ve been extremely-crazy-busy lately, with barely time to cook.  And the carpenter can vouch for the cooking part.  As you know, Annie sits with me when I type all day, and then when I’m gone, as the carpenter says, “her world turns upsidedown.”  She’s been upsidedown a lot lately.

The school year is approaching and there are things I want done before the school year arrives.  This past week I had a huge personal-household-tax-related-yucky-business-matter to work on.  That’s all I’ll say, but realize that over the past two weeks it has consumed HOURS of my time.  I’ll just be glad when it’s over.  I’ve also gotten a yearly physical (not that anyone needs to know that) and, dare I say it, a colonoscopy.  I joked about sharing the colon pictures on here, but I guess no one would ever come back and I could just shut the blog down completely.  (My children didn’t speak to me for a few hours after I returned home from the appointment with my colonoscopy pictures.) 

Annie, on the other hand, does not care how gross the hepatic flexure looks on paper.  She still loves me.  Thank goodness for that.

I’ve also been busy with bun-buns.  We have eight now that I suppose we’ll have to keep for awhile.  When it was time to sell the last litter to the pet store, someone beat us to it and the pet store had all they could sell and then some.  So here we are.  The phone rang the other day and when I answered my sister jokingly said, “Uh, yes, is this the petting zoo?”

I don’t like for the bunnies to be always in cages, getting little exercise, so I’m creating some places for them to run and enjoy eating violets and clover and laying in the grass.  Coco is first to enjoy one of the timeshares I’ve set up in the yard.  She is totally loving it.  I hope that when the fruit of my loins numbers in the dozens, someone will make a place for me to run and jump, too. 

I accidentally let a rabbit get loose last week and you know where it headed, right?  Yeah, over to Mr. and Mrs. Perfect Vegetable Garden’s house where it plopped down in a flower bed and began voraciously ripping foliage from some things in bloom.  I didn’t see it right away, but my oldest son, who’s tearing apart yet another engine in the yard, came inside and said, “Mom, there’s a huge black bunny in the neighbor’s yard and it doesn’t run off when you walk toward it.  I think it’s one of ours.  Did you let one go?”

Goodness gracious, deja vu, here we go again. By the time I got to the neighbor’s yard, Midnight was carrying out the aforementioned voracious eating spree.  I shook some lamb’s quarters at her and caught her pretty easily.  Thank goodness for little miracles.

On the gardening front, there is only one path down which one can safely walk these days.  I’ve set up buckets of machetes at the entry ways of the other paths, just in case anyone feels inclined to cut their way into the garden to look at creatures with me. 

I don’t know, it just feels like time is going by faster these days.  Or am I losing my mind?

I had to put this picture in (above) because I just love the bright green fern you can see in the background and how it contrasts with the dark spider legs but sort of dances with the bright yellow on the spider’s back.

I’ve also been busy (and delightfully enchanted) with the farmer’s market.  I love the time with my mom.  I also enjoy meeting new people and seeing now-familiar faces.  I have quite an inventory of pins building up and a few dolls to choose from, so I think it’s going well.  The little doll house was a hit with the children and with a few adults as well!  We were asked it if was for sale, but I made it especially for my mom, so maybe I can make one or two more in the future to sell.  We’ll see.  It was so much fun to make, but I realize I’m already at my limit as far as things to do.  At any rate, don’t my mom’s little clothespin dolls look so sweet in their new home? 

Finally (and I’m not sure why this picture is so faded on one end) I’ve slightly rearranged my living room (uh-gain).  I had to.  I found an extremely sturdy, real-wood bookcase at Goodwill.   Upon being put in its new place in my “pink room,” it was immediately filled with books.  I asked my husband, “Can you believe there were this many books floating around the house without a home?”

Without giving it a moment’s thought, he said, “Yeah!”

Hmmmm.  I say one can never have too many books. 

I have to work today, so I better close for now.  I hope that my weeks can begin to slow down a bit now and I can focus on school and getting everything ready for that.

Enjoy this day!