A Mother’s Journal

But I didn’t mean to.  I would never do that to you on purpose.  I said we’d have daffodils in February, but here we are two days from March and the little daffodil blooms are still scrunched up, showing only a hint of the yellow to come, and it’s very, very cold out today.  Maybe hubby was serious about this being a long winter after all.

This, my favorite mosaic birdbath, has suffered a lot of wear this winter.  She’ll need repairs once the weather warms, but even the wearing itself is a beautiful process in the garden: a little bird sits on the tiled shore of an icy pond.

I’m okay, though.  Really.  I’m fine.  Really.  I’ll be okay.  (Spring?  Spring, where are you?)  Yes, I have a menagerie of warm little birds in my office, nestled in and around my plants.  They can sing to me while I work today.  (Really, I’ll be okay.)

I worked on pins last night, at the end of a long, productive day.  We had another amazing FIAR co-op at the EPA in Research Triangle Park.   Then home again, home again, jiggety jog, to work on budgeting, grocery lists, filling up Michaela’s cereal boxes, and bill-paying, all before settling into my desk this Friday morning.

I love the pins I’m working on now.  It’s my “women of the world series.”  As soon as they’re ready, I’ll put them in the shop. 

Michaela and a sweet friend discuss what they’re looking at on a worksheet, where they have to try and label pictures taken from electron microscopy.

We also learned about pH, environmentally friendly architecture, and a few other amazing tidbits.

Have a lovely Friday!

If life could stand still, like a black and white photograph, with me ever moving in one little frame, I would want to be caught on a perfect morning.  A morning with an empty to-do list and new acrylics.  Gold and black and red and blue.  And white.

I’d want to be caught on a lazy slow morning with a yard full of birds, singing outside my window — serenading me and my hot tea.

I would be wondering what to do, with a tingly good feeling from my head to my toes, because the day is free and art supplies are plenteous.  Fabrics with texture.  Pinks and reds and robin’s egg blue.  Woven heavy threads that mean something as I hold them.

I’d want to be caught with stacks of old books and sheets of old music and plenty of glue and a colored pencil or two.  With my tea kettle whistling, I’d dream of what to do.

I’m quite sure I could make something pretty and be content, caught in a frame such as that.  My children would be there too, scattered about the house, their sweet voices not quite a distraction, but more like music. 

Yes, I’d like be caught there.  Would you?

Taking one day at a time.  I think I always need help with this.  Why is it so easy to drag around the past, like a ball and chain?  Or to live in fear over the future?  I don’t know, but I want to just take one day at a time and be content. 

Saturday and Sunday were beautiful days here!  Temps in the 50s and 60s, bright sun.  The birds were singing a come-on-spring chorus and I loved it!  I stole outside for a few minutes on Saturday morning to sit in the sun and read.  The steps get so warm, it’s a favorite spot. 

I’m realizing more and more, when you get a sunny moment you must take it!

Yesterday was rainy, rainy, and gray.  Today, while there is no rain falling, it is gray outside again.  I am trying really hard to be of the optimistic opinion, however, that this only means more flowers come spring.

My day today is full, for 19 years ago today I was giving birth to that little fella you see sitting in the sink.

Joseph was our second son, and today he turns 19!  Where did the years go?  Anyway, I asked him what he wanted to eat tonight, and I’m talkin’ a meal and dessert. 

“Pizza?  Homemade?  But can you make about six of them so I can eat all I want? 

Of course.

“And cheese cake?”

Why sure.

“Uhhhh.  Fudge?”

At this point The Carpenter got into a huddle with Joseph and noted that mom could make a perfectly-chocolate chocolate cake, so Joseph compromised. 

I suppose I’ll be grocery shopping this morning and cooking this afternoon. 

I hope you have a wonderful Tuesday.

I want that to be true about myself.  It’s something my mother says in regards to herself, and I admire that about her.  It’s part of being content: being able to take a little something and be happy with it. 

When it comes to working at home, I think the most enormous challenge is staying at the desk.  A desk that’s in your house.  All day.   All.  Day.  Long.

Some days, I have conversations with myself all day.

The curtains upstairs sure could stand to be washed.  

Hey, you must stay at your desk. 

Oh, the sun is so bright, it would be so nice to be in the garden. 

Uh, you gotta stay at your desk.

That’s right!  I got a new seed catalog in the mail yesterday!  I want to go look at it.

Listen, hardhead, stay at your desk.

So, what I do is focus on some little thing that I can do on a break or during lunch that’ll make me happy.  It’s a little something to look forward to, and then a little something to think on afterwards.  On Saturday, I washed the vintage-looking soap dish in my kitchen window and put in a new bar of soap.  Do you know I could smell that soap all the way to my little desk in my little office off my little kitchen?  It made me happy.  Lord, let me be happy with little things.

Over the weekend I found a few minutes to decorate a T-shirt using freezer paper stenciling.  Like this.  And this.  And this.  And this.  And this.  You get the point.

I felt I needed something that would speak my mind for me when I went to a meeting of some of the Five In A Row moms to learn how to make pasta.  I think this works.  Don’t you?

It was so easy. 

•  Think of or find a design you like.
•  Trace it onto freezer paper.
• Cut it out with an exacto knife, saving any little pieces that go into the center of letters, etc.
• Iron your “stencil” onto your shirt.
• Paint with fabric paint.
• Let dry.
• Pull off stencil.
• Should wash up nicely turned inside out, but follow the instructions on your fabric paint.

Oh, the blues.  But maybe not the kind that you might think.  Imagine my delight and surprise (or as my 21-year-old son says, just to remind me of days gone by — PRAH-PRIZE!) upon seeing a bit of blue shining forth from the otherwise cold and half-sleeping grass in the yard.

You may remember a little story last year about Veronica umbrosa and Veronica persica, one wild and one nursery bought, growing here in my yard. 

Well, here sits Veronica persica, waiting on spring.  Just like me.  I was so excited to see her.  Annie and I visited with Veronica for awhile before moving on to the next smelly thing that Annie might need to investigate.  Annie wasn’t nearly as excited to see Veronica as I was.

I’ll have you know that some internal voice had prompted me to wear blue yesterday morning.  Perhaps I could hear Veronica whispering, all the way from her spot in my garden.  Wear blue today, wear blue today.  Even my late Grandma’s apron trimmed in blue.  I wore it all day.  And my newest pin, with the bluebird.

It was SO bright and sunny yesterday that I called The Carpenter at work and said, “Look.  The greenhouse…” 

He said, “I know.”

We are hoping to have it done before too long.  But you know paying taxes and Oreo’s surgery put some building materials on the back burner.  Sigh.

Today looks to be a day such as yesterday.   I’ll be working, but it’s all okay.  I have hot tea, and more blue I can slip on.  Or yellow. 

This was in the yard yesterday.  Yes, that blossom has been visited by some creature, but I imagine that creature is as hungry for spring as I am, so I can forgive it.

And this was in the yard.

And this!  Can anyone say breaks and lunch outside?  I think I’m gonna be okay.

Yesterday’s co-op (Grass Sandals) turned out to be one of my favorite co-ops so far!  Or is it that they just get better and better?

It started out with a reading of the story.  The perfect way to begin the co-op.

From there we moved into learning about how Chinese (and the derivative Japanese) characters are written, how they evolved, and how very different the Japanese language is from our own.  As I listened to Laura talk about this, I was struck at how much of it explained why my Joseph cannot spell worth a hoot in English, but takes to the Japanese language like a fish in water. 

After learning about many of the symbols and how they were simplified over many years, each child and parent was give a card with a symbol.  We had to put together what we’d learned and then guess what it meant.  Mine is a hand, which looks like it could be holding a utensil (underneath the hand, the rod-like utensil), and of course that looks like a bowl and a mouth, so I guessed “eat.”  Wrong.  It is a hand, but that is a drum stick and a drum underneath, and the mouth is a smile.  Music = joy.  Yes, that’s the symbol for joy.

If you’ve read Grass Sandals, then you know the hat and walking stick are prominent parts of the story.  When Miss Laura asked the children if they’d brought their hats and walking sticks, they looked puzzled.  She said, “Oh, it’s okay, we’ll come up with some!”

Our co-op teachers had gone to great lengths to make hats for each child and to come up with Japanese symbols (or a Japanese name) for each child.  The children then decorated their hats.

It was fun for the parents too, to go around the table and look at the various symbols and what each one meant.

Wouldn’t you like to have a cool hat like this to wear on your walks?  I know I would!

The children compared designs.  I heard one say, “Oh, I like yours!”  So sweet.

Next, the children took their places around a bamboo mat to learn about bamboo:  what can be made from it, how it grows, where it grows, how many species eat it as food.

Once the children were seated, Miss Laura began to pull out some fabulous pictures she’d put togehter of bamboo — two-sided pictures where one side had a clue and the other side had the answer.  She had come up with guessing games to help the children learn what animals eat bamboo.  And, yes, people eat bamboo!

Here the children go through 22 pictures, placing the pictures of the animals they think do NOT eat bamboo in one stack and the pictures of animals they think do eat bamboo in another stack.  I love how they worked as a team!  The kids did a great job!

One this part was over, each child was given a bamboo walking stick and told to explore the great land (the yard), for they’d find someone serving food.  The co-op ended with fried rice and bamboo shoots.   It was so much fun!

Well, today is a work day for me, so I must transition myself.  The sun is shining so brightly and I’m about to take a little ramble through my tiny garden to clear my mind. 

Enjoy this day.

I’ve been promising a workbox update, and here it is.  Though I don’t use Sue Patrick’s Workbox System in the purest sense, I highly recommend her book and her methods.  I simply do not have room for the cart, and Michaela LOVES the mystery of her assignments being hidden in the cereal boxes until she pulls them out one by one.  So, for now anyway, we are sticking with the cereal boxes and loving the organization this has brought into our homeschool.

Our system consists of 9 cereal boxes, which I first posted about nearly a year ago.  I fill them up with assignments each evening or each early morning, so they are all ready to go when Michaela starts school for the day.

Box 1.   I think this piece of paper speaks for itself.  And one thing I want to say right now about these boxes is that it takes me out of the loop in a way.  I know that sounds crazy because I’m the teacher and the one who puts the boxes together and the one Michaela comes to with questions, and yet once the ball starts rolling, it’s like Michaela is answering to the boxes getting done and not to me.  I love it!

Box 2.  The next day in her Daily Gram book.  Upon completion, Michaela immediately checks and grades her own paper and we talk about anything she did not understand.

Box 3.  Spelling Power.

Box 4.  Need I say more?  Well, maybe I’d better.  In years past, one of my biggest weaknesses was grading math sheets.  Then the next thing you know we’d be a week or two into ungraded papers when, lo and behold, I’d realize a child totally was not getting something and we had moved on and suddenly were behind!  With the boxes, I do not allow myself to put in the next lesson until I’ve graded what Michaela has done. 

Which brings me to a second point here.  When Michaela is done with something, she sticks it right back in the box.  I pull it out that evening and file it or put it in her end-of-year keepsake book or whatever. 

Anyway, only when math is graded do I put the next assignment in — either the next lesson or review on what she’s not getting. 

Box 5.  Oh, yeah, the chores.  They go in there too, and once again, she’s answering to the box, not to me.  I have been surprised at how little complaining there is when it just comes out of the box and not from my mouth.

Box 6.  Her read-aloud.  And no, she has not finished this book yet.  It has been a slow, wonderful read, along with our other Ambleside books that we are lazily working through.  The good thing?  She has enjoyed this book tremendously and tells me something about it each time she reads, and it’s sticking. 

Box 7.  A test I made to review some writer’s tools we’d talked about just the day before.  (Thank you, Five In A Row.)

Box 8.  Practice your harmonica.  Michaela had been wanting a harmonica.  She got one in her stocking at Christmas and is learning to play it.

Box 9.  Oh yay, the fun box!  This week our Five In A Row Co-op will be centered around Grass Sandals.  Michaela and I “rowed” this book last year, but it’s been very good to go back and revisit it.  It’s a beautiful book.

When we review like this, I like to revisit the art element of the book.  For this assignment I filled the basket with bright pieces of felt in primary colors. I put in black acrylic paint, a black pencil and a black marker.  I took a couple of sheets of blank sketch paper and folded them to make a “greeting card” shape.  Michaela’s asignment was to create a Haiku poem, type it into the card, and then decorate it with inspiration gained after looking through the book.  She was only allowed to use materials that I had chosen based on colors and art media used in the book.

This is how her card turned out!  I’ve used this specified-materials-only concept several times lately to review a FIAR book and to teach art, and it has turned out great each time!  Michaela also gets to use her typewriter, which she loves!

Making The Cereal Boxes:

Several of the cereal boxes are very large family-size boxes, because they hold large books and a lot of stuff.  Some are covered in fabric, some in scrapbook paper. They are embellished with little bits of this and that. I used some glue sticks, but mostly the hot glue gun. Be aware, it takes a few hours to cover 9 cereal boxes. I cut the tops out of the cereal boxes first. I chose either a base paper or fabric for each box and just wrapped the box using a hot glue gun. One sheet of paper was usually not enough. I did one side at a time, wrapping neatly around the bottom and sides. I did fold over and wrap down into the top about two inches for neatness and glued this down as well. It took quite a bit of glue and — AGAIN — time. I, however, LOVE doing things like this. Once a box was covered, I embellished it.  While working, I was thinking of how I would fill the boxes each day!

Tomorrow is a big day, so I better sign off and get some zzzzzzz’s.

A peaceful night to you,

Life’s treasures are really the sweet, simple things.  Like a little girl’s face when she finds what she’s been looking for for months, with fingers crossed, hoping and wishing for a typewriter. 

Goodwill.  19.00.  Owner’s manual and extra ribbons included.  Works like a dream.

It’s things like her daddy’s face when he read the birthday card she hand made, of course using the typewriter to type in the messages before decorating it.

Life is all about these things.  Smiles.  Relationships.  Doing for others.  Making do and waiting for just the right things.  It’s not easy as the world spins faster and faster on to the next new thing.

Proverbs 31 has been good for me lately, to help me focus on my homelife.

I want to make sure at least one of you will not get pinched on St. Patrick’s Day.  I won’t be selling these pins as I think it would be a copyright infringement and I don’t feel right selling someone else’s beautiful art work.   I know some of my pins have old artwork, but I see a difference in something over a century old with no trademark or copyright, and something recent from an artist who is actively illustrating and working.

Anyway, I often find tattered old books at the thrift stores, but cannot stand to see the lovely illustrations get thrown out just because a book is falling apart.  I rescued some Anita Lobel illustrations and made some pins for personal use.  She’s got some of the most adorable art work!!

Michaela and I will gather up the names of the commenters on February 28th and I’ll let Michaela draw a winner.  So leave a comment!  Some lucky person can wear this bit o’ green pin and be sure they don’t get pinched. 

Lynn