happenings

While it's a joy to return to blogging after a three-week (or so) hiatus, I have to say the rest has been wonderful. I wasn't aware of how much time I was putting into taking photos, downloading them, writing down thoughts. This discipline is well worth my time, but I come back to it with a new appreciation for the many other ways I want to (and need to) ply my strength.

The biggest thing I've been up to is growing a baby to fill these well-loved shoes. It has been an amazing gift to hear this baby's heart beat (with doppler assistance) and to feed my body's cravings. How anxious I have felt: are you alive in there? Have I done something to hurt you? After two miscarriages, I don't think I'll ever be able to be casual about pregnancy again. The blessing of this time of uncertainty (not that there is ever any final certainty, even now that my first trimester is over) is that I have had the privilege of hearing other women's stories of pregnancy loss and infertility. Oh, the dear women in my life! I can't thank you all enough. My sisters, my sister-friends...you are an amazing source of strength to me!

Let me spout on just a bit about pregnancy cravings, because I think they are so very, very entertaining. Here is what I have wanted to eat, in more-or-less chronological order, beginning around July 4.

lovely golden-yolked free range eggs from Cheryl
shrimp (which I believe isn't a very ethical--or maybe healthy--thing to eat)
shrimp
shrimp with sour cream cucumber salad on baked potato
fantasies about a carbonated sour cream-shrimp-cucumber milkshake...ugh...yum!
milk and chocolate chip cookies
beef stew
tomato juice/V8
nachos: beans, cheddar, guacamole, sour cream, tomato, chips
biscuits and gravy
biscuits and gravy--yuck! I normally don't like this, but have loved making them both from scratch this last month
red lentil coconut curry
beet borscht and reubens with lots of kraut (so thankful for Yolanda's menu)
kalamata olives
gazpacho
wraps and sandwiches made by someone other than myself that may include heated meat but do not include ham (usually a favorite of mine)
...mmm. I think I'll find something to eat soon.

Here is a photo of a beautiful meal that I really did not feel like eating due to funky nauseated pregnancy feelings. Our wonderful guests brought over the whole meal, which we ate out on the porch. Too bad I mostly felt like eating the boring beef stew in the crock pot.And here's a photo of my sister Barbara's new set of wheels. Couldn't resist including this one! Her electric bike is an eGo. It recharges for about 8 cents worth of electricity after which it can go 60? miles. Wow! And then there's the consolation of this array of healthy local food, grown and purchased from within 100 miles of home. Wow again!Take care everybody!

northern light

I wanted to remember how unusual it is to see sunlight coming through a north window in the morning. A summer gift. This photo was taken, probably, the last week of June.

resting

Blogger is not letting me post photos and my life is not letting me spend time on blogging right now. That's okay. I need the rest. Blessings upon all who read this. Blessings on your lives and your lovely blogs, too! I'll be back when I'm good and rested.

the love of beautiful things made by hands

Our rope old hammock, purchased eight years ago for $20 at a silent auction, fell apart last month after having been romped on six too many times. We left it outside more than we should have, but it was well-loved and much-used. No major regrets. Only thing is, Henry missed it. I missed it. How nice it was to swing him and a friend high, high in the air while humming circus music.

I've been trolling around for a new one since then, but almost any amount was too much considering our other obligations. I did notice this green and blue beauty in the window of the local Ten Thousand Villages though and, thanks to a delightful and unexpected gift, we now have a new hammock. I tried it out this evening and it is just perfect.

Joel has been reading Henry The Hobbit at bedtime, and I was reminded of how much I identify with Bilbo as I heard Joel read this:

As they [the dwarves] sang the hobbit felt the love of beautiful things made by hands and by cunning and by magic moving through him, a fierce and jealous love, the desire of the hearts of dwarves. Then something Tookish [Bilbo's grandfather was an adventurous hobbit with the last name of Took] woke up inside him, and he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves and wear a sword instead of a walking-stick. He looked out of the window. The stars were out in a dark sky above the trees. He thought of the jewels of the dwarves shining in dark caverns.

A hammock is a wonderful place to dream when one is feeling Tookish!

the wool that came in the mail

Our first attempt at felting. It was so exciting to open the package and take out this beautiful wool washed and dyed by Lizz's family. It smelled wonderful, too. Is the water too soapy? I wonder if I had it hot enough. I need to do some more reading.
And here are the beginners balls. One of these is to be a cat toy for Bella. After we tried this Aunt Libby introduced us to needle felting. That's pretty nifty too.

willing to get the moon if possible

I have fond memories of watching this video with Henry when he was younger. He loved it and we would act it out together. We found the book at our dear thrift store this week and read it tonight for a bedtime story.

I have been thinking about what I will and will not do as a parent. So much of it is fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants. We don't have extensively-thought-through approaches to many things other than wanting to be loving and non-violent. And what does that mean? So many terms come to mind: unconditional parenting (a book I haven't read yet), attachment parenting, parenting with love and logic, conscious discipline, without spanking or spoiling. God help me. How I define love and "non-violent" changes from moment to moment through the day.

Today we bought Henry a Webkin. He has been asking for one for a long time now, mostly very patiently. There is something in me that just wanted to, needed to (almost) respond to that want by saying "Yes!" But how to balance this desire for him to feel included among his peers with the desire, I mean need, to be fiscally responsible and to teach values of patience, perseverance, nonconformity, love of natural beauty...

I know I'm not alone in the struggle and that is a great consolation. I also know that I feel like I should want more consistency in myself as a mama. And I know that, at the end of the day, I'll probably be the one trying to rig a ladder up to the moon, maybe not getting there as elegantly as papa, but believing that the moon is for my boy as well as Monica and all the world's children. I feel like I will always remember this line from Thomas Traherne, quoted in The Quiet Eye, an all-time favorite little book

The moon and stars are mine if those I prize.

flowers are growing

Yolanda helped me put mulch around the flowers I had planted in the front of our house. I transplanted some bee balm from their house to ours and now it's blooming. Bee balm has the most amazing scent. It buds as a muted red and pops open a blazing pink.