Running Stitch

The Fall season is coming to an end. The harvest practically over. Tomatoes still hang on the vine outside our door, taking there own sweet time to ripen, usually right before they rot. It was not a bumper crop year at the Burrow, Henry and Bob (the apple trees) produced about three apples put together, seriously, The blackberry bushes? One round of jam.

Beverly the Blueberry bush is only two years old but she put out a handful of blueberries all summer, not jam worthy yet but she is doing her job.

The Professor (plum tree) well he did absolutely nothing. Nothing! Last year? Plums coming out of our whatzits! This year. Nada.

The Zucchini plants well they have done their work, producing well all season and occasionally giving us a tricky surprise, the ginormous zucchini that went unnoticed and is now bigger than my thigh. That one is destined for zucchini bread. Or zucchini chocolate chip bread, because you make that once, and boy do they remember.

We made some zucchini cupcakes for preschool pals (or rather ‘spekini’ cupcakes) and though they lacked chocolate we did add a cream cheese frosting, because after all, they were cupcakes.

This is really a gratuitous shot of the new blue kitchen and shelves, for leah, even though she has never even seen the kitchen in real life. Sheesh, it’s like she lives 3, 000 miles away or something.

Also can you spot the ginourmous unused zucchini on the shelf? Yes more spekini bread in our future.

We ate a lot of broccoli this season as well for some reason the broccoli, really flourished only one roung of rhubarb crisp, although I bought some, along with strawberries, (which we have never had luck with ) and blueberries at the Farmer’s market for jam this year.

And the pumpkin plants? Have taken over most of the yard. Yet have only one vaguely pumpkiny squash out there and one pathetic baseball sized gord.

So I made a hat instead, it’s probably slotted for the only homegrown pumpkin spot this season.

*Seasons of Love-Rent

View from the Burrow

For the first time in my memory, the leaves on the ground are crunchy under my feet as I walk up and down the road. My son crunches them under his shoe, delighting at the sound, as I did at his age, and maybe still do today. In the Northwest, the fallen leaves are usally brown and wet and a big slippery mess that has to be cleared from stairs, driveways and trails because the mucky mess can be as treacherous as black ice if left around.

Beverly the blueberry plant in her autumn dress

I am East Coast baby. I spent my youth in Pennsylvania a state named for it’s trees, where Autumn leaves exploded in brilliant reds, yellows, and oranges. Where the crispy leaves were meticulously raked into gigantic piles in my grandparent’s front yard. Those piles were systematically destroyed as five rambunctious grandchildren scattered them to the wind. My grandfather in mock irration, re raking each pile only to have it promptly dissasembled.

waiting for brudder’s bus

I can remember laying amongst the brilliant leaves blanketing the ground and watching as the spots of red, yellow and orange, drifted slowly down to the ground. Laying on the ground in the Pacific Northwest in Autumn usually means rain pants and a slicker. This fall though I have spent time laying on the ground, with my son, watching the leaves fall slowly, talking about the sun, and the clouds and decay (thanks Sid the Science kid) and marveling at what a difference a little Sun can make.

And how a walk through crunchy leaves can take me back to my own childhood, and the realization that these are the times my children will remember, that things for them are still, so new. That every experience, every season, still feels like the first one for them. That wonder is all around them, and all around me.

Usually

*the Sun-They Might be Giants

Moo is six and a half, as he tells everyone he can. Six…and a half. I have been blogging since he was 8 months old. You can do the math there because I don’t want to, but it is a while.

Here is one from Two years ago Originally posted on September 29th 2008

Overheard through the screen door.

Bumblebee (in Moo’s words): But I want to come inside
Moo: But my mudder says Bumblebees live outside
Bumblebee: outside?
Moo: yes…
Bumblebee: but I wuv you
Moo: I wuv you too Bumblebee but Mudders says “tough.”

Freeze Ray-Dr. Horrible’s sing-along-blog

It’s officially Fall.

Let the knitting begin.

*You can leave your hat on-Joe Cocker

We are slowly moving back into the house. The back into the house move that Fall brings with it. The outdoor toys are gathered on to the porch, the windows and doors are shut more than they are open. I find myself wanting to bake and make soup.

Painting of rooms has begun. Moving of stuff from one room to another as we reclaim the inside of the house, making rooms more usable, has led to some good cataloging, recycling and passing along of things.

The seasons always mark a changing of the guard, and often for me a rethinking of ‘things’ things we own, and why things we want, and why, goals etc.

On my long list of inside chores to ready the house for the long wet days of winter, my studio/office space keeps sliding further and further down. As things pile and pile there. Things to sell on ebay, things to mail to my brother, things to return to stores, things to take to thrift stores.

And possibly the most sad, things to sew. Things to quilt. Things to make. Sitting amongst the clutter of my own space (mind?) I play the soft music and breathe the deep breaths and remind myself that once the transformation is complete. Once the house goes from the place we store our clothes and shower in the brief summer months and returns to the place we hunker in front of the fire in.

Then. I will reclaim my room. Then I will gravitate, as the Earth around the sun, back to the sewing machine and the quilting frame. And maybe I’ll even paint. The room of course. Nothing inspires like a new coat of fresh paint.

Except maybe a weekend at the beach. Our weekend away has left me energized to change my space into a place I want to be all the time, instead of just the place I am.

*Winter Song – Sara Bareilles & Ingrid Michaelson

This weekend, we took a step back. or a step forward, I’m never sure which it is. A scheduled time away from The Adventure of readying the house and ‘life!’ and a step on to the sand.

West Coast style of course. While we do take our shoes off on the West Coast when we go to the beach, it sometimes takes us a while to remember to do just that. As always time away from ‘real life’ often makes decisions seem easier and resolutions somehow stronger.

We for one, are going back to the beach, soon.

*Good vibrations-Beach boys

Wah: I’m going to be a garbagemans when I’m a grown up
Mama: oh yeah?
Wah: Yeah because they don’t have wifes
Mama: hmmm
Wah: I don’t have a wifes so I’m going to be a garbagemans.

Apparently the wifes search is harsh when you are four and half.

*going to the chapel-dixie cups

Moo: Dad! How do you say love in Japanese
Dad: (something something in Japanase)
Moo: Dad! How do you say I love Buzz Lightyear in japanese?
Dad: Buzzoo Rightyear!
Moo: Dad! Can you speak Spanish? How do you say Mt Solo in Spanish?
Dad: (something something in Spanish)
Wah: Dad? Can you speak Duck?
Dad: Um, noooo.
Wah: Uncle Bill can speak Duck…..

This week I had a kerfluffle. It actually started about two weeks ago, but I was unable to deal with the kerfluffle because the doodad was down. The doodad was supposed to be functioning this week but was not.

I had hoped to resolve the kerfluffle, or at least move to a place of action with the kefulffle, but was stymied by the doodad being down.

This led to a minor meltdown in my noggin motor. Kerflop, kerplunk KERPLOOEY. And then there was brain matter all over the place. So my husband did want any normal husband would do, well one that can’t afford full time mental health caretaker that is, he took me to lunch.

And he said to me “Dude, Boundaries. You got to get you some” (yes he always talks like that) “Your wheels are spinning out of control, and you are stuck in the mud, continuing to spin you wheels in the mud is not helpful to anyone. You won’t get out of the mud and you are just getting everyone else muddy.”

Which. Was true.

And that brings us to the Kerfulffle. I couldn’t work on the Kerfluffle without the doodad no matter how much I wanted to. I was stressing because I have limited time (ie babysitter) to manage my workload and the kerfulffle is extraneous work. The doodad being down means that not only does my normal workload just sit there undone, but the Kerfulffle just spins out of control there as well.

Frustrating.

Which brings us to the whole WAHM thing. Which is not all laying around in your pajamas eating chocolate. WAHM have to have the boundaries. I have created a schedule that is somewhat flexible so that I can get my work done and spend time with my preschooler. This schedule includes a Nanny who comes to my house twice a week so I can workety work work. Assuming the doodad is also working.

Should the doodad be broken….well, an obvious conundrum.

My point? Hmm. Well my point is such. Should the doodad be down and the kerfulffle remain kerfluffled, this WAHM has to stick to her guns schedule-wise because the reason I do the doodad and landed myself in this kerfulffle in the first place is because of the Burrow boys. Who I don’t want to see suffering because I work at the Zippy Doo Dah Ranch instead of making widgets somewhere else.

It’s really all about Boundaries. I work when I am scheduled to work, and the rest of the time I lounge about eating chocolate covered strawberries, I play with my kids so that they remember that I love them first, that I work at the Zippity Doo Dah Ranch because it allows me to spend time with them, focus on them.

And at night as I lay on our new deck, on our old mattress, under a canopy of stars, beside at least one of my most cherished boys and I remember the reason for the boundaries, and also how lucky am I? To sleep under a canopy of stars beside at least one of my most cherished boys?

Dang, lucky.

Tonight was Back To School Night at the Elementary school. The First Grader has anticipated this night for weeks. We skipped down the hall past the Beloved Kindergarten Teachers’ room, only pausing briefly to wave as we hurried to First Grade!

First Grade, all day school, Reading and Writing and Rithmetic, right up there on the daily schedule. Homework! Every night! Spelling Tests!

Everything about the room excites the boy “Look this is our library!” He points to the shelves of books “Look these are our chores! I’m the GARBAGE CAN!!!!” (he empties it ). “Here is my desk! Do you want to look inside it?”

He introduces me to everyone, putting one hand on my hip and holding his other out to the new acquaintance he says “this is my mother!” and then before the not quite as outgoing other child can respond he is dragging me off to meet another child, whose name I almost catch as we move on again. Thankfully there are some old friends from kindergarten, making it easier on the Mama.

I’m introduced to the School Principal who taught my 10th grade English, class, and most of my AP English classes and for whom I house sat, and who was hte Principal last year. “Nice to meet you” I say as I shake her hand.

First grade. Wow.