::this moment::

One moment from the past week...one moment to pause, savour, and cherish forever.

Stop on by http://www.soulemama.com/ if you have a moment to share, or would like to see the moments of others!

Get out sliding with your kids this weekend, and have fun!

the nicest teacher ever

According to Violet, the best teacher ever speaks in a high-pitched, sing-song falsetto voice, akin to Disney's Snow White.

She is a good artist, and draws nice pictures of her students.

She always wears pretty sparkly ballet dresses, and fishes for compliments from her students: "Do you like my dress? I bought it myself!"

She allows feline educational assistants in the classroom.

She has excellent classroom-management skills, and encourages creative dress and knitting in class.

She sometimes needs to ask one of her pupils for help with her letters, but the best teacher ever finds no shame in needing help or making mistakes. She picks a special helper for the day, and prints out her name.

She wears glasses sometimes, because they make her look smart. She's the best teacher ever, and I hope to be just like her someday.

Yarn Along...finally!

I'm always knitting. And reading. I haven't yet mastered doing both at the same time (unless it's a pattern I'm reading), but I'm working on it. I'm joining Ginny over at Small Things in her weekly Yarn-Along!

Two books we've been enjoying this week are Brian Selznick's Wonderstruck, and Shel Silverstein's Every Thing On It. These wonderful books feature both the writing AND artwork of the authors. My thirteen-year-old niece and I were wrestling over Wonderstruck (well, not literally); we both wept at the beauty and wonder of the story. If you've read The Invention of Hugo Cabret you'll know what I'm talking about. Please, please find these books and read them, then give them to your 10-16-year olds!

I've been reading Shel's amazing poetry to my older kids. They get a lot of the humour because of the accompanying pictures. I have to admit, I wept at the end of this one, too, as it was published post-humously. I have all of his books and have read them to students since I started teaching almost fifteen years ago.

He ends the book with this poem:


When I am gone what will you do?
Who will write and draw for you?
Someone smarter-someone new?
Someone better-maybe YOU!


My kids' eyes just went wide at that one. It's just like Shel Silverstein to pass the torch so graciously like that.


You know I'm obsessed with the Aviatrix these days. I've made four. The two most recent ones are in a lovely yarn sent to me by a blogging friend over at Wild Faerie Caps (along with some amazing crocheted creations for my children); she overdyed it; I believe it's something by Brown Sheep Company. It's beautiful.

The newborn-sized hat has an antique shell button, which looks just right. This will be a donation as a giveaway in my sister's childbirth preparation classes. The six-month size will be a donation to a silent-auction at this year's Artsquest event. I have a list on my kitchen chalkboard of "requests" for more of these little hats, so I'll soon be knitting them without a pattern. I know I've already raved, but what I love about this pattern is that it offers instructions for three different weights of yarn, so it's a great stash-buster (if you knit lots and lots of them!)

january dreams

My new year's vows for this year is a bit different than in previous years.

It involves visiting our local libraries, scouring the shelves for books written in the 1970s on topics such as seed-saving and root cellaring.

I'm planning on making this our "shift-year": shifting into the life I've envisioned for so long, but have put off for any number of reasons (the biggest ones being busyness and exhaustion).

Simply put, I want to take a  step beyond eating locally. I want to start growing some of our own food. The problem in the past has always been time to process/can the stuff I grow. It often ends up on the ground, rotting back into the soil, because the busiest times in gardening happen to coincide with the busiest times in the school calendar.

Root cellaring seems to be a possible solution. We have enough land here to grow potatoes, squash, carrots, beets, cabbage, onions, and garlic to store for next winter. I also hope to put away enough apples to get us through at least part of the winter.

 January dreaming might just be my favourite kind; from the comfort and warmth of my kitchen, I browse seed catalogues, read up on starting seedlings, think about the wheres, whens, and hows, dash off a few emails to farmer friends, and wonder: could we raise a goat for milk? I wander through old, familiar cookbooks with new eyes, wondering: what can I make with stuff we grow ourselves? I'm far away from the realities of Colorado potato beetles, marauding deer, watering, weeding, and harvesting. I'm just...dreaming!

I know I'm not the only person who notices the rising costs of fuel and groceries (who notices it more than mothers, who have the mighty task of feeding a family AND keeping a budget?). We had a huge garden when Jude and Violet were little, but I'll admit my efforts since moving to a farm have been half-assed (oh, the irony). Thankfully, my children know the taste of "real" produce, thanks to our beautiful CSA farm; now I think they're old enough to participate in gardening here at home, or at least old enough to let me do the gardening while they play!

The long-term vision is to raise some/all of our own meat, and to get as much of our other foods locally. So far, I've compiled a list of sources for local: tea, honey, maple syrup, beef, and a variety of fruits. A friend's husband just started roasting his own fair-trade coffee in a stone oven in his garden (I know you're reading this, L!) It's all very exciting, isn't it? We raise our own eggs, plan to raise some more meat birds this spring/summer, and have plums, grapes, apples, and wild raspberries right here on our little acreage.

 My husband knows what I'm up to when he gets home and finds the kitchen table looking like this. I sit, poised, with post-its and pen in hand, my favourite mug having been refilled all day, devouring knowledge in my favourite way: through books. We often joke that I need a table all my own, so I can spread out and not have to pick everything up again so that we can eat!

There are older "back-to-the-landers" in the area with a wealth of wisdom, advice, and cautions. Some smile knowingly at the folly of youth. But. Another small vow this year is to let my silver hairs be; away with hair dye! I had to pick up a pair of glasses for reading/fine knitting. And I've decided to be okay with that.

So. The folly of youth becomes the folly of the not-so-far-from-middle-aged. I'm good with that.

January dreaming. You gotta love it.

Monday Musings: Back to Work!

Please visit Nadja's wonderful blog if you'd like to join in on Monday Musings!

Right now, everyone is abed (but me); I've written my morning pages (three pages of free-form, stream-of-consciousness writing by hand in my journal), read today's passage in "Simple Abundance", and have fed the cats. The table is set and ready for breakfast, the clothes are laid out, backpacks ready, and my bag for school hangs on the doorknob. Back to school we go!

This weekend, I went into my classroom to prepare for the return of my little Kindersurprises. I organised math "work stations" focussing on 3D geometric solids, cleared out a few baskets of paper, admired the cleanliness of the floor (thanks to our school custodian), rearranged my schedule to accommodate a longer language block in the afternoon, and took down the last of the Christmas decorations. On Sunday, I declared that it was FINALLY my turn to sleep in. I got up at 5:30 am, let my husband sleep till 8:30, then I crawled back into bed with Earl Grey tea, a sliced apple, almonds, peanut-butter toast, and an amazing book. THIS, to me, is luxury. Add a purring cat to the mix, and I can say I'm the richest woman on earth.

Some plans for the week: A dear, dear man and local legend, Barney McCaffery, passed away this past week, so we'll be attending his wake, and performing at his Irish wake. This man was a storyteller, musician, collector of folklore, homesteader, artist, visionary...everyone in the Ottawa Valley is mourning his demise. At any event, you'd be sure to see Barney with his long grey beard, old thrifted suits, snowboots, and accordion, playing original songs that told the tales of Valley people. He was a treasure, and will be sorely missed.


If I find some time for myself, I will nap in the afternoons on the days when I'm home. Yes, it's my guilty pleasure (except I really don't feel guilty about it!) I pop a video in for Violet, put Margot down for her nap, and doze off on my bed. Sometimes I get two hours (rarely), other times twenty minutes. It doesn't matter. Nothing soothes my mind like a little cat nap.

I am grateful for the two weeks I had with my children. I'm grateful I said, "Yes!" to their request that I play outside with them, because I learned that tobogganing down a hill with a child on your back is actually the secret to eternal youth. Belly laughing with a face-full of snow, flying over a snowback and landing so hard that you crack the sled...well, let me tell you. I felt like I was a kid again. What my chiropractor will say when I tell him how I hurt my tailbone, I don't know. Maybe just, "It was worth it".


Something that makes me smile: Purring kitties. Washing my hair with Lush products. Watching the joy on my husband's face as he introduced his kids to "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly". Margot flexing her arms to show me her muscles. Violet having a tantrum that was only ended when I very gently took her in my arms. Jude's wiggling teeth. Seeing a bald eagle fly over our heads when we were sliding today.

::this moment::a new year::

One photo, no words: a moment from this past week that I want to pause, savour, and remember.

Stop by www.soulemama.com to visit other moments, or share one of your own!

Have a restful weekend!

~Stephanie

Big Art

Our easel comes and goes; sometimes it takes up so much space, we tuck it away until it becomes "new" again. I put small ziploc sandwich bags in 125-mL Mason jars; these hold the paint, make clean up easy, and can be zipped for reuse when the painting's done.

With two of my nieces visiting for the week, there was some big art happening around here.

We had to make another round of these, as the originals were all given away and I wanted some for our walls!

Sometimes, when five cousins want to create together, the art gets bigger than originally planned:

It starts out with a green "warlock mountain" with electricity spewing from the top. This electricity traverses the volcano, and across the entire artwork of flowers, a snow scene, a portrait of Persephone, and Violet's "tomato". A request for clarification reveals that this is actually, a tornado. Jude's electricity manifests itself as arrows coming out of his character's head.

The painting goes on for over an hour, with polite requests to pass a particular colour, paper-turf wars, Violet protesting that the electricity went behind her volcano, compliments, and advice.

Great things happen when children are cut loose with paper, paint, and brushes. The bigger the paper and the more the kids, the better!