morning poem

Dog face at my nose
Sunshine meditation smile
Know that peace is now

(Thanks to Lisa for her own haiku and for Zen Ties and to Tracey who recommended Zen Shorts and of course to Jack, for the dog face.)



daisies in bloom- Eva with Calendula and her bean plant

crewneck to cardigan

I finished up Eva's sweater- a 30 inch crewneck in acrylic yarn- without the neck ribbing. She wanted a cardigan and I have been planning throughout to knit the sweater in the round and cut it at the end to make a cardigan (ala Elizabeth Zimmerman). After finishing up today, I spent some time looking around and watching some other brave souls cut their knitting. This evening I did the same. Yes! I figured it out and I have to say I am very excited about the results and what this means for the future of cardigans in my life- without sewing up and purling on and on! All that is left is the ribbing around the neck edges and border which I hope to finish up tonight and tomorrow. Finished sweater to be posted soon- complete with golden star and heart buttons Eva picked out herself.



before the cut and after



basting up the center, machine stitching on either side to create steek, cut along center

Link I used on how to make a steek if you didn't knit one in to begin with.

One video on cutting a steek and another one on picking up stitches afterward.

what a little carrot won't fix...

So today Samuel has been on the phone the entire day talking with his good friend Jack. They talk quite a bit on the phone anyway, but today was monumental in the length of the talk. He took a short break in the middle of the day to go to the library and they picked right up where they left off when we got back home. The play video games together and talk about their Mario trading cards, the video game they are making together, things like why Samuel won't ever try the tooth fairy (too creepy having a fairy come into the bedroom when you are asleep), why Jack prefers glazed donuts to cupcakes...Just now I heard "Lego figures- all of them are psychic!" Now they are discussing what they will wish for if they find a genie. That genie is going to have his work cut out for him. They have their bases covered. You get the idea.

I was just reflecting too on how much physical exercise he gets while he talks. He walks around and is in almost constant motion while on the phone, walking at a fairly brisk pace, sometimes running, and spending most of his time outside in the garden, walking among the plants on the various paths we have forged. Turns out this is a really wonderful way to spend time- outside, active, mentally stimulating, connecting with a friend, laughing...

Eva has been busy playing different games. Today she spent a good part of the day with the fin part of her mermaid costume only rather than dressing up with it (she did this earlier and went to the store as a mermaid) she pretended the fin was alive- a creature named Fin who could talk in a language only Eva could understand. Eva and Fin were incredibly helpful together. They folded and hung laundry, helped clean Albert's cage, watched Albert, dug up carrots for Albert, held Albert- I see a theme. Fin is resting now and Eva is off checking on some of her other games.

I was just now going through the photos on the camera because I know I took some pictures of a few scenes Eva has set up right now and I see that Fin and Eva took another bazillion pictures of Albert today as well, because you know you can never have too many of those. Such a cutie, we are all smitten.



This is the last bit of land that there is and everyone has gathered to be on this land together- all except the girl in the bucket (who no one likes {sniff}) who is pushed along by the alligators. It is a little like a flood story going on here I think.



And the beavers have built a dam. Can you believe we actually- well, Eva, really- found the-green-plastic-frog-with-his-mouth-wide-open?!! (And I still don't know where he was!!) Here he is partaking of the lovely mud and goo created by the beaver dam. There were others enjoying the abundance and finery as well.



Squirrels make a home...



Agnes giving some old cat love this morning; knit horses I made over the weekend- the manes are tricky (with summer reading...)

on sweatpants and sweatshirts and such

There was something that one of the kids said yesterday that was so funny and after I laughed and laughed I thought, I am definitely going to put that on my blog tonight and somewhere inside my brain something prompted me to write it down, at least a crib note, right then because I might forget it and another part of me said, no way, I will never forget that! *That * was so funny it will be imprinted on my brain forever, ready to be retrieved at a moment's notice for the perfect blogging moment. And yet, no. This is clearly not what happened. I have been wracking my brain all day long to remember, gently questioning, even begging. No luck. There is apparently a lot going on around here and while I can recite many things off the cuff these days, a random humorous story from the day before is not one of them.

So then earlier today Samuel said something that was humorous {maybe again because I can't remember which child was amusing from the day before...although to be honest probably both at some point said something that cracked me up} and while it may not have been quite as humorous as whatever-it-was-someone-said-yesterday, it was funny enough that I actually wrote it down so that I could remember to write it down later.

So just now I sat down at the computer and thought- oh yes! I wrote down something I wanted to write about and I went and got the little notebook (the one with my dream from last night still written on it from around 3:00 am...) and looked at my little notes on Samuel's-humorous-comment and dang it if I couldn't remember what the heck it was all about. Shoot.

Ah! But then it all came back to me and I see it is worthy of a blog post after all. But first some background. Samuel wears predominately sweatpants and sweatshirts (and when I say predominately sweatpants and sweatshirts, I really mean only sweatpants and sweatshirts- except when he wears a t-shirt, but then really only red t-shirts or something with Mario on it, unless those are in the wash and then he might, might! wear this one blue shirt we have just in case everything else is being washed- but this is rare.). He likes the feel of sweats, says they are comfortable and who am I to mess with that. There is enough going on in life and worrying about clothing choices is not high on my list. I say be comfortable and enjoy yourself as much as possible.

So the sweats that he wears get pretty bedraggled looking. I patch them up and mend them as best I can but they are only sweats and to be honest I don't think they were made to be worn all day, everyday. Just cotton sweats. With plenty of holes in them at this point. We buy more and they get holes and so on. Even I was a little taken aback, though, by the sweatshirt he had on today. There were large- as in elbows-fit-through-them- holes in both sleeves and several pen sized holes throughout the body as well. How did this get past me? I pointed them out to Samuel, saying something like, wow check out those holes. I need to sew those up- if I can that is- because to be honest this sweatshirt looked like it was on its last leg and would soon be relegated to the rag pile. (One thing I loved about our rat Charlie was that he liked to sleep in Samuel's leftover sweats.)

Samuel looked down at the holes and at his arms and said "This sweatshirt is fine. People care too much about style and fashion for my taste." I laughed. How true, how true. We do put an awful lot of thought into how we look, for better or worse- or at least some of us do- because Samuel clearly has other things on his mind most of the time. Although even Samuel thinks about it to some extent some of the time.

For instance, later in the day I found the sweatshirt discarded on the floor and noticed Samuel was wearing another one, this one fresh, hole-free, stainless, clean. Ah well, civilization pokes its way into the best of us at some point. Just now I stopped writing for a bit because I wasn't sure where this was going. Words like land-fill and ego started filling my head, things started feeling a little pedantic for my taste. What exactly am I trying to say here with this humorous comment by Samuel? I am definitely not going for lecturing, that is for certain. Something to do with following our hearts? Absolutely. Trusting what is meaningful to us? Definitely! Allowing my children to follow their bliss? A resounding yes! And of course something in there about letting each of us be who we are and loving what is.

Too pedantic after all? I can't tell anymore. I do think I am going to try and sew up that other sweatshirt. Samuel said it was really comfortable and he likes the color. Surely there are a few more days left in it...

So we went to a fountain today and it turns out we were the only people in the greater Portland area who did not know about an impending downpour. We were caught in said downpour, our stuff stuck across two streets without us at the fountain while we wandered around with pizza getting wet in to-go boxes (we had been thinking picnic after all), hiding out from the rain temporarily and later becoming so drenched we no longer ducked our heads or pretended that anything we did could save us from becoming simply sopping, soaking wet.

I would say that the worst thing about getting caught in the downpour today (unexpectedly, but really how else are you caught in a downpour- we certainly don't plan such things- at least not often...) was losing some of Samuel's Mario trading cards. Made of paper, they were our most fragile possession. The stand up ones in particular were susceptible to paper's tendency to bend and twist and rip when wet. And so it goes. Our friend Nicole put them under a tree and I carried them, wrapped in swimsuits and t-shirts. And finally, Samuel secured them in the car to be looked through and cried over later in the afternoon.

The best thing about being caught in the downpour today (again, unexpectedly- can you plan such a day to turn out so brilliantly?- surely you can plant the seeds and allow for goodness to flow but the hows?- they seem to line themselves up) was ending up across the street at the pizza place with good friends and conversation, surprise caffeine and of course pizza while our kids played and entertained in dazzling ways, this way and that, far beyond what I myself could have planned. Imagine saying, "And you shall run and play in this funny building and tap the windows and look at a stuffed moose head and you shall do this for hours, all the while giggling." Or with the other one, "And you shall have your fill of chocolate chip cookies and playing DS battles with your favorite friend and you shall be encouraged to play for hours while we think we are waiting out the rain..." You can't plan these things but you can let them happen.

I am finally winding down from this afternoon's caffeine. I don't drink caffeine- not normally. Let me qualify that I do occasionally drink caffeine to help ward off impending migraines *very occasionally* but rarely if never do I drink caffeine just for the sake of it. My body feels a little out of sorts and is wondering if the calming tea (thanks Kate) will really do the trick. Sleepier than I imagined I would be at this hour, I still have quite a bit of energy, hence this late night (for me) blog post. Oh well, good fun and a little caffeine never really hurt anyone after all.

In the spirit of goodness, here are some amazingly cute picture the kids and I took of Albert tonight-

dark chocolate coconut bliss

So it turns out the kids did not care for the original Battlestar Galactica- something about it being too challenging to follow the story and the characters looking too much alike. They are now enjoying Knight Rider- again- and it has turned out to be one of the favorite series they have tried, second only to Lost In Space, I think. I mean we haven't tried that many series, but of the ones we have tried, Knight Rider is a hit. They coaxed me (Eva's word...) into trying Netflix.

And then we tried the previously unthinkable today. We super glued Barbie's shoes on. Can you believe it? There is something so liberating and freeing in knowing those tiniest blue heels will never ever come off of those permanently flexed feet. Imagine that. Barbie {in shoes!} climbing trees and no emergency run outside at dusk searching for a lost shoe by candlelight- I mean flashlight. Or even moonlight. No single shoe floating around the house waiting to be found...



Barbie brushes all lined up and ready to go

yoga with a guinea pig

how's that for flowing chaos...

Without a doubt a lovely day was had by all at the park- we seem to do best when I hope for the best and expect nothing at all. I {worry} after a good day at the park that the next will bring extra misery from the high expectations we all seem to carry on about. Is the key word there {worry}? Too harsh of a word choice? {Wonder}? How about- I {wonder} after a good day at the park if the next time will bring equal or greater joy? It certainly feels better. Why is it harder to remain detached after a particularly good experience? Something about wanting that good experience again, pushing away the bad? Fearing the bad. Yes. Because let's face it- the bad can be so bad and even worse after the good.

Maybe the pessimists have the secret after all. Samuel- who by the way I would not label as a pessimist so much as a critical thinker- had some wisdom about this the other day in the car (the car and just-before-bed so often being the keepers of wisdom around here). He said it was *so much better* (his words) to expect that something bad would happen and then feel really happy when it didn't than to wish for something good to happen and be disappointed if it didn't.

And what I think- at least lately- after my recent experiments with letting the chaos flow (there are those words again) is that regardless of what happens, it all has a flow and all we need to do is allow it. And it certainly doesn't hurt to hope for the best and expect nothing at all.

I went to the park without a camera- again- and thought about all of the shots I would have taken if...
Eva spinning with my grandma's pink table cloth I took as a park blanket
and using the same cloth as hair to fall down the sides of the play structure as she played Rapunzel
and Samuel playing his first game of kick ball
and practicing getting on and off the merry-go-round (which he learned to do 2 weeks ago for the first time ever at another park day and which, when I saw it happen that first time, brought tears to my eyes over my boy reaching out, continuing to reach out, no matter what, when given the time and support to do so...)
and Samuel laughing and laughing at silly boy talk
and Eva laying down on her belly with another girl while I spun them around and around on the merry-go-round with their hair touching the ground and noticing all that was under the merry-go-round
and just now both kids checking the freezer every five minutes to see if the otter pops had frozen yet? what price for corn syrup and food dyes to become flavored ice? in the freezer...
smiles and pink faces and smooth talk and connection between brothers and sisters. Or bickering and more checking and frustration. And anger with the otter pops for taking so long...
and resisting the urge to lecture over being happy for having the otter pops in the first place (oh but that's me).

and this is more about gratitude now
with cats sitting and purring on laps
while I write this
and guinea pigs jumping around eyeing lettuces
and children playing now that bedtime feels nearer
and testing more otter pops
wondering when they will stop
and finishing up these thoughts to go read more Alice
which as it turns out is much better to read than to watch.

And noticing now, again, that the flow comes when you allow it...

I love this quote from Nine Kinds of Naked by Tony Vigorito-
"You are a molecule of water, but you are drenched in the ocean. Realize this and you become the ocean"