picture summer- day 27 {getting the giggles}

picture summer- day 29 {barefootin'}

2011 upick chronicles

More strawberry picking yesterday, this time with friends. I picked 6.8 pounds of hood strawberries and noticed that the picking had definitely slowed down from a few days before. My feeling is that a few more days of sunshine and a little more heat will help ripen them up to make for easier picking {again} next week.

baby guinea pigs

We had the good fortune to spend time with friends AND baby guinea pigs today.





And just how do guinea pigs have anything to do with the letter I? Why, because they love to sit in their plastic igloos, of course. Plus, I love them!

game day

I'm really excited about trying out the game Go after seeing it played at a game day for tweens the kids and I went to yesterday. The game day itself was a mixed bag. Samuel had been looking forward to playing several different games with some of the other kids- some that we took and maybe trying out a few other games. We took Battleship, Stratego and Carcassone. I had my doubts about Carcassonne being played but I thought Battle ship and Stratego were a shoe in. (And, it turned out I got to explain Carcassonne to one of the other moms there, which was fun.) He did end up playing a few games of Stratego (and some Connect Four) and one girl even asked to buy it when she got home. So that was fun, too. But there were no takers for Battleship, which surprised me. The real bummer was that *most* of the kids stayed in one large group and played a single game together that way. And, I don't think there were quite a many kids there as had planned, which may have contributed to the game play as well.

More pictures from our trip to Seattle

The kids had a lot of fun with the giant chess set at the Pacific Science Center-











Samuel at the top of the Space Needle.



All four kids (Samuel, Vivian, Eva and Sabine) in front of a Totem Pole at Seattle Center after the Harry Potter exhibit.



Butterflies in the butterfly exhibit at the Pacific Science Center.

harry potter trip day 3

And, we're back. Today we went to the Seattle Aquarium and took a walk along the waterfront and then back to the hotel, much to everyone but mine and Carolyn's chagrin. Still, it was nice to see how close together everything was. I had been looking forward to seeing the sculptures in the Olympic Sculpture Park, but somehow we managed to walk right past {most of} them on our {uphill} journey back to the hotel. Something tells me a trip during the late spring or early summer would be perfect for checking them out. Next time!



The Aquarium was fantastic {again}. Eva had been looking forward to that most of all, possibly even more than the Harry Potter exhibit. Here she is touching one of many many sea creatures she checked out throughout the day. We were even lucky enough to see one group being fed. They place small bits of cut up sardines into the sea anemones and into little crevices where various crabs spend their time hiding. Other fish and crabs eat bits of shrimp strewn through the water.

harry potter trip day 1

The kids and I are up in Seattle with friends to check out the Harry Potter exhibit at the Pacific Science Center. We came up on a train with Amtrak this afternoon (which was good and bad- good, because it's a fine way to travel and the kids enjoyed themselves and the new experience, etc. bad, because i had such an awful case of motion sickness that i had to literally sit with my head down on the table in front of me with my eyes closed for most of the entire ride. {so that's um 3 1/2 hours give or take...} thank goodness for carolyn and the kids getting along and understanding and all that because i was so so sick i could do very little else but sit quietly hoping for the few stops along the way to last as long as possible. needless to say, i have already been planning a trip to the drug store for medicine to help me on the way home. i mean, i don't want to assume that i will necessarily be sick like i was on the way here, but i don't want to leave it completely to chance either. the complimentary ginger ale {kept just for such an occasion...} helped during one of our stops, but was not enough to get me through the whole trip unscathed. i'll be carrying some of that with me, as well, though, you can be sure.)

So- there are no pictures yet, but we are all checked in and we've eaten and even swam in the pool for a bit. We're all looking forward to the exhibit first thing tomorrow.

Ponytail Falls

The kids and I went on a hike with some friends to another waterfall today. This time we hiked up to Ponytail Waterfall near the Oneonta Gorge. There were a few other waterfalls nearby, both before the main attraction and after. I thoroughly enjoyed the walk, although I have to say that at 2.75 miles it may have been pushing the limit of what the kids will happily do {so far}. Still, these videos capture the happiness everyone felt when we reached Ponytail Falls.

life is good

wanting to get this down before the spell bursts and i move out onto the patio to smell the roses and clip guinea pig nails. right off the cuff. spent the last four-ish days at the life is good unschooling conference with some amazing people who are also choosing this unschooling life for themselves, for their kids. always interesting in this environment to see where everyone is and how they came to be there. helps remind me so much of the process that is this life.

each life. a process in itself.

i took exactly one picture the entire time we were at the conference. there is a chance eva took some pictures of her experience there and i am eager to find the camera to check them out. there might even be video!

both kids really branched out this year as far as moving off in their own direction without me, which is new and exciting and exhilarating and thrilling and amazing all at the same time. by last night, our last night in the hotel, eva was racing through the halls with her friend rose, back to our room and checking out the vending machines with samuel. samuel made his way repeatedly to the game room to spend time with other gamers- again, without me. it is *always* enjoyable to see my kids making their own way in the world with others, being who each of them is without my interpretation. watching them branch out in this way, for me, is a testament to trusting that they will do what they need to do when they are ready. each in her or his own time.

with this in mind, i have to say {too} that while i do specifically enjoy watching the process unfold, i also love a little product thrown in {every once in a while} to remind me {sometimes} of why i make the choices that i do. (obviously, i make them because i believe in them. it is nice, however, to see things working out- at least some of the time- in ways i trusted they would. at least in part. sometimes... no guarantees and all that. still, trusting and following your heart seems to lead to goodness of one kind or another more often than not.) seeing my kids branch out in this way, seeing them own their experience when they are ready for it, is a lovely confirmation of my personal belief that we will all get where we need to get when we are ready to get there. and all that.

i was able to watch bits and pieces of a few presentations here and there. 10 minutes in one, 15 in another. i watched a little less than half of the teen panel. some of the dad's. and over half of a talk at the very end by clint stonebraker. i loved what he had to say about choosing to plug into your network of support when you need it rather than believing fear-based thoughts that can lead to feeling isolated. yep. easier said than done, often, i agree, but so nice to be reminded of this bit of wisdom once again.

my mind is still whirling from the fun and intensity of the weekend. it's looking like the sun-filled patio and cat-on-my lap is winning out over any more life-is-good blogging for the time being. i'm off to clip guinea pig nails and smell roses. i'll leave the unpacking and camera-searching for later.

fairy houses

Yesterday we spent some time outside at the park with friends. While Samuel ran off with Ben to play with lightsabers in a secret fort, Eva and some of the other girls made fairy houses. I went over a few times to stop other kids from knocking down the houses and sent them all over to another area where some flower bushes were growing. By the end of the day, the houses had been such a hit that there was a large group of toddlers and preschoolers building other flower lined houses in the area I had sent them to. It was very sweet to see all of those little ones carrying flowers back and forth with little branches and rocks. Such sweet inspiration.

early morning

I am up very early this morning with just the hint of a migraine and trying to decide if I should have some caffeine to try and put an end to it once and for all or if I should go back to sleep. Obviously, they are mutually exclusive. This migraine started yesterday evening and I thought I had pushed it back to wherever migraines come from last night when I went to sleep but obviously it stuck around enough to get me up with the cats this morning.

I think for now I will sit up and have some macaroni and cheese. Between me and me, I have eaten nearly the whole box I made last night. There seems to be nothing quite like macaroni and cheese for a migraine {for me}. Oatmeal is good too. Other pasta. Something about the intense carbs is really important. Is that serotonin production? Migraines are such complicated beasts I suppose it could be any number of things. All I know is that I keep a box of mac n cheese in the cupboard specifically for migraines and that during those times it is transformed from a mere boxed convenience food to a near nectar of the gods.

I see a hint of sunlight through the window now. A subtle lightening of the sky. I imagine that by the time it is really light outside I will be going back to sleep for a while. My kids were up very late last night which seemed like a bad thing at the time but I am now seeing it could be a good thing, what with me up before the crack of dawn and all. I may get some extra time to sleep and perhaps say goodbye to my migraine. Mac n cheese and a little more sleep may be just the thing. No caffeine needed. Some days I really can't take the caffeine. Another one of those maybe good, maybe bad zen moments that seems to permeate my life, helping me to suspend judgment on what goes on and allowing me to be with what is. If I stop and think about it, I have to admit that things usually do work out at some point on some level. I don't always like the process on the way, though. Looking closer I see that might not be a bad thing. Maybe yes. Maybe no. I'm sure there's something in there about learning to suspend judgement on the process as well. Leave it to a migraine to shed light on a process. They seem to be a whole process in and of themselves.


Before heading off to sleep, I wanted to post some cute pictures from the other day when our friends Lisa, Orion and Akasha came over to visit. We loved hanging out and showing them Albert and Terrence, but of course!



Here is Eva showing Akasha Albert. My goodness but she loved that guinea pig. The last picture is Akasha eating some of my canned peaches. That night the kids and I could not stop talking about how cute it was that she brought her bowl into me and asked for "more peaches". Toddlers and guinea pigs- what more? Well, peaches, for one, obviously. But after that you are really stretching.

I am off to sleep for a bit before Samuel and Eva wake up. See you on the other side of the migraine.

Yesterday I was all set to show a friend of mine how to make soap. I carted all the oils and equipment over to my friend Nicole's house (who so generously offered her space) and got ready to set up, starting with the sodium hydroxide. When I opened it up, the entire one gallon bucket of lye was solid. There was some slushy lye goo on the top that I could scrape through and underneath it was completely hardened. At first I thought I could scrape some out but it was impenetrable. I realized too that in this state the sodium hydroxide might not be strong enough to use for soap making anyway. When I got home I looked around for some information about what could have happened but could find nothing. Finally this morning I read a little about the properties of sodium hydroxide and found out that it is extremely hygroscopic- it literally "attracts water molecules out of the surrounding environment". The wikipedia entry I read said that sodium hydroxide (NaOH) is so hygroscopic it dissolves in the water it absorbs. So, basically, my NaOH has been attracting water from the winter rain of the Pacific Northwest for several months in my garage and I knew nothing about it. Now I know. I will definitely make sure that the lid on my next bucket of lye is securely attached.

But I love this. While reading about hygroscopy and lye and such I found a picture of this little guy. The thorny devil. He is also hygroscopic. Go figure. He lives in the desert and has "hygroscopic grooves between the spines of his skin to capture water in". Imagine that. NaOH and thorny devils attracting water every which a ways. And what am I attracting into my life every which a ways, just because I am who I am?

At first I thought that the NaOH was a little silly for pulling in all that water- it's called having an affinity for water. It does, after all, turn itself into a solid mass of unusable ick. But who am I to judge? The lye was no longer usable for my purposes, true enough. It's not really here for me, though, I have to admit. I can choose to use it but NaOH is not mine. When it attracts water to itself it becomes less reactive, more at rest. Peaceful? What if we attracted everything that felt good to us in our lives- everything we had an affinity for? Enough so that we finally felt at peace. Non-reactive. We need to expect that it will come, though, set ourselves up for it. Just like that little thorny devil running around the desert with his hygroscopic grooves. Each tiny bit of water collects in those grooves and converges and grows until he has enough water to sustain himself in the desert heat. Maybe it's like that in our own lives as well. Each bit of goodness, no matter how small it seems now, joins with other bits here and there. If we notice the bits one by one as they show up, collect them like the thorny devil collects water, absorb them like the lye draws in the water, they will join together to form enough goodness to sustain us. In this life there is goodness to be had for everyone. We have to set ourselves up to notice it, though. Take stock of it when it enters our lives. Save a space to hold it in our hearts. And expect that it will come. Again. Expect that it will come.

and yes there are crocuses blooming

We spent the day hanging out with friends at our house. The kids spent a good bit of time in and out of the house playing and looking through toys and books and such. This was the first time we had gotten together with these friends in our home and there was much seeing and showing and telling about. Guinea pigs, star wars, Nerf guns, guinea pigs, swinging, dollhouses, cats, dogs, snacks, guinea pigs, Playmobil. Did I say guinea pigs? The sun was shining and the kids had the inspired idea to take a walk to a nearby park and we spent the next two hours (give or take) outside at the park while they worked on moving rocks around to create a stream and waterfall leading into the lake there. It was a magical time with flocking birds, great blue herons, ducks and coots, a rare snowy egret sighting (my first at this park), saving worms from certain death in the now flowing water. The grand finale was a crawdad who crawled out from under one last rock being pried from the ground. He made his way down the flowing stream, meandering unhurriedly as though the path were made for his journey out to the lake. We walked back chilled and contented with cold hands and muddy feet. Bare heads. Laughing in the setting sunshine.

early tastes of spring

We've been blessed with some lovely sunny days. Yesterday Samuel and Eva and I met our friends Esme and Nicole at the Rhododendron Gardens. We love going there any time of year- it is a fantastic place to feed ducks and geese. And squirrels. We brought extra peanuts for the squirrels this time and the kids had fun offering peanuts to some already very well-fed red tailed squirrels. They took turns and the squirrels went from one child to the next gently taking peanuts from their hands.



Here are two of the little guys, the first one taking a peanut and the second after he had scurried off to eat it.



Surprise surprise- there were even some flowers blooming! Here is Samuel offering up the whole bag of cracked corn to an obliging goose.

Photos Samuel took of my good friend Nicole and me at the Chinese Gardens in Portland.

on gingerbread houses

Feeling rusty. I was just going to post a picture on this two-days-before-Christmas-sort-of-day. The camera has gone missing again, though, and while I keep wracking my brain about where it could be and have looked everywhere- the usual places and little extras like under the bed and behind the guinea pig cage- it looks like a no go on the picture posting today, at least for now. The last I remember seeing it was when Samuel was switching out the batteries to put in the wii remote. No, it's not by the wii either. We made gingerbread houses with friends yesterday and I wanted to get a picture before the decorations begin disappearing from the roof and doorway. I have to say that this gingerbread house was by far the most successful and satisfying that we have tried. The company of friends helped immensely in keeping it fun and light and doable. It was definitely a fun project for celebrating both Solstice and Christmas.

Samuel mentioned on the way home that he doesn't think a gingerbread house with a group is a good project for him because he likes things to be perfect and you can't make things perfect with three people working on the same gingerbread house. He said he had a lot of fun today with friends and also looked forward to the day when he could work on his own gingerbread without any interruptions.

I had an urge to correct him somehow. A part of me wanted to respond in my typical way- it's not about the finished product, it's about the process, enjoying yourself, spending time with friends. It doesn't have to be perfect. It *is* perfect. Everything is perfect just the way it is. And then I thought-

-including my son. And how wonderful that he already knows he likes things to be perfect. That he can look forward to a time when he will have the focus and time to work on something in a way that makes him happy. That he can embrace this part of himself. And how amazing, I reminded myself, that he knew enough to realize he couldn't make the other people involved in the gingerbread house making (namely me and Eva) do things exactly as he wanted them. That part, making people adhere to your vision, is at least half of what gives perfectionism a bad rap in the first place. Not the vision.

Let's face it- there are mixed messages about perfectionism in our culture. On the one hand, it is often forced on us- we are taught to keep pushing at ourselves at all costs to be better, do better, on and on. There is a subtle and not so subtle message that if we aren't a certain way there is something wrong with us. On the other hand, people who *are* perfectionists are often ridiculed for not being able to relax, let things go, enjoy the process. What about those who have a vision for how they want things to be and are at peace with themselves, having integrated their perfectionism into their way of being?

It's something for me to ponder a while. Perfectionism has been something wrong to fix and mock in my own life for so long (and I don't even consider myself to be that much of a perfectionist- which is met with both laughter and derision depending on who I say that to). I wonder what it would be like to simply make peace with it and the many ways it presents itself in my life. How freeing to notice when it would feel good to honor perfectionism's eye for detail, adding just a bit more garlic to soup or reworking the top of a mitten, and when it would feel better to let it all go, setting Eva up to decorate cookies without a care for how the cookies turned out. There is a time and place for both, worth to be found both in fine details and broad strokes. I am glad Samuel reminded me of that and knew enough about himself to know that someday it would feel really good to sit down with a gingerbread house and make it just the way he wanted.

zen and fountains and swifts oh my

This is a great quote from a new book about Zen and surfing I am reading, Saltwater Buddha by Jaimal Yogis.

Here he is learning how to surf. This quote is so much about finding our way into flow-

"And that's when it all kind of clicked. There was a way, a method that worked. The walls were not impenetrable. I realized in that moment that all the initial poundings had scarred me, in a way. I had known intellectually that if I did this duckdiving thing right, it was possible to get through even very big waves. But I'd started believing I couldn't do it. And so I couldn't.

And now I had experienced it.

And I knew."

The kids and I went over to check out the swifts the other night after spending a few hours at Jameson Square Fountain with friends. I am imagining that will probably have been our last trip to the fountain this year (with the water on) and I am glad to have gotten Eva over there one last time. It is hard to believe that out of the whole summer we only made it there twice (three times if you count the time we were caught in a downpour there last spring. While that was a fun time, it was not necessarily a fountain time.) The swifts are possibly one of my favorite things to do around Portland and I am hoping to take my dad while he is visiting some time this week as well.



Eva and Orion making a beach. There were penguins and squirrels who will soon be using the slides and swimming in the water...



And there are the penguins, enjoying the beach fun.