Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Stitch and Witch

Last month, we spent the weekend with six other GA unschooling families at Fort Mountain State Park in north Georgia. We hiked, paddle-boated, swam at twilight in our clothes (the youngest and most intrepid of us), played putt-putt golf, ate lots of food and played games such as flashlight tag and "Pretty Pretty Princess" (both popular among the younger boys : ) But we never got around to the knitting or crocheting or stitching. This was a great excuse for me to throw a Halloween stitch and witch party with the same group of people (minus one family with a sick mom who was very missed.)

Halloween is my favorite holiday. Somehow, some southern Christians have manipulated things such that we have to trick-or-treat on Saturday whenever Halloween falls on a Sunday around here (apparently we shouldn't worship Satan on a Sunday - I never suspected that Satan had anything to do with Halloween, still don't.) This makes me mad and ranting could now hijack my blog post...I'll chew on some pumpkin seeds. Back to our Stitch and Witch party.

Preparing:
We lined the hall with larger than life fake webs, but the resident spiders helped us out as well.
Gillen always gets this expression when he is focused. I wish I'd caught the dimple and the tongue.Lately, he's been focused on hunting - hours and hours of completely silent waiting (no deer hit by him yet) from 5am-11, and then again for hours at night. He's also focused on guitar and on playing with a group of neighborhood boys, and girl, who ride bikes and play football with him once they're out of school. I miss him.

But for the last few days, we had the younger, more homebody side of Gillen at thirteen. He wanted to plan the preparations and help with the cooking. It was mostly younger kids coming to the party so he ended up leaving towards the end of the party to play football with his friends, but he was committed to helping make it happen.

There was a moment, during our crazed last minute preparations, when he wanted to drop everything to go shoot a squirrel in the backyard. The idea of having to brine a squirrel carcass right then, with so much else to do, had me screaming liking a banshee (aren't banshees more related to Hallween than satan?)

I am working on being a moment-to-moment, mostly-conscious mama. I'm definitely not there yet, especially when I've taken on way too many projects, supposedly for my kids.
The ugly moment passed quickly. The forgiveness I received was as sweet as chocolate (I'd say sweeter than but we all just did a week-long cleanse and right now chocolate is seriously sweet).

Stitching with Annie Hall and Zombie Woman/Scar Face:Dead Man Walking by:
All of the kids on the trampoline, watching each other do skits:Nicolas knows the right days to come home for lunch:

5 comments:

Anne Dye said...

HaHa! Loved your rant! I do not understand changing the day, whole groups of people celebrate any given holiday. Inconceivable!
Also, I am very jealous that you have unschoolers nearby you to hang out with! SOOOOO lucky!

Madeline Rains said...

Anne Dye, just checked out your blog. You are in Italy! We were watching Anthony Bourdain in Sicily last night and thinking how much we'd love it there.

Unknown said...

Madeline, we all had such a great time. The day after the party, Lucy had a friend over (turned into a daytime pajama party) and we listened to your mixed "tape" - loved it! Sorry you have to trick or treat tonight - you are still welcome to join us tomorrow night as we hit our neighborhood!

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