Born on the Fourth of July

It was my father's birthday yesterday. The very cool city of Decatur honored him with a parade. Being the great leader and cat in a hat actor that he is, he ran home and got his unicycle so that he could be the master of ceremonies from en high:He and his fabulous wife Dina were great about acknowledging all of the citizens of their fair city who came out to say happy birthday:

There was an unprecedented turn-out:The grand finale was a magnificent fireworks display:
Though here, the kids are just looking up to their beloved Poppi, still riding the unicycle:Happy Birthday dad (and of course, the country).

Easter scrapbook

We had Mimine (Nicolas' mother, Helen) over for lunch. The eggs in the middle are from her chickens. She created the rich brown colored ones with onion peels. The blue ones emerged that way, from the chickens.
The first Iris fully bloomed:
My vintage thrift store apron (which for some reason I only remember to wear on Easter):Tulips in the kitchen window:An orchid in the art room:Checking out the competition's basket:
My cousin Lake and his friend came for dinner. We had herb marinated grilled local pork chops, kale salad and homemade gingerbread. The next few days will bring lots more rain, again. But today was all about the sun.

Christmas 2008

My brother and sister and their families traveled long distances to come be together here for the holidays. It has been so wonderful to be with them. My sister is five months pregnant and has the cutest "bump" ever.

For Christmas dinner we had duck prepared three different ways by the guys, roasted vegetables and escarole salad. Every bit of the food except the olive oil, butter and the herbes de provence (that we brought back from Europe) were from the farm.
The most exciting part has of course been seeing Zoe - now fifteen months old and an incredibly sweet and happy little girl.

Being pulled in the cooler wagon by her cousins paiges and being fed peas by her Aunt lady in waiting.


The lady in waiting, and princess Zoe's mum found time to also make two beautiful pies. I am so loving the visiting pie makers of this winter. Who's next?

Easter at Damien and Stacy's

We were hoping for snow (those of us from GA anyway) but it turned out to be a beautiful day. We ate abundantly, and well. Everything from a European cheese platter to Coq au Vin to the oh so good Hamentashen cookies one eats on Purim, a Jewish holy day that is described really well in a post by Tamar. I am going to have to make these. Here is a recipe. I ate many cookies and got to read the Sunday NY Times! Reading it used to be a Sunday ritual, so long ago.

It was an exciting egg hunt, even for the oldest, twelve-year-old Clementine. I love that girl,
and have fallen in love with this boy:

Happy New Year

We watched two sets of these, from their balcony. There was a family display at 9pm that the kids got to see (before passing out an hour later) and then a half hour long huge display, with explosions happening at ten different points around the harbor, at midnight. It's accompanied by more kid friendly music at the early one and they played a High School Musical 2 song about summer that sent Jesse into his own explosive display of joy. He kept saying, "I'm dreaming, this doesn't seem real..."

It was fantastic. They prepare this display for 14 months. For really cool pictures, go here.

Happy New Year to you, wherever and whenever midnight falls, or fell.

Christmas in the sky; we're down under!

We are here! I am looking out over the bay, in my brother and his wife's beautiful apartment in Sydney. The first morning, we woke up to the sounds of monkeys screaming at each other in the trees. It was before 6am. We all got up and met outside on their deck with binoculars to look for the "monkey" birds - it was Kookaburras, laughing at our American ignorance. So many different and amazing birds and trees. I'll take lots of pictures. We need to buy a reference book to give everything a name.

The journey here was two days, and three plane rides long. We flew to L.A., then to New Zealand and then to Sydney. The only difficult ride was the one to L.A. Gillen was dehydrated and they were limited on the amount of water they had on that particular flight (!) and he'd stayed up really late the night before and had woken up really early... He was in his biggest and most dramatic mope state, to date. Nicolas and I wondered how he/we would survive this for 20 something more hours. But then, in LA, I gave them (all three of them) the ipods I'd spent the past two days loading, two small shuffles for the kids and an ipod classic for Nicolas, and all were tamed by the sounds of their favorite tunes - High School Musical, Amy Steinberg, Harry and the Potters, some hip hop, some Christmas for the boys and U2,Reggae, David Sedaris, This American Life, lots of music I'd just discovered on the "e music" site (25-50 free downloads to start)- for the farmer. Then we entered the New Zealand airlines plane! It was a behemoth - two stories tall, wide comfortable seats with individual screens and hundreds of movies and TV shows, games and music to choose from. The Flight attendants wore elfish Christmas ribbons in their hair and were so friendly that one could start to believe that they were excited about spending their Christmas serving us in the sky. Gillen's headache immediately disappeared. He was in love with all of the sweet ladies who kept bringing us good food and drink (yes, good!) and that flight was over before we were even uncomfortable. Just shows how much kindness and some care to details begets kindness. The Delta crew back in the US were giving us what they got. And, I have to say, that people in this part of the world are extraordinarily friendly.
Getting some perspective on the journey and picking places we'd want to go next, at a huge wall map in the New Zealand airport.
Pointing out the last leg left of our journey, from Aukland to Sydney.

It is newly summer here and not yet too hot. Just right! It stays light until really late and then, the setting sun shines through their stained glass windows to cast even more pink glow upon my already rosy niece. I am so happy to be warm, to be with Kenneth and Naomi and to have Nicolas off of work for a month!!Nicolas, the mango of my eye.

But I am particularly gleeful about all of the opportunities to hold sweet, new, joyful little Zoe J.

Feeding the birds, and ourselves..

Despite my having killed a pot of black of beans that were needed to make the all important non-sugar part of the edibles (yes, it really is possible to fail in the cooking of beans), the cookie swap party yesterday was wonderful. My friends brought the needles, thread, popcorn popper, cranberries, wine and most of the cookies. Angie was asking how I do all this - I have great friends. I did contribute a very popular Mexican Wedding Cake cookie, which flew off the plate. And we sacrificed several advent calender chocolates to one of the three-year-olds (Gillen's good friend Jared, so he has managed to forgive him). When you have something in abundance, it is easy to be generous. ; ) Below - cookie generosity for the man who brought us more logs for the fire.
We wrapped the Cedar tree in our yard (once a living Christmas tree in our living room) with strands of popcorn and cranberries. The first birds discovered it this morning.

Gillen did choose to show the kids his new BB Gun (just purchased with his own money the night before and hidden away by me for the party) which was not a highlight of my day. I'm still working on embracing this new hunting and gun passion.

But then, that night, helping him to embroider a gift for his Australian family while he and I watched "Rudolph" (thanks Helen), I recovered.

December crafting

Looking at me at the dining room table last night, as he washed the dishes from the meal that Gillen made, Nicolas pointed out a trend of mine. Every year, no matter what is going on in our lives, I come up with some brilliant homemade gift idea for Christmas, usually about two weeks before it needs to be given. I put on my favorite music, take over the dining room table, and go into the crafting zone.

This year, I had only a few days in which to go there, in between visitors. Gillen joined me for a while and made some more ATCs and Jesse came for a bit. But for the most part, they were left to fend for themselves. I did manage to wash and hang some laundry and take a few things out of the fridge. But that's it.

Last year, immersed in my passionate creation of memory games for my nephews, I even gave away my rare ticket to Cirque de Soleil in order to craft at home alone. I don't even know if they ever played with them. I hope so, but even if they didn't it was worth it. It's not as if I'm really good at this but the process feeds that obsessive, creating (more pronounced in December) need.

I only made one present this year. I wish that I could post it here, but the recipient, if she isn't too busy crafting herself, may be reading.

I think I may have finally realized that I need to start crafting/creating in a space set up for it all year. Nicolas agrees. I wonder if he'll be willing to help me build it? ;)

Gillen wanted me to post a picture of the ATC that Mindy made when she was here. He traded for it and is so excited about it, with good reason.

Here are my Christmas wrapping bags, that will hold the handmade gifts that I bought and made (as well as a few small "Apple"s :) They are handmade fabric sacks that are tied at the top with beautiful yarn, and then will be reused again and again. My crafty friend Helen made them for me for my birthday and I love them. She even used thrifted fabric to make them. She calls them "Evergreen Bags". They will be available on etsy next year. Check out her other creations - especially the stockings made with wool she got at the thrift store and then felted.

Here is some of the luscious paper that was brought to me by Danielle and her family. Huge sheets of it! I had to take a picture of it before I could start cutting. I'm looking to the evergreen bags to balance out my enormous paper usage of the past few days.
In the few minutes I was able to grab to check in on my favorite bloggers, I saw lots of amazing creativity. Check out Molly's stockings and aprons.

I cleaned the table last night at midnight. My friend Flea (Felicia:) is coming with her family today, and for the night. Tomorrow we go to Mindy's for the weekend and then I host a cookie swap here. I'm thinking crafting is over for the year.

Things I am loving right now

This hand-made little elf that I bought at Melrose on Ponce in Decatur last Thursday night. We brought Jean-Pierre and Marie-Helene to an extended hours village shopping night. The owners of the store sang carols with instruments and an amp., easily convincing me to come drink their hot cider and buy from local artisans. We also bought a beautiful bird calender and some other small gifts there. We put our names in a hat for a door prize. Jesse picked the winning name and it was me! This leads me to another favorite thing - this tiny pair of bird salt and pepper shakers that I won:
I'm loving that we have delicious tomatoes, still. We have had them this late before, but never this good, this late.
This is "The Book Book", by an artist, written for children, with lots of inspiration for creating books. I found out about it at this SouleMama blog post. You can get it by clicking on her link to the side there - thus, in a small way, supporting her family - who are fabulous (as if you don't already know this). I was inspired (the kids are not quite as inspired , but are looking) to create a few Christmas gifts using ideas from this book and from Cathy's blog. Can't say more - you could be a recipient!
And I am loving the locked diary that I ordered online, to help Santa make one of Jesse's wishes come true. What a surprising request!

Jean-Pierre and Marie-Helene

It was a really nice visit. Some highlights were picking tons (literally) of pecans at a friend's pecan grove, going to the Georgia Aquarium, eating some good food in Atlanta and experiencing the Europeans watching "It's a Wonderful Life" for the first time - it was my first time hearing it in French. "Mary" was called "Madeline"! Even more reason for me to love that movie. Notice my easily-ordered curtains are still not here - easy to order but not so easy to get the right order. I'm sending them back again. We are loving the Gillen tree.

Jean-Pierre got up with Nicolas at 4:30am this morning to go work at the market with him. Here he is giving his sign for victory, as he survived the massive rush, and helped his son to almost sell out.

I'm off to sleep for a few days but then - bring on the unschoolers' visits!

Getting (rather than smashing) their Christmas spirit

Yesterday, I had a challenging morning. The lights had to be hung from the front porch (our porch light is irreparably damaged and I am using Christmas lights as a way to make sure guests don't kill themselves as they make their way to our door) and other assorted things needed doing before the arrival of our honored guests, Jean Pierre and Marie-Helene. Things didn't exactly go according to plan. There are not enough strings of lights working (though they did when plugged in inside) to make it around the porch; I was having technical difficulties with our curtain rod; and when I moved the guest bed while putting on the sheets, I disturbed the FLOR, which then caused a chain reaction of FLOR buckling throughout the room! FLOR is great, just maybe not over carpeting.

In the midst of this, the kids decided to get some Christmas spirit. Gillen went out and cut down a Charlie Brown Christmas Tree (we weren't going to have a tree this year as we won't be here), and Jesse asked for some paper to write what may be the last letter that is ever written to Santa in our immediate family.

Looking back, this should have inspired me to get out the Johnny Mathis Christmas CD, make some hot cocoa and hug them both, while laughing, "ho ho ho." Instead, I responded like Scrooge to Gillen's constant need for help finding working lights and favorite ornaments. And I definitely didn't breathe first before commenting on Jesse's announcement that he was asking Santa for a Wii. I had FLOR to fix, and a shower to take, and a casserole to make and a toilet to give one last clean before their arrival, any minute... In the end, I killed my demon and stifled my need for the house and food to be ready (though I did clean the toilet:). Gillen succeeded in decorating his tree and I helped Jesse write his letter, making sure that he threw in some smaller requests to go with the big Wii one, in case Santa doesn't come through. In response to this last bit, I was forced into yet more of the spirit. It seems Gillen wants to give Jesse the Wii. He said he knows how much it will mean to him and he refuses to let me (or Santa) split the price with him. Well then.

Later that night, the tiny tree did collapse, but not before I saved the ornaments from breaking. We are going to get another tree - I am hoping we can talk Gillen into a potted live plant. We forgot to put those all important porch Christmas lights on the timer and they shone brightly, all night - me awake worrying that they were shining into the guest room and keeping the guests awake, but not willing to go under the house in the middle of the night to get a ladder in order to be able to turn them off! As it turned out, everyone(but me)slept beautifully. Nobody tripped on the FLOR or cared about the strange lighting or resented waiting a bit for the dinner to be ready. Scrooge has officially been put down for the rest of the season, though I am looking forward to a good night's sleep tonight. ;)