What they chose to do today

Jesse started a screenplay that is already five pages, printed out and cast, ready for its first day of shooting tomorrow with Eli, Alexander and Gillen. There will be more actors added on Friday. Right now, props and masks are being created.
In his spare time he cracked many pecans from the farm for the pie. We're all still cracking now, while watching SYTYCD and we are only half way there.
Earlier, we realized that we needed more nuts, the squash and the herbs for the next stage of the slow cooking marathon. Gillen brought his newest duct tape creation (intended originally to carry nerf bullets in the next ARGH nerf war) to the farm in order to easily collect the pecans.
It makes quite a cool man bag.
And, he came home wanting to make dinner! Man. My gratitude is overflowing. Salad filled with chopped root vegetables, mashed potatoes, and Romanesco cauliflower (newest thing Nicolas is growing - looks like light green broccoli and is delicious).
I am so grateful to have ended up with these two amazing boys in my life. Now I have to stop writing about them so that I can help them with the cracking.

WanderCRAFT book

About three weeks ago, right before going to the beach for a week on that spontaneous trip to Isle of Palm, S.C. to be with fellow unschoolers, I was quickly checking out some of my favorite blogs, seeking joy in places other than my long packing and cooking to-do list. On that day, I visited Sara, at Wandercraft, a crafty, dog-loving, great photographer in Boston. She revealed a giveaway for a small travel scrapbook that she had made. The winner would need to scrap a few pages of this book and blog about it and was given a more than generous amount of time in which to do so. Well, you know where this is going. I won! I came home from the beach to find this beautiful book and several scrapping accessories waiting for me on my table. I was so excited. I put it in my art room (a room that has seen far more food and Bananagrams than art lately) and envisioned all of the possible trips that I could scrap about. And, as recovering from the beach, new lives and early deaths took over, I conveniently blocked out the request to have a few pages scrapped for Sara's etsy store by this week. eek!

As it turns out, rediscovering this deadline last weekend was just the push my procrastinating, deadline-loving creative side needed. Despite laundry, cooking, knitting for fast growing new babies and planning and cooking for the next trip (in the mountains - leaving on Sunday), I rediscovered my art supplies and any printed out pictures I had on hand from past trips.

Here are the scanned images of the front of the book and of the first two pages (Sara created teh map cover and back and I did all the inside work - I love her sewn together book):
On the front of the book, I highlighted a few of the longer routes that we have taken (to Australia and Japan) on the beautiful map-cardstock cover that Sara had created.

The book will be a collection of moments from various trips over the years. It will live on our coffee table as a place to go to remember, and to find inspiration for the next journey.

Thank you Sara for these precious moments back in the art room. I never would have gone there without you.

Farm Gifts

From Gillen - wild peach and plum blossoms with the unique addition of straw. I love this boy's bouquets.
The following picture is from tonight. The farmers brought home the season's first asparagus. In Nicolas' hand is the farm's first ever cilantro! I wish that I could post the invigorating smell. Nicolas is trying to recreate the look he had in this picture, from last year, when he brought me asparagus for the very first time. My gratitude was immense.
If you get some asparagus this spring (and I so hope that you do) please try roasting it, with olive oil and coarse salt. Oh! Green ecstacy. For me, this is the taste of spring.

SNOW Day!

I wished for Spring and got something so much better - a March 1st Georgia snowstorm! Jesse had never seen snow that he could remember and Gillen had never seen anything like this.

It started in the middle of the day with wet flakes, many of them as big as a half dollar. They didn't seem to be sticking but who expected anything like accumulation. We were just grateful they'd decided to show up.
I got a picture of the snow in my hair, thinking that was big.
Jesse made a large snow ball by collecting snow from around the trampoline for several runs.We discovered that you can look up into the falling snow more easily when the overhanging porch protects your eyelashes. Jesse called real snow "way better then he ever could have dreamed".
We had lots of walks with Tuki who discovered that she loves snow, and lots of snow ball fights with the neighborhood kids.
And we hadn't seen nothin' yet! There was loads of accumulation and now, hours later, it's still coming down. It is tapering off, which is good for our hoop houses at the farm, but just for one magical day (and maybe tomorrow?) it was a freshly covered, memory-provoking, abundant New England wonderland, in Georgia.
At one point, I was inside thawing my feet (we have the wrong shoes down here - I'd used sneakers until they were soaked and then cowboy boots). The kids and Nicolas were just outside playing. I heard a loud explosion, and then silence. They ran back and reported having seen a snow laden branch that was resting on a wire suddenly burst into flame. The fire immediately went out and so did our power.We had our little wood stove cranking, lots of candles, and a gas stove to make some simple food. The kids played a board game by candlelight and then decided to play their instruments for us in the inviting golden light. It was so Little House on the Prairie, with a bit less fiddle experience ; ). I was thinking about how happy I was to go to bed early (I had a bad migraine last night) when suddenly the power came back, and with it our ability to stay up and get our entertainment elsewhere. I guess eventually it would have gotten old. While I typed this, I'd left the light in this room off and the candles burning. But the typos were getting scary.

Gratitude Journal

I'm a very lucky woman with so much to be grateful for but every once in a while I lose sight of this and get caught up in the small stuff. My chronic fatigue annoyances - the occasional dizzy days - are my main complaint. Sometimes I am able to remember reality. I think about those I know who are facing real challenges - like my beautiful inspiring friend Zoe, my long-time mothering mentor, who isn't much older than I am. A few days ago she just started chemo. to fight a recurrence of cancer. Now that's a challenge.

I did my first art project in the new art room today. Here are the wonderful deep new shelves:Here is what I made:It's a gratitude journal. Each page has room for seven entries and there are around fifty-two pages so that I can enter one thing a day. Or not. Some of the pages are folded (like the one on the left) and the entries can be made inside. I also included a few pouches that contain seven tags inside.

Through the window I got to watch the guys jumping, running and, right out the window, climbing. I love the view of "Blackie" the bear in the branches above.Jesse is in a t-shirt because it got into the 70's today! Yes, I have a lot to be grateful for. Did you know that Zoe means life? I'm sure grateful for Zoe.