There's Nothing Like Some Recognition..

to chase the blues away:
It is from Mama K, who I see has a lovely blog with great music.

The best part - I get to pass it on to seven more bloggers. I am going to give it to a few of the brilliant blogging unschooling moms who have most inspired me over the past several years.

Rue - who may have just gotten this award? So what. She can get it again. Too brilliant.

Kelli

Schuyler

Sandra

Vicki

Gail

I have to get in a few of the women who are so creative and patient with their younger kids, and who both happen to live in very cool areas of the world:

Jodi in Australia

Rachel in Chicago

I'd like to thank the red head in Wisconsin

Angie, a funny, red-headed, organic farming, unschooling mama put me down as a recipient of this cool award. She is one of my favorite bloggers and I feel honored.

I followed her link to the Mexican site that talks about the award's origin and found this one bit of explanation in English:

"What is the meaning of the expression: Arte y Pico...it translates into a wonderful phrase in Mexico, “lo maximo.” ...It will never find its counterpart in English, but if it HAD to, it would be something like, Wow. The Best Art. Over the top."

I have no idea how I could ever have been included in her list - I give credit to Nicolas' vegetables - but I'll let it inspire me to greater artistry and creativity.

Now the hard part, where I pass it on to only five other blogs. Of the twenty or so blogs that I read regularly I would have to point to the following five as being "lo maximo" - over the top artistically. They are, for the most part, blogs that have so many readers that I don't even know if they will notice that I gave them this award, but I wanted to share them with any of you who may not have read them:

Bits and Pieces - Cathy Zielske's blog. She is a graphic artist who inspires me with her artistic ideas and, more importantly, she is one of the funniest women alive.

Julie Person's blog. Another red headed unschooling mama who likes to garden. She is also an amazing photographer, painter, felt artist and blogger. I once was looking through the archives of her blog for a certain musician I knew I'd discovered on her playlist and I ended up laughing and crying my way through most of her posts. Her blog is amazing.

Mary Gold's zenmomma blog. I love what she can do with food, with taters (most recently), with combinations of words and pictures. I followed the band Train (well, at all my local venues) for a year, so I relate to her obsession with the band James.

Elsie Flanagan - very young, sassy, and extremely talented. I sometimes feel old while visiting but often feel inspired.

Little Purple Cow Photography, my friend Stephanie's new photography blog. She is an artist, with photographs and with words. So is my sister - Bhu Sullivan - who is linked in my side bar list.

In my little town...

When I first dated Nicolas, fifteen years ago, I had mostly lived in big northern cities. Except for college, and some time in the near-to-Boston suburb of Newton, I'd lived in Boston and NY. When I moved to Atlanta I didn't have a car, or air-conditioning, in a city where both are pretty necessary for survival. Atlanta was supposed to be a pit stop on my way to Seattle and graduate school......

This, I fear, is about to turn into a major digression - about meeting and falling in love with my Belgian farmer. I'll save that for another night.

I'll just skip to the point (that I would have spent paragraphs of your time, those who were still here, getting to. ) The point is that I was a big-city girl with ignorant ideas about small town life. Even when I had already moved here, I still hung on to my big-city ways. I would farm during the day and then commute in to Atlanta to direct plays at night. I got my hair cut in Atlanta. I frequented the Atlanta thrift stores and bars and movie theaters. After having kids, I brought them into the city to hang out with my city friends' kids and felt the need to do city things. Just this past spring, I still drove Jesse an hour away to take a homeschool class he wanted to do, once a week. But over time, it has gotten less appealing to drive so far, not to mention the point that gas has started to become a luxury item.

I am becoming even more aware of and grateful for the people and resources out here. Actually, there are a lot. I can go weeks now without going into Atlanta. I think it may have been a month since my last visit. That's got to be a record.

This weekend was a great example of how much we can do out here within a ten-mile radius. On Saturday morning, we met local friends at the 6,400 acre Charlie Elliott Wildlife Center for a butterfly talk and walk. Charlie Elliot, only ten minutes down the road, sponsors several free workshops about nature and animals (plus camps, bird competitions, volunteer opportunities). The southern gentleman talking yesterday was filled with information about the butterflies that we could hope to find in our area. When the talk ended and we left the conference room to find the cool butterflies that we'd seen in his slides, I was very excited to finally be able to give one a name. Gillen, maintaining his cool on the very hot day, was eager to check them off on our butterfly list.

But the butterflies must have heard that we were coming (or they were all hanging out in Claudia or Gillen's gardens). We only found one.

We did see a bunch of dragonflies:I am looking forward to going to the dragonfly talk at Charlie Elliott in August.

The boys were just happy to find good temporary walking sticks:Later that day, we went to another nearby small town - Rutledge, where our kids (except for Jesse, who had been sick) had taken part in an art camp all week. The camp culminated in a celebration on Sat. afternoon and evening that included a blow up water slide, hot dogs and corn for the camp members, a short version of High School Musical (that they had put together in four days!) and all of their art work displayed in Rutledge's center of town square.

This should hold them off for a while on any need for a far-away water park:The following are three pictures from their High School Musical production, which was so sweet.
Some communal food art that the camp created- our more overgrown okra made an appearance here:
They created several of these sculptures, all with recycled materials. This one is from Gillen's group. The reason that we have cool opportunities like this, locally, is because of amazing people like these below. Ed and Molly are the couple that sponsored this camp. They live in Rutledge now, where they have an art studio and a sandwich/ice cream shop (housed in a train caboose that they moved there - this shouldn't just be parenthetical - it is so cool). They used to live right here, where I now sit, under this tin roof. While living here, Ed created this house's side porch, back deck, and the entire second floor and staircase, with his own hands, and his increasingly aching back. Their businesses pulled them to Rutledge. I drove by this house, eleven years ago, and was enchanted by the landscaping, and by the flowers that were painted on the windows. I never dreamed that we could live here. It turned out that not a lot of other people appreciated this old house, or even gave it a chance once they found out it didn't have air-conditioning. Ed and Molly let us rent it until we could buy it. They too are from Mass. Plus, I think they saw how much we appreciated their hundred year old, well loved home. And they are just good people.
Below is Eva, who put up the camp. She also works on our farm and teaches yoga in all of the surrounding towns. Yet another example of a talented, community-minded, generous local. I am appreciating our life out here, this moment. It would be nice to have a movie theater more nearby, or a bigger group of very local, like-minded home schoolers. But I will bide my time. I remember the years when I wondered if we'd have air conditioning. We got the air several years ago so I will wait optimistically on the rest.

Hannah Jenner's point, on Sydney Bay

I was struck by Hannah Jenner (nine at the time) the first time I ever saw her, at Jenny's zoo "funshop" slide show, at the St. Louis unschooling conference three years ago. I was sitting in the front of the room, watching Jenny's slides, when I caught Hannah out of the corner of my eye. She was surrounded by other young girls her age who were all looking at her instead of at the slides. Hannah was staring at the slides, her beautiful face and blond hair glowing in the soft light. I remember thinking how confident she seemed and that I thought I knew what the other girls were seeing.

My kids went with Hannah, Hayden, their grandmother and Nicolas to the zoo and Diana and I met up with them later at St. Louis' City Museum. There, I remember watching Hannah crawl away from everyone up these tunnel mazes, completely unafraid of getting separated from the others. I remember thinking how brave she seemed. I was definitely right about that perception.

I have had a small allotment of Hannah's ashes for a while now, sitting on a special shelf, in the tiny, heart decorated plastic bag in which her mother placed them. I had thought that I would scatter her at the farm, to be with our vegetables. But I just couldn't do it.

Finally, four days ago, on our last day in Sydney, I released her into Sydney Bay. Naomi had pointed the spot out to me. I took this picture of it, earlier in the week, while on the ferry. It is called Cremonte Point. It is at the end of a long, hilly, twisting, bay side walk near my brother's home and it has a view of the Sydney Opera House and of the Harbour Bridge. Ferries and sea kayakers pass by regularly.

Several interesting things happened on Nicolas' and my walk to and from the point that morning. A woman was at the point, maybe in her sixties. After some brief hellos, she asked us how we'd come to be in Sydney. Nicolas told her about visiting my brother and his wife. She replied, "It's important to have our loved ones in beautiful places." That gave me confidence that we'd picked the right spot for Hannah. She told us that she was just starting to embark on a new adventure as a photo journalist student, her on-line classes begin next week. She said that she would take what she wanted from the course and not stress about doing everything that was asked. She was doing this for herself. An unschooler at heart.

We climbed down the rocks. I gave Hannah a prayer of thanks and let her go into the bay.

On the walk home, we had the amazing fortune to meet a legendary woman who has been gardening the long rocky slope near her home for decades. Here is more information about her (click on the picture to enlarge it):We had been visiting this beautiful garden on previous walks, Gillen naming different sections of it - "Fairy Garden", "Water Garden", "Rock Garden"... Her name is Ruby. She happened to be out on the path, mulching the top part of the garden as we passed by. We stopped and had a wonderful conversation with her. She is now 93 years old. She pointed to a beautiful large black butterfly that kept fluttering around her and said that she'd decided to call it "Mum" because it had showed up that morning and had continually settled on a plant that she and her husband had put in the garden years ago to honor his mother. Ruby has a wonderful smile. I could tell that she missed her husband terribly, and that she gets to be with him still in their garden.


There was a commemorative plaque at the point, put there to remember a 16 year old girl who'd died there twenty years ago.




We thought about courage and loss, about living brightly and briefly, and about surviving those we've lost. Thank you Diana, for sharing your daughter and your experiences with us.

Tangalooma Island

My favorite bird - the Galah, so much more welcoming in this picture than when I was near its nest:

For me, the most exciting thing about our week on Tangalooma Island was watching the birds. There are such different birds here than in the U.S. and I got to go on a bird walk with a ranger and learned a lot. Here are just a few of the many birds that I stalked and photographed this week.

Here is the Kukaburra. Unlike the human Aussies, he is completely unafraid of being a tall Poppy and loudly laughs every morning and every evening in order to proclaim his territory. These birds stay in family groups(a fairly unusual thing for birds)and their territory is up to 4 acres large.

A Pied Cormorant drying his wings. There were loads of these and of pelicans in front of our apartment.

Here is the Friar Bird. They are quite ugly, and it's really cool to watch them eat. This one is about to catch a Lilac Flax Lily berry. We tried these as well. They taste like potatoes and are one source of food (bush tucker) for Aboriginals.

Jesse loved the resort schedule of events. He took advantage of lots of activities: basketball, movies,limbo, talent show, a night time search for nocturnal animals...


Kenneth is a wonderful baby wrangler, the most entertaining episode of late being on the plane ride back to Sydney yesterday when he had two rattles, a nursing necklace and the white throw up bag (that is included in every seat pocket) all making noises or being blown up to distract a very unhappy babe from wanting to nurse before take-off.

We had front row balcony seats every night to the following event, even though we weren't allowed to take part ourselves (as we weren't staying at the "resort"):
Looks like newly converted Christians being led to baptism by sea water, doesn't it? Actually, they were people staying at the resort who waited in a long line in order to feed the dolphins. Yes, dolphins! About three of them showed up every night. On the night that they didn't show (being untrained and wild), it was really fun to watch the marine staff lead the guests through hours of dolphin education and dolphin sand sculpture games. The coolest thing that I learned about dolphins was from Naomi. Dolphins never sleep. If they did, they'd be easy tucker for sharks. So instead they shut down one side of the their brain at a time, closing only one eye and floating on the surface of the water. I ended up swimming only twenty feet from one on the last morning. So cool. The following is from an evening visit.
The kids' limbo contest. I wish that I had a good picture of Jesse in the talent show. He read that they were having one, practiced his break dancing moves in the sand and confidently signed up. Unfortunately, he danced completely on the floor and it was hard for most to see him, but he was very pleased with himself which was awesome.

Gillen spent the entire week with Adam and Alfie, whom he met on the first day there. They fished, boogie boarded down dunes, and were almost swept out to sea on a surf board while trying to surf in the surfless bay one day. They must have hit a rip tide from a boat pulling out. Here I was just worried about the day he had a bit of sunburn on his face. I'm so grateful that he made it back (it took them a while) and that none of the many Moreton Bay sharks sensed their screaming. And he'll be really careful now when he actually surfs with waves again.

What a luxury to be able to stand on our balcony and see the sea this past week and then come home to Kenneth and Naomi's and look off their balcony into the bay. Looking at water is a very good thing. I'll have to sit by Gillen's pond when I go home and to visit Georgia's many rivers and lakes more often. I hear that there has even been snow in GA while we were gone! Kind of wish we hadn't missed that. Maybe there is less of a drought there now?

Visit to Mindy's Mountain

We had my good friend Flea, her husband Greg and their four fabulous kids (one of them my godson :) here on Friday night. It was much too short of a visit, so I'm already plotting ways to get them back here next summer. As Flea and family drove away, we packed the car and left as well, for a weekend at Mindy's.

We chose not to think about how busy we would be this week - well, we would think about it...but then think better of thinking. I am so glad that we went. It was like going to a spa retreat, but surrounded by happy, frolicking kids. What a wonderful home in the mountains. What hospitality! Mindy made homemade coffee cake and pizza dough with spelt (knowing that I am sensitive to wheat). I hadn't had coffee cake in years. And we ate more of her cookies - I made her Mexican Wedding Cake cookies here today for our cookie swap tomorrow. So good.




I came home with lots of recipes, books about Australia to read on our way down under next week, new music on my computer to add to possible MP3 player gifts : ) and a hoarse voice - from all of the good conversation.

Once again, filled with gratitude for friends (and again, filled with cheese). In the dark days of February, when I am still jet-lagged and freezing, I promise to lighten up on the joy : )

Week in Review Tag

I was tagged by Schuyler to do this one. I'm hoping that it may help me to be more brief in recounting a very full, wonderful past week -

The game is to talk about your past week through these 4 questions:

1. What did you accomplish?
2. Did anything not go as expected?
3. What was the highlight of your week?
4. Did anything exciting happen you did not expect?


1. What did I accomplish? hmmm. The biggest one that comes to mind is that I was able to keep up with Danielle when we drove in caravan to the Lovejoy's home in S.C. It was an exciting and much quicker trip than it would have been had I been leading; and I am not a slow driver.

2. I didn't expect to love the Amy Steinberg concert as much as I did. She is one of those musicians who bring their music to another level in performance - she was part Janis Joplin, part Bette Midler, with some Joni Mitchell-style, beautiful lyrics thrown in the mix. I was too busy dancing to take very good pictures, but here is one:


I also didn't expect to be receive so many amazing birthday gifts from my friends and from my sister. I am feeling giddy with possibility as I look at my new paper and crafting supplies, and excited about passing on the generosity.

3. There were too many great moments this week to pick one highlight, so here are a few:

- Danielle sharing her turkey knowledge with Gillen:
Her kids' turkey love:
-sitting in the Crystal Field at the farm, relaxing with Danielle while the kids dug up crystals and played. It was a moment of perfect weather and an ethereal lighting that reminded me of my favorite scene in "Bonnie and Clyde" (when Bonnie visits her family and there is almost no dialogue, but the lighting creates the softness of the mood). The company was pretty great too. ; )


-Getting to craft with so many eager young artists (that includes you Mindy:) at my dining room table, and getting to learn new atc techniques. I finally stopped putting the craft supplies away this afternoon (I had kept putting them up so that we had a table on which to eat when Danielle was here) but made visiting Mindy and her family eat dinner outside tonight so as to keep the supplies out.

-Kid joy in a tree




4. The most unexpected exciting thing that happened was getting Rue's package in the mail today. In addition to being a totally cool unschooling mom and writer, she is my favorite jeweler. I ordered her nursing beads for... well, for someone that is hopefully still too busy down under with her new babe to be reading here. Anyway, the beads were even better than in the picture and she surprised me with a gift of turquoise. : )

As the shirt my long-time friend Flea sent me says, "Life is Good". Flea is my next visitor, with yet more wonderful kids, this Friday. Ah the joy of a full house. All these unschooling family visits have shown me how great it can be to have lots of kids under one roof; there have been very few moments of chaos and many more of glee.

So I have to play some more tag here.
1. Molly, who is so hip and crafty and young to love Doris Day, but does (as do I). I love her blog.
2. Angie, who also has a farm and homeschools but is wearing many more layers than I am right now as she is in northern Wisconsin, so is probably swearing profusely at this moment as she shovels snow or manure. She is one of the real farmer women. Whatever she did this past week, I want to read her take on it.
3. Deanne, who was my secret fairy godmother at the Live and Learn conference and whom I would like to get to know better.
Anyone else I may have spared because you were just tagged by others or have papers to write for college (Sara, are you finished?)or are busy with a new work season (Kimba) Of course, if you or anyone else are interested...

Abundance

I am feeling like things are just too good and that there is too much. You know? Look at all of these advent calenders. I made the small matchbox one from Martha Stewart instructions in an old magazine years ago. Then there are two that were given to Gillen and Jesse by their grandmother, that are filled with chocolate (as will be the matchbox one when I find Andes mints) and the Victorian one that just has pictures and is similar to the ones I grew up with. My brother and I always had one like this and we had to take turns opening the numbered windows. It was wonderful. Or did my brother and I just resent sharing and I don't remember that part?

Yesterday, I got to craft for hours with friends at Claudia's house and with an abundance of cool stamps. Our kids were all happy. At one point, I got to hear Charlie Brown's Christmas Special in the background. All good.


We've been cold these last few mornings so we've gone upstairs, where the heat has accumulated. They play with legos or do puzzles while I read "The Children of Noisy Village" - about farm kids from another era, in Sweden, who are joyous over every small tradition.

It's not that mine are not appreciative but abundance can be a tricky thing. At the same time, scarcity creates all kinds of unhealthy cravings and obsessions.

I also feel a bit nervous when all is as good as it is right now. Undeserving? Ready for the other shoe to drop? Most moments, I am just glad - when I am not distracted by frustration over a child suddenly hating the strawberry jelly and preferring honey on his toast that I just smothered in jelly and did he ask me for honey(?) and I didn't listen(?) and yes, I was really impatient and out of line about it all.... But in all the other moments, it's good.

I am turning 44 tomorrow and am healthy. My friend Danielle is visiting for a few days (she arrives with her fabulous children this afternoon), and this weekend we get to go see Amy Steinberg with other unschoolers, in South Carolina.

I'm just trying to say I'm grateful, is all.

Thanksgiving Day 2007- grateful for the farmers

I love this holiday - sitting around a big table with family and/or friends, sharing good food, wine and conversation. I am grateful for the food that comes from the hard work of two of those at the table - Nicolas and his mother, Helen. Here are some pictures of the farmers, getting to relax.



It was such a relaxed, fun preparation this year because all three guys helped me. I hadn't even asked; they just found things they wanted to do. Gillen went out in the rain (yes, finally rain!) and collected holly, yellow mums, and evergreen branches to decorate the table, adding turkey place cards from construction paper. I think it's been five years since we last made those together. It was a sweet addition. Jesse helped to make Apple Pie. And Nicolas - well, he ended up cooking a duck. I had asked him to pick up a rotisserie duck from a market in Atlanta that cooks them, as an alternative to my usual two day brined turkey tradition. Somehow, he missed the "rotisserie" part and I didn't realize until a few hours before we were going to eat. We had a little ham nugget too, and lots of sides so I thought we should just put the duck on hold but Nicolas rallied, looking up a recipe and then running to the farm to get turnips, thyme and parsley with which to braise the duck. So his duck was braised (pretty well actually) instead of cooked ;)

I hope you had a wonderful, stress-free day as well.

Gratitude, Day Four - This Moment

Because I am as contradictory as the next woman, I am as grateful for the here and now - this moment - as I am for the changing of the seasons. If only I could always really be there for the moment while it is happening.

In this moment, Jesse is jumping on the trampoline with his friend Logan, who spent the night last night. I can hear them squealing in delight, filled with joy to be with one another, and without their brothers - for the moment.

While drinking this sip of strong, locally roasted organic coffee, with cream, I take in the very wide, walnut(?) antique desk that is holding this mac laptop. The ivory terrycloth robe I'm wearing is warm, and newly washed. There are too many other things on this desk. This desk was my mom's. oops, could be going back to other moments..

My gratitude for the present is deep because I know how much it can change, in the next moment and way before the end of the season.

Almost two years ago (well, Philomena and Chris' daughter passed on two years ago this week), two friends of mine lost their daughters. They got me to get the gratitude even more.

Diana, one of the friends, created this card about gratitude that I have sitting on my hallway table for all to see as they enter the house. I love the reminding factor of this beautiful picture and the moment it will forever be:

They may be thinking about a former moment when they lost their father/husband. They could be looking ahead to other loss. It sure doesn't look like it. I feel pretty convinced that they are just fully tasting, breathing and feeling the falling snow, together - in that moment. Thanks, Diana, for letting me share this here.

Many, many moments (720 to be exact, so far) have occurred between the writing of this post and the publishing. I got so wrapped up in this moment that I found myself almost late to pick up my father, at a garage twenty minutes away, which meant I had to get out of that robe and into a car with the boys, in a "NY minute"; and before I knew it, many good moments had taken me away from the one I wanted to be continuing here. I loved that timeless moment this morning. May I notice them all more.

Gratitude, Day Three - Reframing

Today's gratitude came as a result of further de-cluttering. I took out all of the many board games on the living room shelves and we figured out which games could be passed along to younger friends and which should remain in our lives - rotated out, so they'll be noticed. The greatest part about this process is the rediscovery that happens. I love it when something old becomes new and exciting again, and when an old thrift store find becomes an absolute favorite.

Last month, I had been complaining to a friend that the once passionately loved board games, like our homemade Dino-bird-opoly, Clue and Life, had been completely usurped by game cube and computer games. But the other night, we sent the boys on a hunt for a full deck of playing cards and reintroduced them to Hearts and today, Jesse was once again excited about the old games and puzzles. They just needed to be seen newly framed, surrounded by some empty space. I think Jesse may have been trying to tell us this through his art. Jesse's creations always have lots of negative space. ;) Here's today's creation with rediscovered pattern blocks. That's it - finished.

Connecting through "Connect Four", with cookies and milk.

Jesse and the sun, both shining through.


A former favorite that has been re-framed this year for me - Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House series. We've listened to it on CDs from the library while we drive on and off all year. Through long drives, in traffic, seated in our comfortable car, we have experienced life on the prairie, in wagons, with loong day of endless chores, through the looong winter. Remember when Laura and Mary got an orange, a coin and a bit of Christmas candy in their stockings? Their tears and excitement were the definition of gratitude. It is so unexpected and wonderful that my boys love these books too.