Mikal: acorns for you!

We have a chipmunk that lives in our garage. Our sweetie-pie hamster, Fleur, died this spring (a ripe old age for a hamster), and we miss her and the chipmunk flitting about reminds us of her when she was sneaky and escaped and ran along the baseboards and looked cute and stripey, so we kind of encourage it.

Today, though, she's in a bit of trouble: I saw that she feasted on the acorns Ellee and I gathered. For her, I'm sure she thought.... I just laughed and grabbed my camera. But moved those babies inside (I love them! Plus, tempting her up on my workbench meant also bringing little chipmunk droppings--no thank you!) Certainly there are enough left to fill a box to mail off to my acorn giveaway winner. It's right here in front of me.

Mikal? Audrey randomly chose your number. Would you please e-mail me your address so I can send them to you in the acorn-free desert? three_goats@yahoo.com

Apologies for the lateness. That baby of mine had a wicked bad weekend, bringing mouth sores and fevers and bruising and nursing strikes (pumping at the dinner table, pumping while I rock him, pumping...) and precious little sleep and a lot of sadness and I was good for NOTHING. We gave him some nice fluids and platelets into his handy port yesterday and I'm happy to report that he started nursing again last night (yes, I did cry with joy), is now eating more solids, and is feeling so much better that he's tearing this house apart! I think there are good things to report soon on the horizon, like the looming end of chemo??!! Fingers crossed for us. More acorn project and costume posts soon to come!

this post

So many of my amazing revelations lately are, to my chagrin, already aphorisms, the sort that come prepackaged in inanities like Chicken Soup for the Soul:

"The joy is in the journey, not the destination"
"What's the purpose of life?" "I don't know, to live a good life, I guess." (that one came from Six Feet Under, because TV is my embarrassing muse. Don't even get me started on what I'm learning from Felicity...(daytime TV at the hospital lousy? bring your own from the library!)...for another day)
It's the kindness that counts.
etc.

I love cjane enjoy it because she makes the same old drama sound fresh. Like here.

I think I'd better get up from the computer and attack my house (ie, its unfinished projects) with a little ferocity.

I loved this from one commenter:
"I'm guilty of lamenting how I used to be. But you're right. That's when I was a girl and I can be proud of that and have fond memories, but now it's time to do my best as a woman."

Sheesh, I can't even say "I'm a woman" without feeling all fidgety, because like I'm really a woman. But guess what, woman? I'm 35 and have 3 kids and a sagging face and (dare I admit?) cellulite. Grow up, already, and be proud of it.

Wednesdays in the woods

Today was full, but we squeezed in a bit of woods in the afternoon. After Audrey's guitar lesson, which brought us to country roads, I drove a bit farther to the edge of Michaux, our closest state forest. I chose the first fire road I saw, and stopped the car once the woods were all around. It was cold and the kids were hungry and the baby finally asleep after fighting it in a particularly thrashing way, so we were not getting out. I rolled down the windows to let the smell and the sound in and we were silent for a few minutes. I asked the girls to notice.

Audrey saw the different thicknesses of the tree trunks, and how, after a length of bare trunk, the branches would suddenly spread and the leaves make a one-layer carpet in the air. She heard water.

I saw the translucent brightness of the leaves, as if they captured all the sunlight to share. And looked beyond the near trees to see those in deeper. I identified the water as a just-starting rain, falling on a million leaves.

Marian was carsick after doing a math worksheet and wouldn't talk.

toy tragic

I'm starting to think about Reuben's first birthday and Christmas gifts (first big gift-giving occasions right in a row), and feeling a mite tragic that he is past being satisfied with the grab-and-stare toys. So I couldn't quite justify buying him this (so beautiful!). Or...

That store (The Wooden Wagon) literally makes me salivate. Must quell the covetous beast!

Any ideas on the best toys for a one-year-old boy? I'm looking for just the right ball pounder, which I remember as a much-fought-over toy from Audrey's church nursery days. The Wooden Wagon does, in fact, have one, but I want one with ramps.

gathering

We have been spoiled with visitors this month. Tomorrow I take Nathan's brother, Eldon, to the airport after a warm visit, and my brother Devn and his wife Abby were here for most of the week before that with their delicious children, Ellee and Will. Devn is my doctor brother, and the oldest of the Frandsen boys; he started a residency in Arkansas this summer and we scored their first vacation. I loved every second we had with them, and appreciated their help during the 3 days of it Reuben and I had to spend a'hospitaling (chemo). We've been aching for a chance to have Reuben and Will (4 months older) together.
Ellee's every move is part of a theatrical production titled "Meet this darling 3-year-old." She came down the stairs each morning with a head tilt and smile worthy of a seasoned stage actress--Here I Am, World!, filling our house with too-perfectly-adorable-child chatter--what might be scripted for her to develop a perfect small character. I was fascinated with how she filled in the gaps of her still-developing vocabulary with strings of prepositional phrases that clearly expressed her requests and spot-on observations. Her bright-eyed blondeness was so reminiscent of Audrey as a toddler that I was particularly susceptible to her charms, and certainly her willingness to buy into my drama won my continual favor: Ellee was all about the acorn hunting.

Hunt #1: our neighborhoodDevn and Abby are champion people, so of course they hunted, too.

tiny girl and mighty oak!

The babies were, um, less excited. And the autumn sun so bright...luckily Uncle D was even willing to walk backwards to help.Some of those very acorns will be in the giveaway batch. I know, it's almost too good. But you deserve it.

acorns: GIVEAWAY!

I might go so far as to say that my biggest delight with living EAST, among these great deciduous woods, is the abundance of oak trees. Which means acorns. I am crazy nuts about these little beauties (and the nuts came out through my typing fingers before I even realized what an awesome punny phrase that was). If you, like the former Western me, have the misfortune (acorn speaking, that is) to live where a walk around the block doesn't fill your pockets with autumnal decorating and crafting possibilities of the acorn sort, I am feeling generous this week.

It's an acorn giveaway. I will walk around my personal acorn mecca of a neighborhood and fill a small flat-rate USPS Priority mailing box with a nice all-sizes variety of acorns and send them to a lucky one-of-you. Comment that you, too, love acorns, and on SATURDAY NIGHT (let's say 7 pm ET) I will chose one (in a properly random fashion) and mail it off on Monday, so you can get it in time for some good seasonal crafting and tactile joy.

This giveaway will become even more valuable after you read the great acorn crafting and gathering posts that are soon to come. Good times, my friends.

displaying kids' art: part 1

My girls are art prolific.
I am a saver.
We're drowning.

One wall upstairs in the wide hall that will (soon!) be their very cool creative space is devoted to displaying their art. I have clips and a long ledge, but I'd like a couple of these:
Clear and excellent instructions here at Bloesem Kids.

And maybe one downstairs. A very clever idea--the sort that seems obvious in its clear brilliance.

How do you manage the mass of art projects? Save? Archive? Record? Display?