tubby time

autumnal goods

i finished ginging's fall sweater jacket today...i had to show it off...i just love it so much. well, him in it sooo much i should say. i made the pattern up...it was my first hood. i think the bumps are kind of charming. only problem is the two older, much larger brothers want them now, too. looks like handworks are in order for homeschooling! they can make their own. with all i have to do i'd be done in the summer!

and we're off!!!

yesterday marked the official start of our homeschooling year. we have yet to get our curriculums, so we are working on the outside-the-curriculum stuff for now.

we began with some math review, and reading. and the boys chose some independent research topics. we had to sign up for soccer, so we rode our bikes to the parks in rec office and then to the library to get books...J Boo chose sharks and Bones chose volcanos. should be fun topics and warrant a trip to the boston museum of science. yay!!! we biked over 8 miles yesterday with baby in tow!

J Boo began his archery workshop with our town yesterday...and he had a great time. and got a double bull's eye to boot. yay jetty.



today we began using the math books we got from the public schools...everyday math. they seem great and easy enough for me to understand. i am thinking they will be the math we use instead of calvert. saves us a couple hundred bucks.

we are also starting our first herbology unit....a new herb each month for a year!!!! we begin with elderberries! in the spirit of hogwarts we go! who knows, maybe one of them will be a naturopath...or a witch doctor.

bones starts his music class today and we are still hunting for a sax for j boo...his band starts next week and we haven't found one yet. :( eeee....time is ticking. sooo much to do so little time!

a Picnic with my son...and thousands of other people, too...IN THE RAIN!!!

i participated in Portland Maine's very own Picnic music and arts festival yesterday...and as a helper i brought my very willing 9 year old son Little J along. he would be in charge of the $$, making change and stuff...and he brought along his deck of tarot cards in case he got the gumption to do a little reading for people.

well...the day began quite swimmingly. sales galore, a totally positive and interested response to my work...but then the rain hit...
hard.

and paper and rain, despite manmade shields just don't mix...

Little J helped with protecting things...he was morally supportive and just sooo GOOD. he wound up hiding under the table for the last hour that we hung in there reading a book under a giant furry leopard print blanket to keep dry and warm.

my point here, is that he was amazing. helpful, enthusiastic, adaptable and entertained himself with raindrops when he had nothing else to do...i loved spending some alone time with him. it reminded me of the year and half when it was ust he and i, before the other two meatballs came. my children are all so unique to themselves...and i love them so much.

i got several compliments from neighboring sales people about how wonderful he is...

and they are right. great kid. great time. thanks J Boo for being my helper and sorry the by donation readings didn't pan out (dry space was quite limited)...maybe the december Picnic will be condusive!!

warm woolies...

when the cold weather starts to whistle in the distance i hunker down like a good mama hen and crochet or knit until my fingers bleed.

if you are like me and create WAY too many warm things consider donating them to "nest"...follow the link below for more info.
http://nestmaine.blogspot.com/

hooray for good eggs. i am all for risking being called a socialist and pitching in.

fingerprints

my mom keeps things. pretty much everything.

so it's no wonder that when i realized my oldest son would love an ancient typwriter for his very special birthday (he turns 9 on 9/9/09) that she would have one sitting in her basement. an old smith-corona that belonged to my beloved great aunt, Shash.

shash stood for francis, pronounced by a child. shash.

the typewriter is old...sticky and covered in muck and oily dirt. i took out a cloth tonight, some alcohol and a brush to begin the process to clelaning it.

but i am a bit freaked out.

i have a deep rooted love and adoration of things with history, a love and passion that i passed down to Little J. it is odd though, that shash's fingerprints bring back such vivid memories...she lived with my family during my high school years and i helped to care for her as she aged. she was obese and had arthritis and had a hard time moving about. she needed a lot of help to put it mildly. but she was grateful and pleasant...and so generous. it wasn't like she was a burden. not to me, at least. although there were some sites, scents and unpleasantries i'm sure she'd hope i would forget...but i haven't.

especially not with seeing her fingerprints all over this typewriter. her fingers were often coated with stuff...food, most of the time. when she woke up she would begin to prepare dinner if only in her mind. she was a single woman all of her life, rumor has it a virgin. a business woman, first woman to work at Western Connecticut State University in the business office even. she was the first feminist i ever knew...and i didn't even know the term for it back then. she traveled the world on her good state worker's pay. and what were her tales from her travels? they were about food. from french gourmet to hot dog carts the woman could recall practically every meal she had in her life. and she did. fondly. often.

she had a passion for eating. and it showed in her physique, which ultimately made her life sour. she had to give up her mobility, her freedom because she could no longer lift her heavy legs from gas to brake. she needed to ring a little bell that sat next to her auto-lift recliner so i would come in and help her to the bathroom, or change her clothing, help her bathe or pick up the imagined string she thought was all over the floor. she walked with a walker that bent and buckled underneath her great weight. eventually she wound up in a wheel chair. eventually my parents wound up wanting to leave connecticut for maine and she wound up giving it all up and choosing a nursing home for herself...where the food sucked.

i remember the night she died. i was my now husband's neighbor. it was the night i went to see that stupid war movie with matt damon in it...in the theatre with that stupid, idiot boyfriend i was dating back then. i came home, thinking about world war 2 and the era my aunt was from and i sadly discovered that she was gone. i was in maine. she was in connecticut. and she was just gone. i think she was 84. i was 25.

a month later i bought my little house. J came around four or five months after that and has been here ever since...and then the babies started making their entrances into the world. J, our three children and i all live in that little house still, although it looks much differnt than it did 11 years ago when i bought it. it makes me sad that she died right before these great transitions of mine. she didn't get to experience it. she never really got to know the woman i have become.

but her typewriter is sitting in this old 1790's cape of ours...that old heavy beast covered in her fingerprints...it will see my offspring and know them. hopefully it will click and clack it's way into the heart of Little J, my writer with a passion for the ancient, the used, things with a past...

i do need to clean off the fingerprints. though they do leave a lovely patina...i have to admit, i relate them to the smears on the bathroom wall next to the roll of toilet paper that i cleaned up for her while holding my breath...and the smudges all over the house from where she leaned on the walls or the furntiture to help her move around. at 16, for me, sometimes it was hard not to gag. but i am stronger and kinder and wiser from having loved her...and lived so closely with her.

Shash. i love you. thanks for the typewriter. and the many lessons. (and thanks mom, for having it still!)

xo

running our rat terrier's derrier off

every fall reminds me of cross country...the smell of leaves, the chill of early morning that opens to comfortable sunshine. perfect time of the year to run...

Little J and R ran track with our town this summer and they loved it. there is something so primal and raw and basic about running that it drew them in just like it drew me in years ago. it is a sport where you compete with others, against others, but ultimately it is about yourself and doing your personal best. my kids loved it more than any other sport they've participated in so far.

so, because our little rat terrier Rontu is getting a bit fat, we have begun taking him on jogs. 2 to 3 miles. at first the kids were riding their bikes as i ran with the baby in the jogging storller and Rontu on the leash...but today they decided to run the whole way.

and they did it!

Little J has the demeanor of a distance runner, stable, well-paced and not a word of complaint out of his mouth. he made it effortlessly the whole way and even claimed he could go further!

R, on the other hand is more of a sprinter. he whined and complained and tried to find every excuse to stop, though he managed to make it through the whole 2 1/2 miles...and he ran as fast as lightening for the last 1/4 mile of it even! sounds a lot like my style when i first moved from sprinting to distance running in high school!!!

it has become a habit, this daily jaunt. and a good one. we need to get that doggy of ours down to 19 pounds...from 23!!!! porker!