grand finale

This past week was the last regular week that I'll spend with 'my girls'.

The older one is six (we'll call her B, for big sister), and the younger one (L, for little sister) turned three on Thursday. I've spent approximately 5,000 hours with this family. It's mind-boggling if I think about it too much, so I'm just letting myself be happy about the big picture of where I am right now, and brainstorming fun ways to spend the precious two-hour mini-chunks of time I'll be spending with them in the near future.

Wednesday was the last full day that I spent with them, and it was a really good day.

In the morning, B was telling me about this kind of green worm that gets into all of the green foods you eat, and then you eat it without knowing. She was getting more and more animated as she talked about how creepy these worms are and how she didn't want to eat them. Then she went to find the book she'd seen them in, and when we finally found the picture, she was in full drama queen mode.

And I can't blame her: it was a bright green, highly-magnified tapeworm. It looked like a creature from a sci-fi movie, and anything but edible. So we talked about tapeworms for a long time. She asks pretty amazing questions and I tend to be determined to give her the answers she's looking for. We discussed all kinds of things, but I didn't have all the answers. These days, you can find pretty much anything online, but it's too easy to skip all opportunity for human interaction, so I suggested that we call a reference librarian. L is much more social than her sister, and liked the idea, so I dialed and told the librarian that I was handing her over to a three-year-old.

Imagine how much it would make your day if a little bitty voice called and said, "Um, do tapeworms wive in Indiana?"

They talked for a couple of minutes, and when I took the phone back, the librarian relayed the conversation. Tapeworms do live in Indiana, but you don't have to worry about it if you don't eat uncooked meat. She asked if L her mom cooks hamburger before L eats it. Her answer? "No." This cracked us up, and I said, "Well, that's probably because we don't eat hamburgers!" In any case, the girls were very happy to know that they weren't in danger of tapeworm infestation.

With that out of the way, we moved on to Valentine production. We were all sitting at the table with paper and markers and scissors and glue and things were relatively calm. When I heard the dryer buzz, I excused myself and went to rotate the laundry. And when I returned, I saw this:

The girls had scooted their chairs together and B had- with the ONE permanent marker out of the whole bunch- filled in L's lips, eye lids, finger nails, and toe nails, and was starting in on her own manicure and pedicure. She'd also drawn on a bracelet and necklace, but those were luckily done with washable markers.

Preschool Goth.

Sometimes it's nearly impossible to keep a straight face when you most need to. This was one of those times. I just stood there in shock for a minute. Then I had to take pictures, of course. (I wish I could show you the whole deal, but these aren't my children and I don't think their mom would be thrilled if I posted her kids' faces all over the internets. But if you know me in real life and would like to see the photos, let me know. They're hysterical.)

I have to say that I'm pretty impressed that I kept as much of my cool as I did. Once they were both in the tub, I reminded them that there are actual face paints that would be much better for this type of thing... (It mostly came off, but not easily!)

What a way to mark the end of an era! I'll love them forever.

foody weekend

I've been reading Animal Vegetable Miracle, and it's making me freak out sometimes. There's so much information in that book. Really good stuff, but I'm having to reign myself in and consider what I can realistically do, and what will have to wait. I'm realizing, though, that there's more that I can do than I'd seriously considered.

You know what?

This is going to require its own post in the near future.

For now, I'll just tell you that I made bread this weekend. My gorgeous, hilarious, generous friend Lisa gave me the recipe and the bread flour and the yeast. It was DELICIOUS. Crusty and yeasty and bready. And the hardest part? The math of when to start it so that I'd be home when it finished the first rise and was ready to go into the oven. It had to rise for eighteen hours, then be fiddled with a bit, then another two hours of rising, and then it gets baked in a huge covered pot. And then... then you wish you'd made a double batch. (Which I will next time.)

After I started the bread, I was inspired to bring down my juicer from its lofty hideaway. I had carrots and apples and spinach languishing in the fridge, and I hope that the yumminess of the juice they yielded will remind me to lug out the juicer more often. (Spinach, however, may be better added in the blender after juicing the carrots and apples.)

I also made cheese this weekend, but the pictures aren't pretty. The recipe didn't specify whether the milk had to have a certain fat content, but I should have known. Whole milk would have unquestionably made better-tasting cheese than 1%, but the 1% was on sale and I was pretending to be healthy. Low-fat and organic. The road to bland, rubbery cheese is paved with good intentions.

(I'd also suggest ignoring that you have a microwave, if you do indeed have one. I think it'll come out better with the non-microwave instructions.)

I have so much more to share, but it's suddenly almost ten, and I must turn in... Stay tuned!

creative epiphany

Ok, this may not sound like epiphany material, but to me it was.

Well, let me start by explaining something you may or may not already know about me:

I have to make stuff. I have to. Some people need to garden or run or cook or whatever, but for me, doing creative projects has always been one of the necessities in life. I'm one of those master of none folks. I like to try things and play and I'm not terribly interested in following patterns and instructions that require math and precision and expertise.

The problem, though, is that I tend to believe that I want to try everything, and even though I don't want to follow rules, there's a part of me that wants to Do Things Correctly. It can be boggling and prohibitive.

The other day, though, I realized that just because I want to try everything doesn't mean that I have to love everything. And more importantly, if I don't love something that I expected to love... I don't have to do it ever again!

This was a marvelous realization. And if I acquire supplies for something that I decide to never do again, someone else will be happy to take those supplies off my hands. Which means (bonus realization) that I don't have to worry so much about being wasteful!

This, along with the wonderful book, Wreck This Journal, by Keri Smith, has freed up some creative energy that had been kind of unfortunately stuck for some time.

Some of the many things I do love: photography, writing, crocheting, playing with raw wool (including dying it, as seen above, and carding it and needle-felting), drawing sketchily, unconventional watercoloring, paper-making, soap-making, baking alone, cooking with friends, sewing badly, mosaics, mixed media collage/painting, container gardening...

A few things it turns out I do not love: rolling felted wool beads, following knitting or crocheting patterns, trying to paint things that look real, being yelled at while baking cookies.

Now I'm really looking forward to finding out what else I do and don't want to do some more of!

(Starting tomorrow. It's past my bedtime.)