Weekend, crafts, and life

tea party with the cat

I go through these fazes where I just have a lot of life happening, but have no real way to write it all down. Then, days end up going by and I have not really written anything, not really taken any photographs and honestly still have little to say about what has been going on here.

new freezer

freezer box becomes fort

painting the box

This weekend was busy, we bought 50# of beef, a new freezer, placed a deposit on half a pig, and ordered 1/2 a lamb as well. The house work was done, Mike and I got to go out on a date Friday night and I tried a pint Guinness for the first time (I was able to drink about half of it. lol), Sis took Sagan and Logan for a tour of the ASU campus, and the little boys, Fiona and I just sort of hung out. It was nice pleasant weekend.

my little space in the bedroom

The weeks have sort of been like that lately, not much to report, just life happening, flowing smoothly (for the most part). I am working on a way to sort of do more with our days, focusing a bit more on homeschooling, I tend to do that occasionally... feel this need to move on and change what we have been doing. It seems to be working, the boys ask to do the new things. There is more reading going on, some math, learning about how rainbows happen, form drawing, working on our sad sad garden, feeding the hens, baking, sitting outside in the lovely sunshine. Days like these are just so precious, when you sit and think about it; slow, flowing days, that don't seem to take much effort, that just sort of happen.
Knitting has happened, I finally started on sock number 2, which is coming along, very slowly, but surely. For some reason I took a break to knit up some ankle cuffs for jingle bells to go on. They are super simple and fun, and sadly, waaaay too big for Miss Fiona Rosy's wee little legs, so they may just end up on the music basket and I will be forced to knit another pair (oh the hard ships I face). And reading, I have done a bit of that. I got a copy of Kindred in the mail the other day and have been savoring it, and like always, when I am feeling stuck and in need of mama inspiration I pull out my copy of Heaven On Earth and read through all the advice and become inspired again.

sock one and sock two

the readings

ankle cuffs before bells

joining Ginny for the Yarn Along, Amanda for weekending, and Nicole for Keep Calm Craft On

What is the weather?

nature table

After being completely inspired by Frontier Dreams and already having the weather set from Armadillo  Dreams, I printed out the "What's the Weather?" cards from 1+1+1=1, cut them out and covered them with contact paper. We have added the weather forecast to our circle time that happens every morning now. Which I must admit that I was for some reason hesitant to incorporate into our daily lives. I guess I was thinking the older boys would find it boring and protest doing it everyday, but they ask for it! They have just as good of time as Rowan and Fiona, and I have to say it is a lot of fun having a group doing it.
We start out with some action doing "Ring around the Rosies" (which Fiona loves doing), then move on to "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes". We do a bit of yoga, usually a sun salute or two, and then we do some bean bag tossing and counting by two, threes, fives, and tens. We check the weather, put up the appropriate weather card and wooden weather piece(s), and then one of the boys gets to light the candle and I read a fable and we talk about the message. It takes maybe 15 minutes, we have been talking about adding a few other things since they enjoy it so much. You know, you never can tell what your kids will enjoy sometimes. I am so happy I stumbled upon the "What's the Weather" and I am really happy we do circle time every day. :)

Time to think about it

My oldest son...my sweet sweet teenage boy. He will be 15 next month. It is so hard to believe. How did it all happen? When did he get almost 6 feet tall? Where is that wee little boy? And he is in high school and loving it. And his music, oh his music, he truly has such talent (it isn't just his mama saying this, I swear to you).
On Tuesday I had to take him in for a surgery consult. He has Pectus Excavatum (not as bad as the guy in the wiki photo) and this coming summer he will have to have the Nuss procedure done to correct it, two stainless steel bars will be placed in his chest and left there for 3 years. We have the best surgeon in the state doing it, and I feel really comfortable with this... surprisingly so does Logan. But I am still his mama, and having to call to make appointments, having to call the pediatric cardiothoracic surgery department makes this poor mama's heart skip a beat, it makes my breath catch and on more then one occasion I have been happy to leave a message because I was crying too much to actually talk to a person. We still have a few months before it actually has to be done, he will have to have an echo of his heart and do a pulmonary function test, as well as having some labs drawn. In the mean time, we can make plans for a few fun things to do over the summer, things that will be a nice change from a hospital and pain medications. Stuff that has to do with sunshine, fresh mountain air, and easy peasy hikes.

Yarn Along

Joining Ginny from Small Things for the weekly Wednesday Yarn Along.

I finished up a wee bit of cuteness for my nephew. I had so much fun knitting those itty bitty baby socks. And I must admit I am super proud of myself, the last time I started a sock I chickened out at the heel turn, but this time I pushed through and TADA! SOCKS! Even though my brother and his wife live in the same city, I knew that if I didn't get this stuff to wee baby nephew ASAP he would out grow it, so I mailed it. LOL and he got it on Monday. Hopefully my dear sister in law with snap a pic before the little guy can't fit in those socks any longer.
I have miss place my camera, so I have no picture of the project I am currently working on.... another pair of socks! I think I found a new love, socks. I know all my peeps will wear socks, so now I have something to knit. I used this pattern for the baby socks and I am sorta kinda using it for this pair as well. Instead of ribbing all the way down I did about an inch at the top because I got the best self striping sock yarn and I really want to show of the sweet pattern it makes. It is similar to this yarn's pattern, but it has yellows and browns as well as blues and reds and a really awesome zig zaggy black and white area. Depending on what size the turn out to be the socks will either belong to Sagan or Caelan. Only time will tell. :)
I have been reading The Mother Magazine , and watching Doc Martin while I knit late at night.

~ Gratitude Sunday ~

Joining Taryn from Wooly Moss Roots for a heartfelt Sunday ritual. A time to slowdown, to reflect, to be grateful. A list of gratitudes...

~ warm afternoons
~ a bit of time each day spent outside, even though we are still sick
~ paleo baked goods, yum yum!
~ eggs from our chickens for breakfast
~ tea parties with Fiona
~ our new circle time ritual, the boys and Fiona love it
~ my own desk
~ coffee in the morning
~ Doc Martin late at night
~ a nice hot shower
~ the farmer's market
~ being ok with crying
~ Rowan and his best friend holding hands, so grateful that my little boy isn't forced to "be a man" and not show his feelings for his buddies
~ humidifiers
~ my homemade vapo-rub
~ pizza delivery... because honestly someday's I can not cook dinner
~ Logan and his friend creating Dubstep music together
~ games of Magic the Gathering Logan and Sagan play before bed
~ Caelan's love a good books

In my head

I am beginning to think that having too much unsupervised time in my own head probably isn't the very best idea for me at this point. We have been stuck at home for weeks now with a nasty, lingering yuck that seems to keep making an endless loop through my children. This has meant no park days with the homeschool group, many days of not even getting dressed, endless nights coughing, waking up to cranky kids with their eyes glued shut, a house that seems to be slowly falling a part as I stumble about trying to keep everything from toppling over. I am tired, lonely, and if I am honest... I am a mess.
I am also finding that I am having to put my words for the year into use. Fiona is busting out her personality full force. She is a wee little spit fire, like her great grandma Teresa and her nanny. Head strong, has no fear of any sort of danger, will not take NO for an answer, cries hard, loves hard, plays hard, and falls into restless night sleeps at the end of incredibly busy days (for a two year old). I am going to be making some hard choices here about what we can and can not do because I just need to keep her from killing herself as she runs straight off the bed, climbs onto the dinner table and tries to climb off into mid-air, she can not be left alone for even a minute. There have been days where I literally can not recall when I last showered because I can not leave her with her older brothers so I can wash myself in 3 minutes.
I am having to embrace this new life, this new way of doing things, and surrender to it. I can complain and weep about it (which I have) or I can just say "This is how it is right now" and go with the flow. That seems to be a challenge for me, to just surrender to my life, I seem to want to fight all the changes, fight all the new things. I get comfy with how things are.... not very Buddhist. You know, the only true constant is change. And that is what is happening here, change. So I have been arguing with myself and all those demons that are pushing me to not accept this, all those demons that DEMAND my attention, that want me to fight and cry and complain and struggle. But to be honest, it is just too hard to fight this hard over life. It is too hard to be angry and frustrated every. single. day. So what if the house isn't tidy all day long. So what if the dishes pile up, so what if the laundry just never gets folded, so what if all I end up doing in one day is play in the front yard?
You know, you get this one chance, this one life... I am not sure mine will be best spent fighting so hard to keep things the same. I think it is better to just flow, relax, enjoy, love, surrender, and embrace.

~Gratitude Sunday~

Joining Taryn from Wooly Moss Roots for a weekly Sunday ritual. Sunday's heart felt tradition. A time to slow down, to reflect, to be grateful. A list of gratitudes.

 ~ warm afternoons spent outside
~ this illness that is sticking around, it forces us to slow down and spend more time together
~ chicken soup
~ peppermint tea
~ almond meal
~ beautiful flowers from the farmer's market
~ naps
~ a full fridge
~ filing our taxes
~ all the wonderful rain we got recently, so cleansing and so needed
~ the minivan, oh how i love thee
~ chocolate chips

Grocery challenge

I am so excited about this challenge... the challenge to decrease the food budget. I think we spend roughly the same amount of money on food every month as we do on rent... and I think we spend waaaay to much on rent. My goal is to cut the spending by $400 a month. (I know, I said we spend a lot.) This leave us with roughly $200 a week for food for a family of 7. I try and get most of our produce at the farmer's market, along with our meats and eggs (although the chickens are doing way better than i hoped they still only give us about 9 eggs a week and we eat over two dozen a week.) I am lucky, we still have some of our mini freezer pack of beef in the freezer, some salmon, a couple chickens, and some chicken parts as well as a couple pounds of beef bacon. I went thru the pantry and we have lots of canned salmon, some canned beans, rice, a couple kinds of flour, oats, pasta, chocolate chips (VERY important), coconut oil and olive oil. I was able to do the grocery shopping today, mostly at the farmer's market. I picked up our CSA share (which $25 a week), bought lots more greens, carrots, green beans, broccoli, and some very strange looking vegetable which I do not have the name of, but it looked awesome. I hit Trader Joe's for a few staples and spent a total of $150 for all of that stuff. So we have $50 for things like milk, water, bread and the Wednesday trip to the farmer's market for whatever we run out of... usually apples and carrots. I think we can totally do this!
If you want to join in as well, head over to Gypsy Forest and sign up!

Candles

The littles and I decided to make some bee wax candles for the up and coming Candlemas/Imbolc holiday. We really love making bees wax candles, so easy to do even wee little Fiona can do it too. I pulled out the silver platter that we use to hold a bunch of candle during Christmas time and added a vase of flowers (in the photo it is tulips, but now there are freesias (one of my favorite flowers). Here in Arizona it is just full steam ahead into spring. We have so many plans for this weekend, starting seeds, moving the garden boxes, visiting the urban garden center to buy worms and check out the bare root grape vines (the boys really want to plant grapes), and maybe some other goodies. Now if only our health will co-operate, this illness we have is just dragging us down.