Isolation And A Washing Machine

All the experts say that one of the keys to "good blogging" is to be perfectly consistent. Oops. I took a month off, with no warning or explanation and as one reader pointed out....it looked like quitting. Surprise! It's just me, blogging erratically while aiming at consistency. Things I am learning in my life...



We now have a washing machine, which feels very luxurious. Our old dryer is on the moving truck, driving across the country with all of our belongings. We have one week left to get our plans straight for where things should go before our world becomes a chaotic whirl of boxes and homeschooling.

All this moving craziness has meant pushing formal homeschool learning off (except for math and reading) until this coming Monday. In California you have to pick a method of homeschool registration and that research has also taken time. I have decided that I am going to give it a year and basically continue our current model while getting to know area homeschoolers. Then in the fall of I want to try connecting to a charter school or an umbrella organization (options here in CA) I will know a little more about the options and have had time to decide what I think. Sometimes it is good to defer some of the crazy and the new and the pressure and give yourself a few outs to keep things a little simpler. These are lessons I need to teach myself.
We have found a park day, homeschool playgroup to hang out with which is really encouraging and fun. Love getting these little pieces built into our life again. I am also looking into joining 4-H and have a co-op that is studying science on the docket for options too. There is a much larger buffet of choices out here.

I am starting to get to the point of moving where you feel a little lonely. I know my way to the local grocery store and I remember my own zip code now, I have a library card and favorite neighborhood walks but I don't have chums yet. I wish we had a babysitter for a night out once a week to explore and reconnect and I wish I had a community of mamas to kick back with and laugh hysterically beside for Lady Night outings, I wish I had a church community to share the sacred and support my children with an undergirding network of faith and to serve as a safe place for spiritual letdown and restoration and I wish I had a little circle of painters who were growing and making and observing the world in streaks and puddles of paint and advice.  I miss al of that but I know that it will all come. 

This part is a little frayed. It's hard to keep settling and nesting and making and finding and learning and starting over because it's depleting even though it's fresh and fun. Must refill. So I am reading Madeline L'Engle's A Circle of Quiet which is crazy good and I am working out every single morning (day 12!) and I am drinking coffee and deadheading my new roses. Prayer is good, texting is good and family rocks.

Rise above, friends! I will too!

I love the green, lush coating of Virginia creeper on the stone wall here. It's the front lawn of the Catholic church around the corner. I have a thing for Catholic churches....so old and mysterious, weighted with solemn dignity. I am also intimidated by them though, which is why I walk past, have even prowled the grounds of this church but have never satisfied my longing to inside. They are beautiful but they feel exclusive, exotic and special but also set-apart and purposely exclusive. I do mean to actually go in. I want to slip in sometime and pray in the light slanting down from the stained glass windows, light a candle and genuflect at the beautiful altar. It's a kind of introverted Mommy fantasy of mine, private prayer in the small cathedral around the corner.

Poetry Friday: A Moment of Peace

Happy Poetry Friday to you all! I hope the weekend carries you off into a pillowed August dream, full of sunbeams and ripe peaches, distant lawnmowers and cicada song.

Image via Wikipedia

Today I am playing with a little poetic device, one of those mind tricks to peer out over the edge of "the box" and get my brain thinking differently. I started with a list of one syllable words with the challenge being, to try to write a poem of entirely one syllable words...in fifty words or less. I can get too wordy way too fast. I need to work on being succinct, so this is me, practicing.

Image by rpongsaj via Flickr

The Bracelet

In the pink new day
While my spouse snores
I sip back stoop tea
And let my ear wind
Skeins of high bird song,
Sweet thread with no heft,
Each scale thrown in a loop
Eyes closed, I knit them snug
A braid of peace for my wrist.

Today, you can find the other Poetry Friday participants offering all kinds of great verse at Karen Edmisten's blog. Hop on over and have a little look see!

I'll be back, on Monday!

Sharing The Consolation

Its a crazy little cloudburst kind of day. My first day flying alone with all three of the boys...and you know what? I made it. There were no tear-type cloudbursts...just dramatic thunderclaps and lightening zaps and driving force rain outside our window. Am very pleased to be feeling as buoyant and I am actually making this three kid thing work. True, I didn't give the boys their regularly scheduled bath, true, we never made it outdoors for playtime and true, true, true...I didn't get up fast enough and get boys clothed fast enough to make a real breakfast or take A to work so I could have the car to go to my painting group. BUT....I managed all the snacks, had the handyman in to do odd jobs around the place, made lunch and everyone took a sound nap. And as I mentioned....I haven't cried once.

In honor of doing well and feeling good and not needing a lot of consolation myself at the moment...I'm passing on "my" (read Julia Child's) recipe for Chocolate Consolation Cake that buoyed me  as I waited in that nasty in-between place for little Reid to arrive. Maybe somebody else out there needs a little lift today, have some chocolate cake, chocolate can sometimes make everything better! So, here it is...for those of you who made requests...heat up those ovens...here's the recipe!

Le Glorieux (The Glorious...if my French detective work serves me well....what a great name!)

7 oz. semisweet baking chocolate
2 oz. unsweetened baking chocolate
1/4 c. of orange liqueur (I omitted it as I hadn't any)
the grated rind of one orange (ahem...I omitted this too)
2 sticks of butter
5 large eggs
1 c. sugar
1 t. vanilla
1 c. cornstarch



Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Break up the chocolate and melt it with the liqueur (if desired) and orange rind in microwave 30 seconds at a time with a stir each time the microwave beeps. Continue until perfectly smooth and creamy. Cut butter up into small chunks and stir the bits into the melted chocolate until perfectly smooth. Then set mixture aside.

Beat the eggs and sugar for a moment at low speed to blend. Increase speed to high and add the vanilla. Continue to beat for 7-8 minutes, until pale and fluffy, doubled in volume and holding soft peaks. (This part is so lovely and pretty to watch)

At slow mixing speed, sprinkle the cornstarch into the egg mixture and incorporate slowly. Don't try for a perfect blend, just a mostly perfect one, you wanna make sure to mix it briskly so that you don't deflate the eggs completely. The take a spatula and use it to fold a large gob of the egg mixture into the chocolate butter to lighten it. Then fold the chocolate butter into the eggs, one large glop at a time until completely incorporated. Make sure you smooth your spatula down the sides of the bowl to ensure thorough mixing.

Pour batter into two prepared 8 inch cake pans and bang lightly on a table to evenly distribute the batter in the pans. Bake for 25-30 minutes. The cake should be slightly moist when done in the "French manner" (so says Julia!) and the top of the cake will crackle and flake a little which is normal.

Cool cakes after removal from oven and while they sit you can:

Melt 3 oz. of semisweet chocolate, 1/2 an oz. of unsweetened chocolate, 4-5 T of butter and 3 T of orange liqueur together until perfectly creamy. When the cakes have cooled, pour the new chocolate mixture between the layers and sandwich the cake together....I served it just like that, with spoonfuls of whipped cream on the side but, of course you could also frost it if you need deep consolation.

There you have it.