Italian Dreams At The Equinox

      Happy First Day of Spring, Friends!!!!
 This past week we had a night when it was truly warm out....the bikes and scooters got hauled out, the shorts got tried on and the shoes got kicked off at the door.  In no time at all, after a little shouting over the fence to each other the neighbor kids and my boys had made themselves into a little pack and were running through our house and yard and then back to the neighbors yard hatching plans for making things out of cardboard while I worked on making a pie for dessert. Yes, they shredded cardboard all over the living room, yes they hurt each other's feelings a couple of times and yes my oldest preferred to play video games instead of playing but it was amazing. They were unbelievably happy and it felt so right listening to their silly ideas and happy banter, watching them help and inspire the little ones in the group together and then hollering over the fence to their grandma and mom when I sent them home at dinner time. What fun! I pray all the time that my house becomes a place that other kids want to come to, a place where people get together and laugh a lot and breath deep, where they can be themselves and feel comfort and scheme up plans together. I hope there are many more days like this ahead of us.

It truly has started to warm up to what feels to me (Californian import alert!) like summer weather. We've had a couple of family dinners on our picnic table under the lemon tree again and I've put on shorts myself once. Yesterday the high was 83 degrees. Pretty amazing! I am sure it will dip back down into the 60's again and we'll have more rain before its truly time for warm weather, this is only a preview. Its pretty delicious to feel the sun again and to feel comfortable kicking off our shoes indoors and out and to even feel hot again. I'm ready. The roses have started to put out their flush of red-tinged new leaves, the winter chanterelles have petered out beneath the oak trees and the plum trees have finished their bloom and dropped their white petals all over the neighborhood. Its time to start scouting out last year's forest fire locations in the mountains to see if I can get in on the legendary spring morel hunts that happen as the hills warm up. And its time to start putting in the garden and figuring out what trellis to get to support jasmine vine on the corner of the garage.

We are going to be taking a trip to Italy this spring....a big, life-dream type drive down the coast of the Mediterranean after a good soaking visit with A's brother and family in the north part of the country. They are creative, homeschooling, free-wheeling, deep-living folks so I forsee late night discussions, amazing early morning coffee on the balcony and cousins running around planning highjinks every minute of the day. The boys talk daily about this part of the trip and are at least as excited as we are about the visiting family together. I think they will also love the chance to see so many ancient and beautiful sights but, they have no concept of that kind of a trip. I have tried to explain a couple of times what an amazing thing it would be to see Da Vinci's work in person or walk around the Colosseum but the boys seem  kind of meh about that whole aspect, but they have no scope and also no experience. It might hit them once we are there....or, (and I must be prepared for this) it might never strike them as particularly cool. This is our trip really, they are along and we hope to draw them into the wonder and joy whenever possible but they have their own adult life and travel futures ahead of them too. Its easy to make your kids the focus and forget that this is your one life and the best thing is sometimes to live your own life with intention and gusto and let them watch.

Springtime Shifts

Its been a good winter....again, and I am loping on into a New Year, February already a new notch in my belt. There are big fat buds on the apple tree that leans over our fence, the snails are out doing war  with the cole crops in my garden every night and the acacia trees are flouncing along with their yellow blossoms all down the freeways. Its the first of the really solidly spring blooms...before the poppies are spilling down the hills like orange sprinkles or the bottle brush trees are a standing in fierce crimson array on every street corner. So wonderful to live in a place where winter means green, and lush and damp fog laden moss. I have to get my tail down to the redwoods again, haven't been for a couple of shameful months...the trees call in this kind of weather.

I have noticed that in the waste space along the freeways there are some old forgotten orchard trees...I saw them for the first time last year and assumed they were cherries but missed a chance to go see them close up because we were so busy with baseball. They are just opening to peak bloom right now and I managed to park and run over to check some out on a side street near an overpass. They are not cherries, but maybe some kind of plum or peach. I am curious to see what/ if any fruit develops as the summer goes on. Lovely to feel homey enough where I live to be able to start picking out little curiosities like that to keep tabs on.

I am starting to feel pretty settled. I have places for most everything in the house, I am starting to feel like our possessions are trimmed down to an amount that more closely match this space. I have people to call in case we are trouble, know the neighbors, have the mailman's name down and even occasionally run into folks we know at the grocery store. Its such a good feeling to nest in more firmly and feel the amazing mix of wonder at the novelties but comfort over the known.

Spring is coming and I am working on tuning up my life and schedule...working out all the little ways things can be tweaked and adjusted and let go and removed. Isn't it wonderful to remember that we are the stewards of our own lives?

Here's What's New Right Now:

• I have been making meals for families with new babies or sick members at our church and homeschool group as a little way to contribute to the community. 
• I am cutting back on fruit and coffee and going back to a more strict interpretation of paleo eating.
• I am trying a new sleep schedule (to bed before my husband) to try to get 8 hours and still have morning quiet time alone.
• Minimization has come back into my life in a firm manner.
• Watching the boys play piano is inspiring and I have been planning to get my fiddle back out for tune up and learning.
• I am painting weekly now thanks to standing babysitter dates.
• We are not doing baseball this spring.
• Taking Zumba in addition to yoga.
• I am signing up for another year with Classical Conversations.
• We are planning a big trip to Italy this spring!
• I cut a bunch of length off my hair after it kept breaking and breaking. 

What are you shifting and changing in your life this season?

Vacuum Salesman And Veggie Gardens

It was a long day, lots of things got sorted out in the garage, piano lessons got plonked out in the living room, video games got played and school was worked through. I got a little bit more work done on the veggie garden I am putting in and I am feeling optimistic about our chances of getting some real food out of it. I have a little more to plant and the boys are all itching for their own gardening plots too so there is still more hacking of weeds to come. Handily, some of what is growing all vigorously all over the beds is delicious wild chickweed. Free salad! Have to come up with a way to harvest it all and not have boys stomp it to bits afterwards. Maybe I run out in the early morning before they are up?

After dinner tonight an Afghani vacuum cleaner salesman talked his way into the house and gave an in depth cleaning session to our living room carpets while I washed up dishes, A finished his evening tele-commute and I read One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish to the boys in their beds while the carpet man grinned and vacuumed in the background. I experimented with exercises in holding boundaries and said kindly, "No, we don't want your vacuum, yes, we see that it works well, thank you for the demo but no, no, really...no." And smiled and smiled and smiled. After the spiel wore out, the Aghan man told me wistfully that he has triplets at home, plus one more child and that he has been here in California just about as long as we have. I hope he's home now with his family, enjoying some rest finally. He and his sales partner were out on the curb waiting for their corporate pick-up van for a long time after we locked up and hit the lights. Its strange to think of his wife out there somewhere in the dark, making a new home here like me, taking care of four, crazy kids like me and wondering what time her husband will be done working...like so many of us. Life is universal, all of us are treading this wheel together, be we tired salesman or unwilling customer.

Gardens and Baseball and Church

Today, we put the vegetable garden in. There are radishes and spinach and kale and all manner of other good things, actually planted in the ground of a whole new plot, in a whole new yard, in a whole new state. I feel like I live here.  Sort of.

Its amazing how long it takes to really feel like you "belong" somewhere. We continue to hunt and search for a church that will be just right for us. We like to take weekend adventures and sometimes we have normal conflicts like baseball tryouts and illness which slows down that process of church shopping immensely. We've been here for six months already and we had a top pick that we thought we'd decided on but its a lot harder to get over there than we thought (its a couple of towns over) and then we also have been unsure if the vibe is exactly right for us. Picking a church, as a non-Catholic is so much tricky, factor weighing!! Sheesh. Lucky Catholics.

This week the weather is hitting the 70's, the hills are unbelievably green and we are really revving up into true baseball season. I am the team mom this year, an exciting responsibility which I am determined to work hard on and make fun and not scary. I am a little worried everyone will discover that I am a weird homeschool mom, not a Californian and also not sporty....don't tell. I plan to give a great charade as "normal."

Tomorrow I begin in earnest to clean out the garage. I must, must unearth it and pare down the number of objects we own...especially the number of pieces of furniture (here's looking at you, old bedroom set!). Smaller and simpler. Cleaner and more open. There is enough. We have enough. Time to cull. I am dreaming about what I will do with the space in there. Pinterest board brewing with ideas for artist studio/guest space. Buy your tickets to California now....our little garden guest cottage will be a hot item! Plus, we want to see YOU!

Rain And Friendship

 The rainy season is winding down now, just a month or so less of this cooler time of year and I can already tell it is warming up. The flowers are starting to open here and there and the back yard edges are a riot of green weeds. I don't know what anything is because I am in such an unfamiliar world out here so every little lime green vine or fistfull of invasive plant material looks promising and exotic to me. This spring will be a wild bashing bar-fight of a gardening season. I am not pulling much of anything out and I am so excited to put my garden in that I am sure to follow my usual plan of putting more in the ground than is practical or diplomatic. It will be a wild, chaotic mess of growing and choking and overgrowing and learning. I'm so excited about it all. Here's to the weeds and the learning and the hilarious errors and the brilliance of knowing more about what in the world grows here.

 I am so excited about making friends. This is my current project for the month. I am pushing myself to make dates with people, to reply to emails, to set up playdates (how I hate the term!) for the kids and to go out on the weekends for little lady getaways in the evenings. I am hungry for the connections, the roots, the deeply tapped lines that pull us in when things are dicey and send up their macrame'd message of security and belonging and sense-of-self and sense-of-other. The boys are easy to tip into melancholic and self-pitying wallows about nobody liking them and how they've never had friends. We need to belong and to have "folks," we're all hungry for being missed and having people light up when they see up and for knowing there are people who we have to update about the latest exciting happenings in our day to day. Its a weird feeling to have a lot of people you can small talk with at anytime but no real spot for letting your hair down, talking deep or hearing true vulnerability with others.

 I am so glad I have family during this transition and that I have technology. I need to rely less on Facebook (refresh refresh refresh refresh) and more on my own energy to call people on the phone, actual letters and building the real relationships in brick and mortar here. I slide into the Internet when I feel lonely. I think it feels like a safe place to hide and it is a place where I can find people and connection. That's not all bad, its just that I use it for a shield instead of as a break or a spring-board. I have been eyeing up a women's book study and am not really connected enough to any church yet to find  a group to connect to but I decided to just order the book and try to bootstrap a group based on who I know right now. When you can't beat 'em, lead 'em! That's my technique this time. Never really tried anything like that before. We'll see how it goes.

Cherry Blossom Haze

Just today, the cherry blossoms started opening. This next week will be stunning, the weekend may be a glowing daze. We are having magnificent weather with gentle breezes and buckets of sunshine alternating with torrential winds, chill and rain, rain, rain. The lawn is ready for a first cut and all the raised beds have been planted except for the potatoes and the children's garden. Our plum trees started opening their blossoms this morning. Must keep an avid watch on the fungus and pests and be liberal with my organic sprays and compost tea. I am also planning to order a giant dump of mulch to keep everything handily tucked in and moist for when the hot weather arrives. Its also time to divide any perennials I want to trim down and QUICK, finish the brick trim on the front walk! EEP!

 The boys are getting so panicked about being outdoors at all times that they are trying desperately to throw off the yoke of household chores. I am trying to remember to be insistent but it is SO hard! I am terrible at staying consistent and modeling the things I want them to learn. Most of parenting has been parenting myself, I swear. I must finish my chores before I get all distracted while feeding the chickens and wander over to check out the seedlings and trim the pear tree and admire the crocus and see if the grape vine is budding. Adhere! I must learn the things I am trying to teach. No time like the present. 

 This morning I gave myself a haircut. I would include a photo but I doubt it would be very dramatically visible to anyone. I cut about four or five inches off the ends but it was so stringy and brittle and damaged that there wasn't much volume left. I have to say that I love me some YouTube tutorials. That's where I taught myself how to cut my side angle bangs. That's where I learned how to cut my sister Lockbox's curly hair and that's where I went this morning when I had the itch to fix the scraggly, dried and breaking mess that was my hair. I parted and trimmed and brushed and angled and trimmed again until I had trimmed it all into gradual piecey layers, framing my face on both sides, all serious damage trimmed away and the parts that are left mostly falling in a regular and even fashion. I feel so much better. Cutting my own hair makes me feel like a dog that had all the winter mats trimmed of its paws or a sheep that's been sheared right before the June heat hits in waves. Its so relieving and freshening! Someday maybe I'll go to a salon and have them do it all for me but its hard to trust a random pair of shears when I know what I want and my own experiments are free.

 The bikes are back out and I am realizing that even though Dee is 7, I haven't really focused on working on getting him riding on a two-wheeler without training wheels very confidently. Goals for the Spring! Also, we seriously need to weed down our collection of wheeled vehicles. We do not need the gigantic fleet that we posses. Yay for the approaching neighborhood swap day!

 I am drinking a fair amount of protein shakes these days. I have decided that my new workouts and maybe just my normal activity warrants a more reliable protein supply and I have been whizzing them up when I am too busy to have a real sit-down lunch or when breakfast seemed like it had more produce than muscle feed in it. One of favorites has been a "pumpkin pie" version made with coconut milk, canned pumpkin pulp and cinnamon + vanilla protein powder. Yum! Its a treat that I don't really mind the boys indulging in with me and sometimes its serving as an ice cream substitute after dinner if I whiz in frozen fruit (Yay, new Costco membership this year!!!) and then scoop it into a bunch of tiny bowls.

 Pom is trying to potty train although I have been impossibly lazy about it. Here he is about to turn three and I am not there yet. I am embarrassed to admit that the "last baby" thing has infected me and threatens to allow me to spoil him. Argh! How can that be me? I know about that crazy stuff and I hate the idea of being like that. Its also just hard to be dedicated to the toilet cause when there is baseball practice and swimming lessons and co-op and gardening not to mention the laundry and the mopping. So much to keep on top of and his wearing diapers still seems somehow excusable. The good news is that he seems motivated himself on some level. He's doing pretty well at keeping clean at this point, telling me to take him to the bathroom when the need arises without any prompting. Staying dry is a whole 'nother story but hey....we can't ask the sun, moon and stars all at once!

I have been working on very little painting lately although I have a couple of ideas percolating and A is taking one of his necessary but unpopular trips to the West Coast again this coming week. I also hope to watch a few movies, maybe finish painting my bedroom and push a little bit of extra yoga into my life. Optimist much?

Hey, listen....its Spring!

Fit and Fitter....But come on, Spring!

 I am turning over one of those new leaves that I keep trying to flip. I have a new app that I am using that's like an electronic personal trainer...complete with timer and encouraging comments. (BodyBot) that I am using daily to try to get into shape. My lack of muscle and tone is alarming me. I'm managing to to stay fairly thin an dam happy about how changing my eating has almost eliminated struggles with weight but I would like to see a little more vibrant strength in my body.

I have also suddenly become kind of addicted to my FitBit which is an electronic step-counter/sleep  monitor that I wear on my wrist in bracelet form. I'm part of a online group who work together for daily and weekly challenges, trying to hit our step-count targets. I am trying to hit 10,000 steps every day. Eventually in the future I will try to up my active minutes or cultivate some amount of "active" time but for now, just trying to hit my step goal is a lofty target. Most days I do it if I think about it. Having the accountability of a group is crucial to me. I'm much cheered by warm connectivity.

 I am also much shamed by what others already know how to do and how embarrassed I feel to be incompetent which is why gyms are such a total loss with me. Somehow I find yoga studios to be a much warmer environment but then....I'm also naturally flexible and not naturally strong or endurant. Heh. We all have our high points. I want to work with what I'm good at but not box myself in there and eliminate the hard learning that will push my edges. Its really hard as an adult to cultivate that kind of living. It seems like everyone around me is doing what they are good at and nothing else. Tricky!

 Its still so cold out, sometimes blusteringly windy and occasionally even snowy. The north side of the house still has snow and ice on the ground for sure. We are however, technically past the wintertime and into a section of days that legally belongs to spring. The snowdrops are blooming and sometime soon there will be crocus and daffodil. I think its Pitch The Snowflakes time!

We had our first spring grill out this afternoon at my aunt's house when we visited and it was incredible to stand outdoors on the patio and have the smoke blow in my face while the sun beamed down and a red-winged blackbird cheered from the marsh beyond us. I'm so ready for warmer weather that I can't even describe it. I feel incredibly delicate emotionally about the winter and the chill and am hanging on somewhat desperately.

I just got off the phone with my cousin who moved this past summer from Southern California to Michigan. I don't know if I am quite as desperate for spring as he is. That's intense.

Syrup, Glasses and Peachy Walls

The big news at our house is that Dee is taller...(3 inches in the last year) and right on up to 10th percentile and he is also going to be getting glasses! He's all hot and cold, nervous about it...getting rid of the nearsightedness headaches sounds great but he's worried about looking weird and finding frames that "suit him." I am looking forward to a fabulous frame shopping session with just him where we let him try on every single one that appeals and don't come home tell we have suited him up like Gregory Peck in the most handsome pair of specs possible. Must. Call. And actually schedule that appointment.

 The weather is crazy. We had a few more inches of snow this past week, then some warm and golden days where everything melted and then today the wind was whipping around the house and the ground was all solidly frozen again. I stayed indoors, tried not to cry, shuffled around in my moccasins, drank lots of tea and joined a fitness challenge. Oh spring, please come soon! I may elope to Florida if you don't.

 Its sugaring season at the local nature center which makes me feel nostalgic, like an imposter and slightly superior all at once. I love the smell of sap boiling down and the taste of the fresh syrup which just IS different than the bottled product on the shelf, I feel totally silly going through the "This is how real maple syrup is made, kids!" class and activity at the nature center...my parents would eye roll so bad....I know how to do all of this and the only reason why my kids don't is because I haven't ever gotten my tail in gear enough to be able to make it happen at our house. I am also not sure it is worth it. It smells incredible and I have no sugaring shack and it tastes divine and I have no desire to be outside in sugaring weather. Heh. This is why I support local folks with my purchasing power. Check back when we are discussing fresh carrots or foraging for autumn mushrooms.

 BUT....in a teeny nod to the warmth of the summer and the colors I love and the deliciousness of the tropics...THIS is my new bedroom wall color! Isn't it pretty?

There is still a lot of painting to do...it didn't cover perfectly, some spots still need spackle and sanding and the trim always needs some going over. But I love it. Its lush and soothing and just the lifting shade I was hoping it would be. Isn't it great when things work out?!?

I love painting walls...almost nothing can help me relax quite like it.  Except for maybe gardening.

Oh Spring....Can you come now?!?!?!?!?!