What We Chose

Since we decided to send the kids to the Waldorf School and reorient our lives to that end we have heard lots of opinions from our friends about the sense of that decision. Someone asked us why we would spend our personal capital on such a specific school choice when we have the highest rated elementary school in this district around the corner.

















Of course choices you make for your family and the lives of your children are deeply personal and no-one else needs to really understand them. There are a few areas of our lives right now which are fluctuating, and being examined and questioned - big areas - but I don't think either of us doubts our decision to move and have the kids at the Waldorf School.



















And on this gray Sunday afternoon - probably the last we will spend in this house as we are scheduled to move next weekend - I sit with my twelve year old while he struggles with his homework. The needles he made himself, and the wool yarn smells warm and sheepy. He's knitting a sock, and it's hard to sit still and do that when your inclination is to goof around, make absurd jokes and laugh uproariously at yourself and be distracted by every passing thing. Stitches are being dropped all over the place. There is a lot to the successful knitting of a sock.
But in a moment of distraction he shows me this. He is in it, and so is Moo, so look for them. The bearded male teacher is Skaterboys teacher, for those of you who care.



This pretty much sums up where and why we choose to spend our personal capital, and I couldn't be happier.

Best Friends

Little Belle asked me to change her identity to Moo because Belle is the name her Nanna uses online, so Moo, a nickname of hers, it is.
Moo has a friend whom she has known since before she was born, a girl we see every other weekend when she is with her Dad, and who I think we all consider to be pretty much one of us.
The two of them have one of those rare friendships where they just get each other and love each others company and live in their own happy, peaceful world together. They are always scheming about one thing or another, and announcing their newly concocted plans for world domination over dinner.



















Like the time they both wanted monkeys for pets and spent days dreaming up ways to make enough money, including starting a competition which charged five dollars entry fee, where you had to draw your pet as a rock star. Sadly, no-one entered, but that didn't stop them creating and then pinning the posters on all the electric poles for miles around. They had these great pictures of a hamster wielding an electric guitar on them.



















These two are great crafters, too. They spend a lot of their time together sewing, needle felting and painting, though most of their projects amount to more mess than finished product.
Um, I wonder where they get that from?



















Anyway, they spent this weekend curled up together on the sofa, toe to toe, crocheting. And nattering. These girls know how to craft. They made lots of tea, and worked late, and giggled. This morning they didn't come down for breakfast until after 9.



















And that's because they were finishing these gorgeous hats. Which they did every aspect of themselves.
So not only am I quite envious, but I am deeply impressed. Moo wore her hat all day, and sheer pride had a merry grin across her face all day. I know that feeling - ok, it's rare, but I do - and I'm so pleased that she does too.

A Little House in a Valley

If you went south from here down the highway about 20 minutes you would be able to watch dirty gray town slowly give way to farms and hollows where the mist sits on chill mornings.
At a certain state road you would take a left and immediately find yourself heading down a gentle valley road between trees in shades of gold, red and green. Soon you would start to see very old and quaint houses appearing here and there, with gardens full of mums, late zinnias and lavender.
By and by you would realize that you had come into a dear little town, and you would watch as antique stores, an old school house, an ice cream store and a bookstore passed your window.
At the bottom of the valley, in the middle of the town, you would slow to cross railway tracks and a wide swath of river, and then, by the white clapboard church, you would turn left and pull up in front of the first house from the corner.















If you were us, you would then be very happy and excited, because this lovely old farmhouse in the middle of a state forest in a sweet little town only twenty minutes from your kids Waldorf school, would be your new home.
















And so we are.

By the way, a million thanks for the general rallying around my plea for comments, even those who offended and were offended. Consider yourselves administrated.
It really gets exciting around here, doesn't it?

Woody

I'm in Barnes and Noble drinking decaf coffee, my new passion - I didn't drink any coffee for years because I don't handle the caffeine well (such a delicate creature) but all of a sudden I want it all the time. I guess passion will do that to you, and somehow you handle the side effects. Anyway, it's the strength of the flavor, I think. It's delicious, and I love how the flavour stays in your mouth and that last sip which is always sugary? Oh, mmmmm...
So I am sitting here happily breathing coffee breath while ominous clouds gather outside, and even though I should be working on a facet of my business plan that I have to show someone tomorrow, in true V. style I am instead working on showing what else I have been working on.



















This is Woody, my imaginitively named Woodkin, inspired by the artwork of Lauren Mills in the book 'Fairy Wings'. Her work in that book drives my creative heart into a little frenzy and every time I open it I have a surge of delight and inspiration. Not a lot of time though, so he is all I have managed so far. But I do have plans - big plans. As always.



















His face and body are needlefelted, his boots and tunic are wet felted and he has little bead buttons on his boots and embroidery as well as his buckeye hat. He's about 8" tall - a nice, substantial little handful of Woodkin.



















Here he is posing in the park where I like to walk in the mornings and listening to the birds.
And now I am off into the ominously darkening day to clean a house - but not my own, unfortunately.
Oh, and if you stop by here - leave a comment, will you please? I know you've been here, I have my sources, and yea, I lurk too, I do, so I understand how you feel. But I lurk on sites where people are getting 40 comments - they don't need mine. But I need yours, I do.
You know how to do it, right? Just hit the little link that says how many comments there are. Be anonymous if you like. But I need you. I. need. you. You.
Thanks.

Michaelmas

Of all the festivals we celebrate in Anthroposophy and the Waldorf schools, my favorite is Michaelmas. It celebrates the power within each of us to overcome the coldness of winter, both in the real and metaphoric sense. This time is seen as an opportunity for inner strength and renewal, an awakening of the soul after summers slumber.



















I'm always so happy to live here where we get four seasons at this time of year, as the leaves turn and the harvest comes in and 'mums appear in everyones gardens and porches. And I really feel that inspiring shift that comes at summer's end, when evenings become for reading and curling up warm and starting those projects that summer was just too expansive for.



















We have been having Michaelmas dinner for ten years now with our same friends, and this year we invited a new family, with littler children and one on the way.



















Busy as I am right now, it wasn't a big event. But the tables were all set with 'mums from the garden and decorated candles. The house was clean. We baked dragon bread, special because it is spiced with cardamom, and made vegetable soup with all produce bought at the farmers market. We held hands and said grace, and we ate and enjoyed each others company and built a bonfire outside when it was dark.















And today, it really feels like autumn. The light is low and clear, and outside it is cool and very quiet. I feel energized and inspired, and peaceful, and really glad that we took time out from our lives to just be, because sometimes that feels like the last thing we can manage.
But that is what the festivals ask of us and give to us, reminding us that our lives are about something bigger than our everyday to do lists.

And finally, whether your season is turning to Spring or Fall, may the Archangel Michael spread his wings over all of us.

Thirty Five

For my thirty-fifth birthday today we let the kids skivvy off school and took them to a wide beach of Lake Erie to play.



















The children had a lovely time and were thrilled not to be at school, the poor overworked things.



















We climbed out over the breakwall, and Skaterboy was thrilled to catch a fish with the rather startling name, Black Crappie. Not to be confused, apparently, with Bondi Cigars, which is what it makes me think of.















We collected beach glass, smooth stones and pretty shells, and had a wild game of monkey in the middle in the water.















I had the full thirty-five candles on my cake, which really set it blazing. It would be reasonable I think, to expect that not withstanding something drastic and unforeseen, I must be about halfway through my journey here. And as my Dad so astutely pointed out, the slide is greased in this direction.



















Thanks Dad. I'll take that wisdom and my beautiful stolen day at the beach with me into my thirty-sixth year.

This is How it Begins...

...with a single, delicately tinted leaf laying on your front yard. Not having seen one for nine months it's as though you never have, and you pause for a moment to crouch over it and admire it's subtle merge of gold and red. The sun is warm on your back, and the cicadas are singing in the trees around you. If the children are near you call them to look at it with you, and they run over on bare feet to exclaim in wonder too, as though leaves that turn from glossy green to sunset are something they have never seen before either.



















You straighten up and squint into the top of the sweetgum tree to reassure yourself that all is still summer, and the tree obliges you by waving it's thick, fully leafed branches against the cornflower blue sky. Satisfied that autumn is definitely not on it's way you return happily to the illusion that summer lasts forever.



















But this is how it begins, this is the beginning. And also, the ending.
Tomorrow my babies start full day kindergarten, and my life as a stay at home mother - almost thirteen years, ends. This day has been coming for years, in all those small ways, and every time a moment came I would delight in its beauty, but not really allow myself to see that the accumulation of such moments would lead to a new season. And tomorrow I'll probably ask myself the same questions I ask when fall becomes an undeniable reality.
Where did the summer go?
Did I relish it properly?
And did I really take time to just enjoy its fleeting beauty?