Another Few Days Away

We spent most of this week at the cabin again. I just can't help it with this beautiful fall weather. My favorite weather, my favorite time of the year. The first night Yogi got an ear infection so we were up together for many hours and spent the next day at a walk-in clinic in Bellingham. Poor guy. Yogi's had a hard time lately! But the following day we spent back in Crescent Beach wandering the lovely paths on Blackie Spit.

Our time at the cabin is so valuable. It's the only place where the kids get to hear frogs and coyotes at night, where we watch pairs of bald eagles riding the thermals, and hear the strange honking/croaking of the Great Blue Herons as they criss-cross the sky throughout the day. Beck and Yogi even got to hold a little tree frog that they found on the deck. "It feels sticky!" And with the big sky setting we watch the cloud play and the sky colors change, notice the path of the moon and the beginnings of snowfall on the distant mountains. I felt a visceral response in my body as we arrived this time and I walked off my road trance in the fields. It's quiet there. And even with three kids there is a stillness that I can't seem to capture in our life here in the city.


Mom and Ember

We walked along this stream and kept seeing beaver logs. At the end of the walk we spotted their lodge!


In Dunsmuir Gardens...



On Blackie Spit

Our Treetop Adventure

As promised here are a few shots from our day trip to Capilano Suspension Bridge Park in West Vancouver. It was such a thrill!

The photo below was taken from the Treetop Adventure which I think is a relatively new part of the park. We talked a lot about the Ewok scenes from Star Wars because it seemed like just stumbled onto the set.

The Tears are Coming!

Oh my gosh. I'm feeling overwhelmed these days. We just returned from a few days at the cabin where we took advantage of our Nexus passes and day tripped in B.C. a couple of times. And then returned home to a messy house, a mountain of laundry, a computer that is so slooooow that I can't check the 141 emails in my inbox. Oh, and after the few days off, I'm trying to back into a routine with Beck's lessons - a situation that feels pretty fragile anyway. At one point today he said, "Mama, the tears are coming! I'm not sure why, but the tears are coming for real!!" Sigh. (This always brings up my own uncertainty about this path...Am I doing the right thing?!)

But the big news is that today we bought a new car - a new 8 seater Toyota Sienna mini van in Silver Shadow metallic. It smells good, it's roomy and wonderful, but I'm feeling a little guilty about it. It's true: we do need a new car and the mini van makes the most sense, but I'm on this frugality kick lately and after realizing that we can actually fit all three car seats in the back of our little Geo Prism (which gets great gas mileage, BTW) I'm wondering if we really needed so much extra room and luxury. The one nice thing is that we now we can take our little day trips and include extended family which comes up a lot.

So. That's it for now. I have photos so hopefully we'll put those up this weekend.

These Late Summer Days

Well, we're into our second week of homeschooling and for an update about that, head over to the organic learning project, but be advised: it's not feeling so organic these days!

I love these late summer days - still warm and crackling dry, but the light is different - the shadows more stretched out and it's quiet. Ahhhh. No more baseball games, no more summer sports camps in the field adjacent to our house. It's blissfully quiet and we're spending these long afternoons enjoying our home and the yard. The last two afternoons I've spent sewing while the boys play outside.

Things really have changed for us. The boys play so well together and literally spend hours creating various set-ups and scenarios with their legos and all kinds of random stuff they decide to use. One day I see them "driving" my crocs across the room with a load of mini-figs on board and then like today Yogi kept coming up to me and calling me "boss" which cracked me up even though I'm not sure what the story was! We've been having some issues with our aging Subaru and for a few days the mini-figs kept having urgent conversations involving the "engine light!" coming on. It interesting to see how driven they are to play like this.

And so I've had a little more time to keep up with the housework, laundry, and even get some sewing done. Speaking of sewing,I've made two new kinds of bags. The first is a free pattern I got from Quilting Arts Magazine. I love the size and shape of the bag, but I had a very hard time trying to sew the sports zipper around the curve. The directions for that part said, "attach zipper" which wasn't too helpful! I made it as a present for a good friend so if you're Lisa, keep your eyes closed because here's a photo of it!

And the other bag is a pattern I found from a crafter blog called happythings. Now, I love this pattern because it's super simple, quick, and turned out perfect on my first try. I lined my drawstring bags with soft flannel so when the kids open them up and stick their hand in, it's yummy soft. These bags will hold sets of "story chips" which I've been working on lately. You can see them in the photos which we'll post in the next few days.

Other than that, Chris is making progress on our table. The legs are done. He used 6" x6" beams and they're pretty beefy. He also bought some cherry wood to make a contrasting border.

Blackie Spit

Here are a few more shots from the last weekend at the cabin. The first three are from Blackie Spit in Crescent Beach. See, I told you the weather was lovely!

The Work Table

You will never guess what's sitting in our garage right now. It all started when I asked Chris if he could build us a large work table for the basement. It would be really handy for all of our projects and for the kids and for those BIG art set-ups. Our basement space is so large and pretty empty. It just seemed like the right thing for the space.

Soooooo, Chris checks Craig's List and 12 hours later we have a 10 foot long, 4 foot wide piece of old bowling alley lane sitting in our garage. Apparently there are specialized crews for breaking down old bowling alleys and they salvage the heavy wooden lanes and try to sell them to local people who then list them on Craig's List and sell them to people like Chris! It's made out of 2" thick pieces of vertical grain Yellow Pine. This will be a massive table! We'll post photos as it develops.

Last Weekend

The blacksmith at the Heritage Museum made this in front of us and gave it to us to take home.
All three kids wanted a closer look at the various items in the Chinese Herbal Medicine Shop!
Beck and Chris in evening light.
Me and the boys out in the field.
Running in the field.

Easel Painting

Go on over to The Organic Learning Project for photos of the boys painting on the new easel that Chris built. And if you've been following our basement fireplace project, you can have a peek at the final result in the background!

Summer Weekend

We just got back last night from a long weekend spent at the cabin. And thanks to our nexus passes we were able to bypass the typical 3 hour summer wait lines and cruise right into Canada for some fun day trips. This time we visited a living history museum in Burnaby which was surprisingly un-crowded, spent a day walking on Blackie Spit where we got some nice sightings of a pair of Pileated Woodpeckers hammering away on an old snag and soaked up some street music with a side of fries in White Rock. We were lucky to have perfect, balmy summer weather. The kids were happy, we were relaxed. It was lovely all around.

Of course, the day I spent getting organized and packing for the weekend almost killed me. All in a day I:

1. Put in 3 loads of laundy and folded 5
2. Baked bread
3. Opened all the mail and paid bills
4. Sewed 3 bibs with snaps (used the Amy Karol pattern in Bend the Rules Sewing - which I highly recommend!)
5. Packed for myself and 3 kids
6. Made a big batch of macaroni salad
7. Took care of the kids!

Hopefully tonight we'll get some photos of our adventures up here. Stay tuned!

In the Pool

Suddenly it's the middle of August and summer just keeps marching by. Last week it was so incredibly hot we literally spent 5 whole days in my parents' pool. One day I realized we'd been in the pool for 6 hours straight and by the end of 5 days of this, I started to feel a little antsy. This week it's been unseasonably cool.

Yogi's new Playmobile nautical set was a big hit for underwater play.


Ember became very confident in the water and kept trying to swim on her own. She was jumping in, pushing off the edge, going under all the time, and happy and giggling the whole time.

Bread

Have you noticed the price of bread lately? We used to buy wonderful sandwich bread at our local bakery, but recently they've raised their prices to $5.50 + tax per loaf and it just kills me to pay that much. So, I talked to my sister who bakes all her own bread and consulted with an old friend who also does it, and they pointed me to this SUPER EASY NO FAIL bread recipe. I've done it several times now and have had 100% success. In fact, it's almost too successful because when I take it out of the oven in the evening and it's sitting there in all it's warm crusty loveliness, Chris and I tend to eat way too much of it!

I've taken the recipe and made it even less fussy than the NY Times version and it still works wonderfully. I like to mix it up in the morning and bake it either for dinner or after dinner when the kids are in bed. I also don't mess with the "damp towel" and I prefer a smaller dutch oven which makes a rounder loaf since it can't spread out so much. I also found that it has more sourdough-like overtones when you let it rise for 18 - 24 hours - which you may prefer, but I don't. Here's my version:

Super Easy Dutch Oven Bread

Ingredients:

¼ tsp. active dry yeast
1 ½ cups warm water
3 cups flour – + more for dusting. can be white, whole wheat, or a combo…
1 ½ tsp. salt
cornmeal or wheat bran for dusting (I don't do the dusting...)

Instructions:

1.In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in water. Set aside for 10 mintues.

2.Add flour and salt, stirring until blended. The dough will be shaggy and sticky.

3.Cover bowl with plastic wrap or plate and let dough rest at least 5 or 6 hours (the original recipe says “at least 8 hours, preferably 12 – 18 or even 24) at room temperature (around 70 degrees). The bread takes on a more sourdough like flavor the longer you let it rest. At 5-8 hours it tastes like a hearty peasant bread.

4.The dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Use a rubber spatula to scrape dough down from edges of bowl. Cover and let sit for 15 minutes.

5.Sprinkle a board with flour. Dump dough onto board and sprinkle a little flour on top. Fold dough over on itself once or twice. Fold into a loose ball and put back in bowl.

6.Cover with plate or plastic wrap and let rise and rest for 1 ½ hours more.

7.20 minutes before dough is ready, heat oven to 475 degrees. Put a heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in the oven as it heats.

8.When dough is ready (finished resting for the last 1 ½ hours – step 6), carefully remove covered pot from oven and lift off the lid. Dump or scrape dough into hot pot. Put cover back on and set into oven.

9.Bake for 15 minutes.(This is how I do it, though the NY Times recipe says 30 minutes for this step.)

10.Take cover off and cook 15 minutes.

11.Remove from oven and put loaf on rack.

12.Eat!

Hot, hot, hot

I just read that this past week was the hottest week in Seattle on record ever. It's still warm - near 90, but it actually feels pretty comfortable. Ok, enough about the weather!

The Beads

Yesterday when we got back to our house I saw that a little package had arrived for me. Remember a year ago when we got back from Ethiopia and I mentioned the string of ancient hand-hewn beads that we bought in a little shop in Aksum? The shop was full of very old and interesting artifacts. And in fact, the beads we bought had been found in farmers' fields in the area and they were beautiful, mysterious, and very, very old. Anyway, the shopkeeper carefully wrapped them up in a piece of newspaper and they've been sitting in that fold of paper ever since.

That is, until my sister-in-law visited in June. She's interested in jewelery and has a friend who is a jeweler and who owns A Small Extravagance, a jewelry shop in Kentucky. So, my sister-in-law took the beads back to Kentucky and with her jeweler friend designed my beads into a lovely necklace. And that was what was in the little package!

The Ethiopian beads are separated by tiny earthy colored sapphires. I love the whole look. So pretty, so unusual, a little exotic, and so full of special memories. The store we found them in was like something out of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Dusty and falling apart and bursting full of beautiful artifacts. We had spent that day walking through ancient tombs, sharing the dirt roads with camels, young boys with their goat herds, and women wrapped up in gauzy white Netela with jugs of water on their heads. In fact when we first walked into the shop I asked if it was a museum. So, finally, it's done and I'm wearing it and remembering our stories from Africa. And someday when she's all grown up I'll pass it on to Ember.

We Survived!

Oh, yes! It's cooler today! I've thought a few times about posting in the past week, but I've been too preoccupied with trying to keep cool. A few days ago I drove the kids my parents' house to spend the day swimming in their pool and we still haven't gone home. It was just too darn hot. One day it was 106 degrees in our neighborhood and 96 in our living room in Seattle. And this in a place where nobody has air conditioning. We did have a few fans, but the transformers started to blow from the heat and we lost power for about 6 hours on the hottest day. So, it's been bad. But I can't complain too much since my parents are out of town, their house is much cooler than ours and they have a pool which is where we've spent the last three days. We'll clean up here and go home later today.

The Usual

In Hawaii.This is how I wish I felt right now.

We've been busy as usual. Yogi turned 4! I sewed my first bubble pouch. It didn't turn out that great, but only because it was my first try. My first run-through with a new pattern, my first darts!

Hmmm. What else? Just cleaning up, catching up, laundry, food, more laundry, more cleaning up. The usual.Oh, and I'm working on a new song on my uke: Island In the Sun.

Legos on Ice

Yesterday I pulled open the freezer,looked down and did a double take when I saw our ice cube tray. Each little section had a lego mini fig frozen in the cube of ice. I guess the boys have moved on from lego/water play to lego/ice play! Chris popped a few out and took some shots.

The Aloha Bag

My latest: The Aloha Bag. I bought this fabric when we were in Hawaii last week. Initially I wanted a Hawaiian print, but didn't find any that I liked so I went with this pretty tropical batik. Then on the flight home they passed out these little packets of Macadamia nuts. I found myself staring at the packaging and then it hit me! A tiny humbug bag!

One Year Ago Today

July 7, 2008


July 3,2009

Hawaiian Dreams

Hello! It's me again and we're back from paradise. Two weeks in Hawaii - one week on the big island hiking in Volcanoes National Park, watching sea turtles in the bay, swimming in view of the incredible coastline, experiencing the Kapono tidepools with the coral gardens - big sky and big weather. And the other week on Kailua beach on Oahu - fabulous house with private pool and spa, the warm emerald green bay for body surfing, the coconut palms and tradewind breezes, the tropical fish, the hammerheads, the ting geckos popping up -- I've never experienced anything like it. It's the stuff of dreams. Pure tropical fantasy vacation.

Of course it wasn't all perfect. Chris passed a gallstone and lost his glasses on the beach. And driving on Oahu is crazy because they don't mark the roads very well. We spent a lot of extra time driving back and forth across the island. One time we had just driven over and could see Kailua and then after yet another screw-up, we were heading back to Pearl Harbor on the other side of the island. But then finally we'd land back at the house, settle in poolside for an iced beverage on the beautiful stone patio - or on the white sand beach. It was lovely.

New Humbug Bag

I made this one as a gift for one of our preschool teachers, but Chris photographed it for me before I send it off tomorrow. The funny thing is that as I finish each bag, one or the other of the boys grabs it and wants it. "Oh, I love this one, Mama. I'm going to use it to store some legos..." I think each of them has about 3 bags now!
And speaking of bags, I bought some new patterns off Etsy from a shop called Keyka Lou the other day and I'm so excited to get started! Besides being darling and reasonably priced, here's what she says in her profile that sold me:

All my patterns are designed to be simple to complete in 1-3 hours, so they are great to have on hand for making gifts or just a quick weekend afternoon project in between all the other stuff you have to take care of in life.

I'm starting with the Bubble Pouch (pictures below), but I also bought the Small Satchel and the Easy Envelope Clutches.