Weekend Things--An Adventure

After seeing the rainwater flowing over the ice last weekend, and the subsequent cold snap, I was determined that we would skate on the river this weekend.

It took a lot of coaxing and prodding and encouraging, but I finally got E, Z, and C down to the river late Sunday afternoon (M was away at a friend's house).

Sure enough, the rain had frozen over, but not in quite the smooth, continuous, Hans Brinker-sort of way I had imagined it. 

There was a lot of snow and mounds of flaked ice and some wobbly, pine-needle encrusted ice to get through between the more rink-like patches. We made our way a good distance both upstream and downstream, finding the best stretch of ice in the meandering, grassy, willowy part of the stream.

I am like an old woman on skates, so I left my camera behind with our boots while we skate around, missing out on some good photos, I'm sure.

Doing Hard Things

I was reading something recently (I can't remember what it was--a book? a magazine? a blog post?) in which a mother told her child whenever (he? she? they?) struggled with something, "You can do hard things."

A few months ago, when I first picked up a crochet hook, to try to make little rock cozies, having only ever crocheted a hat, it was hard.

I had always thought of crochet as knitting's easy kid sister, but I found not only my yarn twisting up in tangles, but my brain, too. Knitting I understood--you put a row of loops on a needle, as wide as you want your finished product, and add loops to the loops until it is as long as you want your finished product. You can increase or decrease, join to make a round, but it's easy to see that what's below the needles is what you've already finished, and the blank space above the needles is what you have left to do. It's all very, ahem, linear. Also, I grew up in the home of a knitter, and though I didn't teach myself to knit until after I'd moved away, I had seen sweaters and socks and hats and mittens grow on knitting needles my whole life.

Meanwhile crochet (at least what I was trying to do with it) went around in a circle, and there was no needle marking clearly, this is where I am, that down there is where I have been, up there is where I need to go. And the directions were confusing (why did single crochet involve two steps, double crochet three, triple crochet four? Eventually I figured out that the first step was just creating a loop, not actually making a stitch). I started and discarded. Started and discarded. The whole time, I felt my dendrites growing, my synapses snapping, my myelin sheaths thickening. I figured out hook gauges (the number goes up as the size goes down) and yarn gauges (ditto). I finally found the right sized hook (it had to be bought in a package of ten) to go with the right sized thread (#12 perle cotton). I tried different sets of directions that explained things differently (and more clearly, for my brain).

I tried and tried again, and finally figured it out (I still have to look things up--like half a double crochet--and I can't just wing it, making up my own pattern as I go along, but then again I can't do that with knitting, either).

I think I've successfully staved off at least a year or two of Alzheimer's disease with the mental effort I put into it (take that, Sudoku!). And now, when my kids struggle with something that is challenging--drawing or spelling or piano or baseball--I can tell them honestly, "You can do hard things. And it will feel so good when you do."

(More stones here, here, here, and here)

Bracing for March

I know that for many people, February is the longest month, and that when the calendar turns tomorrow, it will bring with it a breath of relief.

But, last weekend, when it warmed up to around 40 degrees here, I remembered March. And I remembered that March is my annual Waterloo.

The month defeats me, I think, because I expect too much of it. I remember the March of my childhood, with crocus poking up under the lilac bushes and tulips blooming in the garden out front and the occasional foot of snow, that would be wet and perfect for making snowman and then melt the next day, leaving behind green grass.

But March in Maine is more cold, and more snow, or a whole lot of old, dirty snow, and thawing and refreezing and mud. Not a crocus or tulip in sight. And a sun not especially interested in showing its face.

I try not to be too complainey about winter. I trudge stoically through November-December-January-February, and even find things to appreciate--dare I say enjoy--about the season. But by March (let's not even talk about April).

So, I'm trying to come up with a March Manifesto, something to get me through the month without descending too deeply into the March Malaise. I'm thinking it will involve fresh flowers (those pictured are blooming--or about to bloom) in our sun room right now. A walk outside every day (especially when the sun's shining), no matter how cold. Reading (I have stacks and stacks of books that aren't reading themselves). Knitting (I've come up with a brilliant, IMHO, solution to my cabled hat problem). Spending time with friends (even when I'm feeling cranky and antisocial). Ideally, my March Manifesto won't involve indulging in excessive quantities of either chocolate or alcohol (though I'm not ruling it out).

How will you get through the rest of winter (or do you live in one of those magical climes where spring actually comes in spring)?

Really Getting Somewhere

Okay, I hate to give play-by-play updates on this quilt, but I have been working on the damn thing for so long (3+ years now), that now that it's finally taking shape, I'm getting giddy.

Over the weekend, I finished putting together the top. I was feeling a little cranky about the shortcomings (the points of stars that got cut off, the corners that didn't line up, the star points the angle the wrong way, the secondary starts that look more like squished boxes).

Then I hung it up in the windows, and it took on this luminous, stained-glass effect, that made all of the flaws disappear, and left only starry loveliness.

Now I just need to put on the borders (getting a bit tricky with them to compensate for the short/wide dimensions of the top--should of had another row of stars. Oh well). And pick out a backing. And get it quilted. And sew on a binding. And put a button in the heart of every star.

Where the magic happens--sewing in one corner, writing in another, sleeping in the middle.

Potions

Z has gotten in the habit of dropping large wads of cash at our local farm store--pounds of free-range bacon and sausage, all-natural sodas, mints in fancy cardboard tubes, and baggies of herbs off the bulk herb shelf. I don't know why this bothers me--he claims that since we won't let him buy what he wants (an iPod Touch), why shouldn't he spend his money on food. He's a much better saver than E, who spends his money on Lego sets or Big Nate books the minute he gets a chance. M can be a saver when he has something in mind to save up for (his own iPod Touch, or a new distortion peddle), or he can spend flagrantly on junk food and school dances, living from paycheck to paycheck (or allowance disbursement to allowance disbursement). Z, on the other hand, holds on tight to his cash. Or at least he did until recently. And he has a great big wad of it to spend, so I cringe when he drops $60 bucks on food. 

But that's not what this post is about. Or it's only about that tangentially. Back around Christmastime, Z bought several vanilla beans and a bunch of big knuckles of ginger root, and has been begging to make vanilla extract and crystallized ginger ever since. I appreciate his determination (although it's a bit disconcerting to come home each night to your eight-year-old asking if you'd picked up any vodka on the way home), and his interest in potion-making, but December and January were too busy for side projects.

Finally, though, I picked up some vodka last week, and more ginger to replace the roots that had grown shriveled and moldy in our fridge, and Z and I set to work Sunday. We followed Catherine Newman's vanilla extra recipe, and ended up with 20 ounces of extract-in-the making. Enough, surely, to last until Z goes to college. We also have a few leftover vanilla beans, so suggestions on what to do with those would be most welcome.

For the crystallized ginger, I just used a random recipe off the internet, which is:

Simmer1 lb peeled and sliced ginger root with 5 c. water until soft (this took 40-50 min.)

Strain (reserving liquid); weigh ginger; return to pot w/ an equal weight of sugar and 1/4 cup cooking liquid.

Bring to a boil, and cook, stirring frequently, until the sugar is almost dry and recrystallized.

Spread on a baking sheet to cool.

We made a half-recipe and it made about two cups of crystallized ginger (which didn't last long in our house). It's the chewiest, spiciest, most delicious crystallized ginger I've ever had, and I highly recommend it (it's not a lot of work to make, just a lot of time).

Both recipes will be in the running for kid-made Christmas gifts next year. In the meantime, Z and I are going to have to think of some other potions to cook up.

Weekend Things--Homebodies

I had been planning to take the boys ice skating this weekend, but after a warm rain Friday, I figured any outdoor  venue would be slush. They had just come off a week of school vacation, which C spent working at home in his basement "office" and they spent running feral indoors and out. The only places they went all week were music lessons Wednesday evening and pizza night at the General Store Friday. And they loved it. 

A Saturday morning visitor.

My boys (all four of them) are such homebodies; they love nothing more than just hanging out at home and doing exactly what they feel like doing, in their own space, with their own stuff. This drives me crazy in the summer, when I want to go to the beach or go hiking or something, but in the winter, I kind of get on board.

So, with the exception of M, who went to band practice Saturday and snowboarding Sunday, and C, who helped his mother out with something in town on Saturday, we had another stay at home weekend.


On Saturday afternoon, when no one wanted to go on a walk with me, I realized I could go on one all by myself. I took my journal along and made it into a little poetry field trip and wrote a fairly terrible poem about this tree:

We call it Owl Tree, because the first winter we lived here, M and I saw a barred owl snoozing on one of the branches on New Year's Day. We've never seen an owl in it again, but Owl Tree it remains.

After this week's cold snap, we might be able to skate on the river, provided it doesn't snow again.

In other weekend news, E got very into making smoothies (using up a huge box of oranges and all the black bananas from the freezer).

C continues to prepare for syrup season.

And E and Z listened to so much of Weird Al Yankovic's "Bye Bye Mr. Anakin Guy" that they had to watch the movie (the fourth Star Wars, which they call the first Star Wars because they weren't around in the 80s), on VHS, no less.

I think letting my kids both listen to annoying songs and watch annoying movies--all on the same day--proves that I'm an awesome mom, don't you?

Braids

When I was gone last month, C let the boys watch the Lord of the Rings movies. I personally think those movies are way too violent and scary for eight-year-olds, but I'm outnumbered and outvoted in this household, and also, I wasn't there. One good thing to come out of it, however, is that Z became captivated with Legolas (and who wouldn't be captivated by Legolas?), and started to brush his hair to make it silky smooth like that dapper woodland elf's. Last weekend, he asked me to give him the braids to match.

It's been many years since my own hair-braiding days, so the first effort was a bit messy. The next day, we tried again, with wet, freshly-washed hair, and after I looked online for instructions for making the fishtail, or herringbone, braid. Z has arrow-straight, silky-fine hair (though a great deal more hair than I've ever had), and it tends to slip out of its braids rather quickly, so I've been restoring the side braids each morning before work. Luckily, he was on school vacation all last week, so he could wear his braids without worrying about what other kids would think/say. I asked him as we were putting in yesterday's braids if he would wear them to school today, but he replied, rather matter-of-factly, "No, the other kids would make fun on me."

I was pleased that he had this awareness, but it didn't dissuade him from wearing the braids at other times. I'm also a teensy bit pleased to have hair to play with.