New Attitude

Surrounded by much wailing and gnashing of teeth and tearing of hair the last couple of days, I have been able to maintain my new-found equanimity, that is, I repeated the mantra "people are stupid and they get what they deserve" so many times that I think I became a Republican for a little while. These are the lows our sorry excuse for a democracy plunges otherwise decent people to these days.

Before going too far down this low road, I decided to focus instead on the little things in life--minutia, perhaps, or maybe the only things that really matter. Things like:

Giant pumpkins,

and the wooden leaf-shaped bowl I found in the basement all covered in dust, which I cleaned up to hold all the bits of fall we've been collecting for our centerpiece,

and those bits of fall. Fall is arguably the best season for collecting little bits of nature. I found these crazy acorns near my office. C (who is a tree geek on the side) identified them as "mossy cup" (not to be confused with "mossy oak" the camouflage pattern ubiquitous in these parts). It's actually an endemic species around here, so I plan on planting a few on our land (which I should probably hurry up and do, as the ground is freezing up quick). I found some conkers, which may be buckeyes or horsechestnuts (or they may all be the same thing; I haven't set the tree guy to work on those yet) and a quince on a walk in Hallowell with a friend. The big oak leaves are from the mossy cup and the red maple ones I pick up when walking around the campus at work (oddly, we don't have many maples on our five acres). The gourds I bought, so they don't count as "finds" but they are so funky and fun and they seem to last forever (though one day in December I'll pick one up to find it rotten through).

and spooks, of course.

On Sunday morning, before the Halloween rush, I planted a few dozen flower bulbs that I bought in an overly-enthusiastic school fundraiser spending spree. As I dug the icy ground and placed four precious hyacinth bulbs in the cold mud (with no good reason to believe that hyacinths can even live in this climate), I had the thought, "I can't wait till spring." Not exactly the right attitude for Halloween morning, with spring 4 1/2 months away on the calendar, and another month or more in the future, weather-wise.

So my new perspective, both in response to politics and winter, is to slow down, pay attention, focus on what is here and now before me. Stop. Look. Listen. Breathe. Enjoy.

What other choice is there?

Face Lift

So I spent the day feeling depressed about the impending election and hostile toward friends who did or were planning on voting for the spoiler candidate, until this afternoon I had a revelation: why should I care any more about who is elected governor of Maine any more than, say, Arkansas? So I lose my job (hopefully by getting spectacularly fired for insubordination) and C's business dries up and they double class sizes and start teaching creationism in public schools? So what? It will be a career opportunity--a chance to finally travel the world like I've always dreamed. I hear Costa Rica is the happiest place on earth. Though my kids love winter best, so we might have to set our sights on Sweden. I'm sure both countries have a dearth of middle-aged women with no marketable skills.

In the spirit of NOT GIVING A FLYING FIG about politics and the demise of the world as we know it, I'll continue with our regularly-scheduled program of fluff, that is, another post about Andrea trying to bring some semblance of organization to her life and home. I know you just sit on the edge of your seat waiting for my next re-org post.

One major "hot spot" in our home is the "art table"--the area where I try to keep art and craft supplies at hand for the boys to use at any time (when I was a kid, my mom kept the crayons on top of the refrigerator, and we were never allowed play dough, and paint was only a rare--and later--option, so I like to keep stuff in my kids' reach for whenever the creative urge strikes). But it does tend to collect clutter and get messy.

Exhibit A:

We have a lot of cans of various pencils and writing implements that crash to the floor at least once a week, scattering their contents, when someone squeezes between the art table and the dining table. We also have this cute art caddy which I bought for M when he was four, but we had not been using it effectively. M, who had a graffiti artist's urge (if not skill) to cover every surface with his scribbles at that age (one down side of keeping the art supplies at kid level--lots of crayon and pencil on walls, cabinets, windows, etc.), had thoroughly decorated it with tape, marker and pen, and it was filled with those stupid holiday-themed erasers that we acquire everywhere somehow, broken pencils, pencil shavings, glitter and other miscellaneous and unused junk.

I decided to clean it up a bit and make it more attractive to use to replace all those cans that come crashing down on a regular basis. First, I threw away (in that trash!) the erasers and anything broken or not usable (yes, as the hoarder this is amazing, but really, we'll never use them and I'm sure they're made of PVC and full of phthalates). Then I gave it a coat of paint (the color from the boys' room), and filled the slots with just enough pencils pens, colored pencils and scissors, putting the majority of them--we had dozens--in a box in the basement.

Ahh, I feel more relaxed just looking at it. Maybe I'll even bring it with us to Costa Rica.

Devil, Devil

This is my favorite Halloween book:

The e.e. cummings poem, "hist whist"

with delightfully spooky illustrations by Deborah Kogan Ray.

It's one of my very most lucky library book sale finds.

I managed to encourage E and Z to be the devils for Halloween (E was right on board, but Z persisted in wanting to be a soldier--again--but I had a feeling that once E's costume came together, Z would come around, so I assembled the materials for both.

I have a friend who lets her kids be anything they want for Halloween, as long as the costume can be made out of a sweat suit.

So we started out with sweatsuits and, just as I was trying to figure out how to papier mache my kids' faces to make masks, we received a fortuitous visit from a little friend who had a felt devil mask.

Ah, yes, felt. The wonder fabric. I even used fusible webbing so they were completely no-sew.

Z, on the right, is the great green dancing devil, devil, devil...and E is just your basic orange devil.

And, apropos of nothing, there goes Percy Jackson running off to slay various titans with his gold sword slung over his shoulder.

We celebrated in style, with mock-pumpkin soup (that would be small, unripe green red kuri squash) and our traditional hay ride around the neighborhood pillaging the candy bowls at every stop, and rounding out the evening with C reading a ghost story (this year's selection turned out to be not all that frightening and half the audience fell asleep mid-telling).

Hope you had a spooky Halloween!

Watercolor and Controversy

Last week I was looking on line for instructions for wet-on-wet watercolor painting to use up some of the insanely expensive Stockmar watercolor paint I bought during a fit of Waldorf-poseur-dom when I ran across this website for critics of Waldorf education. They claim that Waldorf schools are creepy-weird religious cults rife with institutionalized bullying (by teachers and students) and disturbing racist undertones and that the educational philosophy is entirely based on the untested hypotheses about child development of Rudolph Steiner and that it has not been updated to align with modern understandings of education.

Whew! I know some people who find Waldorf overly rigid and controlling and I had read Kate Haas's essay about her horrible experience as a child in a Waldorf school, but I had no idea there was such controversy surrounding it. I don't know enough about either the benefits or the drawbacks of Waldorf to have an opinion one way or other, but I do find it interesting (I love a good controversy). I do read a lot of blogs by Waldorfy parents, and I find it hard to believe that all of these creative, seemingly intelligent people are either members of a cult or have

been duped into following cultish practices unwittingly.

In any case, I am feeling extra grateful for our wonderful PUBLIC school with amazingly caring teachers who know my kids (and no doubt all the other kids too) so well and go out of their way to make education work for them, who are creative and flexible (we just had parent-teacher conferences and E and Z's kindergarten teacher told us about how after Z brought in the Dangerous Book for Boys, she set up a knot-tying station and how much all the kids love it).

I am a huge proponent of public school anyway, and if you let me I'll get on my big (probably offensive to many) soap box about how public school is our most basic democratic institution and that (like water) if the people who care about education (or clean water) only send their kids to private school (or buy bottled water) then there will be no political pressure for public school (or tap water) to meet high standards and it won't be there for those who need it, but who may not come from a family who has the time, interest or motivation to make it work (or it will just flow rusty from the tap).

It breaks my heart to see how much time and energy people put into educating their one or two own kids when if they just put a tiny fraction of that into a public school classroom, they could benefit 20 or 30 kids. (Two disclaimers here: 1. I have well water--but I drink tap water when I travel--and 2. I have not volunteered in my kids' classrooms, due to infant/toddler twins when M was younger and full-time work now. I know, I suck).

Anyway, back to Waldorf education, regardless of controversy, I do like the idea of children learning to cook, sew, knit, and create art as part of their education, so I try to fit as much of that in during our "at home" time as possible. And I do like the look of wet-on-wet paintings (we've used old watercolor paintings in the past as Mother's Day & Thank You cards, Valentine hearts and gift tags). And there's all that paint to use up. So we did some wet-on-wet painting Sunday morning. I had even bought some of the big brushes (rather than using the tiny ones that come in watercolor trays) and I finally figured out the ratio of paint to water (1:2), which as it turns out was in a book I had all along. This gave the paints a much richer color than we'd had in the past when I had stingily put in a little dab of paint with lots of water. I didn't tell any stories or give them any kind of instruction.

It took a lot longer to set up than I had expected, with finding and cleaning jars and mixing paints and soaking paper, so I don't know how often we'll do it, but E and Z seemed to have a good time (Z left after his first painting, while E completed four. The other two are mine. M was downstairs working with C on his Halloween sword).

How do you fit creative time with kids into your busy schedule?

Simplifying: Cleaning Routines

A couple of years ago, I tried out the FlyLady's house cleaning methods--for one day. Long enough to get my sink shiny, but once I saw the next assignment (get dressed) I didn't really feel the need to go on. Seriously? When was the last time that I wasn't sick (and even if I was), that I got to stay in my jammies all day?

But, thanks to MaryBeth's inspiration, I decided to give the Fly Lady another go, this time using her book, Sink Reflections. There is much that is irritating about the Fly Lady: her "god breezes," her 8000 acronyms, her very scattered writing style, her excessive quoting of overly effusive fan email. But there is a lot that is useful in there, too. If you can get by the annoying stuff: routines--morning, night, weekly--letting go of perfectionism and working on things a little at a time, rather than waiting for a huge block of time to clean the whole damn house (these aren't exact quotes, just what I've gotten out of the book). As with most self-help books I've ever read, I thought of a dozen people who could benefit from the FlyLady even more than me. I even briefly thought of handing her book out for Christmas presents, but decided it wouldn't be very well received.

The one daily routine I've taken up consistently and which has really made a difference in house cleanliness is to wipe out the bathroom sinks and swish the toilets every morning. It only takes a minute, and it really is so nice to go in there and not cringe at whatever surprise the boys have left behind. I wash out the tub either before or after I give them a bath, and I scraped all the old dried soap of the soap dish in the shower while I was taking a shower one morning...this cleaning stuff can be addictive.

The Fly Lady recommends a weekly one-house speed clean that she calls a "House Blessing." That sounds too much like it involves a priest in vestments with holy water and one of those big brass incense burners, so I prefer to call mine a "House Bewitching." The results are almost as magical as Samantha cleaning the whole house just by wiggling her nose. The trick is to do six tasks for ten minutes each. Here's my Bewitching Hour:

1. Strip beds and stuff sheets in washer (if the sun is shining) and empty trash cans.

2. Pick up floor downstairs.

3. Dust livingroom furniture.

4. Sweep and dust mop downstairs.

5. Mop kitchen.

6. Dust and dust mop upstairs.

7. Water plants.

8. Hang out sheets.

OK, that's more than six tasks, and it usually takes more than an hour because I get interrupted by things like kids, breakfast (C. cooks Saturday a.m.) or soccer games. And, I don't stop what I'm doing when the alarm goes off, but keep going until I'm done with what I'm on.

The amazing thing, though, is that my house gets reasonably clean every week without me spending all day Saturday and Sunday cleaning it (I do still find myself spending a lot of time cleaning, but I have been working on that &$#@* basement and I spent a couple of days getting the yard, deck and front entryway cleaned). I used to mop my kitchen every few months (seriously...I horrify myself), usually when a guest was coming and it would take me an hour or more and several changes of water (each bucketful turning black). The FlyLady says it was my perfectionism that kept me from cleaning my floor more often, because I felt like I needed that huge block of time to do it really thoroughly. Now (wait for it) I don't even move the table and chairs out of the way and I only use one bucket. Once the floor is done (and the water black), I move on to the next task. I'm hoping that at some point I'll get ahead of it and the water won't get black anymore. I'll let you know how it goes.

The other FlyLady recommendation I have taken on wholeheartedly is the HotSpots. These are areas where stuff tends to pile up. My goal was to keep the end of our kitchen/dining table clear of school papers, mail, magazines, art projects, toys, etc. But once I got that cleared, I cleared off the end of the counter, my dresser, my sewing table, my desk, a small end table in our living room. I have one last HotSpot, a mail envelope full of things "to do"...like thank-you notes I never sent last Christmas (oh, yes, and a drawer in my desk that has started taking up random papers. It's such a relief to not have those piles of papers staring at me (though there are fewer places to look when I can't find something). Now when I go into other people's houses I'm on HotSpot alert.

The FlyLady recommendation that I'm having a hard time taking on is to Quit Whining and Stop Being a Martyr. Grrr...I've actually been extra grumpy and resentful about everyone else's messiness since I began the new routines. Right after I read the no whining chapter (and right after I had completely cleaned and rearranged the living room) C said something like, "Why did the cleaning people quit?" I'm sure he thought he was being funny, but, considering the house had been more consistently clean (rather than one huge burst of clean a few times a year) than it has ever been, I was really irritated. But immediately after that, he started sorting through some of the stuff on the two desks that make up his home office in our living room. So maybe he was feeling like his mess looked even worse compared to the rest of the house.

Now if I could only get the boys to hang up their coats and backpacks when they walk in the door, rather than dumping them in the mudroom doorway (and I'm not even going to talk about their bedroom...I've been cleaning and sorting and decluttering it for months--to the point even of just throwing everything from the floor into laundry baskets or boxes and taking it all to the basement...I've done this twice and they've neither noticed nor cared very much, and still it's like trying to scoop the water out of a hole on the beach; it just fills up again).

Saying "Hello" to Mother Earth

Cheese Enchiladas

Long ago--after braving a little whole-in-the-wall that served "home-made" tortillas stuffed full of melted Velveta--I figured out that if I wanted decent Mexican food in Maine, I'd have to learn to make it myself. Here are my favorite: Cheese Enchiladas.

I use Rick Bayless's tortilla recipe. (Which, apparently, is also here. It seems I write about tortillas on a regular basis. Must be like a vitamin deficiency).

The boys love to help press the tortillas.

After the tortillas are made, I shallow-fry them in oil to help them hold together in the casserole (this also helps rehydrate cast iron pans after making the tortillas).

For the enchilada sauce:

Heat in a medium sauce pan over med-low:

3 T oil

Add and saute till tender:

1 onion, chopped

Add and saute one minute:

1 clove garlic, minced

Add and stir till browned:

3 T flour

Add and stir:

2 T chile powder (I use Fernando's chile moldo puro)

1 t salt

1 t cumin

1 t dried oregano

Slowly add:

2 c cold water

Cook over med-low until thick. If it is too spicy for your taste, you could add 1 cup tomato sauce.

Spoon about 1/3 of the sauce into the bottom of a baking pan. Lay six tortillas in the bottom of the pan (yes, despite making my own tortillas, I am too lazy to roll them...you gotta pick and choose). Sprinkle on a generous layer of shredded cheese (I used cheddar, but Monterey Jack is good too). I also added a layer of steamed Swiss chard because we have bushels of it in the garden and I'm running out of ideas of what to do with it.

Lay the other six tortillas on top, pour on the rest of the sauce, sprinkle with cheese and bake at 350 till all hot & bubbly.

I served it with rice and some gorgeous pinto beans that we grew (and of which I'd show you a beautiful picture, but I'm still having photo issues!!) from a small bag of seeds someone gave us for free. They were easy to grow (apparently--the garden is C's job) and yielded just enough beans for one potful. They simmered all day in the solar oven and came out really fat and delicious. I saved a few to grow more next year.

Afterword: After slaving over this meal one night and serving it as leftovers the next, I brought home dinner from a sandwich shop the following night (we had parent-teacher-conferences and no time to cook). The kids were practically dancing in their seats eating the ham Italians that took me 10 minutes to order and pick up. While they ate the enchiladas (with lots of milk for the mild spiciness), they certainly did not dance, and did not sigh about what a wonderful dinner it was after it was over, like they did with the sandwiches.