Answers, Ketchup, Jam and Freaking Out a Little

Thank you for your kind words and well-wishes on my Good News post.

To answer Rachel's questions:

Location? Focus? Celebration?

Location: University of Southern Maine, Stonecoast MFA in Creative Writing program.

(The "campus" is in an old house in a state park; which is fitting considering my undergrad alma mater was a bunch of old houses on the edge of a National Park).

Focus: Fiction (yikes!)

Celebration: Hmm, good idea. I have not celebrated yet, but I am considering throwing a great big "Andrea's going into seclusion and you won't see her for the next two years" party, sometime after I finish my workshop pieces and before I receive everyone else's (and the holidays descend).

Last night I made ketchup (recipe from 6512) and tomato jam. I was a little sad that our own tomato harvest has been so meager this year, and that I did not hit the jackpot of free tomatoes that I did last year, and so would not be able to make these two favorites. And then I thought...why not just buy the tomatoes? Even if it's uneconomical, it would make you happy (and anyway, we can buy canned tomatoes for spaghetti/pizza sauce, so who cares about that?)

As it turns out, I found organic tomatoes for $2 a pound at the farmers market, bought seven pounds, made seven jars of ketchup and four of tomato jam and had a pound or so of tomatoes left over, so even if you count all of the other ingredients, like spices and vinegar, which I have on hand anyway, the ketchup came to less than $2 a jar, which is still less than even cheap ketchup (though a somewhat smaller jar) and a lot less than organic. And I didn't have to compromise my values and buy one of those plastic squeeze bottles I hate (we've gone without ketchup for about four months since the last jar of last summer's batch ran out).

Don't you think making your own ketchup is the ultimate badge of old farmwifery?

(By the way, if you decide to cook these two at the same time like I did, you should probably just measure all of the ingredients of one before moving on to the other, so you don't accidentally put the eight tablespoons of lime juice called for in one recipe into the other, which only calls four two. Just sayin')

While the ketchup simmered (and simmered, and simmered--plan for a good two to three hours to make this stuff), I reviewed the big packet of materials about the graduate program that had just arrived in the mail, and OMFG, I think I will die. What I really need is for an extra day to be added to each week. Or another two or three hours to each day. Couldn't just one teensy tiny little meteor strike the earth and slow its rotation by a couple of hours? Is that too much to ask. At any rate, this means I may have to take up coffee for the first time in my life. Or up my chocolate consumption by, er, a lot.

Definitely will be saying goodbye to all kinds of recreational activities like the twice-monthly Netflix movie, craftiness (I thought at least I might be able to have one knitting project going), ketchup and jam making, and sleep. Wish me luck!

Good News!

Dear friends, I have good news to share with you: I have been accepted into a graduate program for creative writing!

The process has been a long one, filled with indecision and self-doubt (and don't think for a minute that a little thing like acceptance can banish the demons of doubt!), but now that it's really happening I am really, really excited and not a little freaked out.

This will mean, no doubt that my time spent in this space will diminish over the next couple of years, but I won't go away altogether. I can see now that it will be more important than ever to nurture moments of mindfulness and slow-down time with my family, and let's face it, I'm much more apt to do something fun and creative with my kids if I can show it off on my blog.

This is one of the BIG reasons I've been trying to clean and declutter my house and finish all those nagging little projects for the last year; I want to get my household running like a well-oiled machine so that upkeep is a snap when I will need to be spending every spare (and a few not spare) hour writing and reading.

As it turns out, though, I have a lot of work to do before January that I was not expecting. I've spent the last week since I found this out getting ready to write:

• I emptied out all of my desk drawers (into a grocery bag, to be dealt with later) and tidied them, so one has office supplies, another nature journaling materials (I can't give that up), a third holds my laptop and camera, and the fourth has some reference materials. 

• I exchanged a package of blank Moleskine notebooks I had bought for our Colorado trip that never came to pass for ones with lined paper (I've only every used cheap composition books; I think these fancy ones will be a treat). 

• I bought a file box to keep my work organized. I arranged the file folders on my computer and in my memory sticks. 

• I've been reading and rereading The Productive Writer, plus this and this and this advice for finding/making time to amidst the demands and obligations of work and family.

And then...I started to write. Sunday afternoon, in between mega kitchen re-org (more on that next week) and cooking dinner, I plopped in the hammock with my laptop and typed. Kids ran around the yard and climbed in to visit me now and then. M wanted to know if any of my characters were modeled on him. After a couple of hours, I set it aside for the dinner/bath/story/bed rituals and then resumed writing. By 10:30 I had drafted a 15-page story. No doubt it is, in the words of Anne Lamott, a shitty first draft, but I went to bed flying high (and completely unable to sleep). I might actually be able to do this!

Book Review--Raising Elijah

Please check out my review of Sandra Steingraber's newest book, Raising Elijah, over at Literary Mama.

And then read Steingraber's Orion column, "Household Tips from Warrior Mom."

And then, please do get a copy of Raising Elijah and read it too.

Steingraber is one of my favorite nonfiction authors (thanks, Mom, for handing me a copy of Living Downstream at the library 13 years ago!); she has the superhuman ability to turn biochemistry and toxicology into poetry. I think you will love her as much as I do.

Transform

[So it turns out that that the autumn equinox is today at 4:05, which means we held our Welcome Fall celebration two days early. I'm so astrologically (astronomically?) out of touch. Or perhaps I'm rushing into the colder, darker seasons? Nah, can't be that. Have a lovely weekend!]

Welcoming Fall

We had a simple first-day-of-fall celebration this evening.

First we hung up a new fall banner we made over the weekend, simply by painting fabric paint directly on the back side of leaves and pressing squares of muslin onto the painted leaves.

I just cut the squares with pinking shears (btw--did you know you can sharpen even very dull pinking shears by cutting aluminum foil with them? I hardly believed it myself until I tried it; it was nothing short of miraculous) and sewed them to a length of twill tape. Very simple, very easy.

E decorated our "nature windowsill" with our autumn stuff while I made dinner. The whole nature table concept got kind of pushed aside all summer, while our spring naturey items never got put away, fell off the sill repeatedly, got soaked by rain, got mushed by DVDs and remote controls and ambushed by stray socks. I finally cleaned it up and lined up some shells and driftwood and sea glass along it a couple of weeks ago (I had actually collected a lot of nice shells and rocks and things last time we went to the beach, but someone, ahem, left them all there, along with our bucket, two shoves and a net, so I had to scrounge among our existing shell collection). Z later added a tiny bird nest he found and a perfectly intact (but dead) monarch butterfly he also found (he's my finder). E basically crammed some squirrels and owls and corn dollies in with the existing stuff, but he enjoyed himself. We can tidy it up later. Maybe.

For dinner, I made a simple squash soup, served with grocery store multigrain bread.

And for dessert, this pie, which is the whole wheat apricot apple pie from Apples for Jam, only with a lot of adjustments, as I lacked half the required ingredients. It's basically a whole wheat crust with C's applesauce inside and some brandied plums that I made last summer on top. Everyone went wild about the boozy plums--first they thought they were beets (which made E cry) and then they were appalled that I served alcohol, but I'm sure 40 minutes in a 400 degree would burn off all the alcohol, don't you think?

 Our nice evening went south when we discovered, at 8:00 that E and Z had homework--and two pages of it, which means one page was probably left over from last night, when I never even checked their bags. Of course lots of drama ensued, because they were overtired from staying up 20 minutes late last night and getting up waaay early this a.m. And that Z, he's something else. He will purposely put in a wrong answer if he doesn't feel like doing something--last time it was 18,000 as the answer to 6 + 2; tonight he glued all of the days of the week in the right places, but upside down and sideways, and for a picture of what he likes to do on the weekend, he drew himself shooting a gun. I definitely see myself in him, though not me as a first grader--I was a goody-goody then--but me now; when I'm made to do something I don't want to do, I dig in my heels. It's a trait that gets me into trouble sometimes, but I can't help but admire him (when he's not aggravating me); someday he'll be one to right injustices (or spend his whole life frustrated by injustice he can't write, perhaps, but let's hope not). In the meantime, they'll both spend 15 minutes dramatizing over two minute's worth of work. I think, perhaps, six is a little young for homework, don't you?

Nature Journaling: A Tool for Learning

One of the reasons I started nature journaling many years ago, was to learn more about the plants and animals where I lived. Over the years I have continued to use my journal for this purpose (and for many other reasons, as well). I have gotten to know the birds in my backyard, wildflowers at a nature center, the trees in the woods around my home all by slowing down and paying attention with pen and pencil in hand.

When I go birding in the spring, my nature journal always comes with me. I walk into the woods, and listen for an unfamiliar call or song, and follow it. If I'm lucky, I catch up to the bird singing away in the treetops. I train my binoculars on it, looking for telltale markings. I then pick up my journal and pencil and sketch away, making notes about size, color, behavior and sounds. Back and forth, binocs, journal, binocs, journal, binocs, journal, until the bird flits out of sight. Only then do I pick up my field guide and search, comparing what I saw on the branch, to what is in the pages, using my notes as a guide. Back at home, after pancakes and a cup of tea, I open the field guide once more, and make a detailed drawing of the bird from its photo, so that next time I see and hear it, I'm more likely to remember what I saw. This is how I began to learn the most basic of birds--chickadee, nuthatch, goldfinch--and this is how I continue to learn ever more tricky and evasive species.

During a camping trip last spring, I encountered dozens of warblers while on a short family walk. I had my binoculars, but no journal, and made notes in my head as fast as I could see the birds--orange breast, flashing tail with yellow patches, yellow chin, black-and-white, gray and yellow. Some I knew already, like the yellow and chestnut-sided warblers, and some I never did figure out (turns out several warblers can be described as gray and yellow). When we got to the car and started driving home, I looked through the bird book and wrote down the species I saw (or thought I saw). Then, over the next several weeks, I drew birds.

Now, I may not remember all of these next time I see a specimen, but I will definitely remember that the bright orange chest belongs to the Blackburnian warbler, and that the American redstart flashes its yellow-patched tail (the female being much grayer and duller than the male).

Over the last couple of years, I've started a similar process with dragonflies. I get a good close-up look at a dragon (at first only if it stopped on a log right in front of me--but now I catch them and study them close-up), sketch what I see (if my journal is nearby), take notes about size, color, eye position, wing patterns, etc., and then hit the books.

At first (and often still), all I would figure out was that I did't get enough information, or the wrong kind--I counted the thoracic stripes, but didn't note their exact shape. But this teaches me what to look for next time, and slowly, so slowly, I am sorting out families and, when I'm very lucky, figuring out a few species as well.

It may seem like it should be easier to ID dragonflies, when you can get them into your hand, than birds, which fly around hiding behind leaves, but there are some insanely minute details that distinguish one dragon from another.

Now, not everyone is going to feel compelled to identify and name every bug and beast that flutters by. Maybe it's a writer thing, or a naturalist thing, I don't know. But I do enjoy the mystery of it all, sifting through clues, narrowing down possibilities, making informed guesses and, sometimes, hitting upon the answer. Plus, just the act of getting close-up and personal with a plant under a hand lens, or a dragonfly in hand, or a tree just beginning to bud, asking it questions, waiting patiently to learn the answer, slowing down, watching and listening, bring us closer to that bird or bug or tree, and to nature in general.

Are there other ways to cultivate this mindfulness, this slowing down and getting close to nature? Certainly--poetry, painting, meditation, lying in the hammock on a summer's day all can have a slowing, connecting and grounding effect, and I enjoy them all. But learning a new species through journaling is one of my favorite ways to get acquainted with my wild side.

Previous Nature Journaling posts:  Nature Journaling: A Poetry Field Trip, Nature Journaling: Birds at the Feeder, Nature Journaling: An Invitation.  See also Nature Journaling as Meditation for more on starting a nature journal.

A Ditty Bag and a Pencil Roll

I found a few free minutes recently to crank out two quick projects for myself.

Project 1: The Ditty Bag

I've been needing something to carry my personal effects in when I go away overnight, something classier than a ziploc bag. I have a big toiletries bag for longer trips, but when I just head out for a night or two, it would be nice to have something to just throw my toothbrush and toothpaste into, so I made this ditty bag.

The oblong shape was dictated by the dimensions of the scrap I used for the lining. I could have just trimmed it down to a more proportionate size, but it turns out that it works great for long things, like toothbrushes. I've already used it on one weekend trip and put it in service for toting my soap and lotion to the pool in the mornings.

Project 2: The Pencil Roll

I bought myself a big set of (38) colored pencils last summer for nature journaling, and I've been carrying them around ever since (and adding to the collection), ratting around in the tin box they came in.

They needed a better home.

Then I ran across two quarter-yards of fun fabric I bought with no particular project in mind last winter, and figured it would be exactly enough fabric to make a roll to keep them all padded and safe and nicely in rainbow order.

My old pencil roll (below), which is just big enough for a small selection of pencils and pens, has a flap that folds down all the way, which I like a lot, both for keeping everything safely inside and as a place to lay things when it's open, and I was afraid the short flap wouldn't cut it, but once I sewed down the edges and the whole thing sat rolled up for a while, pressing the fabric in place, it seems to work just fine.

I'm not super thrilled with my pink and brown ribbon choice for the outside. I've been meaning to replace it with a piece that's aqua and grey, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

I have just a bit of this crazy Dr. Seuss tree fabric left, and am thinking I'll need to do something Christmassey with it. Any ideas?