Weekend Things: Autumnish

This weekend I decided to ignore two looming writing deadlines and just live life like a normal person.

Saturday morning, I went to E and Z's soccer game. This year was the first year ever that I didn't attend every single game––in the past C and I divided the labor so that he took the practices and I took the games, but this year he got roped (with my collusion) into assistant coaching, so he's had to go to all the games––and I've taken advantage of a few quiet Saturday mornings at home.

Later, M's friend came over for "band practice" down in the basement and E and Z's friend joined them for Legos, running around, and watching Scooby Doo.

E decided to carve one of the tiny pumpkins we bought at a farm stand a couple of weeks ago. It's pretty amazing that these boys can just think of some project and do it.

In the meantime, I made apple butter out of most of the remaining apples from our 59 pound harvest at the apple orchard a few weeks ago, which was kind of ridiculous, because our wild apple trees have millions of apples on them right now, which would be perfect for apple butter (since they're not very good for eating). Next year I'll do better. I used a vinegar recipe (some recipes call for cider, others vinegar) and at first I wasn't pleased with the result, but the taste has grown on me, and it's perfect with toast and eggs.

Later, when we took E and Z's friend home, I forgot to bring a jar of apple butter to give to his mom, and when I turned around to go back home I saw this sun dog over our driveway.

I happened to have my camera with me because I was hoping to catch some photos of the gorgeous October evening light on the way home.

But we stayed and chatted too long, and I missed the prime light window. 

One More Beach Day

I didn't want to say "One Last Beach Day" because it can't be over yet, can it?

Sunday, I dragged the boys on a little hike.

I found that by giving them time to play Legos (E) and iPad (M) in the morning, they complained less about having to leave the house (Z was raring to go from the beginning).

We went to a place that I've been meaning to get back to for years.

The last time we were here, E and Z rode in the double stroller. 

It had been too long.

Beach essentials: plum cake, a good book, nature journal, colored pencils, pencil sharpener.

The beach seemed to have grown since last we were here, and even though the parking lot was full, it felt almost like we had the whole place to ourselves.

E and Z entertained themselves, and M leaned on me reading his own book long enough that I was able to read a few chapters. Bliss.

We found more sand dollars and sand dollar parts (now known as sand quarters, sand dimes, sand nickels, etc.) than I've ever seen on any beach before.

E collected them, and Z collected huge clam shells to take home to use as dishes.

 At some point, M disappeared, having taken himself back to the car (and the mosquitoes) when he got bored with the beach.

"Bored" and "Beach" are two words I don't understand in the same sentence.

On the drive home, M surfed through the radio stations, looking for music to his liking, and landed on five in a row of Def Leppard, and now I've had "Bringin' on the Hearbreak" stuck in my mind ever since. Ah, the memories.

Weekend Things--Fall Harvest

I keep waking up in the middle of the night and then lying there, all of the things I need to do, want to do, should do, running a marathon around my brain. Friday my massage therapist noted an imbalance in my gall bladder meridians, which are associated with lists and making decisions, and also with the hours between one and four a.m. I'm not sure how much I buy into all that, but when I woke up early (but not nearly as early as usual, thanks, perhaps, to the massage) on Saturday morning, I decided to just get up and get some things crossed off my list.

There is a tension in our weekends, between accomplishing all the things we need to do, and making time for the things we want to do. This time of year heightens that tension, with all of the perishable foods coming out of the garden––ours and others'––and the impending possibility of frost.

Last weekend we accidentally picked 59 pounds of apples, and, when visiting family friends, came home with a great big box of produce. During the week, I managed to turn the basil into pesto, and most of the tomatoes into ketchup and jam, but still our refrigerator resisted closing for all the goodness inside it, and something had to be done.

So early Saturday morning, I started with a quadruple batch of apple chia jam and oatmeal for breakfast, then moved on to a bowl of gazpacho soup for later weekend eating that took care of more tomatoes, a cucumber and a green pepper. The rest of the green peppers I roasted and froze (wish I'd thought of doing this with them). The rest of the tomatoes went into the solar oven for more pasta sauce. I finished off the morning with a plum cake. I left the huge harvest of beans for C to blanch and freeze later in the weekend (the winners in this summer's Garden Roulette were the legumes––peas and beans we had aplenty).



While I was cooking like a madwoman, E asked if we could get out the autumn stuff. I had just been thinking that the boys aren't all that into our little seasonal traditions anymore, so this pleased me greatly. I hung up our fall banner and E decorated our TV table with autumnal things. I still need to get out the autumn books, although we hardly read any of the spring and summer ones, now that the boys like to listen to chapter books (still on Harry Potter Round 3) and are even reading chapter books to themselves.

I was able to get most of one story revised while E and Z were at soccer an M at a friend's house, and then when I picked up M, I came home with another box of fresh produce and two jugs of apple cider right out of the press. After that we all went to another of M's friend's house for a laser tag birthday party, which I have to say while kind of fun, for a bit, definitely not something I'd want to do all the time (and yes, I had reservations about my kids running around the woods with fake guns killing each other...and me).

All of that out of the way, we cleared the decks for doing something off my "want to do" list on Sunday.

Ready or Not, Here it Comes

Fall is making its presence felt around our neck of the woods.

I'm not quite ready to do anything rash, like wear long pants or socks, but if I don't pull my down coat out before the next soccer game, I may get hypothermia. No, not ready at all, but I guess the earth didn't ask my permission to tilt away from the sun again this year.

Trying to Get Organized

This year is the first that E and Z are in separate classrooms, which means that my automatic backup system for homework, announcements, forms, and fliers is no more, which means I needed to get organized to keep up with two sets of paperwork for two kids.

At first, I thought of making some kind of pocket wallhanging, but decided that: a) that would be too much work, and b) we don't have enough wall space for something like that. So instead I bought an accordion file thingy with lots of pockets.

On the front, I stuck on a piece of blue paper listing all of the things they need to do for homework each evening (I thought i was very clever making it look like a chalkboard with fluorescent colored pencils, but, they informed me, they don't even use chalkboards in school anymore; they use whiteboards).

Inside I labeled each slot with the types of papers I expect to come home: schedule, math, spelling list, reading log, projects, forms. That way they can always find their spelling list or reading log when it's time to study or write down their minutes (I can't tell you how many times M failed to pass in his reading log because it was lost somewhere amid the clutter on our kitchen table).

Because it's all written there for them (and because they can now read––yea!), it gives them some autonomy. Ideally, I won't have to constantly remind them of every single thing on the list, but they will one day come home from daycare and just do it all (wishful thinking is good, right?). So far it has worked fairly well, at least we haven't been going through the drill of trying to find all of the lost papers all over the house. They are still waaaay too tired for the amount of homework they get (which is only one math paper––for Z only––plus studying for spelling and reading), but that's a topic for another post.

A Bird in Hand

On Sunday, while admiring the garden of relatives we were visiting, E and I spied a humming bird.

E set about trying to catch the poor thing, while I tried to capture it with my camera.

Our host offered him ten dollars if he could catch the hummingbird with his bare hands.

But it always flew off before E could get into grabbing distance.

Later, after a walk to see the pond and the cranberry bog, we all returned to the garden where a pair of juvenile humming birds played and tumbled together like a pair of juvenile humans that I know.

Z moved stealthily up on one and captured it in his bare hands.

E came out and had to catch one too, to claim his ten bucks.

Z, however, turned out to be the hummingbird whisperer, and soon had them eating out of his hand, literally.