Kidless in Vermont

My husband and I celebrated our 6th anniversary a little early.  Last weekend we drove to a little town in southern Vermont to catch a glimpse of the leaves at their peak and spend some much overdue time alone and together.  Oh how nice it was.  I felt some anxiety leading up to the trip, but magically, before we had even driven off our block, I was light and clear blue and windy.  We got yogurt before we left town and talked for 48 hours about nothing and everything.  We sat in silence, we walked in deep deep darkness, we took trembling steps in and out of the woods, we laughed sometimes awkwardly, and we laid close warmed by the other.

This experience away gave me a new sense of the art of the possible in our lives.  Yes, we have three small children and yes it is indeed possible, and even fun, to leave home.  Next weekend, we are headed to the Rhinebeck Sheep and Wool Festival so we are going to explore that "art of the possible" with the five of us in one hotel room.  I hope it still seems so possible next Sunday...

Sprucing Up Our Food

I have been bored bored bored by my food choices for the family as of late.  I am not sure what it is--maybe I am tired of our garden produce (our garden has saved the family heaps of money over the summer.  I just walk on by the vegetable section AND asparagus sure does sound good.  I am going to buy it guilt-free once the garden retires for the year) or maybe I am just plain tired.  Probably a little bit of both.  There has been little that has crossed our table that I am actually wanted to eat--until this little number a few days ago.  Black figs, french bread, melted brie, and bacon all topped with a drizzle of honey.  Outrageously simple and unbelievably good.

Done: Bunny Snuggley

My knitting is starting to pick up again as the gardening is less demanding.  I do miss being out there in the dirt with my kids, digging dirt out of one's mouth, prying another away from her mud pie, and trying to round up a third who is flailing some dangerous garden tool around as if it were made of cotton.  But for all things there is a season and the season of knitting is upon us, right?

I love this little snuggley bunny.  Kelly sent me one last for the Seasons Round Exchange (pattern in here).   This one is going to one special baby living across a big ocean--someday soon I will get to snuggle her in person.  For now, Snuggle Bunny will have to do.

Done: Eat, Pray, Love

This book had been on my to-read list for a while but somehow it kept falling from spot #1, not sure why. I finally picked it up last month and, throughout the first (Italy) and half of the second (India) sections, I was enthralled. This was a woman I could relate to. And she was discovering her spirituality. She was coming into it even. Maybe if I read the book I would come into mine?! About halfway through her stay at the ashram in India, I figured out that that was indeed not going to happen. No longer smitten, I read on but became increasingly annoyed with the author. By the third section (Indonesia), I was reading only to finish the book and move on to Wild Comfort. All in all, I would read the book again for a few reasons--it demystified ashrams, Gurus, and even mediation for me a bit. But I am not going to see the movie...

Done: Our Garden Beds

For me, the best part of owning this new house of ours is having a garden. We bought the place knowing that it needed a lot of work, including a backyard pool to remove. This became our first priority over nearly everything else as I had this burning desire, after all of the transition, to literally root ourselves to the land. Our five garden beds provided all of our vegetables over the summer: sweet and hot peppers, kale, chard, kohlrabi, endive, lettuce, eggplant, and squash. What a joy it has been to feed our family from our own backyard.

Monarch Migration

After watching a large and lumpy Eric Carle-like catepillar transform into a brilliantly colored Eastern Black Swallowtail butterfly over the course of a few days in July, I am now certain that butterflies are nothing short of magical. I am completely enchanted by them. While in Texas over the summer, we visited a butterfly garden and a volunteer there mentioned to me that we should be on the lookout for Monarchs migrating to Mexico in late September. Butterflies migrate?! How did I not know this fascinating bit of information? What is even more fascinating to me is that it is the 3rd generation of offspring of those who flew south who migrate back north again in the spring. Truly amazing this universe of ours... The same volunteer who told me of the migration also noted that milkweed is a host to Monarchs (as dill is to Swallowtails). I did plant some milkweed in our garden and a small butterfly bush but I don't expect visitors for another year or so. Returning home after a short walk today, though, little N spotted a beauty. We stopped to admire her in front of our neighbor's butterfly bush and then we saw another and another and... another.

Done: Our Kitchen

Fall 2010, how did you come so fast? Summer just seems so much shorter than the three other seasons, doesn't it? Maybe it is because I love it so much...

So much has been going on in our little world--days seem to sweep by at a breathtaking pace, but there is some slowness approaching. I can feel it. I laid down in the grass yesterday and let our youngest son climb and nuzzle and roll all over me while a warm yet cool perfect September sun beat down on us.

I am looking forward to some quieter days right now and looking back on all that was accomplished over the summer. For the next few days I am going to post projects that we finished over the summer starting with Our Kitchen.

It was long. Brutal. Horrendously slow. But I think it is all worth it.



In the end, I think it is all in the details. Perhaps one of my favorite parts of our new kitchen are these mason jars which store all of our grains. I saw a picture similar to this one on Kyrie's blog months ago and was inspired to order my own.



The end product of our many many months of living with a slop sink and (on the days that we were lucky) an old stove is nothing fancy or especially original. But it is totally and completely ours.