Friday, September 30, 2011

Sublimating my sorrow.

Today is a day of mixed emotions. I call these "mixed bag days".

On the one hand, I am glad to be home after a week-long, 2,000 mile road trip with the kids. I am glad to see our pets and our friends again. I am glad that Nature got the message and is behaving like Fall.

On the other hand, I am sad to once again be 700 miles away from family. I am sad to say good bye to dear friends of ours who are moving South in hopes of a more rural, easier life.

So to deal with the way I feel, I am cooking. I have made a large pot of red meat sauce with onions and garlic and carrots and bay and marjoram. Tomorrow, I will make gingerbread waffles and fill the house with the smells of fall. I will make Spanish Braised Spinach and White bean soup and fill our bellies with seasonal foods.

Until the children are in bed and I can get up to my elbows in paint and clay, I will be in the kitchen. Food and art are how I process, how I cope, and how I commemorate the joys and sorrows that make up our days.

Sunday, September 11, 2011

The whirring hum

OF DOOM.

Our computer is slowly, but surely, dying.

Which means that instead of uploading pictures, I am backing up 3 years worth of files and photos.

The last time our computer died, I promised myself that next time I would stay on top of the backing up. It would totally happen every month.

Turns out, if I don't write stuff down I forget to do it.

So while I limp this little machine along, we will be posting picture-free for a while. Sorry 'bout that.

The kids are back in school and oh my silence! 2 hours every day where I can do nothing. I have been up to my eyeballs in Getting Shit Done, but I at some point I plan on doing some champion style butt-sitting.

Last week, I read 2 books, worked 4 days at the shop, cleaned out Adrian's room (2 bags of trash and 2 bags of donate-ables), cleaned out Fiona's room (1 bag of each), cleaned out the basement (2 bags of trash--dried out markers/used up pipe cleaners/tiny scraps of paper/broken toys), did my homework (taking an online class on surface design on fabric), and taught a class on making floral jewelry with polymer clay.

This week my mom is coming for a visit, I am working 3 days, and getting the kids ready for our crazy ass road trip. When we return home from our 10 days of travel we will have gone 1935 miles. I am planning games and activities and hoping I don't have to sit wedged in between the 2 of them in the back seat. Because we travel old school: no individual DVD players. No namby-pamby living room on wheels. My mother loves to tell the stories of her childhood family trips from Alabama to Wisconsin with 2 adults and 5 kids wedged into a station wagon with no A/C. I figure if Grandma could do it with 5 and no air I can do it with 2 and no DVD player.
Besides how else can they enjoy the change of the terrain if they never look out the window? How can we make up stories about travelling circuses and cloud farmers if they are tied up in a movie of someone else's making?

Pray for me, ok? If I survive there will be photos and epic posts.
We leave in 11 days.