April adventures

Hello hello!

I am experiencing a case of butt-sitting, so I thought I should make it productive butt-sitting. 

A few weekends ago, the weather was beautiful and we didn't have any plans on a Sunday so we went to the zoo!

The kids hammed it up.

And hammed it up some more.

Then we went into The Living Coast exhibit. It is pretty cool-it's indoors and set off the coast of South America. 

Look at the colors!

I had to resort to using my flash to get this guy. I'm sure I traumatized the lionfish in the background.

After The Living Coast, we went over to see the bears and the wolves. 

Everybody was napping.

Did I tell you about science fair?

Adrian and his "number one best friend" Chase made a volcano. At Chase's house. After the fair was over, we took home the volcano so that we could have an on-camera demonstration.

Oooh.

Aaron and Adrian prep the volcano.

In goes the vinegar...

And it looks like we need more baking soda...

Voila! Eruption!

Science is cool.

And now we are up to our eyeballs in Baseball--which Adrian doesn't enjoy as much as he thought he would. Two practices and two games a week are getting in the way of his "Lego time".

Sigh. 

Only 8 more weeks.

Hay y'all!

I'm not sure when last I posted, as I have been merely riding along the crazy train that has been my life for the past four weeks. (Four months?)

Big man is in baseball, which is a huge commitment compared to t-ball. Practices are twice as long & twice as often. We haven't even had the first game & he has already decided he doesn't want to play next year. He's decided he's more of a "science guy", which is totally cool, but we're going to try a few other sports (basketball, swimming) before we rule out physical activity all together.

Little miss is not involved in anything, because with my working evenings, there aren't enough bodies to shuttle two kids to two separate locations. She's really getting the short end of being a younger sibling, poor duck. Once baseball is over, we'll have them both enrolled in swimming and possibly another activity--because I don't know that I can handle all of the referee duties that come with summer break!

I have been working, and trying to find a new place to work, and making art, and teaching at a women's retreat, and getting ready to officiate a wedding, and getting the garden in order, and reading for book club.

Next time, there may be photos--if I get around to uploading them off of the camera. (We went to the zoo last weekend and I got a couple of good ones!)

TTFN--TaTa For Now!

Ostara for us, thanks!

A few weeks back, we celebrated Ostara with some close friends. Ostara falls on the Spring Equinox--it's a celebration of spring--birds eggs, rabbits, plants in bloom. Due to our unseasonably warm March the trees were in bloom and the kids were able to hunt eggs without hats, scarves, mittens, and winter coats. 

It started with confetti filled eggs that they were supposed to crack on each other (Fion decided to crack hers on her own head), then a race to grab the eggs off the lawn, and finally a spring feast. 

It was good fun and great weather.

This weekend the in-laws are coming up and the kids will get to hunt eggs again--they're pretty pleased with the double-festivities. 

And as Fiona told me last night when I tucked her into bed "Nana and Papa are fun. I'm glad they are are coming". 

Have a great spring weekend, whatever you celebrate!

Like a spoon with the forks

I have long felt completely out-of-place when surrounded by women. And when I look at images of women in ads, magazines, and on TV I really REALLY feel like I don't belong.

I like power tools and paint. I like digging in the dirt and reading books. I like dinosaurs and birds. I like Shakespeare and Neil Gaiman.
I wear make up when I remember to put it on, I rarely have on nail polish or high heeled shoes, or clothes without holes in them or paint on them.

Which is why I find it so frustrating when I take the kids to places where the toys are sorted into "boy toys" and "girl toys". WHAT IS THAT ABOUT? Who made that decision? When did we, as a society, decide that encouraging our children to explore all avenues of play was a bad idea? When did we determine that boys shouldn't learn to nurture or develop fine motor skills by working tiny clasps and buttons on dolls? Why did we decide that girls should have passive toys (dolls, cookware sets) instead of active toys (blocks, cars)?

In our house the work-load is shared equally between my husband and I. We both do domestic chores. We both care for the children. We both feel that it's completely ridiculous that our daughter is being quietly told that girls aren't supposed to like dinosaurs and archeology and that our son is receiving the message that cooking is for girls. Fiona was completely uninterested in princesses until this year when ALL of the girls in her preschool class are gaga for them. On pajama day, every other girl had princess pajamas. Fiona wore Spiderman pajamas. And I realize that I can't shelter them from the influence of their peers, however I want my children to explore what is interesting to them, and I want them to feel free to pursue those interests.

How do you keep your children open to the possibility of the world when the society around you is trying to cram them into a tiny little box?

Parenting is hard work. 

Watch how I procrastinate!

Last month sometime, when there was still snow, I got out the clingwrap and covered the windows.

Then I handed the kids tissue paper & glue sticks and told them to go crazy.

It took 4 days to cover one window and the result was a stained glass effect that I very much enjoyed.

Fiona took it down over the weekend because she wanted to wave to the mailman.

I have been up to my eyeballs with art. And Adrian is in desperate need of a haircut, so I haven't been taking photos. 

And now I am going to go do MORE art so I can meet some deadlines.

But first, I think I'll have a snack.

Take a walk

This winter has been CRAZY mild. I realize that it's not quite February yet, but usually by this point I'd have considered migrating south on a weekly basis. So far I've only seriously considered it once.

And right on schedule, the song birds are returning to the neighborhood. This week we will carve out some time to take a walk through the woods, make some birdseed treats, and generally enjoy the weather.

And then there's a really good possibility that we'll do this.

Because silly is fun.

Things to make you cheerful!

Hey!

It's 2012! And our good friend Mr. Bob is out of ICU, where he had been confined for 2 weeks with pneumonia. Our dear sister in law is expecting (but don't tell the kids! she wants to tell them), and I have mailed off a painting to be included in an invitational show (that means you have to get INVITED to participate)*. I'm feeling pretty cheerful about life.

I had a wisdom tooth pulled yesterday, and I am in love with my surgeon. It took him no time at all and I didn't feel a thing. I want to make him chicken pot pie and recommend his services to my friends. (See how I'm alternately an eighty year old and a twelve year old? I have no idea how Aaron puts up with it)

And I was talking to my little brother's cute girlfriend--we're in cahoots to relocate the lot of us to Connecticut--and she told me about the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company. I spent lots of time perusing and squealing like a teenage girl. I told her about Katrina Cottages.

When I was younger I would spend hours drawing houses, complete with floor plans and gardening plans for the lots they sat on. Usually this would happen in math class--I didn't understand what was happening on the board, so I'd create a little world where everything made sense. Now I love looking at houses for sale, I love looking at floor plans. I'm a special kind of special, I know. When I visited Aunt Carmela (back in August) and we drove by Mama Amaro's house, I wanted to march up to the front door and tell the people to pack their stuff, because I was buying that house from them--thankfully Uncle Steve kept the car door locked or I'd've had some 'splainin to do when I came back home.

Part of my grand plans include building my own house one day. I just have to take the baby steps to get there.

*If you are in or around Natchitoches, Louisiana go see my painting!

goodbye, 2011!

Hello to all!

I hope everyone is ready to say GOODBYE to 2011. It was a year filled with much too much bad news and much too little good news. 2011 set the bar so low that it made 2010 look like the height of awesome. (2010 was the year I had pneumonia for 3 months). I am far to old to write to Santa, but not old enough to believe that writing down my wishes for the coming year is in any way silly or futile.

 2012, here is my wish list: I wish for my friends and family to be healthy. I wish for my children to remember you in smiles and friends made. I wish for the perseverance to face my goals head-on. I wish for peace in our heads and forgiveness in our hearts and kindness in our actions.
Thanking you in advance,

Kara M DeCarlo

(Go and write your wishes down, too! I believe life is better when we can move towards what we want, instead of running blindly from what we don't want)

Wishing all of you beautiful dreams and a joyous New Year!

Pensive in the face of the New Year

Yes, I completed all my holiday presents. I plan to totally cop out of wrapping them by putting them in brown paper bags & stapling the bags shut. My holly jolly ho-ho-ho spirit left about two days ago and I am just ready for this season of gifting to be over.
To make it through the next few days of holiday go-round, I will be needing a designated driver. Luckily, I have a husband who will gladly take on that role. Thanks babe!

I also have to submit my 2012 goals list to my lovely friend who has agreed to hold me accountable to all of them. She is a therapist by day, so I do not expect to be able to wiggle my way out of them.
Which means that I have to be realistic in my aspirations and not go overboard with planning.

This is proving more difficult than I imagined. As it turns out, I am the Queen of Unreachable Goals--probably the reasons for this would require immense amounts of therapy, but we all know that's not going to happen. So now I have to weigh each goal against the reasons for putting it on the list, and the probability of achieving said goal. Doesn't that sound like fun?!

Not to me either. So I have been working in fits & starts, but there are only 8 days left of 2011.

Blah.

Happy New Year.

In case you were feeling rushed..

Firstly! There is free shipping at my etsy shop with the coupon code JOY2U. Happy Holidays!

Secondly, I am not yet done with holiday presents, because I have decided to do a handmade holiday for the second year running. Which wouldn't be so overwhelming if I hadn't added some people to the list. So far I have made hot cocoa mix, marshmellows, book pins, flower brooches, and upcycled journals. I still have to make bracelets for a gaggle of teenage girls, and fleece camo hats for boys.

I am running out of time and energy...but mostly time.

So I hope you all are enjoying this time of year, however you celebrate it!

LONDON, BABY!

Flying out of Chicago, we headed west over Lake Michigan. Hi Chicago!
 I flew from Chicago to DC, where I met up with my Mom and we flew together to London.

The view from our floor of the hotel. We were on floor 12, so it was pretty spectacular. That castle-looking building is the Renaissance hotel at St. Pancras. On the other side of that is the King's Cross underground and railway station (King's Cross is where Harry Potter left for Hogwarts).

That low-lying red brick building is the British Library. They had a fabulous exhibit on Illuminated Manuscripts. Also, I saw the Magna Carta and a First Folio of Shakespeare's works.

And there was food! I especially enjoyed this little treat: a rosemary & chocolate macaroon, a raspberry & basil mousse, and a lavender & citrus sorbet.

And of course we had to go to Harrod's to see the Christmas decorations and ride the Egyptian escalator. We also popped into the Harry Potter shop.

That's the dome of St Paul's (Where the old lady feeds the birds in Mary Poppins) and that bit of water is the Thames River)

We went to the Globe Theatre & museum. That's me with Will--I am a HUGE Shakepeare dork. I went to Shakespeare summer camp when I was in high school. True story. The theatre season runs April to October and groundling tickets are only 5 pounds a person!

And we popped over to Baker Street to catch a glimpse of 221B (Where Sherlock Holmes "lived". There's also a Sherlock Holmes Museum next door, but I didn't see the need to pay to look at an exhibit of a fictional character).

And then we came home. We crammed a lot into 3 days. I loved the public transportation, the museums, the weather, and even the food.

London--you rock!

Shop not!

As I am all out of cash and rapidly approaching a fabulous long weekend in LONDON, where I will be carrying and fetching for my Mom (which is totally cool, because 1. She's my Mom and 2. it's LONDON), I am not participating in any of the retail craziness of this weekend.
Instead I will be working, bidding farewell to my last Thanksgiving guest, editing/posting photos and repurposing old clothes into new clothes.

As we approach December, I have tasked myself with getting things crossed off the neverending TO DO list and instilling an appropriate sense of holiday cheer in the kids.

It's Fall

Oh my, is it ever. A few weeks back we went to the pumpkin patch, where Adrian tried his hardest to bring home a pumpkin three times the size we suggested.

The onset of Fall means all kinds of wonderful things. Yellow leaves against blue skies, massive quantities of baked goods, Halloween, Thanksgiving, crisp air, apple cider, sweaters, rosy cheeks and the smell of fallen leaves when I walk through the woods.

We are hosting Thanksgiving this year, which has resulted in a flurry of home improvement projects. Not all of them will be finished before people arrive in SEVEN DAYS, but enough that I don't feel like the house is falling down around my head.

And, yes, Dad. I will post pictures of the kids in their Halloween costumes. Eventually. When I don't have a kid standing on either side of me, demanding something.

Have a good weekend, y'all.
Enjoy the beauty before winter comes and chills your bones.

He's trying to do me in!

After this week I have decided two things.
1. Adrian should go into politics, because he is master of the spin.

2. I have to either join the french foreign legion or take up drinking.

Allow me to transcribe for you the two assignments that Adrian has brought home from school this week, exactly as they appear.

Assignment one:
One time I stole my sister's diperes and i got cought. I toled my mom I did it. And she spanked me. After that I never did it agen.

(Replace "one time" with "multiple times" and "stole" with "wore, urinated in, and then shoved in the back of my sister's closet")


Assignment two:
If I were a child in Heckedy Peg when the witch came in I wod stab her and take the gold.

(this little gem is complete with an ILLUSTRATION, wherein the child has a knife in the blood-red belly of the witch and is saying "this is esey")

So, yeah.
Parent/Teacher conferences are going to be awesome this year.

Do you think they'll let me bring a flask?

Bringing it all together

For many years I have resisted merging my home life and my art life, but it does appear that they are inseparable. After all they both require my two hands and one mind to tend them, and I try to maintain a balance between them--lately that balance has slipped. I have spent more physical time in my home life and more head time in my art life. I find myself planning artworks when I am cooking, cleaning, folding laundry, walking the kids to school--but the ideas only get a rough sketch in the sketchbook and then I am back to mundane housey stuff.
Part of the art time is maintaining my art blog and my Etsy shop--which until now I have mentioned only in passing. It is really difficult for me to maintain two blogs--it requires twice the wit and four times the editing. I am hoping that the new schedule I have set for myself will allow me more time to share the craziness that is our home life with you and time to share my art life over there. The other art time is at work, where the slow season has settled in and we are drawing and painting to keep our art muscles flexed.
As it stands, I may be completely obsessed with one thing over another--as the winter approaches there is a good chance that I will retreat into my art cave--so if you are looking for me here I may be over at the art blog: http://karapaints.blogspot.com/
Do drop in and say hi. It's pretty informal over there, as I usually have clay under my nails or paint on my nose.

Good morning!

Hello to all, old friends and new!

I seem to have acquired some new readers--hi there (yes, you and you)! And I DO read all of your comments, and thank you so much for responding. Don't think I am ignoring you, I am just sort of surprised that you are out there, reading MY thoughts.

When I started this blog, 7 years ago, I was grossly pregnant and living far away from both my family and my husband's. The intention was to keep from repeating the same stories over and over, as well as provide them with a steady stream of cute baby photos.

As time has marched on, I have had less and less free time so updates have become sparse. Right now my children are entertaining themselves by measuring things with a 16 foot tape measure and making monster noises.

We are gearing up for Halloween. The children have costumes (store bought, and totally cop-out I know), and I just discovered I no longer FIT in my costume. (I knew all that chocolate would catch up with me) So this week I am mixing & matching & sewing something new. The best part of making my own costume is that I can make alterations with safety pins and it doesn't matter because I won't be wearing it but once. I am not so much on hidden seams and perfection, which makes my Grandma sad because she is a seamstress of the First Order.

Now, a complete change of subject.

I decided that in this year of "more, better", I was going to be more expressive of my gratitude. To that end, I have started composing thank you letters to people who have inspired me. I don't expect letters in return, but I figured that they would never know that their actions have caused good things if nobody tells them.

Your mission for this week: Go out and tell somebody you appreciate them.

The oven repair guy cometh

On Thursday the oven repair man is coming to FIX MY OVEN. I am so excited I can barely sit still. Our oven ceased working in JUNE and we have managed to do without until now. But I am hosting Thanksgiving for 15 people and I don't think they would be amused by microwave dinners, even if I wrapped myself in foil and declared it "Thanksgiving From The Future". Aaron won't care so long as he gets his traditional Thanksgiving Burrito. (But that is a story for another time)

So, YES! Oven Repair Guy! I thought about drafting an open letter declaring my love for him, but then I realized it's not just oven repair guys. It's plumbers and mechanics and handymen everywhere.

I LOVE Men Who Can Fix Things.

Growing up, my Dad was fairly handy. As it turns out, his Dad was handy too (mechanic in WWII kind of handy). I always thought: one day, I'll be able to fix stuff like that.

As it turns out, I can handle basic repairs.(woo! go me!) I fixed a leaky sink, unclogged a bathtub, patched holes in walls, that sort of thing.
But anything requiring sheer muscle is beyond me. I am 5'3" on a good day and leverage only works so far.

Enter Men Who Can Fix Things! (They are like Superman, minus the muscles and wearing their underwear on the outside. And really, that should have been a clue that he was from another planet...or mentally unstable.) For a fee they can unstick the stuck, rewire the frazzled, and help me BAKE again.

By this time next week I expect to be up to my elbows in cookies, muffins, sweet and savory breads. I will make lasagna and calzones and roasted veg. I can stuff my face full of homemade deliciousness and it's all thanks to the OVEN REPAIR GUY.

Things you should know

Before having kids, consider the following:

It is very probable that you will be at the house of someone you greatly admire and one of your children will put a hole in their wall.

If you can survive deathly levels of embarrassment, then you are very nearly ready to procreate.

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.

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.