A Miracle On 18th Street

My kid ate this yesterday! (Shhhhh. He's eating some now, so don't say a word or the magic spell will break.) To most parents this is a real dull moment because their kids have been scarfing down piles of innocuous cucumber since the day they were weaned. As I mentioned before, although I totally accept that my child is an incredibly picky eater, it is still my job to always be offering up good food. Wholesome food. I dutifully do this. So yesterday I listed cucumbers with ranch as being one of his dining options. The kid floored me by saying that's what he wanted.

AND HE ACTUALLY ATE IT ALL.

Which, by the way, he did again just now. While writing this post I went into the living room to collect his plate because he was screaming that he was all finished. What this means in Max-speak is that he has finished the absolute minimum required of him. He has this little quirk where he doesn't feel comfortable unless he is allowed to leave something uneaten on his plate. It's like a young blossoming of OCD. It gives him a sense of control. He must always feel that he has some say. I let him do it because I'm crazy too and understand these little necessities. However, can you imagine how I felt when I picked up a completely EMPTY plate?

How I felt: like springtime just opened up in my chest and I am flying through the wild flowers on the set of "The Sound Of Music" and wearing that awesome dirndl and I'm not fat...like snow just started falling in the summertime and I get to drink a gin and tonic and catch the flakes which, for once, aren't coming from my head...like nothing can ever be wrong again because

MY KID ATE CUCUMBERS AND DIDN'T LEAVE ANY ON HIS PLATE.

My joys are simple. I spent all day (prior to the occurrence of the miracle) cleaning. I don't mean I was scrubbing toilets. I'll do that in the near-ish future. I mean I was DUSTING*, and putting crap away. For the first time in two months I can see the surface of my buffet cabinet in my dining room. For the first time in two months this table was relieved of it's burdensome piles and decorated with one of the last vases of garden flowers for the year.

My pictures of all this bliss kind of suck. Which is ironic because I finally bought a new camera that can actually perform the tasks I want it to. Unfortunately, I have to learn how to use it first. I think I may have been using an ISO setting that isn't ideal. Whatever.

I desperately need to interrupt myself here to tell anyone who is still listening that I have just realized a virgin birth is no longer impossible. For those of you who always believed in it in the first place-you will be disappointed (but hopefully not offended) when I say that I never believed that a virgin could give birth to a child. All information indicates that sperm is always involved in the baby building gig. However, with the help of lots of money and a sperm bank a virgin could absolutely get knocked up without ever having lost her highly over-rated innocence.**

Do you think God was operating as the first ever sperm bank? Do you think he used a petri dish in his transactions with Mary to bring about the "son" of God?*** Was Joseph God's personal petri dish?

Gratuitous shot of the new pantry. I include it only because I think this is a better picture of it than the last two I offered up. There is no need to comment on it again.

I also decorated today. For Halloween. Not a lot. I don't go over the top with holiday decorations. In fact, before having Max, I never decorated for the holidays at all. Having him forced me to unbend my holiday-hating ways and stop acting like a grumpy old man. (It's interesting how often I remind myself of grouchy old men). Max loves holiday decorating. LOVES IT. So I enjoy it now through him. I pulled out my minuscule collection of Halloween decorations and since I had cleaned surfaces off today-there was actually a place to put them. I have to say that there are few things as homey as sprucing up your pad with sparkly black cats and skulls. Taking the time to make one's home festive is really satisfying.

I have missed the homey routines I had before our life crashed down around our ankles two years ago. How can I have been thrown so far off track? How can it have taken me so long to settle into this house and back into the comforting routine of cleaning it and decorating it? I know the time has come to rip out the living room carpet and paint all the white walls. It isn't until the sterile white is replaced by warm color that I really start to feel that my home has our spirit in it. This house is not as pretty as our last one but I realized today that it hasn't received the love and attention it deserves either.

When the hardwood floors underneath the beige carpet is revealed and the walls of my living room are painted, it will feel so much more welcoming. Life may have been tail-spinning for two years as we have tried to find our footing again, but I think a part of me has been scared to settle in. To plant my feet firmly in this house and say I like it and I'm going to stay. I've been scared to love this house and make it better because the last time I loved my house and my life was as perfect as life can get it was taken away from me in one really huge sweep of misfortune. All of it. What if I come to love my humble fifties ranch house? What if my life starts to seem completely perfect again?

What I felt today was that my feet are finally touching the ground and the ground isn't moving anymore. Time to find places for everything. Time to really make it ours. Time to return to the old happy routines like cleaning day being every Friday. Time to love what I have and trust that things will work out so we don't have to lose it all.

See? I may not believe in miracles but I still hope for them.

*See Capello, you're not the only one who abuses caps at times. Sometimes you just have to break the rules.

**Just to be clear here, I'm not saying that innocence is highly over rated in the teen crowd. I'm not saying there's no value in being a virgin. Only that I don't believe that virginity is all that virtuous for it's own sake. It's just the state of being you experience before you experience a different state of being. It's not wise to get me started on the whole innocence topic though. It only ever makes every one hate me.

***One of billions, apparently. Aren't all men sons of God? That begs many questions. So many that my head is beginning to get buzzy.

Winter Comes Swiftly

We now have no where to eat. I guess it's time to clean out the new big pantry space in the garage.

I love the way a sea of jars looks.

These pears are one of the best things we made last year. I'm relieved to have made more of them this year.

Anyone recognize these babies? Bread and Butter Pickles, which so many of you love. Lisa E. wanted to make some to try so I decided it was high time I see what you are all squawkin' about. I admit they sure are pretty.

I produced 33 quarts of canned pears, 242 fruit flies, and two pillow fights with Max in the last two days. Today promises to be productive as well. I have an apron to make and send by Monday, two Etsy fabric orders to ship out, and applesauce to make. I keep telling myself to put away the canner and be done with preserving for the year. It really isn't that easy. The thing people mention most with regards to preserving food is the "work" that goes into it. All that "work" must be daunting...why do so much "work"? I am putting "work" into quotations because I think that word has a negative connotation and for me, doesn't apply.

My friend Lisa K. totally respects the fact that preserving food is hard work. She kept mentioning how much work I've done to stock my "pantry"* with jam. While I love that she gives my endeavors the respect I think they deserve, I had to question her about her idea of "work". I told her that while it certainly took a lot of time and effort to do what I've done, I so much enjoy doing it I'm having a hard time making myself stop. I asked her how much she enjoys doing her work, which is waiting tables, and although she doesn't hate her job, she admitted that she doesn't love it either. I don't actually think about canning as being so much work as I think about it being one of the most satisfying activities I do. The more you love the work you're doing the less you think of it as "work".

On a less food related topic, I thought I'd mention here that Max has now gotten two bloody noses in his other nostril. What's that about? He never gets them from that side. Does his body want to bleed so bad that it will find whatever outlet it can? They weren't bad ones though, I'm thankful to say.

Thursday his school had its fund-raising "jog-a-thon". I hate school functions. I especially hate school functions meant to raise funds. I just do. I'm a grumpy old man and I feel intensely out of place amongst a huge crowd of people all having tons of fun doing something that I hate doing. Plus, crowds of people inevitably make me choke up. It's a reflex I can't control and it embarrasses me.

Being at big school gatherings gives me plenty of opportunity to observe my short comings as a parent. I watch other moms and dads light up and just absolutely relish running around with huge herds of little people. They beam with pride and they all volunteer themselves to help out and there I am, wishing I was hiding away in my little haven of quietude, frowning because I'm obligated to "jog" under the still-hot canopy of fall sunshine. I don't jog, of course, because of my hip. I did my bit though, no way am I going to let Max down by not showing up. But someday he's going to notice just how uncomfortable I am at these events.

Maybe he won't care. When I asked him how come he doesn't want to join the soccer team he tells me it's because he doesn't really like being around a bunch of people he doesn't know well, and continues to tell me how he doesn't like crowds of people either. Like I've mentioned before, my little apple fell right at the trunk of our genetic tree. Poor kid.

More rambling... I thought some people might be interested to know that I haven't bought myself a gossip rag for over a month. I'm not on a campaign to clean up my sorry magazine loving gossip enjoying ass, it's because it's an expense that I feel could better be used for other things. Last night Philip surprised me with a new copy of In-Touch. Does my man know me well or what? I haven't read it yet, but it's so delicious to have a copy waiting for me.

The weather is turning. Colder and edging towards rain. I love this time of year. LOVE IT. I love wet weather. I love the cold. I love fog, mist, frost, snow, and giant storms that whip at your hair and takes your voice away, carrying it off through the bare trees to eerie corners of neighbor's yards. The trees are beginning to change color. I feel my blood coming alive. I feel the wild weather stirring my spirit. It makes me want to go and play.

I think it's time to bring in my winter squash. Before it gets too wet.

This weather also makes me realize that I have a quilt I need to make that I started. I want to have a full size quilt to wrap up in this winter. I'd really like to have a closet full of hand made quilts. To be a real homesteader you can't have other responsibilities such as a job a JoAnne's Fabrics. I have a ton of house projects I would like to work on. Especially now that fall is truly under way. It makes me want to dig my hands into fabrics. I can almost see putting the canning pot away if it's to be replaced by yards and yards of fabric projects. I've been looking at what many of my blog friends are working on and I feel a little envious. So much craft productivity and I have my head buried in eggplants and pears.

There are so many fun projects to do here at home, in the domestic sphere, I really don't see why so many people choose (I mean when they don't strictly have to) to work elsewhere. Modern women often think of staying home as a boredom inducing life. HUH?! I do understand that not everyone loves doing what I do, and I respect that. Some women have brilliant gifts to offer the world that would be wasted if they cooped themselves up in a life of domestic pursuits. But the idea that staying home could be boring is totally an alien concept to me. I'm never more satisfyingly busy than when I stay home. When I stay home and don't have to make a living at it.

My happiest life ever was being a housewife and stay-at-home-mom before I tried making a business of the things I love to do. A business seemed a natural way to share what I love with other women, but in the end, this blog has proved a much better way to share it. Maybe some day I will get to do it again, keep house without having to also worry about how I can contribute actual money to the coffers. For now I'll do what I can and be thankful for all the support that comes my way through my web-store and my Etsy shop.

I hope all of you out there are doing things you enjoy today. Engaging in activities that help you look forward to playing in the cooling air or that will help you keep cozy inside while the winds blow against your winter windows.




*Pantry is in quotations because right now my main pantry is my dining room since my actual pantry is already full. My big pantry is not ready yet. To be ready I will have to empty it of the rest of it's contents first and then clean it.