Friday Happiness::
.Apple cake and bread to bake today. And knowing that at this moment, a friend is making roasted acorn squash soup for our dinner tonight.

.The Avett Brothers on the radio this morning. "Ah, Brooklyn, Brooklyn, take me in."
I especially like the words "tell the ones that need to know"; doesn't that conjure up the people in your life that you love?

.Measuring everyone's height, grown-ups, too, in pencil, on our kitchen wall.

.The beautiful photos, at this joy+ride, from our neck of the woods.
When we were young, my brothers and I used to take picnics to the cemetery, and swim in the river that winds along its edges. I realize that sounds strange and morbid, now. But it didn't seem strange at all, then. It's actually one of my clearest and fondest memories.

.Way too much on our plate this weekend, but all of it promises to be fun. If you're local, come join us for the opening reception for Public Bookstore on Saturday.

Enjoy the weekend. Thanks for reading.
tt

After the week we had, a long afternoon walk at Stone Barns was the perfect antidote on Sunday. We went with friends, and let the kids go where they wanted to go. Followed them down the path to the pigs, over to the compost windrows (had to work that beautiful word in), where they played tag (compost tag? will it be the next rage?), back up to the chicken coops, where they played catch and release, until it seemed a reasonable hour to go home and start eating and drinking.

We called Callie over in the middle of their game, and asked what she would have said if I had told her they were going to spend the afternoon playing on the compost pile. She said she would have worn a different shirt. This made us laugh.

Earlier in the day, Callie had prepared single-handedly (well, she used both of her hands, but she did it alone, I mean to say) ten pounds of brisket for our pot-luck dinner that night. I think this was a turning point for both of us. I need help. The kids can do all sorts of things, given some guidance, time, and encouragement. (In this case, encouragement is not a euphemism for money. Although in the case of cleaning out the basement, perhaps so.)

Sometimes when I have my camera with me, I feel it gets in the way. I don't actually see what is going on around me, I only see what is caught in my lens. This has been a problem in some instances, where I sort of shut myself off, and disappear behind the camera.

Sometimes, the opposite occurs. On a long walk in the woods, for instance, it helps me to stop and focus on things I may have missed. Walking along, I of course notice the sky and the changing trees, but then through the lens I see how they look in relation to the chicken coops. And I think the shadows of the branches behind the walls of the pigsty are even more beautiful than just the branches, themselves.

And in every picture I took of the kids and our friends yesterday, the light seemed to softly glow around them.

That's just the way I'm going to remember the day.

More tomorrow. Thanks for reading.
tt

Little celebrations

Yesterday was the first day in two weeks that I dropped off a happy four-year-old, and I ran walked away from her school at last without feeling some sense of regret.
I drove myself up to the farm market at Stone Barns, and bought some eggplants and eggs and sweet potatoes. Then I sat, alone, and ate the most sublime piece of bacon and corn quiche (with a whole wheat crust-really amazing).

As I ate, I flipped through the pages of a new book which had arrived in my mailbox as I was pulling out of my drive-way.
I think that anyone who is familiar with Stephanie and Maria's work will recognize the degree to which I admire and emulate their sensibilities. There is an aura of calmness, stillness, and beauty in everything they show us, that I need and wish to find around me in my own life.

Needless to say I enjoyed my lunch, and the book, very much. It felt like a little celebration of Anna's gentle separation that afternoon, of the gradual but near complete transition into a new school year and my favorite season, and of having arrived, perhaps, at a new place of my own.

And then I went home and did some laundry.

::

My friend Jen has a new show opening tomorrow, one that I know she's been looking forward to ,and which will be an inspired collaboration of two very talented artists. And this just makes me happy!

::

I hope you all find a little something to celebrate today. Thanks for reading.
tt

Go.

We went apple picking today with twenty-two people, and there wasn't a wrinkle in the entire day.

I am here today to say go. do. live. feel. eat. touch. spend. take. give. laugh. yell. cry. get out. reach out. stop working. get working. climb. fall. hurt. heal. hold. hope. fumble. fear. reach. react. act out. bite off. make do. make new. make from scratch. borrow. beg. share. love.

It's all we can do.

Do it now.

Go.

{Who knew apple picking was so inspiring?}

More tomorrow. Thanks for reading.
tt

Neighbors with good gardens...Redux

Ummm...so did anyone notice that the text disappeared from this post?

I've been a little bit scattered today. I must have pushed a wrong button at some point this morning. But what I wrote doesn't seem just right anymore.

I just sent this little girl away with her Daddy and three of her sisters. It took a good bit of work to get them launched. I think some cruise ships set sail with less fanfare.

So, I'm re-writing this post. I'm sure this is a huge blogger no-no. But I'm really just making this up as I go along, as we all are.

So, hi.

So, I'll let you know how things are going.

Because, really, that's what I want to do. To let you know how things are going.

And things are going really well so far. I have two big girls home who have waited a long time to have Mommy to themselves. And Mommy is thrilled to deliver.

We ate bad Chinese food, and then all promised each other we will never do that again.
We bought every.single.item on their back-to-school supplies list. (Whole other post necessary.)
We had ice cream and watched The Office on Netflix. (Do you really need the links?)
We read together until one of us was sleepy.

And I really, truly, don't know how I'm going to fill the next few days. Or how we're even going to wake up tomorrow morning with out Anna bouncing about our pillows and kissing us into the day.

I'll let you know.

More tomorrow. Thanks for reading.
tt

Hello, August.

I'm truly not sure how it got to be August. But here we are. A little slow out of the starting gate, with all of the big girls away for this first week, but then...we're off and running.

::So far we've been spending our time with an "only child" in the most unstructured way, which is so different than when you have six kids around and you need some sort of plan. Even if the plan is just to follow their lead and then clean up after.

Anna's a little lonely, I think, but pretty happy. She's been doing some of the most incredible artwork lately. Mostly with watercolors, but also with the markers and pencils we set up at her desk. That desk is the center of her activity. I really can't overstate how great it is for her to have a little spot of her own to go to, either when she's bored, or when she needs to get away from her sisters. It's been so wonderful watching her interest in making pictures develop these last few weeks.

::I've been spending some time "researching" things to do and see in Portland, Maine, in anticipation of my stay next week in a house in Gorham. (Research is such a fancy word for reading blogs.) I dug up some wonderful pieces from last year, most notably Jen's piece for Modish, and this blog, and SouleMama's 50 things, and Design*Sponge's city guide.

There's so much information just in those few pieces, my mind gets a little mushy taking it all in. But, if any of you would share a favorite spot or some insider tip, I'd be really grateful. For now, I'm just looking for ideas of things to do in and around Portland, for me plus three. Later on this month we'll be travelling up the coast, and I'll bug you all again for suggestions in that area.

::If you're wondering what the sangria pictures are all about, well...I thought you'd never ask! My friend Stephanie makes some awesome sangria-it involves green tea, so it's really smooth, and not too sweet, although it does pack a wallop. Ahem.

Anyway, you may remember me going on and on about Stephanie's store, Pretty Funny, in the past here, but now I can send you all to her blog. Go check it out. Lots of eye candy, photographed by yours truly.

::Ok, so I've certainly rambled on enough for this morning. Enjoy your day!

More tomorrow. Thanks for reading.
tt

Dinner to go::or, another over-long food post

Our first night at the beach on Sunday brought to mind a few lessons I learn every year, and then promptly forget. Mainly, that it's really more hassle than it's worth to do the actual grilling of food down there.

Better to bring something ready to eat, so that Tim doesn't have to manage a fire, we don't have to pack and carry the kitchen sink, and the food can be handed out to kids on a need to eat basis, rather than trying to get everyone to sit down all at once while it's hot.

We're there, after all, to let them run and play, and to have a chance ourselves to relax.

So, I've been thinking about the next meal down at the river, and I've come up with a few ideas.

Some sort of cook-ahead chicken recipe seems to be one answer, and if I buy a mix of breast pieces and drumsticks, I'll have something I can hand off to a hungry wet child with out having to even slow them down for a plate.
Erin's go-to chicken recipe sounds like the perfect thing. I used to use the Silver Palate's lemon chicken recipe, but like everything they do, it required way too many ingredients, and every pot and pan in the house. Let's make it a little easier on ourselves, why don't we?

In the Magnolia cookbook, there is a great pepper and onion relish, which I usually make to go on top of burgers, but I think would be amazing on the chicken, or any sort of sandwich. I can make that at home before we leave for the beach, too. And if there is any left over, I can attest to the fact that it makes the most amazing lunch the next day, as a filling with goat cheese in a quesadilla.

Tim's always pushing the sandwich idea, but when I picture a smushy pb&j, it just doesn't jive with my vision of the beach club dinner. But, of course, it doesn't have to be like that. With good bread and a few nice things-some turkey and apples, or salami and pickles, or mozzarella and tomato, that relish-well, sandwiches sound just about perfect. Plus, everyone can put theirs together themselves, freeing me up to sit and drink wine, so they get what they like.

Green salads don't usually go over so well at the beach: whether it's that they're too hard to dress and eat at a picnic or whatever, I've learned that they just don't get eaten. Better to make something like cucumber salad, panzanella, or even a simple mozzarella+tomato+basil. Plus, leftovers of these sorts of salads fare much better than greens.

For years, I brought tablecloths and napkins, jelly jars for wine and candles, cutting boards and thermoses full of tea. And it was lovely. But exhausting. And, I'll grudgingly admit, a bit of overkill.

I'm not ready to go totally bare bones: a tablecloth is easy enough, and covers up what might be a messy picnic table, but napkins? I think we can make an exception and use some (recycled) paper ones. And I can probably enjoy my wine out of a plastic cup just as much as a jelly jar, but I do like to have some votives on the table; once it gets dark, this is actually useful as well as pretty. And tea, although really comforting on a chilly night down at the river, is often the straw that breaks the camel (that's...ahem...me). We get enough tea at home.

But, when it comes to dessert, while cookies and watermelon, or brownies and grapes all get gobbled right up, there's one thing the kids are looking for, and one thing that can buy us that extra twenty minutes, while the grown-ups finish talking, have another beer, maybe. And that's roasted marshmallows.

I guess Tim is going to have to get up and start that fire after all.

Magnolia pepper + onion relish::
Saute 2 cups chopped mixed yellow/red/orange bell peppers and 1 1/2 cups chopped onions in 3T olive oil + 1 T butter. Toss in one clove of garlic, minced, and season with salt and pepper. Cook over medium heat for about 30 minutes, until very tender and slightly caramelized.

Nana's Agurke Salat (Danish cucumber salad)
Peel and slice cucumbers very thinly. Make a mixture of 1 C water, 1 C white vinegar and 1 t sugar. Mix well to dissolve the sugar. Add a generous amount of black pepper, and pour over the cukes. Add 1/4 C chopped fresh dill. If you need to, add equal parts water and vinegar to cover the cucumbers. The longer you can let it sit, the better it will be.
{two notes: you don't really have to peel the cucumbers if you don't want to, and, some people salt the cucumbers first, but I don't add any salt at all to this. Just lots of black pepper.}

What do you make for dinner to go? I'd love to hear your ideas/favorites/suggestions.

More tomorrow. Thanks for reading.
tt

Small matters

He talks largely about small matters and smally about great affairs.
James Thurber::My Life and Hard Times, 1933

I've not much to say here, on a grand scale. You...ahem...may have noticed this already.

Our life is very small. We travel a pretty small radius, with a small group of friends, small(ish) children. Small moments, small mercies, small victories. A small house with a small yard, and (luckily) a small park, out front.

But, I think, it is in all of these tiny ways, these not-large gains, these un-grand gestures, that we can begin to make a difference. We in our children's lives, you in yours, all of us in each other's. Our schools, our town, our world.

One.small.step. at a time.

Small matters. I'm putting all my chips on small.

More tomorrow. Thanks for reading.

tt

Friday Happiness

Today is the day I thought yesterday would be. The sort of day we were thinking of back when it snowed in March.

It is going to be beautiful. Sunny, warm, filled with friends, for little ones and grown ups.

Finally, the first girls' lacrosse game.

Definitely, some laying on a blanket in the park time.

Later, the first sleepover with newly-arrived-home Nana and Pop.

At last, the first neighborhood backyard soiree.

Life is good.

Enjoy your weekend. Hope to see you Saturday! Thanks for reading.
tt

Weekend dichotomy; and please no more snow

Saturday morning::

I got up with Anna before everyone else. Put out breakfast things, made coffee and tea, put on The Aristocats. Then crawled back into bed. Had them bring me mugs of tea while I read a cookbook. Kids would crawl in periodically, warm up on me, and then scatter again. Heaven.

Saturday night::

Unexpectedly, we were left with just one girl. And the one who is asleep by seven. Tim inked in some cartoons. I took random useless pictures. Tim made a pizza. We watched a movie. Heaven.

I can't even talk about the possiblilty of snow tomorrow. On Friday, after the haircut, Anna and I sat on a bench on the sidewalk and ate lunch. And now...

More tomorrow. 10 to 14 inches, more. Thanks for reading.

tt

If you never leave your house,

and you don't watch t.v., don't get The Times delivered, and you've been replaying the same cd in the kitchen for weeks...

you're going to miss out on some information. Just a word to the wise.

John Updike, for anyone else who's had their head buried in the sand, died on Tuesday.

I remember the exact place and time in which I first read Couples.

I remember citing my having read Couples as evidence of my not being ignorant of the ways of the world. (JG Melon, 1991, Clare.)

I was really, very ignorant of the ways of the world.

I wish I could claim to be much better, now. But apparently, not.

I'm going to get The Times delivered. Really soon.

Two in one day...but I had to say something. Thanks for reading.

tt

Have I mentioned I'm a huge Johnny Cash fan?

We got the band back together last Saturday night, more or less. I hadn't played the bass in so many weeks. I'm embarrassed to say how many weeks. Lots.

And I was never that good, even way back when, in the summer, when we were playing all the time. I can't carry a tune at all, either. But in our band, I have what they graciously refer to as "timing". I can sing the song along with our playing. Which is more than can be said for some of us. Ahem.

All of this is totally and completely not.the.point.

I love to play. I love to hold the guitar, and take apart the song until I can figure it out. I get it pretty quickly, too. But again. Not so good. Awful, actually. And not the point.

The point is that this is one of my life-long fantasies. Being a part of a band. Playing the bass. I remember distinctly, in college, daydreaming about being the one up there playing Sympathy for the Devil, for instance, instead of being one of the lost and wandering drunken souls down on the dance floor, waiting for the chance to go home. I'm not an exhibitionist, not by a long shot. Actually, I get all blushed and rashy at the thought of someone listening to me, looking at me.
But it's a way to escape, withdraw, I guess. Or so it seemed, back then.

But now, that's not the point, either.

The point is that my husband is over there playing the guitar, and looking so earnest and happy. And our lead guitarist, well, he's practiced more than anyone, and has gotten so good that I want to get better, just to be able to keep up with him. And our keyboardist: he is constant, and steady, and who knew that he could play so beautifully, almost any song we pick, and keep it all going for us, even when we are fumbling and laughing so much we can barely make out which song we're on.

And then, another point: we are fumbling, and laughing and our kids are among us now, picking up any instrument left, joining in, a part of the band. And all of a sudden, we're all doing this amazing thing. This thing that we can teach them, and they can teach us, and we can all learn, together. This thing that makes us laugh, and makes us a part of something that is unlike any other part of our lives.

We're making music. Together.

We got the band back together last Saturday night. Music to my ears.

More tomorrow. Thanks for reading.
tt

ps. Johnny Cash, and Bob Dylan. And Neil Young. And lots of people who were born way before me. But I still do love that Bon Iver boy, even if he was born in 1981.

Friday Happiness

Another Friday, already? This one came up quick.

Another poker night for Tim, tonight, but no movie night for me, this time. It's getting down to the wire, gift-wise, and I've much to do. Although, I could spend the whole night organizing photos on our computer and still not get Thing One done.

Another party this weekend; this time with friends we don't see very often, at a house that will forever feel a little bit like home, so I'm much looking forward to it.

And Sunday; perhaps the last slow, easy, nothing-much-to-do Sunday for a while. So I am, most of all, ready for that.

Another subject:

The other day I referred to myself here as "girl", and that's been flitting around in my brain since. Because we all know how old I am (forty-one). And I'm way closer -seriously- to being a grandmother, than I am to being a teenager, numbers-wise. (We've got three 12-year-olds. At least one is likely to come up with a baby at some point in the next 22 years, right?)

So, I asked myself Satchel Paige's question: "How old would you be if you didn't know how old you were?"

And you know what I came up with?

Twenty-six.

I'm off by fifteen years. Fifteen. But that's my honest answer. Just on the border of "girl", maybe with the hood ornament over the line, even. But there you have it.

And another thing? I was thinking about what I might be wearing to this party this weekend, and I realized that I have in mind something like the perky little ingenue out of Amelie, and will definitely end up with something more in the style of, say...Olive Oyl.

Then again, what do I think I am? Twenty-six?

What's your answer? How old would you be, if you didn't know how old you were?

Enjoy your weekend. More tomorrow.

tt

First snow est arrive!

No sun this morning, but the first snow fell. Not much snow, but for a three year old, enough to don snowsuit and boots, and run around in the backyard catching flakes on her tongue.

I was thinking about what event is looked forward to with as much anticipation and excitement by adults, and what (cynically) popped into my mind was the arrival of Beaujolais Nouveau. And, what do you know! Today is the third Thursday in November, and, thus, the very day on which that occurs each year. Last year the Georges Duboeuf was so cheap and tasty it became the house wine here until they ran out of it at the store.

Hard to believe I can even think about that right now, as we had a friend visit last night and got into a flock of wine. He was in town for the release party of his friend's new cd. You can listen to it here, and then go out and buy it. Why this woman is not a regular on WFUV is a mystery to me.

Well, at this point in the morning, the sun is out, the first snow is gone, and it's time for me to pick up that little girl at nursery school. She'll be disappointed, I fear. She was hoping to make a snowman this afternoon.

Her chance will come soon, I hope. Something to look forward to. Thanks for reading.

tt

Friends and Neighbors Quilt

A while back, on one of those (many) September days when the school district gave us a "bonus" day with the children, I panicked. Summer was over. The pool was closed. The beach was closed. The forecast called for rain. Help.

My friend Beth took mercy on me, and we "traded" kids. What that meant was that for a short time I baked cookies with one of her sons, and for hours on end she had my girls over for a quilting bee.

Beth has an amazing collection of fabric from which she let the kids design and cut squares, and then the task was left to her to sew it all together for us.

I came home one day last week to find the quilt put together and given to our house, an honor we gladly accept.

We're going to hang it in our dining room, as a most treasured work of art, and a reminder of the spirit in which it was made. Sharing days with friends and neighbors, and getting each other through the trials of life, big and small.

More tomorrow. Thanks for reading.

tt