Woke up with this "earworm "...

Sun is shining through my freshly cleaned windows. Working on the last of my "Fall Cleaning" chores. Lots of delicious plans running through my mind for the holiday months ahead.

Life is work.
Life is life.
Life is.

Three Little Monsters Jumping on the Bed.

So, this blog (not to mention our social lives) took a hit a few weeks ago as Jake and I scrambled to get our upstairs apartment complete enough to sustain life. But don't worry, I made sure to photo-document the times of importance. Here are a few of the things you missed:

This is how the "Eicthones" prepare for Hurricane Sandy. Popcorn Balls!

This girl turned six. Isn't she breathtaking?

This is how we celebrated (p.s. this was smack dab in the middle of "crunch zone" house rehab, hence the tired-faced mama)

The next day:

And perhaps, most amusingly,

Our Halloween Candy Rules:

Eat everything you can the day after,


dress in monster costumes,

and jump on mommy and daddy's bed. All day.
Preferably while listening to that irksome "Little People" brand Halloween Cd, "for the last time."

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

Celebrating the Return of the Dark

Forgive me for starting in on the "seasonal" music so early, but this song caught my attention hard recently. We've been listening to our "Fall Festival Songs" and once in a while a few Winter songs will slip through before I change CD's. Well, this morning the song People Look East, slipped through and held me hypnotized for a half minute as I stirred the grapes juicing on the stove.

Now that we are wavering between the Fall and Winter seasons, I have been turning inward. No longer am I focused on the yard and gardens (although they still have plenty of work beckoning me before the snow truly starts to fall) but instead I am intently "making my house fair."

This includes adjusting my physical home, with the upstairs satisfactorily completed I can clean and putter about downstairs as I wish. My focus has turned toward our space and it's utility. When the song captured my attention I had been deep in thought about the state of our living arrangements. The previous day had been spent moving the playroom contents about ever so slightly-- but slightly enough that the toys were being played with again. Feng shui is REAL, man. The success of that arrangement led to other thoughts; we don't have the most abundant room or the most frequent of house guests so why am I hanging onto gigantic overstuffed armchairs and love seats? Our book space and our freedom of movement are priorities and so I'm letting go of a few things that were getting in the way of that. My rule of thumb has been that if it has traditionally been a place that accumulates our daily debris, it is not functioning in household harmony. I have been feeling rather "choked" creatively, and while some folks would blame the size of the house, I blame the use of the space. Perhaps as per my Libran horoscope for the week, I should do a little experiment.

Hypothesis: It's not the size of the house but how you use it.

So, now that the living room and play room have been received well by the fellow house-dwellers, I'm going to be turning my attention to the office and eventually the kitchen. And for good measure I plan on doing a final sweep of the house for any extraneous items I've missed. No more piles of accumulated debris, a place for everything and everything in it's place! Now, as someone who also subscribes to a "use it up, wear it out, make do or do without" philosophy this is not easy. But that is a post for a whole other day. In the meantime...

"Trim the hearth and set the table.... Love, the guest, is on the way"

Other adjustments are being focused towards my "spiritual" home. I have been putting my inner work on the back burner but it's become clear to me that now is the time to re-focus my attention. Read a novel that's putting a few things into perspective-- helped me look beyond my rut.

Lately, I had been feeling like I have still to give chase and catch my ducks, before I can even give them a good once-over to put them in order. Looking back at all of our fits and starts with the house this summer, it became clear to me that I wasn't walking my true path, my faith had faltered. Or perhaps, one could argue that I didn't know of my need for faith but instead was trying too hard to control my path and destiny.

Now though, I think I've got a line on some ducks. The "catch" is, I've got to wait for these ducks to come to me. Have you ever tried to tame a duck?

So, I'm giving up my expectations on the external. I don't know where I'll end up or how I will get there, but I do know that in order to take those first steps (and the second and third...) I need to be patient, compassionate, dedicated, and grounded. And those are all qualities that I have a fair amount of influence over.

Something that I've been meditating on, relatedly:

If the people lived their lives
As if it were a song
For singing out of light
Provides the music for the stars
To be dancing circles in the night.

So, that's where I'm at. Celebrating the return of the dark by retreating inward. Creating warm, welcoming, and inspiring spaces while feeling deeply and honestly. Slowly and methodically traveling the day-to-day path towards our. next. steps. Having faith. Living as if I am to coax the stars out of the darkness and on to the dance floor.

Are you wondering just what it looks like for my family and I to be doing this sort of introspective work? Wondering just how we celebrate the darkness? Well, here is one evening's task...

Abundance of eggs, veggies, and ricotta
+ the need for heat =

QUICHE!!

Use THIS pie crust recipe. TRUST me.

Turn on some simple music.
Put on aprons.
Let the kids do as much work as they can, setting aside pieces of dough for them to knead and shape.



Stay present in the moment,

and serve on a freshly made table.



Say grace.

It will make you say yum!And "ahhhh..."



Life is good.

Growing Pains

She insisted; she pushed and climbed the chair while my back was turned. She chopped this whole bowl of broccoli. She is not yet seventeen months. *shock* I'm in trouble.

A Photo Essay:

What I Did During My Summer Vacation
A Series of Before and After Pictures

Grade 1 IHIP

Well, writing this was certainly a trip down memory lane. Now I remember why I dropped out of the laboratory intense Biology track and transferred into Natural History and Interpretation, with my head full of fanciful dreams of skipping through pine forests as my life's work.

And because so many of my fellow homeschoolers before me gracefully shared their IHIP's, here is ours. For your reference, please feel free to consult/modify/completely disregard our Waldorf inspired First Grade IHIP as you tackle this project yourself.



Good luck out there! and if you are ever uncertain about what you are supposed to do, just act confidently. Fools them every time. ;)

Spent a weekend four miles deep into the woods. Just me and my best friend.

The leaves were at their peak. We peeped at leaf peepers.

It rained nearly the whole time.

We had dressed up in fun Adirondack Mountainman/woman clothes.

I got blisters on my heels the size of quarters. I had to hike the four miles out in my sock feet. But I didn't care.

I was glad that this was the only bear I saw.

I am so glad to have gone. So glad to have shared those moments with my best friend and main squeeze. I love him.

And now I am 28 years old. Or maybe 28 years young. I still feel a bit fool-hardy and headstrong, like I have a lot of learning left to do, like I am not quite "old" enough to be left in charge. And I kind of hope that I don't ever lose this feeling.