MommyCoddle

the gift of time

You know, at first I was really annoyed by the fact that my internet connection has been out since Christmas, but really the time away has been refreshing.
We had a wonderful Christmas--the highlight for me, coming home late Christmas Eve, sleepy girls in the backseat, to my grandmother's house--luminaires lining the driveway, even up to our apartment, and twinkling candles in every window of her house. It was breathtaking. The perfect gift before a lovely Christmas morn.
We've been taking this week easy, enjoying having Dan home each day. His first day back to work was this morning and I've been in a slow, but steady, Christmas-recovery state. The approaching new year (and an amazing January issue from Martha Stewart) gets me in the mood to refresh, clean and renew around  our home.

I'll be back sporadically during the next week...enjoying things like cracking open my new calendar, cleaning out my utensil drawer, setting up a big girl bed for Mary, and getting some new "school" routines in place with Emma, and making plans for a new miniswap. And I'm sure there'll be plenty to share. Until next time....

Today:

The middle two from today's post by Amy over on Kiddley. These are unbelievably easy, kid/toddler-friendly and so stinkin' good. We tried a variety of combinations--rolos and peanuts, rolos and almonds, dark chocolate with peanuts and milk chocolate with with peanuts. I HIGHLY recommend using rolos--they are far superior to my taste buds.

We're busy doing last minute things today before we head to western maryland tomorrow morning. We'll be doing an early Christmas with my family, and then heading home so we can wake up in our own beds Christmas morn.
Dan is home sick from work today, but recovering pretty quickly. He tried to go in, but they've banished him and his germs from the office. He works for an amazing agriculture company in Delaware that really gets in the Christmas spirit. Almost daily, he comes home with a new treat--from a giant box of citrus and pears, to a knife set for the wives, or a batch of home baked bread. Today he missed out on the two-dozen cookies waiting for each person in the office. I'm tempted to still send him in--although I think we made up for it in our own little kitchen this morning.
Still on the list is packing, preparing luminaries for my grandmother who lights the drive up to the house on Christmas Eve--"to light the way for the Christ Child", finish laundry and embellish ONE.MORE.THING. Oh, and there's that secret project I'm working on, but because my sister reads this blog, it will all have to wait. I should probably be a little more tense about all there is to do, but I'm feeling that warm goodness of the approaching celebration.
Be Well All.
m.

the stockings: (un-hung)

It was beautiful outside this morning when I snuck out in my pajamas and slippers to get logs for the fire from the barn. Everything is icy and grey and pink. My camera doesn't even begin to capture what my eyes are taking in...

I finished stockings yesterday--one for Mary and one for Emma. It was such a relaxing project and while I was in the midst of fabric scraps and ironing boards and little hairs of thread everywhere--it was cozy and warm--holiday crafting feels good.

today's project...

...stockings for Emma and Mary. Usually I hang two wool stripey ones that I bought from Martha Stewart's catalog, which I miss...but they are packed away in Wisconsin, so it's the perfect excuse to finally make some of my very own, which I've been meaning to do for years.

This morning I went over to the "big house" to help my grandmother make granola. She makes a gigantic batch. The first ingredient is "five pounds of oats". She mixes it in two huge--I'm baking for an army-sized mixing bowls with long wooden spoons. So we each took a bowl and stirred away. It bakes for several hours and gets turned and stirred every fifteen minutes. Now I know why she only makes it for the holidays and special occasions. It was wonderful working along side her this morning.

While I was over there she also offered me some of the stockings she used to use. We went upstairs to her closet and she pulled out her bag of Christmas stockings. And they were the real deal--literally thigh-high stockings-but thicker than what we would think of today. She said there was a name for them but she couldn't think of it at the time. I guess "the stockings hung by the chimney with care" really meant stockings, not the wool, embellished types we're all hanging today. I love it.

in the meantime...

while I'm not working on the other blog, I've been making Christmas presents and working through my list. I guess technically, I'm not really making anything but instead I'm embellishing several gifts.

A horrible picture because I took it on a thick, foggy morning, but you get the idea. Last year, my mother gave a set of towels to emma and mary and they really love having their "own". So, for a set of cousins in Wisconsin, I decided to do a similar gift and add their initial to each towel. The "s" looks pretty wonky in this picture--I think I may have photographed it upside down, now that I look more closely....

I also started one of these this year--a Christmas notebook. My grandmother kept one (she had fifteen children to keep track of), and my mom kept one, too--she still does in fact. I especially remember hers, because it was always soooo tempting to crack it open and read about the gifts I was going to be getting under the tree. Oh, that little black book was so secretive and alluring.
So, I started my own this year and I'm trying to keep it secretive but the funny thing is that emma keeps cracking it open and pretending to read what's inside--my little non-reader--thankfully, there's no illustrations.  I looked everywhere for ones similar to what my mother and grandmother had, but they are nowhere to be found. So, I just concocted my own from a large moleskine with graph paper inside. One column is all the people I'm buying for,  the middle column is ideas they give me or I come up with, and the final column is what I actually ending up making/buying in the end.
It has really helped me feel organized and not overwhelmed when I set out to get my shopping and sewing done. And I think it will be helpful (and a little sentimental) to look back over the years at what was waiting under the tree every year.

My Affair...

I'm having a bit of an affair...with another blog project. I'm working on a blog for two local cattle farms that are working together to expand the sale of their beef in our community. The family's (though I have reason to be biased) are everything you'd want your local farm to be--committed to buying and eating local, committed to responsible environmental farming practices, committed to the humane and healthy care of their herds. In today's economy it costs farmers a lot of money to wear the prized label of "organic" or "certified humane", but these two farms, though unlabeled, maintain similar high standards. I've always heard, when making choices about your eating and your health, first go local, then go organic.
One of Dan's favorite authors, Wendell Berry, has a lot to say about this. Yesterday, he sent me an email full of quotes to get me inspired as I worked on this project:

         

 

Learn the origins of the food you buy, and buy the food that is
produced closest to your home. The idea that every locality should be,
as much as possible, the source of its own food makes several kinds of
sense. The locally produced food supply is the most secure, the
freshest, and the easiest for local consumers to know about and to
influence...

Whenever possible, deal directly with a local farmer, gardener, or
orchardist...by such dealing you eliminate the whole pack of
merchants, transporters, processors, packagers. and advertisers who
thrive at the expense of both producers and consumers. Learn, in
self-defense, as much as you can of the economy and technology of
industrial food production. What is added to food that is not food, and
what do you pay for these additions?

Learn what is involved in the best farming and gardening. Learn as
much as you can, by direct observation and experience...

I hesitated this morning about whether to share the link to the new blog or not because it is very much in the beginning stages. I'm learning SO much more about blogging that I find fascinating--like how to offer an email subscription, and put downloadable pdf files in the sidebar, who knew?? But I'm still working on layout and wording and actually, finding my voice--as my writing represents these farmers. I'm having those same odd feelings that I had when I started this blog one and a half years ago. But this is what I love. This is important and good and healthy and meaningful. And I'm so honored to be working on this project.

Okay, here goes: be gentle. it's "under construction", as they say....
deercreekbeef.com

Triple-Teamed

I've been triple-teamed this Christmas. This morning, I walked out of our local Target with two boxes of freshly-purchased colored lights. I have always put my foot down about this. I am a white light girl. I've grown up with a white light mother.
My husband on the other hand, comes from the other side--the  multi-colored light lovers. But this year with two more votes able to be  cast on the subject, the colored light lovers have won out.  Dan tells me white lights are too serious and colored lights are for kids.
I couldn't even pull the, "but we already have all these sets of white lights"-thinking, because ALL of our Christmas decorations are sitting--lonely, dark and sad--in the basement of our unsold Wisconsin home. 
But, hey, I'm game for a little color. Why not? If it will make the girls (and Dan for that matter) cheer a little more loudly each evening when we flip the switch on the tree, then I'm all for it. And you know, once in the aisle of colored lights, my hand even hesitated on the box of dancing, flashing, song-playing colored lights. If I'm going to jump in to this, I might as well do it with both feet. (But then, I saw the eight dollar!! price difference--those lights jumped right back to their place on the shelf.)

In the meantime, Emma is getting creative with the tree decorations. There are five  Schleich horses grazing on  "bales" of evergreen needles, meticulously placed around the tree. And, she collected these seed pods on Sunday when she was out sweeping the patio for my grandmother. (what a gal!) Personally, I love them. I could have a whole tree of natural "decorations" with a few birds and nests mixed in. So it's a start on the road to Christmas decoration recovery. Tonight, while I'm at book group Dan will string the colored lights, I'm sure. And I'll most likely (happily) join the ranks of  colored-light lovers with the rest of my little family.

Simple Pleasures

Following Amanda's lead....

1. coming up with creative ways to spend your TV-less time.
(thanks so much for your encouragement, understanding, ideas...I tried to get back to almost all of you. Your comments meant a lot to me...)


2. Felted sweaters waiting to be turned into mittens.

3. Rescuing beautiful, handmade pottery from the thrift store for a meager two dollars.

3. Finding a new village for your schleich animals (one of our favorite toys) on the same trip.

4. Practical sewing projects like knee replacements in two pairs of a little girl's jeans.

5. Discovering there's a mouse in your house when your sugar cookies--sitting on the counter awaiting frosting while you go out for dinner--contain mysterious hole patterns in their tops upon your return. (they were ON my COUNTER!) Really, the only one who finds pleasure in this is my husband who enjoys a little mouse hunting now and again. And maybe our trusty cats, too.

** I continue to keep the Kim family in my prayers. Their story brings back emotions and memories of a similar loss in my husband's family four years ago. Praying for strength, peace and joy in the life they shared, even in the midst of deep sorrow.***

It's Not Always Peace and Love...

Last week was one of those weeks. One of those weeks where I call my husband up on the phone barely managing to maintain my composure (I didn't maintain it for very long) while I unload  overwhelmed, end-of-my-rope feelings about being the mother of my two little girls. I felt like it had been escalating for the last few weeks--the bickering between them; the short, grumpy tones that I had no idea they could use; the lazy response to me asking them to do something. I felt like I was losing control, running out of my mother-ammo (if you don't _______, then _______ will happen). It was just like that commercial with the invisible mother--folding laundry, making dinner. I was feeling a bit invisible when it came to my children, as if I was no longer speaking a language they could understand, or as if I was talking to them from inside a plastic tub, so that all they heard was muffled sounds coming from across the room.
And the bickering. One morning I actually thought, if only I had referee stripes and a whistle. That would be perfect for me! I can't tell you how many times I heard, "not fair!", "I had that first!", and witnessed toy tug-of-war and pushing and shoving. Where the heck was this coming from? ....sometimes I ignored it, sometimes I got involved too soon. Ugh.
So, enough of the gory details. I'm sure all of us can relate. At least I sure hope so. Or else I'm going to start panicking about my parenting skills.

When I got off the phone with Dan that day last week, he said one of the most important things I needed to hear: "Molly, you've got the hardest job in the world." That helped. It gave me a big breath of new air in my lungs. I hung up the phone, cleaned up my mascara smears and came back into the room with the girls. As I looked across the room, something caught my attention--the television.
I quietly unplugged it, carried it into the closet, came back for the DVD player, wound up the cord and carried it back to the closet too. The girls watched quietly, too. "Mommy's throwing away the TV, Mary." I told them I wasn't throwing it away, just putting it away until things got a little more peaceful around the house. Until everyone treated each other more kindly and was more helpful and caring toward each other. And let me tell you--it's working. It's working really well.
Now for the record, I'm not anti-television. I have some opinions about it, and I question whether the medium of television can really be educational, but I'm not the type to look down on anyone for popping in a video or turning on PBS in order to get 30 minutes of peace. In fact, I was scared to death to lock up my television, worried that I'd never get dinner made or a blog read ever again.

For my children, it seems like the TV is a vacuum. It sucks them in and they can't pull away. If it had a hose, they'd probably have dark purple,  circular suction-bruises in the center of their foreheads. (don't we all know someone who's done that?) And before I know it, they've been sitting, fogged over, in front of it  longer than I care to admit. And when it's not on, all they whine for is when it will be turned on again.
This is the second time I've "locked up" the TV, and both times I've been amazed at the results--the immediate results. Our home has become so much more peaceful. And I'm getting more quiet, peaceful time than I could have imagined. They're quickly finding things to do, and do together--which I love. Granted it might mean bigger messes because every pillow in the house is on the living room floor or blankets have been removed from all the beds to build a clubhouse, but gosh, I love it. It's the peace of play. And that was missing in our little lives.

**if you've made it this far, thanks for sticking with me. I write this to remind myself of the before, the why and the how it's working. And I also write it to catch up with you all--my blogging friends. If we were out for coffee together, I'm sure this is what I'd need to unload. Thanks for staying to the end....
Oh, and the pictures:  just a few little things I catch them doing "tv-less" and things we're doing together--like painting those cute little fingernails the faintest shade of glittery pink...***