Catch up time

Hello lovelies, one and all...

I know, I know... "Where ya been, gurl?"

Far too busy for words, I guess.  Especially these words.  But now I am resisting the urge to rearrange the books on the shitty Big Lots shelves, or to go deal with the brussel sprouts before the chickens do, and I am writing to you.  Well, me.  Or whomever it may be.

I went on a thrifting splurge last week which produced several fabulous items for the ease of my life.  Colin already dropped the inner glass thing to the Pyrex coffee percolator, so we can't use it anymore.  And all my Ebaying and craigslisting has only turned up the stems for smaller pots.  So first order of business was a plug-in fifties metal percolator.  Which promptly reminded me of what old office or church coffee tastes like, and why kids didn't like coffee.  Ick!  Colin actually says he prefers it.  I think I would rather eat mud.  Off the bottom of my shoe.  From the pig pen.  One bonus:  coffee is still warm four hours later when you forgot all about it and didn't remember to finish that cup sitting on the counter.  You can turn your left ankle out, cock your head to the right, put on your best Stepford Wives' smile and pour yourself a big ol' cup o' sludge, dump in the nutmeg and half-n-half, and if you are lucky, you remember to choke it down before it too cools and you have to do it all over again.  But damn, that coffee pot looks cool on my Formica.

But the thrift store yielded far better results this week.  A sweet pair of vinyl and faux sheepskin calf-height boots were a tad too small for me, but look smashing on Ms. Sage.  I loaded up on unworn shirts and a sweet pair of "job interview" capri pants.  (I have been offered a million jobs this week, and desperately need to decide what I want to do... and how much I can afford to be out of the home;  I know this leaves you all salivating for more details, but I am not clear-headed enough on the subject to discuss it.  So there.  I'll let you all know after a really long car ride.  That always clears my head).

Two sets of cafe' curtains made  the removal of those hideous, busted, lead-ridden, and dangerous vinyl shades finally possible.  I hung them on expandable curtains rods I bought at Big Lots in a moment of optimism... that I would just find  the perfect curtains/shades/whatevers for the room instantly.  And I did!  They are whitish (not really cream, but not perfect white, either... I know, you just had to have the details of hue, didn't you, dahlings?).  And I have hung them 3/4ths of the way up... providing us with light and privacy. Of course, I open them in the morning when light is pouring through.  They soften up the living room, and it is ever so much more pleasant to hang out in here.

Especially with music on the stereo, and Nadia's bear cave under the circle table.  She has been dreaming and talking about bears a lot lately (as have I), so we got a book out of the library about bears, and I threw some blankets over the round table in the living room, some cushions under it, and BLAM!  BEAR DEN!  Add teddy bears for bear cubs and a seal on the blue "ice" of the LR rug, and you have Arctic bear play for hours. Pretty dang rockin, if I do say so myself.  Add stories and songs about bears, and what do you need preschool for??  Ya got me!

Laundry got caught up, the roof is on the barn, after much in the way of trials and tribulations and RAIN, and the house is in mostly working order.

Aidan got his early birthday/Christmas present... an incredibly amazing Magnavox stereo cabinte from way back when, with a record player and radio.  He's spent hours playing old jazz standards.  Gotta love that kid! And now he wants a Mob-themed, 20s birthday party,  (Can you be a flapper Mom?)

Well, babies are disintegrating all around me, so it is time to go be the grown up.  I'll write more later.

Maybe!

September

September rollllllls across the hills now, a soft, gray, foggy blanket that covers our valley and makes me forget there is a vista just at the top of the hill.  Even if it also has a big ugly house up there.

The kiddos are in school full swing now, and have each had a sick day already.  Any time  Big Man needs a nap... twice in one week... well, he's sick!  Babies and children, toddlers and grownups, have all had boogery noses and coughing fits, but it seems to finally be evening out... like a hilly horizon settling into the plains.

N is running around today, happy to be home, after her first "full" day at school (she stayed for the afternoon this week at preschool, and rode on home with big sister on the bus at the end of the day), wearing hand-me-down Santa dress, pink and brown striped cloth tights, and dragging the old wooden sword... YEP, that sword that's been around since Aidan was three... as she walks out into the cool, cool September air.  Every walk we tried to take today was thwarted by the rain, and finally I gave up, packed the babies into the car and drove sllllllllowlllllly  down Dugar Brook Rd, used a snack as an excuse for a destination at the Maple Corner Store, and wound my back again.  Babies asleep,  we left them to their dreams, and headed off to the couch to read library books... funny stories about Mountains of Quilt and Rosemary Wells illustrated nursery rhymes.

As the sun and clouds play peekaboo over our little world, and the weather wreaks havoc on my sleep (too warm to really have the heat on, too cool to sleep real well without a million layers), I find time to think about happiness and joy and beauty and perfection and sadness and grief and love.

All at once?  What are ya, crazy?

Well, no... maybe... I just... just... just find the world so breathtakingly beautiful this time of year, and my evolutionary need to hunker down and find spirit rest bubble to the surface, much like I did in a cold swim a few days ago... in my little local pond, which is only Mirror Lake to me when it is fall and still and quiet and the summer people have all gone home.

Here, in this time of year, in the harvest season, in the reap-what-you-sow moments, I find perfection and peace.  It manifests in little ways: the dance of my big girl across the upper floor of the skeletal barn as she laughs and glories in her body, the wind, the music in her mind; my big boy gathering supplies for his next creative endeavor, scavenging and deftly slipping under the radar as he collects and hordes, a magpie in disguise who displays like a bower bird in the end; Little Miss N running past with her overalls and mudboots on as she chases butterflies and then runs to help Daddy hold the measuring tape; Milo man grinning at me as he bounces up and down, so proud of his new standing skill, and saying "th th theee", his tiny tongue held against those barely visible new top teeth, a new sound possible as a result of the horrifying pain (amongst other symptoms) of teething.  Colin whistling as he works, the barn slowly taking shape from an idea in our heads.

Of course, in this time we also tend to look back, to see the beauty in yesterday.  That's the time when we see only what we could have done better, what we would have done, if we only knew then what we knew now... the regret of what we have yet to accomplish, the depth of the sadness over our losses.  Here is the time I remember the last time I hugged a grandfather or grandmother, the soft sadness of the loss of a dream, the regret over the pains caused others.

I heal these wounds through a walk pushing the stroller, a cuddle of a child in the middle of the night, a nice word softly spoken about those I once injured, a memory shared, and dinner on the table (an art of love, a painting of my soul, a dream of a life I know not)... and in those moments find a quiet breeze lifting my soul, my heart opening to the new, the beyond, wrapped in the beautiful gift of right now.  Here.

It has been a long and beautiful, but never long enough summer.