Monday, January 3, 2011

back into the swing of it

I'm not quite sure what our "swing" actually is, but we have been out of it now probably since Dan left, before Thanksgiving.  Travel, sickness, transition, the holidays...all of it Life, but not The Swing. Now it is all officially past, Dan began a new quarter today, and we are making our baby steps towards some routine.

Yesterday we had a surprise visit from an old neighbor (well, he's all of 20, but it's been a while since we've seen him).  The girls and I got out to the woods for a hike with him and his wife, and it was cold but beautiful...
 I was hopeful that we might see an earthstar fungus, and we did see many different varieties of fungi, but no earthstars.
:: :: :: ::
Our morning today was spent on the couch, reading our January magazines (Spider, Ladybug, Click) and catching up on our library books.  We found a good one in the stack: Tibetan Tales for Little Buddhas. The illustrations were lush and inviting and the stories were familiar buddhist tales.  We heard echoes of "om mani padme hung" throughout our day - the repetition of that chant and other phrases were woven throughout the three stories.

There was some sharing of chores - Ani helped fold laundry and Eliza volunteered to wash breakfast dishes - some drawing, some poetry writing, some thank-you card making...
 I taught Eliza how to play "spit", a card game my sister and I used to play over and over and over (and which she reminded me of when she was here. She usually wins...), while Ani taught a T-rex and a horse how to play Uno Attack.  There was a bit of Word Girl while I played with my revived sewing machine (and got it stuck again...).

We ran to the store and to the farm for some milk and then home to make Journey Cakes, which has been on our agenda for some time now, on-hold through the holidays.

There was reading to each other (without Mama), and listening to Magic Tree House...
And now dinner is made and we're waiting for Papa to return from teaching his first class of the quarter and that is a day well spent.

4 comments:

Stephanie said...

Welp... yes. :)
We had the same kind of day.
'Cept it only warmed up to 22 degrees or so, so we skipped journeying outdoors. At least that's warmer! :/

:)
Our day wasn't super busy or super anything, but it did have more of a "normal" feel to it. That works!

Kerry said...

Back to normal for me too, which meant back to school. Funny how so many of the kids are relieved to be back in a routine, and I am too:) Ed and Reub were sad, however.

I am really enjoying your photos of fungi. They are something I would love to learn more about.

denise said...

Sounds like wonderful day. And such a beautiful place to hike!

merry said...

As much as I miss you guys, it's good to know that you're having some semblance of normalcy again!I have to ask - what are journey cakes?

It was hard to come back to work yesterday after such a lovely, long vacation.But even I have to get back to a routine, even if it's busier than I'd like! :(

Love you all.