springing

An ice-cream date outside, ramps in the woods, the dying of eggs...it really must be moving on into spring, don't you think?  The calendar and the weather don't always agree, but when Ani looks outside and says "I can't believe the sky it so blue!" or "I can't believe it's raining again!" or "I can't believe how WINDY it is!", it confirms my suspicion that we are in agreement: it is March and it is Spring. Fickle, welcome Spring.

needle-felting a new buddy

An ear make-over. Totoro, meet Button.

sometimes you've just got to lie down. in the trail...

We tried the natural dyes this year - cabbage and onion skins - and they were so beautiful! There was something we didn't do quite right, as the color was wont to rub off in patches, but generally we were so happy with the sun-print look of the plant silhouettes and the deep rich colors. Of course, I had to buy pantyhose for the first time in at least a decade, but the spectre of them lurking in a drawer somewhere is perhaps a small price to pay for art.

oooh, I love this material! It's so smooth, I like the way it feels!
Honey, it's called nylon.

postcard from louisville

My friend M is moving back to Athens from Louisville, and the timing coincided nicely with Dan's spring break...so a friend and I drove down to help pack and shlep and had a mini-vacation in the bargain! Art supply store, Tibetan sand mandala, amazing food. A comfortable Air B&B to sleep in, or not sleep, singing Ani DiFranco and Nancy Griffith songs well past (by at least a few minutes) midnight. It was enough to feel a shift in perspective and energy, and my only regret is that we did not eat every single meal at the Dragon King's Daughter, home of Mexican Japanese fusion:  avocado tempurah sushi rolls with mango chili sauce?  Fresh cilantro and salmon? I can't even write about it without drooling, which is disturbing, but really, it was sooo good. 

I am no longer a girl in a flannel button-down. I am a beast, hunting for my prey, she growls as she crawls over the threshold to the kitchen.  She prowls towards the plate of bacon, saliva dripping, and snatches a piece from the unwary cook, dragging it back to the table to consume in her mighty jaws, without the use of utensil or paw.  She hisses when I approach, looking for a crumb.

This isn't the first time this kind of transformation has occurred. Maybe it's March Madness of the animal variety. We were simply walking down the bike path, eager to see the masses of starlings and black birds roosting in the tops of the sycamores by the river.  Their bursts of flight are breath-taking, and the silence that comes before take-off is as deafening as the chatter moments before.

Then suddenly my child was herself flying: a large, crane-like creature leading the way through the evening.

I'm looking at you from the side, 'cause that's where my eyes are.

She's a little skittish, but beckons me with each stop.

As the story unfolds, I realize that she is my long-lost daughter, become bird one full-moon night, now able to unzip her cloak of feathers to return to our home. 

So very ten. I thought I'd mourn the passing of seven forever, but seven is still in there somewhere.  She reminds me that her parallel number is just around the corner. How I love these days.

now

Oh, hello!  It's been so long, I'm not sure how to jumpstart this space here, but I think about it often enough that I probably should. The last month was a bit of a tunnel, a heads-down keeping moving forward kind of month. Dan had a show open at the end of February (Urinetown The Musical. It was amazing.), so we did not have much time with him until last week. He is also working on launching a new dimension of his job, which means meetings and travel and auditioning and hiring, and - he's busy! Sometimes this coincides with a homeschool month of solid routine, focused study and project time, and a generally good flow, and sometimes it just looks like a desperate mother sending SOS signals through a dying phone...

This week, in spite of there being a large piece of tree on and through our roof, a leak in the bathroom from a hole caused by the limb, and mysterious hives on one of the kids, things are looking up! There are peepers calling from the neighbor's pond, crocuses and daffodils appearing, and we've dug out our shorts.  It's looking like spring.