Utopian Pudding

Meet Lucy

Oh she's cute. She's crazy with those claws and teeth. Then she's cute again.

I got her from a nice couple that have a hobby farm. The husband, Keith, is my mother-in-law's boss and was super nice to all of us. His wife brought Lucy to us in Barbara's office along with a basket, food dish and adoption certificate. I have a feeling Lucy's mother (Miss Puss) is their barn cat but I'm not sure. But Lucy even at 8 weeks old now is desperate to go outside and hates that I am keeping her locked in the house.

My own husband was completely won over by this little squirt even though I surprised him and just brought her home with no discussion. He named her Lucy because she's a red head (Lucille Ball.) Having a kitten in the house is a bit like two weeks of christmas mornings. Our house is filled with a new litter box, multiple food and water dishes for both cats, kitten toys, ribbons, and other just stuff on the floor.

Our other cat, Mojo, is slowly coming around to accepting her. I appreciate him more now than I used to; he is now the calm, nice, cat. And of course Sarah is completely on board with her mommy's love for critters.

Drawing Again

I have found some time of a morning here and there to do some sketching. To actually complete these drawings is a gift I have given myself. They represent that I can pick up where I left off with a lifelong passion of mine. Woe will be to me one day if I set down my sketching tools and walk away forever without having created some body of work of which I can be proud. I don't even think it matters anymore what I draw. Just that I consent to sit still and draw something every day.

This is my view of our front door and I was mostly pleased with the composition. I didn't plan it but I really like how the shadow from the window frames lay upon the wall of air to the right.

And so encouraged with this success I placed a pair of my daughter's shoes under a lamp in the living room and I spent a few days getting them just right. I learned a lot about placing tonal values from the left shoe to the right shoe. But my favorite thing about this picture is the light stepping into them. Sarah is certainly a light of my life.

I'm going to stick with my charcoal pencils for awhile and discipline myself to really learn how to place the values and carve out the shapes both positive and negative that I want to capture. Suddenly there are myriad possible still lifes here and there in my house and not enough time to indulge in sketching them. Well, it's really a choice for me between an hour or two of drawing or of reading. And the lure of a good book, like a good nap is hard to resist.

On Phobias

I am afraid of wasps. And there are some huge, intimidating wasps that like to nest in my utility room. The room is just outside my back door. There is an old door to it, once painted turquoise now peeling and rotting on it's hinges that if left open, even a crack, will be enough in one afternoon to welcome a new wasp family.

I have been known to drop all pretense of doing laundry when I walk in that room and see one up there, busily building a nest in the ceiling. And there has not been one single time in the whole 12 years I've lived in this house that I have walked into that room without craning my neck in all directions, searching for any new nests.

And oh, I just hate to see their bodies, like little weapons they are, little bombers with sinister wings just waiting to dive down and kill me. And the worst is when they position their nest right inside the door frame. So the only way to spray poison is to actually enter the room or crane your arm crazily and hastily spray and run for your life.

And it was one such scenario that I was just not willing to face the other day. Nesting wasps in the worst place possible, I'm all like, where is my husband- this clearly falls into the sacred man service of killing bugs for their fragile female. And I'm trying to wash his underwear anyways.

Now my man does not believe in wasp spray for some reason. He prefers the brooms on approach. And he merely rolled his eyes in exasperation when I explained the mission and my suggestion on how he should use the wasp spray.

I didn't waste any time defending myself because I knew that what he was walking into would illustrate my point well enough. And sure enough, Randy walked in that room armed with a broom and 10 seconds later erupted back out with enough force to turn over a couple of patio chairs. Angry wasps were flying everywhere. I was inside giggling.

When my husband quickly stepped into the safety of our kitchen I looked at him and said, "Scary as hell isn't it?" He grinned a bit sheepishly but quickly told me how I need to keep that door closed so they don't get in to begin with. It's always my fault somehow - gah!

But just this week I had to face my irrational fears on the subject of wasps when I pointed out a nest to my grandmother. It was just above her garage and I was just leaving with Sarah. There was no way I was going to spray those things and possibly send some flying at all of us but I could tell my grandmother was not going to let it wait. I tried, as I got Sarah buckled in the car and then put on my own seatbelt to convince her of the danger and to please, please, please promise to wait until I came next and I would to spray it down.

Her wise eyes and calm demeanor as she explained patiently the marvelous invention of wasp shoot and spray and how it would drop them and there was nothing to fear simply increased my anxiety as I knew she was totally going to clear off those wasps as soon as I left.

And so as I drove away I had to smile ruefully that there was simply no panicking someone like my grandmother who has been there and done that for 90 years and has enough common sense to simply spray down the nest, sweep it off the driveway and go on with life.

Mother's Day

Today I had a lovely Mother's Day. My dearest little one let me have a three hour nap on Tuesday of last week and so I totally considered that just the best mother's day gift ever. But today I got 2 cards; one from Sarah and one from Randy. I told them I felt loved and I did.

After lunch we decided to go to the mall. I bought myself a gorgeous magazine called Annabel Karmel Family Cookbook. It was the picture of rice krispy soccer players that did me in. And Annabel Karmel is big over in England so the purchase indulges my anglophile fixation.

I also bought Charlaine Harris' FROM DEAD TO WORSE (just out in paperback) and I will make myself read it slowly because I'm really not going to buy the new hardback that is also come out now. I will read it from the library even if I have to wait. Not like I did with the whole TWILIGHT series. There is something to be said for stretching out the good things.

Finished Reading SARUM

I have recently finished a big, epic, saga of historical fiction called SARUM by Edward Rutherford. It followed a handful of ancestor lineages, down through time, for about 10,000 years. The constant in the book was the area of Salisbury, England where Stonehenge can be found.

For me it set history painlessly into my imagination. I can now place the Picts and the Celts before and after the invasion of Rome. A people of Britain's history that I have always been fascinated by and a time of history that other books have sparked for me like THE MISTS OF AVALON by Marion Zimmer Bradley and Mary Stewart's MERLIN Trilogy.

And I can see more clearly now how sophisticated Rome was back in the time of Christ, how bureaucratic and how dazzling were the philosophy, logic and their ruthlessly trained military. Like the characters in SARUM, I feared Rome, then I wanted to become a Roman citizen and later I mourned with those who lamented the fall of Rome and being cut off forever from such greatness. And in later centuries when Rome was the Pope and had such vice like control on a catholic Britain, I cheered the Protestant movement. And then sat back in horror at the repercussions as the two faiths battled for control of the people. And I finally understand where Quakers came from.

Really if I'd had this book in my high school world history class it would've been all I needed to actually learn.

A water stamp

A couple of weeks ago I sat down and carved myself a stamp. The design was inspired by this batik wall hanging above my bed. It's of a mermaid and merman.

The center part is what I wanted. The flow of water and cross currents and yin/yang.

It was a lot of fun to make and now to have as my very own artwork.

It only took me a couple of hours to carve once I traced the design onto the eraser material.

Yesterday morning got quite exciting as I walked by the gerbil's cage and noticed Bluebell was having babies! 5 babies. They were so cute and wittle and all. And I had no clue whether to take the other gerbil, Thistle, out of the tank. Alas, less than 24 hours later the babies are all gone. I found one dead pup, a tiny pathetic thing that I had to make myself pick up and after studying it intensely finally threw away into the garbage. I'm sure Bluebell and maybe Thistle ate the other babies. I will thoroughly clean out their cage to make sure. It's all gross and sad and a bit of a relief.

On a lighter note though I totally got my kid to eat her dinner by bribing her with DORA if she would just eat one bite of chicken. She cried about my bargaining for a bit and then suddenly said "Okaaay!" like she finally reasoned out that it was a very good deal on her part. We are now into DIEGO and she is totally eating the whole thing. All mothers of toddlers know my joy.

I made a lemon cake this evening. Now there's no question I will eat this cake, it's only a matter of will power to eat it with a cup of tea AFTER I do the dishes and not wolf it down RIGHT NOW.

A few of my favorite things

I'm having a touch of insomnia tonight. I have no doubt whatsoever at 4am in the morning that I need to cut down on my caffeine habit. I have already been up for an hour and ended up folding some laundry. However, since it doesn't happen often I'm enjoying this bit of free time. When I went outside to the laundry room, I stopped to admire the moon. It was still so bright being full just yesterday, and the coolness of air I felt as I stood in the sleeping neighborhood with so many stars around me was comforting. I've got a hot cup of tea now and I'm doing what every insomniac probably ends up doing - checking my email.

 

I have made bread four times now. The first and third time were duds; the first a hardened shell of unrisen dough, and the third time yielded dough that was too sticky to even be handled. But, oh, the gentle warm baby heavy goodness of the two successes! And this is a picture of tonight's cinnamon bread which is so sweet and delicious.

 

I went to the local nursery and bought some flowers. I mean to take a better picture of the flowers but his royal catness had to come in and strike a pose. Behind him though is a big clay pot filled with snapdragons and coleus plants. I got some other annuals and need to read their care for tags before I kill them.

The most fun was had by planting them when we got home as little Sarah got to get as dirty and wet as she wanted. Her squeals of laughter, and industrious digging and rock carrying were just so precious. "I play dirt." she told me more than a few times after I'd cleaned her all up. I have a feeling bath time is going to need to be coming after Sarah has her playing in the dirt time.

This is my backyard. It definitely has needed some TLC. But we are slowly getting there. I'm determined to save the life of that ear tree in the corner. It's branches need to get trimmed out of the power lines but my husbands keeps talking of taking it out completely. As it's our only tree I really don't want to lose it. It gets nice shade in the back corner there so I'm going to plant some flowers there soon and maybe make a fairy garden out of seashells for Sarah. (Okay, I confess, I totally want a fairy garden made out of seashells and tiny flowering plants - for me.)

 

And one of my favorite sights of every workday. My man coming home.

 

Right now, I am reading CLAN OF THE CAVE BEAR by Jean M. Auel. It is an old favorite of mine. I am so glad to be back with Creb and Iza again. Not to mention Ayla, my favorite heroine of all time. Okay, a little reading for me and then I am going to sleep.

Quiet so still

I look at this line of trees so often from my front porch. I know where they each stand too because of all my neighborhood walks over the past decade. They are mostly my favorite tree in this picture. The pine tree. Some people don't like pines because they could drop heavy limbs on houses and cars during a hurricane. A neighbor of my grandmother actually had a row of beautiful pines cut from his yard. Sweet tall trees that threw down long soft shadows and carpets of fresh needles to braid. Now his yard is ugly and sun scorched. The line of stumps still look reproachful to me.

I planted a wee baby pine tree that was trying to grow in my grandmother's garden. I put it in a strategic place in the front yard avoiding power lines and our roof. By some luck the lawn guys have not howed it down with their big riding mowers - yet.

 

It is so dry here. We need rain so badly or the fires will start again. I am giving my backyard some serious attention this year. I hope the rain will come down and help things to grow and get green again.

About breakfast

There are moments I enjoy like this one, a quiet Saturday morning with a cup of hot tea thinking of something to talk about with you. The prelude to what will come in my next hour when I shall be getting everyone's breakfast. It may surprise you to read that preparing and washing up after mealtimes is one of my greatest pleasures in life. However, I never felt quite that way about it until after I weaned my daughter from breast feeding.

Nursing is such an intimate and basic act. And all those times I held my hungry babe to my breast and fed her it was like a miracle. I truly marveled that my milk could be all that she needed to be so fat and healthy. And then when I began to feed her solids, I prepared that food with the love and pride of all mothers. And in her weaning I would hold and cuddle her small sturdy body while she ate her crackers and bananas. I was telling her that the breast may be gone, but the love and the attention were still there.

And now that she doesn't need me in that way anymore I still remember. And I take pleasure in knowing that it is my hands that prepare her meals and that of my husband too, for my joy in serving him has increased ten fold since our child. In a way I hold them both to my breast, closer to my heart as I go to market and prepare meals and keep the kitchen clean. I know that in that way at least I am doing my best to care for them. Now the laundry, mind you, is a whole other matter! I've yet to find the sweet talk I need to enjoy folding clothes.

My daughter loves to eat waffles and blueberries and watch her cartoons. I like some toasted raisin walnut bread and a cup of sweet coffee and my new favorite read at breakfast is TAROT FOR TODAY by Reader's Digest. My husband likes a big plate of scrambled eggs and some sausage if its on offer. He will usually surf the net after eating, like my grandmother reading her newspaper. Between the two of them I don't actually have to watch any news at all. They will let me know if there are any more planes crashing or Obama bashing going on. (thank goodness, because I can then sound somewhat intelligent if I need to talk about anything other than child rearing to someone.)

Rainbows and Unicorns and Rose Petal Dresses

Here I am with spring fever and planting some chalk flowers upon the driveway. My daughter is talking to me about the sunshine and the bumblebees (we like to scream, "Aaaahhhhh!"), the airplanes, the birds, and later in my arms as I carry her from the car, she leans back, face cast back in abandon to the velvet dark sky above us and she greets the moon and the stars. "Hi Moon! Hi Stawrs!" she says. "Hi Moon and Hi Stars!" I say. I tell her she is my fairy. I tell her she is clever and a pretty girl. She says nothing to this but I can see my love falling down upon her and around her like gentle rain.

I told my husband a few months ago, when explaining why exactly The Baby could NOT watch FAMILY GUY, that "her world is rainbows and unicorns and rose petal dresses." He understood me then. He is a patient man.

Her world is actually Winne-the-Pooh, Mickey Mouse, Oswald, Yo Gabba Gabba, Dora, The Wonder Pets, Sesame Street, and more but I'm making my point; the child watches entirely too much t.v. I must work on that. The only adult t.v. I make sure to watch is The Young and the Restless over lunch with the Grandmother and maybe Ellen at 3pm, preferably with a cup of coffee. I feel like I'm totally getting away with something in life by enjoying daytime television. So if the weather is nice I make sure to get Sarah and I out for some fresh air. And she demands it so there is that to keep me going "Outside!" I guess you could say the Mama's life is filled with filling bird baths and picking azaleas, admiring the sticks and rocks, plucking the bark off the pine trees.  And the funny little bugs I tend to find if Outside.