I loved the still life project too much to just be done with it, and now I have proof that my art stuff really is (mostly) unpacked.  I got my light box put back together.  This nomad summer of ours didn’t put an end to my collecting of seeds and stones.  Aside from filling jars and shadow boxes with my bounty, I have been setting up new still life scenes in my head while I lie awake in bed at night. This one has maple seeds plucked from my favorite tree right outside the kitchen window in our Ohio house.  Hurriedly picked as we were loading kids in the car to drive away.  There’s a big New Hampshire granite beach stone back there– one that showed up many times this past February, a driftwood stick gifted to me by a special friend before we both left our old homes, and three small stones from the ocean shore by San Luis Obispo gathered this summer when I visited Barry there.  The stones covered in felt– those are from our new backyard here.  The kids and I collected stones and felted away last night out of necessity because this week I discovered resurrection fern and have been mulling over images of stones covered with felt and crocheted lace almost obsessively.  I mean, round, smooth stones covered in intricately crocheted thread?  You can’t get much cooler than that.

 Still life photos won’t be daily, but when the inspiration strikes they’ll be here.  I’m excited to set up my little worlds with some of my favorite things.  I can orchestrate something peaceful and pretty and quiet and clean– even if it is in an isolated little white box.

It is that time of year– the time where we are in need of pumpkins.  We packed ourselves and some lunch in the car (oh GPS, I love you and your navigational skills around this humongous new city), and headed up to Berry Patch Farm for a hayride, some pumpkin picking, some crafting, and even a little honey bee lesson from the farmer.

This rolly polly pig patroled under the picnic tables as we ate.

And not too far away the hens were snuggling.  The roosters provided the mood music, and made sure to kids stayed on their toes.

I’m really liking this 300 sunny days a year thing Denver has going on.  Even when it is a little chilly out, our jackets just have to come off.  Just look at that sky.

There really is someone in there, and he moves and wiggles– and creates some giggles!

So, I have 4 kids and am half way through cooking up a 5th.  That means I’ve been pregnant for about 45 months of my life, and during each of those months I’ve had to clothe my expanding belly– even for church every Sunday.  But, this time around I feel like I’m at a loss as to what to wear every time Sunday rolls around.  What did I wear those other 40 months?  Beats me.  So, I spent my Saturday making myself something soft and stretchy and comfy, even hoping it would be cute, to wear to church yesterday.  I had many yards of this heathered mauvish soft cotton knit that I found on the closeout  rack at JoAnns a year or two ago for just $3 a yard sitting on a basement shelf, so I cut into it and hoped for the best.  I used Butterick 3385, which is a shirt pattern, and with a few modifications– making the sleeves long, using knit instead of woven fabric, and the obvious addition of enough length to make it a dress– I’m pretty happy.  It’s not quite as fitting and flattering as I had hoped– but there’s room to grow, so come January I’ll still be cozy in my super soft new dress.  It’ll cover my belly at peak expansion quite nicely.

making… bread with my littles.

laughing… at Ellie helping Brenna fold the laundry.

loving… that 15 minutes of quiet scripture study has become a consistent part of our daily routine.

using… my craft space just a minute here and there– right in the middle of the action, just like I had hoped.

It was one of those days I just needed.  Not totally smooth and predictable, I think it will be many, many years before I have a day like that, but the time flowed and we flowed with it, and I’m happy.

Through the middle of our suburban sea of houses runs this creek with its accompanying wetland full of birds and bugs and willows.  We can get on our bikes, and in a matter of minutes (and with a little imagination) feel like we  are in a secret wilderness, ready for us to explore.  It’s a really beautiful place– teaming with cat tails to fluff apart, snakes to catch, butterflies drinking from the sand, spent sunflower blooms waiting for the birds to get every last seed.  I love that developers have had the forsight to include some open-space amid the sprawling subdivisions that Denver has– so that we don’t forget what this place REALLY looks like.  Even more exciting to my mind is the suggestion made in this article that not only should we preserve the value of natural habitats by including open space in housing developments, but we should also be including community farms– places where we can see and experience and connect to where our food really comes from– places that will help transform our culture to one aware of what real food is, and how interconnected everything on earth really is.  I love that idea.  I have been sorely missing our CSA this summer.  I loved picking up our box of freshly picked veggies every week.  Not only did it force me to try, and learn to like, vegetables I never would have even tried to pronounce, let alone eat, but those veggies were grown by a family that we knew and loved.  We could visit the farm, tour the rows and rows of tomatoes, bask in the peaceful songs of the birds, explore the woods, and pet the alpacas that fertilized it all.

Though I don’t agree with all of Mr. Pollan’s propsosals I do agree that our conveyor belt system of eating is hurting our nation and culture and needs to be addressed.  We do need an “emergency grain preserve,” not only a national one, but one stored in buckets in every home.

I would love to not only be able to ride our bikes on a path through open space to nurture our spirits, but to have a farm at the heart of our place– to nurture our spirits and our bodies.

And then, maybe I could have my chickens!

Here’s some photos from our hike around Cataract Lake yesterday.

Here’s hoping your weekend was filled with beauty, sunshine, and some good exlporing

I sat out on the deck in the perfect autumn weather and made something.

A lot of beach combing happened this summer in California.  A little by me, during the weekend I visited Barry, and quite a lot by Barry.  I came home from my trip with all the nooks and crannies of my suitcase filled with rocks and shells.  We had even found a starfish washed up on the shore.  I thought I could take it back with me and dry it, but boy was that a mistake!  Even in two ziploc bags it spread the most horrific smell to everything near it– and turned to flattened mush.  I put it on the roof at my parents house to dry, but it remained stinky and just not cool at all.  Bummer.

But, I still have treasures to spare.  I braved a trip to Michael’s yesterday with the kids in tow to find some shadow box frames, and I found some in the Martha Stewart crafty stuff– in my shade of green, even.  I grabbed my box of shells and sticks and sand dollars, went outside with my glue and paintbrush, and it felt so good.

I stuck the finished arrangement in a cubby in my new art-room-in-leiu-of-a-dining-room.  I’m making progress in there.

It’s in plain view of the front door, so if it’s going to be a mess, it’s got to be a cute mess.  I finally got to the box of very gingerly wrapped bird nests, rocks, seedpods, eggs, and shells today.  I wonder what the packers thought…

There was some other random junk in the box too.  I had some help finding a place to put it.

Have you heard of the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day?

Okay, so I know if you’re an Angry Chicken reader you most likely have.  I just have to chime in my two cents that you simply must get your hands on a copy.  I bought one while we were living in a little apartment in Alabama this summer– without a good mixer or bread maker.  With the recipes in this book you need neither a heavy mixer or a bread maker, just a good sized bowl and a wooden spoon or (my preference) a sturdy rubber spatula.  The dough doesn’t even need kneading!  Just mix your ingredients, let it rise for a while, then pop the dough in the fridge.  When you’re ready for some warm, crusty bread, some naan, or even some sinful cinnamon rolls, just break out your bowl of dough and you’re good to go.  We had a long, busy day at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science today  and the last thing my tired pregnant body wanted to do was make dinner.  The dough in the fridge came to the rescue!  In less than an hour we had spaghetti and 3 crusty loaves (I hurried and took a picture before they were all gone) filling our home with delicious smells.

I don’t use the recipes for our everyday bread.  I haven’t been able to get the whole wheat varieties to turn out quite to our liking, but for dinner bread or for a sweet morning treat, the white bread recipes are amazing and super easy.

Anyway– it made me feel a teensy bit creative today.

So, I’m not doing very good at posting every day.  And here’s another schoolish post, because, well, that’s what I do lately.

Jonah figured out that he is exactly 2510 days old today.  I made my Montessori math bead materials last summer.  Traditionally they’re the “Golden Beads” but we opted for ruby.  After I made the thousand cube (Can you see Logan holding it?) I was pretty much burnt out on stringing beads on wires, but we still needed more 10s, 100s, and 1000s to really do all the math we wanted, so I made some beads I could print out.  If you’d like to print them yourselves, here they are in a PDF:

Math Bead Materials

They’re totally no frills.  You’ll have to figure out your own little fold-over tabs to hook the sides of your cubes together, but they do the job and get A LOT of use around here.  To make your 100s, just cut the squares apart, obviously.  The last page is 10s, in case you couldn’t tell.  If you’re really going to use these and need some units, leave a comment and I’ll make a page of those too.  I’m really just posting this on here to have something to post!!

I’m still hoping to get to some thing-making soon– like this weekend.  My batteries need some recharging and I’m realizing (once again) that my sanity and ability to cope directly corelates to the amount of creating I do.  What keeps you sane?

We have a new reader in the house!  There’s nothing like a new set of BOB books to inspire this 4 year old to read, read, read.  It did help that Brenna and Jonah were at their one day of school this week, so Ian and I were a pretty captive audience for Logan’s new found confidence and skill.

And, it is only natural to document your reading triumphs with stickers and drawings.

They never cease to amaze me, these little people I get to live with.  They learn so readily, so naturally.  It always seems that when I’m up against a wall I can’t see over or around someone just makes it dissolve all on their own.  The job of patience that is mine is often so hard– but it always has its rewards.

The best kind.