Seven!

It's official.  All of my children are into their second seven-year cycle.

Kitty Bill had a wonderful birthday filled with all of his favorite things, like pomp and circumstance and cake.

He had a few other things, too.  Vegetable stuffed crepes and tofu scramble for breakfast.  Phone calls and mail from the other side of the world.  And presents, of course.

He was delighted to see that the girls had made him things for the dollhouse.  Moonshine made him some bedding -- a pillow, woven blanket, and woven rug.  Sunburst made him a doll.

While Kitty Bill was thrilled with these gifts, what he wished for most of all for his birthday were two specific Kinderkram castle pieces.  That was all well and good when we lived in Switzerland and wooden toys seemed to drip from the trees, but now we're in England.  The natural toys that fall from the trees on the continent are then subjected to shipping fees, customs and taxes.  So by the end of it, the purchase price for a lovely piece of shaped wood could feed a family of five for two weeks.  At least.

So Einstein and I decided to do a bit of woodworking.  This was our go-to method in the states for everything from play stands to dollhouses.  And you know what?  It feels so satisfying to be making wooden toys again.

Plus, we still had money left over to buy candles for the cake. ;)

Here's the castle defense wall I built from pine using only hand tools.  I used a standard saw to cut the pieces to size then cut the crenellations with a coping saw.  I sanded, glued, and clamped it together.  Then I took some watercolor to it and finished it off with beeswax.

Einstein built a catapult.  Kitty Bill has been drooling over the Kinderkram catapult for years.  Einstein and I drew out some plans to make a similar one, complete with an attachment for horses.  It's made out of a small block of hardwood, twigs, and dowels.  Einstein used a standard saw to cut the wood to size and a coping saw to cut out the pieces.  He drilled the holes for the dowels, and then he carved out the "spoon" with a chisel.

I watercolored the dowels and pre-made wheels to match before adding a beeswax finish.  Though it doesn't look exactly like the one in the catalog, it turned out beautifully.  And it works... perhaps too well.

So far no one has lost an eye.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it stays that way.


Shared on Creative Friday.

I can see for miles and miles

We recently took a drive and went exploring in Somerset where we enjoyed some absolutely gorgeous views.

We stopped off in Glastonbury to see the sights and ended up spending the entire day there.  What a neat town it turned out to be!  Aside from being the rumored burial site of King Arthur, my knowledge of Glastonbury was nil.  As it turns out, it's a hippie town.  It was like some strange English version of Moab, Utah and Eugene, Oregon rolled into one.

Oddly, we felt right at home-- except when we walked into the nudist healing well: darkness, candles, water, flesh... but that's another story altogether.  Otherwise, the alternative shops and music and veggie restaurants held such a familiar quality.  I will readily admit that we nearly cried at the offerings in their large healthfood store-- by far the best I've seen yet in Great Britain.

The kids were more interested in climbing up the hill to see Glastonbury Tor than seeing the abbey ruins.  So after browsing around the town, we set out to find our way to the hill.  And then we climbed up, up, up to the very top.

It's considerably flat where we live in England.  Flat and green.  We see a lot of trees, and only once in awhile when we're out taking a drive in the country do we get a glimpse of a view.  Like when we lived in Texas and Indiana, the lack of a view is something we've had to resign ourselves to, but of course we still have that longing to see off into the distance.  There's something magical that happens when you can look out over the land and take it all in.  You really get a sense of where you are in the world.  Time and space all come together and it just lifts you and transforms you in that moment.

So imagine my delight climbing this hill.  Halfway up, the view was splendid.  All the way up?  At the very tip top of the hill, high enough for the wind to catch us in its grasp, it was ridiculously amazing.  We could see everything.  Far, far off in every direction.




I just stood there and turned in circles and took it all in, swallowing every bit of the landscape.  I had the sudden urge to sing at the top of my lungs:

I can see for miles and miles and miles and miles and miles... oh yeah!

Now that I've managed to reference a song from The Who, courtesy of the soundtrack of my childhood, I'll let you in on a little secret.  I'm turning 40 this week.  If I were to stand on the hill of my life, presumably, I would be somewhere in the middle.  Far off in the distance behind me, I can see glimpses of my former self eating mud pies and skipping rope and kissing boys.  And if I look ahead, of course I can't see a thing.  What's to come is still in the shadows.  It's a mere haze of ideas of what life might hold, but I can't get a real sense of it.  We never can.

I think that's why we're so pulled in by these places that give us such a vantage point over the landscape.  It's the only time we can really see what's off in the distance... where we've been, where we are now, and where we're going.  My life has been filled with so much change and upheaval, I can't say where I'll be three years from now, much less forty.  I'm pretty sure it won't be naked in Glastonbury in a crypt full of candles and water, but honestly... how would I know?

So I appreciate the view where I can get it.  I may not be able to see off into the distance of my life and get a sense of what's to come, but if I'm still skipping rope and kissing boys... perhaps I haven't yet crested the summit.  Perhaps I'm still on my way up.

 I'm so thankful to have these lovelies along for the ride.

~~~~~~

So where do you go for a view?  Where do time and space collide for you?

A little birthday knitting

Moonshine has a birthday coming up. I found a pattern to knit her favorite thing in the world-- matryoshka dolls. It's all hush hush until the big day, but I'm so excited about it I had to share.









Matryoshka pattern from Susan B. Anderson's Itty-Bitty Toys.

Moonshine is FIVE!

Moonshine is five.
Hair to her knees.
Not really, but she begs it
Please!
Five today. Eyes alight.
She dreams of rescues by a knight
So shining. Shining!
It's such a shame that tomorrow
She'll be seventy-two.
Or Peter Pan.
She has it all memorized anyway.
Every word, every song.
She'll want you to sing along
And you will
drink the chocolate in her eyes
because she's so shining.



Moonshine, my life-is-about-the-details "middlest" child, turned five today. I was up all night sewing the dress just the way she wanted it. And of course the other dress for her doll Ella. It's a small thing, really, catering to her need for all the fancy details. She's still so incredibly dreamy and sweet I can't help myself.

So from sun-up to sundown it was a day fit for a fairy princess. Complete with waffles, wings, fairy books, flower garlands, and a cake that seemed to have grown right out of the ground! Imagine that!

Anticipation

When I have said my evening prayer,
And my clothes are folded on the chair,
And Mother switches off the light,
I'll still be seven years old to-night.

But from the very break of day,
Before the children rise and play,
Before the greyness turns to gold,
To-morrow I'll be eight years old.

Eight kisses when I wake,
Eight candles on my cake!

-Lucy Betty McRaye
from A Little Book of Rhymes New and Old, circa 1940

Sunburst has not been able to contain herself all day. Tomorrow she'll be turning eight. EIGHT!? It seems so old... how on earth did she get to be eight already?!

The Passage of Time

This summer we've been talking a lot about time and events and looking forward. Planning ahead. How many days until we go to the beach? How many days until someone's birthday? How many days until it gets cold?

With my stepmom in the hospital, I too find myself counting off the days. The doctors have diagnosed her with something called Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS), and it could be weeks or months before she comes off life support, regains consciousness and checks out of the ICU. That's a huge chunk of time.

Sunburst has been filling in pre-printed calendar pages and putting together her own glimpse of the year. She's writing in the name of the months, the days of the week, and numbering the days. She's filling in birthdays and celebrations as she comes to them, and we'll bind it all up with string and hang it on the wall. It helps her to see ahead and really get a taste for how the seasons unfold and the map of our year is put together.

She was delighted to look on her page for August and discover that today is my birthday. So for the last few days she and her sister have been secretly preparing. I woke to a birthday crown on my bedside table. There were flowers, oddly-shaped packages, and a breakfast carrot muffin served with a hand-rolled beeswax candle.

I appreciate their collective excitement, but this year I feel dismally prepared to embrace this day with so much going on inside my head and my heart. Really, it's an imbalanced state where the hands have nothing to do but wring themselves, helplessly, over and over. However, I find it eerie that my stepmom apologized a month ago for missing my birthday. She was really upset about it, and we both had a good laugh when I told her she was a month early. But now she really IS missing it... oh wonder of wonders! How did she know?

Her health is still balanced on that precipice, and with a positive outlook, full recovery may take as long as six months. There's no choice but to keep on with our own paths, despite the heartache, despite the worry, despite the unknown. We have to keep moving forward.

Which means... we must eat cake.