Hot Summer Nights

We are in the hot days of summer here.  After my stint in D.C. last week though, it doesn't seem too bad!  I forgot what 90/90 was really like (90 degree heat in 90% humidity).  Last summer was so jolly and lazy; this summer has been fun, hectic, and with an undercurrent of change.  Change can be a good thing, but it is also, well, a bit unsettling.  We're taking the time to count our blessings:  our family, our little house and gardens, our friends, our town.  Reaching for santosha--contentment.  Finding sharp points of decision making.  But still reaching.   

My Love/Hate Relationship with Technology

This weekend I received my first smart phone.  I'm struggling to get used to the dual bonging of my tablet and phone registering a work-related email.  One of those bongs has got to go!  To make up for all this technology, we had a "no drive" day.  No need for the car!  The bikes can get us to the pool just fine, thank you, and isn't a day spent harvesting goodies from your garden about all you need for entertainment?  We think so! 

On the other hand, I am sort of falling in love with Instagram.  I know I'm a late comer to the ap; I usually am, but I'm having fun with yet another way to take pictures of my gardens!

Happy and Tired

The irony of summer...we wait and wait for it to get here and we fill our days so full of fun and adventure and trips and busyness that we exhaust ourselves.  What a fun filled Independence Day weekend we had!  Parades and bike races and friends and fireworks!  I was so tired last night, and just wanted drift off to sleep and forget that today would be Monday.  Sadly, it was not to be.  The sound of thunder woke up the little one and we all had a sleepless night. 

Even still, I treasured this weekend.  It is so, so achingly lovely on the Palouse right now.  The spring wheat looks like velvet and the winter wheat is fading to pure sunlight.  Hay is being baled and put up for the long, cold winter ahead.  We were so stressed in June, though we tried to hide it with all our trips, as we waited to see if my husband would have a job in the coming months.  Thankfully, he does, and we shall stay here a bit longer, it seems.

Oh Palouse, when I think it is time to leave you, you find a way to keep me here a bit longer.  How is it that you do this to me, year after year?  Every passing year, I love you more.  You don't have the hardwoods and the wetness of my childhood home, but you have the sweet scent of pine and grass.  You are the place I am raising my baby, his happy home.  My happy home! 

Daffodils

We are still tired after our busy Easter weekend.  On Tuesday we went to a screening of the movie Chasing Ice, which was sponsored by the Environmental Law Society at the University of Idaho.  It was quite good, but depressing.  The movie documents a photographer, James Balog, as he sets up cameras to take time-lapse images of the glaciers in the Arctic.   It's a good reminder that sometimes geologic activity can happen very, very quickly, and that the overwhelming scientific evidence points to humans as a least one of the primary factors leading to climate change.

The movie also helps put things in perspective for me, so that when I'm whining because it's April and I'm wondering if I should start a fire in the woodstove or just put on a sweater, that it is good to have seasons and it's good to have them come when and as they ought.  So I'll just keep knitting hats for now, instead of sewing up cute skirts, and waiting for my flowers to bloom.  Oh, and trying to think of ways to reduce my family's carbon footprint!

A Bit of Sun

I think this will be the winter we remember as the winter we were constantly sick. It's exhausting.  It seems that at least one of us is ill at any given time point, leading to restless nights and cranky days.  I've heard that there are over 700 cold viruses on the planet, and I swear at least a quarter of them must be circulating on the Palouse right now.  On the positive side, I've also heard that you only get each cold strain once in your lifetime, because after that, you've built up antibodies to it.  I wonder what the maximum number of cold strains any one person has had in their lifetime???

Despite the obstacles, we've managed to have a good time.  We've been skiing and sledding multiple times since the snow began in December.  I just wish we felt better so that we could take advantage of the generally good weather and enjoy ourselves more fully.  It's frustrating, when you're an active family and you aren't feeling terribly motivated.  Or the combination of sleep deprivation-illness-work travel-holiday stress is just overwhelming.  Today the sun is shining and the temperature is in the 40s, meaning under most circumstances we would be on a bike or at a park...and we're not.

But sometimes the sofa is good, too.

We've used enough wood that we can park the commuter bikes in the shed again.

Gardens are still sleepy...

A chore to tackle, someday.

  

Clean Slate

I am in an intense declutter frame of mind.  I don't know why January makes me want to go through every drawer and closet in the house, but it does.  Perhaps it's the soft snow falling outside, covering up the winter garden.  Perhaps it's triggered by putting away the Christmas decorations.  Wherever the feeling is coming from, it's intense!

In the interest of full disclosure, I will have to say that decluttering is not a habit I came by naturally.  My husband has taught me everything I know about the art of the purge.  Living in a small house also helps.  And I still fight with myself sometimes about what to keep and what goes, so I had to come up with some ground rules.

1. If I haven't worn it in a year (or it doesn't fit), it goes.  Of course everyone says this, but it's amazing how clothes can hide out in your closet as if they know that if they make themselves too obvious, they will find themselves in a Goodwill bag.  I do allow a few exceptions, like my suits, that I may only wear every 18 months or so.

2. If my son hasn't played with it in a year, it goes.  Come on people, we're not getting any younger here! 

3. If it's a seasonal decoration that I didn't use in a year, it goes.  

4. If there are electronic (and backed-up) versions of the document, it goes.  This rule also applies to children's art projects.  I will keep a select few pieces (emphasis on few), but it's easy to take photos of artwork and then save those for posterity, rather than letter N's made out of noodles that the bugs will eat.

5. If I haven't used it in a year, and the probability I will use it again within the next year is less than 10 percent, it goes.  I just purged my shorty wetsuit today after being surprised I still owned it.  Even if I started diving again, the shorty wetsuit, while totally appropriate for the southeast where I grew up, is useless in the Pacific Northwest.

These rules apply primarily to articles of practical and recreational significance.  Heirlooms are a bit harder, but even then I try to a) use them (such as quilts, vases, or dinnerware), b) repurpose them (I am making jewelry out of the rock collection I inherited from my grandparents), or c) take a hard look and potentially get ride of things that seem to be decreasing in sentimental value as they age. 

A repurposed casserole dish, given as a wedding present, now used as a planter!

 

Thanksgiving

From a family roadtrip...next year's promise of winter wheat, already planted in Benewah County, ID

Thanksgiving is just about my favorite holiday.  And this year, Garrison Keillor summed up the essense of Thanksgiving better than anyone else I've ever heard:

"We should give what we do not have.  This is the meaning of generosity....the thing you do not have is certitude, and so you should give certainty to other people, as a gift.  Life is good....be grateful for everything that has happened up to this point, because everything combined to bring you to where you are right now, and you should be thankful for it."  -- Garrison Keillor, 17 November 2012  [listen here]

The Edge of the Season

We went to our last Farmer's Market of the 2012 season.  For me, the end of market truly marks the turning of the year from one into the next.  Each of the last seasons have been unique.  I read a blog post once (and if I could remember where, I would cite it!) that said having a child takes you out of the comfortable life you've created for yourself and moves you to new, uncharted, and much more turbulent, territory.  The emotional highs are higher, and the lows are far lower.  I would add that each year is also a new adventure.  You're getting to know a new person, and they're getting to know themselves.  They learn to do new things, and you adjust your roles and your relationship.  Your relationship with your partner, and your family as a unit, also evolves.  I've gone from wearing my baby, to pushing the stroller, to having him follow me as we go about our Saturday morning market routine.  This year, for all but about two Saturdays, we biked to the market and loaded up the trailer with our produce for the trip home.  Next year, will he be riding his bike alongside mine?

Our Indian Summer is over now, and we are really into fall.  We had our first fire in the wood stove this morning to take the chill off the night.  We are at the edge of the old season.  We are at the beginning of the new.  I'm a little sad, because this year has been so great.  So many fun adventures, so much laughing.  

So it helps to remember that the adventures are not over, and time is really more circular than linear.  We can't always see what's around the next corner, but we often circle back to places of familiarity, even amidst change. And if we're really lucky in life, we have a great circle of friends with whom we can share the adventure!

Finding our way out of the University of Idaho Corn Maze at dusk...lovely!

Santosha

Yesterday my yoga instructor was speaking of santosha, or contentment.  It is one of the pillars of yoga, and (according to Wikipedia) is thought of as not requiring more than you have to achieve contentment. 

I posted on Sunday that summer brings a sense of contentment, but even still, I struggle with santosha.

It's not that I always want more, but I do often want better.  

I am a planner, a nest-egg stasher, I have big plans.  I think of the future, my thinking folds into worry.

Santosha.  Right.

When my grandfather passed away, I told my parents that I only wanted, really wanted, a couple things that were his.  I wanted more of the ducks that he carved, and I wanted the horseshoe that was over his shed. 

I got the horseshoe.  

You'll note it's upside down.   My father was quick to point this out to me, just as I once pointed it out to Grandpa.  "That's so the luck will drip on me every time I go through the door," was the response I got then, and the response I give now.

Now it's hanging on my garden shed.  In my backyard.  It's part of my home.  We've lived here five years now.  It's not the perfect house.  It's a little on the small side and the back part of the yard is still a little out of control, but we've made it so much more ours.  It's our little nest. 

And now the horseshoe hangs over my garden shed.  Every time I am feeling a little stressed, a little worried, I'll go hang out in my shed.

Maybe a little luck will drop on me.  My husband always says he'd rather be lucky than good.

Maybe I should worry less about things that I can't control, and just allow a little luck to works its magic every now and then.

Santosha. 

Grandpa's Shed

My shed, not yet as worn.

Contentment

Summer never seems that lazy to me.  In the winter, we go to bed early and sleep a lot under many blankets.  Not so in the summer.   The days are long and busy, filled with activities and trips and general craziness.  

It's been hot here lately.  Now don't get me wrong, I love summer, but 95 degrees with no air conditioning is hot.  And exhausting.  I keep reminding myself how much I love wearing shorts and skirts and sandals and how that is all going to come to a screeching halt soon with the advent of fall, and therefore I should not complain.  But hot is hot!  Hot makes me switch from dark beers and red wine to the lightest of whites and summer ales.  Hot makes me want to lay around with no part of my body touching any other part of my body.  Hot makes me tired!

I like the turning of the season that late August represents, even though it makes me a little nostalgic.  It's harvest time here on the Palouse.  It's time to celebrate the season and put food by for the winter.  It's time to celebrate new weddings and the anniversaries of old weddings, at least in my book.  It's time to watch "American Graffiti" or some other end of summer movie coming of age movie.  Hot makes sunflowers and tomatoes ripen!  Salsa time!

The late summer heat with earlier, cooler evenings also brings contentment to me.  In that way, maybe contentment is a form of laziness.  I don't worry so much if the house is perfectly neat.  I don't feel guilty if I can sleep in late or have a quiet afternoon.  The seasons are changing, and we're moving from the period of business to the period of dreams...

I've never had so many tomatoes this early!!

Dug the garlic today!

Beany teepee!

My happy sunflowers!

Salsa time!

The onions are lonely in this bed now!

Palouse August

I love sunflowers and harvest...they remind me of my wedding!

Another gratuitous flower farm picture!

August Days

What fun we've been having around here!  My husband is getting excited about the cyclocross season starting soon, my garden is producing a ton of food, and my son is enjoying playing with all his new friends, especially our new neighbors next door.  After a busy start, we are enjoying a few calmer days as we watch the wheat harvest come in.  For some reason, I love the smell of ripe wheat in the fields, even though it makes me sad in some respects because I know the summer is almost over.

We've been biking to the farmer's market almost every Saturday.  It really is the place to see and be seen around Moscow, and oh yeah, there's produce and food and crafts and flowers too.  I think this weekend we definitely need another outing to the flower farm and the pool.  What other summer things can we think of to do???

I love tea roses, especially ones that don't require pampering!

Stawberries, tomatoes, and peppers, oh my!

Purple potatoes!

I "inherited" a lot more linen this summer.  My mother brought me wonderful cutwork from my grandmother's house.  This piece was one of my favorites; I love the colors so much!  It makes me happy to use these pieces in my kitchen, just as it makes me happy to sleep under an old, loved, hand pieced quilt at night.  I like to think about the hands that made each piece, and wonder what the maker was thinking as she cut and sewed and seamed.  But then I wonder, would I want someone knowing what I was thinking one day when they look at something I've made?   Sometimes I stitch when I'm angry, or frustrated, or sad.  I often stitch when I am very happy and content.  A lot of time I stitch to pass time when traveling in a car, chatting away with the driver or occasionally interrupted to take a picture, restart a video, or pass a snack to someone.  And sometimes, I only think of really, really boring things when I stitch, such as "crap, is this row 8 or row 9" or "should I get up and fold laundry, or just sit here"?

Lots of life happens when stitching, gardening, and otherwise passing time in the summer!  Oh, for a few more weeks yet of warm days and pleasantly cool evenings!!

The Second Day of Christmas

It is the day after Christmas. Sometimes this day seems like a let-down.  There is  nothing left to anticipate, nothing left to prepare, nothing to do, really, except clean up the mess.  However, in this house, and in many others, it is the first day of actual vacation from work, so how should we use the time?

It seems to me that in our modern Western culture, we've forgotten how to celebrate a proper holiday.  In several other cultures, at least one holiday or celebration spans many days.  Christmas, in fact, used to go for twelve days--we even have a song to that effect. But now we just have the "shopping holiday" that runs from Thanksgiving to Christmas (and only that long, if we're lucky).  Christmas has become another manifestation of the busy American culture--spending a lot of money and frantically doing a lot of things, then having one big let down after it's all over.  

So I say we should go back to celebrating all twelve days of Christmas.  In my household, we've decided that one of our Christmas day traditions will be to go sledding (or hiking, it poor snow years).  We did not have a white Christmas at our house yesterday for the first time in years, being stuck in a high pressure system that doesn't seem to end.  But we were able to find snow on Moscow Mountain and a really gnarly sledding run.  It was great!  We also found this pair on the mountain, still dozing when we found them on the quiet Christmas morn.

   
Now to come up with a tradition for today!

A Mindful Thanksgiving

Early in the morning on Thanksgiving Day, hardly a mouse is stirring in downtown Moscow.  Quietly, 24 students of yoga and one yoga instructor arrive at the Moscow Yoga Center, a locally-owned and well established downtown business.  Mat to mat, we all settled in for our practice.


Every holiday should begin this way, especially holidays that, while joyful, are also a time of stress and consumption.  I've practiced yoga for eight years, and ever so slowly, I have noticed that my mind really does settle down while I'm on the mat.  Yoga forces me to think about my body (which I almost never give a second thought otherwise) and by doing so, the daily chatter of life fades into the background.


This holiday season, I am making a concerted effort to focus on the little joys of life--putting my garden to bed, making a birthday cake for my son, knitting by a warm fire.  We have had the excitement and business of a great cyclocross season, now it's time to light a few candles in the darkness of winter and settle in with a good book!

Sunflower Season

I love sunflowers.  I loved them long before I carried them in my bridal bouquet [unintelligible] years ago, but have loved them even more since.  They arrive in midsummer and stick around through early fall, transitioning us into a new season.

I'm getting to that point in life when I've already hit most of the major milestones that "society" values--graduating, starting a career, marriage, motherhood.   Most of these milestones happened in September, so I always get a little introspective around this time.  While I don't feel that I'm in the autumn of my life by any stretch (I would like think I'm still in early summer) I do think about what transitions are still ahead for me. Generally I am looking forward to them.  I learned a while ago that I am not really an optimist nor a pessimist--I am a meliorist, in the tradition of William James.  I don't know how things are going to turn out, but I believe we should get together with kindred spirits and work to make things as good as possible for everyone. 


So, here's to fall--and sunflowersl!