balance and peace

^Post-Christmas Elk Refuge sleigh ride (see below). ^ 

I wrote this a few days ago, and hadn't found the time and space to complete it and tack on some photos.  The last few months have been a whirl of new experiences, new interests, less time, and re-prioritizing.  Right now, I have a tasty cup of Aero-press coffee at my side, my man has the day off and both kids are sick--although you wouldn't know it based on energy levels (I'm attributing that to the Thieves oil I put on their feet last night).  

Even though I turned 39 less than two months ago, I can feel the weight of what this year, 2015, brings: my 40th year on this planet.  And with that comes a strong urge to get my shit together.  To find the balance of health, wealth, organization, creativity, vitality and life, and to do it with my monkeys at my side.

  ^Mid December: Mom and daughter Nutcracker date.  I don't know what's up with the basket.^

^Local dancers plus the very same ballet company I grew up with: the Eugene Ballet Company came to our little corner of Wyoming!  I was SO happy to have *this* as my kids' first Nutcracker experience.^

::  ::  ::

I've been noticing what little evidence is left that we once had babies in our home.  Crib, changing table, potty chair...it's all gone.  Cloth diapers have been relegated to the rag pile (too scrappy to pass on).  What little remains of babyhood is all boxed up in the attic, waiting to be passed on in 30 years to some future grandkid, or made into a memory quilt.  We have a 3 year old and a 5 year old now.  Two ferociously strong personalities circle our home.

Yesterday both kids were crawling under the Christmas tree, wagging their tails high in the air.  Bare, little feet stuck out--those soft, pink, padded toes.  I wanted to lock that moment in my brain, to remember this, always.

I have been tucking notes away on Hazel for the last year and a half.  All her little quirks, come and gone and on to the next.  (I have a long overdue letter to Hazel coming very, very soon.)

2014 was the first year I didn't have a kid sharing my bed.  Looking back, so much of my focus was trying to get my own projects done; to do some things for ME after four years of dedicating my life to these small humans.  I did that, but in my wake I left behind a frantic, disorganized mess.

I have dedicated 2015 to swinging the pendulum back to center.  When I stumbled into 2015, clutching a steaming cup of coffee, friends strewn about the house, we asked each other our resolutions and this was mine: This year, I want to find balance and peace.  There are lots of fineries and nuances wrapped into those two words, but for now, that will do.

::  ::  ::

^A few days after the Nutcracker, our own little dancer took the stage.^

^How much actual dancing she did is debatable, but her favorite part: "Being on stage!" and the cookies afterwards.^  

I like my holidays to be of the slow, dough-kneeding variety.  This year, we were far from it.  It was hectic, busy, too fast, not enough.  (As of today, I still have a stack of "New Year's" holiday cards to mail.)  It was December 15th by the time I got our advent calendar on the wall.  I read somewhere that you should take all your holiday traditions and activities and drop them.  ALL of them.  Then, slowly add the ones that have the most meaning for your family and skip the rest.  To some degree we did that (we had to), but I could do some more cutting and pasting.

We have been so lucky in that family has come to us for Christmas since we've lived in this house.  This year was no exception with my in-laws here for Christmas followed immediately by my husband's brother's family and out-of-town friends for New Year's.  For you: a shotgun photo montage of our holiday:      

:: We adopted a dog from the shelter.  She is 4 1/2 and was found running along the highway with badly infected puncture wounds in her rear end.  Turns out, the other dog in her home was attacking her; the owners relinquished her to the shelter.  They patched her up and we took her home.  Her name is Ladybug (original name was Lady).  She is a super sweetheart; she doesn't bat an eye at the kids' crazy antics.  She is mellow in the house, but is tightly wound with energy the second she gets outside.  She is loyal to us, but will bolt if off-leash.  We have some obedience training to do, but she is a little lover.

:: Christmas Eve: setting out carrots and lettuce for the reindeer and cookies for Santa (they were a little protective about Santa's goodies).

:: Christmas morning with Nana.

:: Elk Refuge sleigh ride with Nana and Papaw.

:: Sometimes I struggle to figure out what Juniper really loves.  It's a question that doesn't have a simple, one-word answer like "skiing" or "trucks" or "dolls" or "biking".  But since she has been old enough to do it, she's been putting on shows.  It used to be "pet shows" with stuffties, but has progressed to shows with smaller characters like matchbox cars and Playmobil.  Animals, still, are the center of the show with humans, occasionally, having a supporting roll (usually as a "butcher").  Here: she was tickled pink to have a captive audience.  

Playmobil show--holy heck she loves Playmobil; this animal-fairy set was a Christmas gift from Hazel:

The performance.  I told Juniper she is a playwright and director.  

Another show:

:: As for Hazel, she could have received nothing for Christmas but a bag of those egg-shaped lip balms.  She loves on them constantly, until they're gone.  A typical scene around these parts: Juniper putting on a show, Hazel applying lip balm:

:: Minus 2 degrees on the sled hill, Hazel and my man.

With my husband's brother, his wife and the cousins too.    

:: New Year's Eve.  Sushi, hard cider, campfire, sparklers, fireworks, friends and family.  Love!

^Our good friend T and Aunt D watching fireworks.^

^Hazel burned her mittens while I was taking this photo.  Oh, the sacrifices of getting a good shot.^  

That's all folks!  I'll see you here again, hopefully before another 2 months pass us by....

fire, smoke and memory

(Plus some long-lost early spring snaps.)

Last night a dry lightening storm split the sky open and set-off a fireworks show.  I stood outside and watched in the wind until it got too close, then I sat inside with the lights off.  Tonight there is a fire burning I can see from my bedroom window.  I had seen the very bolt that started this fire, a red ball at the end of it.  I don't miss fighting fires; it is hot, grueling work.  But oh my, I do love the smell of a healthy fire.  I opened the windows to let in a hint of that smokey air.  The kids stood on my windowsill in their pajamas, pigtails all askew, looking for the fire, following my description with their eyes: See your playhouse?  And the roof of your playhouse?  Look just past the roof of your playhouse to that blue mountain in the distance.  See the white smoke?  That's the fire.  And oh, look!  See that orange light?  That's a tree torching!     

Hazel, her glass-blue eyes so wide she is practically shaking: "I see it, I see da fire!  Mama, dere's a big, huge, fire!!  We could ROAST MARSHMALLOWS!"   

I watched them, the backs of their heads, their day-old pigtails, as they clambered for a spot in the windowsill.  I often (too often) fret that my kids are being denied the childhood I had: best-friends within spitting distance, a swimming pool down the road and a neighborhood of kids that roamed as a pack.  People often wonder what their kids will remember.  I don't expect my kids to remember much.  I don't remember much from that age.  But I do sit back and watch this life, our world, inform their very souls.  I watch as their neurons learn to fire for mountain goats, balsamroot, and the orange slash on the throat of a cutthroat trout.  I don't worry about what they'll remember; my concern is what they will come to embody.  I want them to embody kindness, love, connection, wildness, stewardship. 

   

Juniper: "Oh, no!  But who will save the animals?"  

Me: "It's a small fire.  The animals will know to run."

Juniper, yelling through the window: "Run animals, RUN!"     

So even though the air is crisp and I *just* covered my corn and beans, potatoes and tomatoes, cucumbers and pumpkins in expectation of frost...tonight we smell of hot, smokey summer. 

:: 

:: And on that note, before summer starts for real, I have some early spring snaps that are too good to miss.  So if you remember waaaaaay back to Easter, we had a visitor arrive that night.  Nana graced us with her presence for a whole week.  My kids may not remember it, but their neurons know to fire for baking cookies, pretending and reading with their Nana.  It all counts, memories or not.     

:: Mudcake-making started early this year. 

:: We semi-spontaneously hosted a small, May Day afterschool tea party.  (Whatever happened to May Day anyway?  I remember as a little, little, kid leaving a bouquet of flowers on a neighbor's doorstep, ringing the bell and running.  But then the memories just fizzle out.  How about you?  What did you do for May Day and what do you do now?  Anything?  Mom?  We did that, didn't we?)

:: In keeping with her Magic Schoolbus obsession, Juniper turned herself into a honeybee, entirely of her own doing.  In case you can't tell, the paintbrushes taped to her head are the antennae, the paint tray taped to her belly is the nectar stomach, the coasters taped to her sides are the pollen pouches, and her wings, obviously, taped to her back (I did help get those on).

:: Juniper teaching Hazel to play Candyland.  Hazel, my sweet-tooth, this is what her dreams are made of.

:: Early, windy, spring walk with friends.

:: If the house is quiet, she's either eating toothpaste or...

:: 'night y'all.

P.S.  YES, I herniated a disc in my neck.  It is fine, almost normal, thank you.  And YES, we were rear-ended by a careless driver last week.  The back end of my car needs some body work, but we are all perfectly fine (except for missing most of Kid's Fishing Day).  It didn't do my neck any favors and Hazel tells everyone that we were in a car accident, but otherwise everything is a-okay.  Thank you.    

Thanksgiving catch-up

One day soon I'll have time to write again.  I know it.

Even though I've never lived there, I was almost (almost) as excited to visit the town in which my first daughter was born, as I was to visit family and friends.  My brother and sister-in-law moved to ol' Missoula just a few months ago--this was my first visit back to Juniper's birth city since she was 7 months old.

 I wanted to take Juniper to Community Medical Center where she was born, go to the window where they weigh and measure all the tiny little newborns, but alas the hospital has remodeled (for the better) and that window no longer exists.  I did get a chance to slip away for a morning and write.  Like, in my journal.  I know.  I re-traced the hours before Juniper's birth, then landed in an empty hospital waiting room and wrote.  Memories flowed.  It was blissful.  One day, I'll write Juniper's birth story.  I've started it oh so many times.  

 (It's not often that I'm in a city, especially after dark.  I had fun with it.)

      

So.  This post:  Us, giving Thanks, before we started making merry.

Thanksgiving:
:: Idaho.  (On our way to Missoula.)  Man, I do love the west.  

:: My sis.  When she wants something, she does it.  When they moved to Missoula, she wanted acreage and farm animals (besides chickens).

She is one determined lady.  

Now raising her first Dexter cow and calf (Dexters are about half the size of Herefords).

And showing the gals how to milk.

(The Thanksgiving turkey--by the way--she had slaughtered, plucked and had brining just days before we showed up.  The cornbread she made from corn she had grown that summer and ground that day.  And to my own zone 3 gardening amazement, I harvested kale, beets, turnips, rutabagas, parsnips and carrots for the feast just two days before leaving home.  It was a local feast--except few of us were locals.)

:: Our crazy, thankful group: family, friends of family and good friends who are really family.  Dang.

^Hazel and Uncle M.^

:: These two friends nourish my soul.  Riding in the car with them Juniper asked, "What are you?"  To which they responded, Aunt and uncle.  Just call us Aunt M and Uncle P.  That's what we are.  So true.  But it's almost even better than that.    

No trip to Missoula is complete without a spin (or so) on the Carousel.  

^Me and Juniper.  Thanks, P, for the photos!^  

Cousin hugs.  

My mother-in-law bought a pamphlet with a photo, name and history of each horse and gave it to the girls.  Now, they practically have it memorized and can recite which horses they want to ride next.  Hazel calls it her "Carousel Book" and carries it everywhere.

:: Back at the stead, Uncle M was attacked by a mob of nobbly-kneed children.

And Juniper had her first jam-session, which was enough to inspire me to dust off my mandolin.  

:: On our way home--close to our old stomping grounds--I insisted there was a store that sold all-wool pillows down this road.  

My husband was skeptical, but the detour proved fruitful and Juniper now has a queen-sized wool pillow on her bed.  

:: Driving home.