greenclogs

and she is 10

It always surprises me that milestone birthdays take my breath away a little bit, even though I've done them before with the older kids. But they do. 10 years ago this little bundle of love and contradiction entered the world and our family has been so much the better for it. 

Oh, Annika. As usual, I'm not sure what to say. You are just So Much. So much love, so much brain, so much angst, so much independence, so much need, so much creativity, so much procrastination, so much lazy, so much busy. You are one of the most complex people I know, and I say that with love. I understand you the least of my children, but I think understanding you is like trying to capture lightning in a bottle. It can't be done. Instead I just love you. I hold you tight when your emotions overwhelm you. I listen to your ideas as they come flowing from you all day long. I try to help you understand how to balance your need to create and be and live your own life with playing well with others and being respectful of their needs (aka "the house is not your garbage can"). I marvel at all the places your mind goes and try to help you channel all of that toward productive goals. Mostly though, I just love you.

You're going to do great things, my girl. I'm just buckling in for the ride. Happy 10 years, Annika. I'm forever grateful for you.

Love,

Mama 

beaching it

We've been reveling in surprisingly great beach weather. Today we're back to celebrate Annika's 10th (!!!) birthday, which will get its own post tomorrow. I came home today and got ready to blog, only to discover that I had malware on my site from the old malware issues at Craft Hope. A couple of hours of frantic link scrubbing and a recheck by Google have put me back in action, but not after serious consideration of just archiving the blog and living in a post-technology nirvana. Whew! That's not happening.

So, here's a quick look at our time at the beach thus far. 

I think that sums it up nicely, other than the photos I need to take off of my phone of Kit's first experience in the ocean. She was delighted and undeterred by falling down.

Until tomorrow and the teary-eyed birthday post. xo

her hands

We had lunch with my grandma on Wednesday. We try to see her every 2 weeks or so, whether it's a quick trip to drop off some eggs and some food for her freezer, or a longer adventure. The girls love going to see her. She has a basket of toys for Kit. Annika talks and talks about whatever is interesting to her at that moment and my grandma is always interested and engaged, which makes A so happy. Sometimes we go to lunch. We stick with hometown institutions like Burgerville, Bob's Red Mill (where I also knock out my bulk grocery shopping), or Tebo's. We're all about the cheap, easy, and local. This week, Gunnar came along since school has ended for the summer, so we picked up Grandma and headed to Tebo's for some strawberry shortcake. 

We sat at the table and I watched her play tickling games with Kit. As they played and laughed, I started taking pictures of her hands. I think I've talked about her hands before, but I'm too lazy to go find it in the archives. It bears repeating. I love these hands and their gnarled beauty. When I hold them, I feel all of the work they have done. The baby tending, cookie making, years and years of typing, garden weeding and planting. I remember sleeping over at my grandma's house and she would tickle my back and my face until I fell asleep. When I was a teenager, she held my hands and remarked on how they looked like hers when she was young, then laughed at her own 65 year old hands. She doesn't bake much anymore and she lets other people do the heavy lifting in the garden. But to me her hands will always be strong and beautiful. 

She is beautiful.

We drove her back home and I helped her out of the car. We hugged, and I watched her walk to her front step from the car. Her body isn't very straight anymore, and it's tiny now - bent over from arthritis and age. She walks in slow measured steps and I can see the pain that I know she feels but doesn't discuss. That's her way. My eyes filled with tears and I glanced over at Gunnar, who teared up as well. In that moment we were struck by how lucky we are to still have her in our lives like this and we realized how short the time may be. He put his hand on my back, we smiled at her through our tears as she turned and waved from the front door, and waved back. We drove away, filled with gratitude for the time we have left with this beautiful lady. Hopefully she can fit more frequent visits into her still busy schedule, because we're going to need them.

summertime

Summer, while not official until next week, is official in my book. School is out. The sun is shining (for now). We're prepping for our trip to the beach. Have I mentioned how much easier that prep is when it's an 80 mile drive instead of 1400 miles? Much easier. 

Strawberries are in season! I picked up my first flat on Saturday and we have been eating like they are going out of style. I also bought rhubarb at the farmer's market. Crisp was made with olive oil instead of butter, which was surprisingly good. I'll be buying another flat tomorrow for making jam. And then another for freezing berries for smoothies and ice cream.

Related to the olive oil crisp topping is that I'm doing a 30 day vegan workshop. It has been such a great way for me to segue our family into a summer style of eating - lots of fresh whole foods that are mostly plants. We haven't been strictly vegan. We're still eating all of those eggs from our chickens and have kept yogurt for morning granola (and I have had to keep my tablespoon of half & half for my coffee). But overall, it has been pretty great to discover new dishes through the workshop and figure out how to rework some family favorites. The experience really deserves its own post, so I'll do that once the workshop is finished and I have finished processing what it meant in terms of how we eat. 

I am nearly done with that shawl up there. 1.5 rows, bind off, and blocking left. I'm going to go work on that right now. I'm itching to start a new sweater and I have some granny squares to make. Those and the seaming up of a very old knitting project are the agenda for my beach knitting. The shawl in on the agenda for beach wearing. The Oregon coast in June is big on the grey and drizzly. Perfect for shawl wearing. 

I swore off Facebook and Twitter for the summer. That may mean that I'm here more and it may not. I just don't know. What I do know is that I want to connect with my people in more meaningful ways. I want to walk in the woods and pick berries and sit on the patio with good food, cold beer, and fun conversation. Plus I have a mile long summer bucket list that does not allow for much computer time. I'm looking forward to the break. So, I'm going to live up to that right now. Time to go sit on the patio with my coffee and some leftover crisp and finish that shawl while Kit digs for worms. 

Happy Monday!