Memorial Day

I think it is fitting that Memorial Day marks the start of summer. Summer is a time of freedom, a time to enjoy all of the best things about our nation. Spending time in nature, spending time with friends and family, traveling, visiting beautiful places throughout our nation. 

Remember all the things we have to be thankful for, and remember all of the men and women who came before us, giving everything to secure our freedom. 
 
Have a happy, peaceful, and safe Memorial Day.

And welcome, summer.

from here^

Perform, then, this one act of remembrance before this Day passes - Remember there is an army of defense and advance that never dies and never surrenders, but is increasingly recruited from the eternal sources of the American spirit and from the generations of American youth.  
~ W.J. Cameron
 

antique image

They hover as a cloud of witnesses above this Nation.  
~ Henry Ward Beecher
 

from here^

Your silent tents of green
We deck with fragrant flowers;
Yours has the suffering been,
The memory shall be ours.
~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 

 antique image

All we have of freedom, all we use or know -
This our fathers bought for us long and long ago.   
~ Rudyard Kipling

from here^

I have never been able to think of the day as one of mourning; I have never quite been able to feel that half-masted flags were appropriate on Decoration Day.  I have rather felt that the flag should be at the peak, because those whose dying we commemorate rejoiced in seeing it where their valor placed it.  We honor them in a joyous, thankful, triumphant commemoration of what they did.  
~ Benjamin Harrison

antique image

Cover them over with beautiful flowers,
Deck them with garlands, those brothers of ours,
Lying so silent by night and by day
Sleeping the years of their manhood away.
Give them the meed they have won in the past;
Give them the honors their future forecast;
Give them the chaplets they won in the strife;
Give them the laurels they lost with their life.
~ Will Carleton
 

from here^

The legacy of heroes is the memory of a great name and the inheritance of a great example.  
~ Benjamin Disraeli

One of Those Families

When I was little, growing up in southern California in the 1970's, everyone knew at least one of those families. The man across the street, an engineer at Rockwell, referred to them, somewhat derisively, as "hippies". Looking back, I don't think they really were. We all lived in a nice neighborhood, where husbands went to work as engineers at one of the refineries or aircraft manufacturers. Everyone had well-kept lawns and it was safe to walk to school or to go trick-or-treating without adults. Mothers baked for the PTA and dads got together to set off fireworks for the kids at the annual Fourth of July block party. 

Not exactly where people moved to tune in, turn on, or drop out.

Still, in our neighborhood, there were a few families who, in retrospect, seemed a bit advanced (and thus odd) for the time. They ate organic food, and some were even vegetarians (!) They wore a lot of cotton in the days of Carol Brady polyester double knit pant suits. Their kids weren't allowed to play King of the Mountain, or Cowboys & Indians. They played with gender neutral, non-violent, non-competitive toys, whatever those were. They never looked like much fun, to be honest. The rest of us looked on for a moment or two, then went back to playing with our Dream Houses populated with a hoard of too-tan Malibu Barbies and G.I. Joes with the Kung Fu Grip.

 Super-neato Barbie Dream House from the 70's, with 
the elevator and the hot tub

At school, those kids ate odd-looking food at lunchtime and you felt kind of sorry for them, because they never got Twinkies in their lunch boxes. You probably didn't get them often, but they never got them.

The weirdest thing, to us kids, anyway, was that those families never had TV sets. At a time when a large color set was still a very big deal, they didn't even have small black and whites. No one that we knew had cable back then, but we still managed to ingest our share of wonderfully mind-rotting TV. To not do so seemed foreign and unnatural.

Philo T. Farnsworth & family of Fort Wayne, 
basking in the warming glow of their TV
(okay, not really. But if you don't know who Philo T. Farnsworth was, 
go look him up. 
Seriously. Start here^ 
One of those 'important to know' sorts of things.)
National Archives and Records Administration, 

in the public domain (^)

Sunday night automatically meant Wonderful World of Disney.

Scooby Doo and Electra Woman & Dyna Girl were on Saturday mornings. Cartoons were on after school, at least until the Watergate Hearings came along and messed them up. The Merv Griffin Show & Johnny Carson's Tonight Show were on if you were lucky enough to be up late on account of being sick. During the week there was the Dialing for Dollars afternoon movie. The Saturday Afternoon Movie. The Sunday Afternoon Movie. Fright Night with Sinister Seymour ("Now here is your host, the Master of the Macabre, the Epitome of Evil, the most sinister man to crawl across the face of the earth....Seeeeymour!").

When I was a kid, we didn't watch anywhere near the amount of TV people watch today, but not having a TV was simply not an option. Everybody had a TV. Except for those families. What did they do at night? What did they do when they were sick, or were up late, or it was raining outside? I didn't know, and no kid I knew wanted to know, either.

At the beginning of May, we took another step toward becoming one of those families, or at least the 2010 version of them. We already eat the organic food. We're not vegetarians, but we try to eat much lower down on the food chain. I'm now the queen of (preferably organic) all cotton (or at least natural fiber) clothing. We've allowed our children to have the occasional Barbie dolls here and there, but the Barbies in our home have to earn their keep, have a real job, and can't just be fashion models. Right now, I think most are veterinarians. We've  tempered Barbie with other, even tamer dolls and other types of toys, too, including lots of building toys and other ::shudder:: non-competitive, gender neutral toys.

So, on May 1st, we dropped satellite service. It wasn't really a matter of money, although the extra $84.00 every month ($1008.00 a year) is a nice bonus. It was more that we were beginning to feel that we might have better things to do than watch TV. We'd noticed that Clementine's mood and behavior was better, the less TV she watched. And we noticed that even though we spent every evening together after she was in bed, we didn't talk all that much.

We decided to watch only what showed up on over-the-air channels, on the computer (Hulu^, Internet Archive ^), on DVDs borrowed from the local library, and from a Netflix subscription (1 DVD out at a time, plus streaming content, less than $10.00/month).

We've been without satellite for just over 3 months now. We saw the amount of TV we watched drop precipitously right away. We began turning on the TV to watch a specific program, then turning it off when we were done. It no longer stays on with no one watching it, or worse - it doesn't draw us in to watch whatever junk just happens to be on.

 

Artist's conception of what a switched-off 
television set may look like.
From Wikipedia, in the public domain (^)

As a percentage of total TV time, we watch more movies. We sit down as a couple or as a family with a specific film, having discussed what we'll view in advance. We watch more documentaries, which is definitely good, at least compared to other things we might have watched. We watch very few network shows. We don't watch sports, but we never did to start with.

On weekends, the TV stays off most of the time, which is great. As a result, we're spending more time outdoors and on projects. Last weekend we painted with watercolors, and made chalk to draw with. We go outside every day and watch bugs, water our flowers, and enjoy the weather. We were doing that before, but Clementine no longer has to be dragged out the door. We've started playing games again - Dan and I both love to play Scrabble and backgammon.

In the kitchen, while cooking, we've started listening to music and to programs on NPR instead of having the small TV on. Clementine now sometimes listens to classical music, nursery rhymes or stories when she plays.

One thing I've noticed is that if she watches TV, she turns away to play occasionally. When she listens to music or stories, she turns away and devotes much more of her attention to her toys or to whatever she's doing. The music takes second place and leaves her much more engaged than the TV ever did. Her behavior, what wasn't bad before, improved immediately. She's usually much more interested in playing, reading and drawing than in watching TV.

We now go entire days without the TV being on at all, and have spent evenings talking, playing, reading... I guess we're well on our way to becoming one of those families now.

We're not quite here yet, but maybe some day.
by Pablo Gonzalez Vargas,  free photo
 from Morguefile (^)

I don't think we're quite there yet. We still have a TV. I'm not sure if we'll get rid of it, or if that is even our goal. Our goal at the time was to watch less, and for the children to watch less. In that, we've already succeeded. I don't know if "none' is doable, since Dan and I both enjoy movies, and this is the only way we usually get to watch them.

I do know that the saying "less is more" is true in this case and many others. Whether "none is more" remains to be seen but as of right now, I'm happy and proud of what we've accomplished so far.

Yay, us.

Namaste 

Recycling Crayons... a project straight from the Handbook (sshhhhhh)

When my oldest was quite little, she once asked me how I knew how to be a mommy. How did I know Santa's address? How did I let the Tooth Fairy know that she had lost a tooth? How did I know how to make play dough? How did I know where the gnomes and elves were in the yard?

The Tooth Fairy

I quietly explained that when babies are born, their mothers get a copy of the Mommy Handbook in the hospital, which had all of that information and a lot more. Of course, I couldn't show it to her, because she wasn't a Mommy yet, but when she got married and had her own kids, she'd get a copy and we could talk about it. Until then, it was all very hush-hush.

What the Mommy Handbook may look like

My copy of the Handbook is pretty dog-eared now, covered in unidentifiable stains. But its full of all sorts of great information, suggestions, recipes, and activities, and has lasted me through two-and-a-quarter childhoods (so far). The margins are full of notes, and late additions have been stapled to the back cover. Directions for kissing away the pain of ouchies, and the recipe for Making It All Better. The recipe for Monster-banning spray, Thanksgiving dinner, and the instructions for Hiding Birthday Presents So That They Cannot Be Found.

And there is this, How to Recycle Crayons. I'm pretty sure every mom does this with or for their kids at least once. It's cheap, and simple. The results are fun and a lot more interesting than "regular" crayons. They make great gifts at Christmas and for birthdays. There are probably as many ways to do this as there are moms. This is how we did it.

from here, used with permission(^)

Step 1. Sort through your child's crayons periodically, removing all of the broken pieces. When you have enough to make new crayons, spend an evening reading or watching a movie and peeling off all those fiddly label bits. I've read that soaking them off works well, but it didn't work for me at all. This is a mind-numbingly tedious task, but I found that I settled into a grove while watching a movie and before long, it was all done with a satisfying pile of naked crayon bits in one bowl, and a pile of paper in the other.

Some of our recycled crayons

If you haven't the patience or the time to wait until you have hundreds of broken bits, you can usually find crayons in bags at the thrift store for nearly nothing. You could also ask your local restaurant to save them for you if they do that sort of thing. My one thought on these methods of acquisition is this: we buy crayons which are made in the United States because we're not sure about the dyes and coloring used in those made overseas. They may be safe, but there have been so many recalls that we choose not to risk it. Starting next month (late July) crayons will be incredibly cheap due to the back-to-school sales, so if you want to make enough for gifts or don't have the patience to wait for all of yours to break, that will be a great time to find them for practically nothing.

We did a combination of the first suggestion (save out broken crayons) and the last (bought new) when we realized that our daughter doesn't break them fast enough. I bought new during the back-to-school supply sale last August. Boxes of 48 crayons were 11 cents each. My guess is that we used about 150 crayons, 50-ish broken an old, 96 (2 boxes worth) new. The cost, since we always stock up every summer for the following year, was maybe 35 cents, not counting the energy from the oven. 

Step 2. With all of the crayons peeled, we rinsed the broken bits to get rid of any errant cat fur, since kitty is shedding right now. They drained over night on a piece of toweling in the kitchen. You can discard the paper, or do what I did, which is to save it for making new paper. The pieces will add colorful flecks to new sheets. Making paper is another project for another day, of course.

Step 3. The next day, we sorted the crayons into greased muffin tins. We talked about what the colors combinations reminded us of as we sorted. We made sure that all of the crayons were broken up into small bits, and broke any that looked big. Large pieces leave a lot of space in container, and will result is smaller crayons. We wanted big, strong shapes which would hold up to lots of coloring.

 from here, used with permission (^)

We combined yellows, reds and oranges to make an Autumn crayon. Pale blues and white for a Winter crayon.  Pastels for a Spring crayon. Greens and yellows for a Summer crayon.

We mixed mixed greens and blues to make an ocean crayon.  Black, purples, and blues to make a stormy night crayon. Pinks, purples and reds made a lovely Valentines crayon. Blues, greens, and purples for a crayon that reminded us of deep space. Browns, reds and oranges for an earth colored crayon. We ended up with a total of 14, all different.

Step 4.  The soon-to-be-new-crayons can be microwaved in a safe container and poured into silicone molds. They can be melted over a double boiler and poured into molds. They can be placed in their mold in a slow-cooker and melted that way. And they can be placed in the oven in greased (and possibly papered) muffin tins with the oven on. I chose this method.

Even though we have a couple of silicone molds, I read that some molds have a bad habit of melting from the heat of the wax. I don't know which will and which won't, but didn't want to take the chance just now, because we want to try to mold chalk with later this month (page 486 in the Mommy Handbook). 

Step 5. We greased our muffin tins. We should have used foil or paper liners. Please use foil or paper liners. Take my word for it. They should also be greased well. Don't use your vintage cast iron muffin tin (like I did), because when crayon gets on them, it'll take forever to get it out and you'll end up kicking yourself (like I did). Use "tin" muffin tins - the aluminum kind. If the worst happens, they'll be much easier to clean.

Step 6. After the muffin tins are lined and the crayons are sorted (we sorted the broken pieces all the way to the top of the rim of the tin) place the tins in an oven which has been heated to 275F. Due to our daughter's age, this was something that I did by myself. I started checking progress at around 10 minutes, and removed the molten pools of liquid wax at around the 14 minute point. You know your stove best, so start checking on the low end of when they may be done. "Done" means that the crayons are melted. The wax will be pooled in the tin, but won't be particularly well-mixed. This was the effect we were looking for - crayons which could color in more than one shade at once. If you'd like a more uniform effect, a light stir with a wooden skewer as soon as they come out of the oven would accomplish this, but might muddy the colors.

 Our ocean crayon in an old enamel pan

Step 7. Turn off the oven, and wait 30 minutes or until the wax is entirely set. If you absolutely need them as quickly as possible, you could put the muffin tins in the fridge for a while. I didn't want to risk it since I didn't like the picture that hot, heavy cast iron and cold, glass fridge shelves conjured up.  Besides, at out house, it was bed time by this point in the process, so we decided to leave our creations until the following morning. 

Step 8. Remove crayons from their mold. The next morning, because I hadn't used liners, I had a heck of a time thinking of how to get the crayons out of the tins. I tried popping them in the freezer, which didn't work. I didn't want to pry them out, and finally figured out that if I poured very hot water from the sink onto the backs of the tins, the crayons would loosen up and pop out. The cast iron tin ended up with a thin later of crayon on the inside To get it off, I eventually resorted to having my husband burn it out upside down on the gas grill after dinner. It worked and the tin is fine, but it would have been sooooo much easier to line the tins.

several of our finished crayons

Step 9. Enjoy! As soon as my husband got home, he joined us on the back deck with paper and our new crayons. We colored and drew and had a lovely time.

 Breaking in our new crayons

A very happy bunny

 

details from a picture of the ocean. 

the pattern is caused by the wrought iron table we were working on, 

not by the crayons.

 

Probably a famous art critic in disguise

Namaste.  

=^..^=

Curiouser and curiouser...

'Oh my ears and whiskers, how late it's getting!'

The White Rabbit, to himself
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

I'm late. Really late.
When last I blogged I was planning on writing the next day. Which I did. But for whatever reason (one I can't fully explain), I didn't feel like publishing anything that day. Or the next. Or any other. Right up until today, right now.

Right now, I'm feeling as though I should, though, so I will.

Since the last time I posted, we've cooked quite a bit, practicing several new gluten free dishes. We've made GF bread several times, and Dan seems to have perfected the GF sandwich bread loaf. Occasionally, we'll pick up a loaf of GF bread at Whole Foods, but both of us enjoy baking, and store-bought never really compares to homemade, does it?

Fresh gluten-free French toast made with homemade bread by Dan,
& fresh butter (collaborative).

As you can see above, we made butter, which SuperCat found amazing - she wasn't sure how we were going to get butter from whipped cream, but we did and she loved it, staring into the mixer as it 'churned'. It was incredibly easy, and I'm working on a tutorial to explain the process.

Homemade butter in the KitchenAid mixer

I took a class with the Division of Wildlife, and earned my Hunter Safety Certificate, so that I could apply for a hunting license in my state. I applied for my first license a few weeks ago; pronghorn (aka, "antelope", the ones that play with the deer on the range in the song), but won't know if I get one for several more weeks. Quite a bit of the meat we eat ( which is organic, very low fat, hormone & antibiotic-free) comes from antelope/elk hunted by Dan, so it will be nice to have another try at the tag lottery every year.

I've played endlessly with my favorite three year old, who is beginning to blossom wonderfully when she draws, and who has the most vivid imagination of anyone I've ever seen. Like most afternoons, we listened to her play in her toy kitchen today, making food and drinks for her dolls. She is a joy to listen and talk to.

She's taking swim lessons now, since we joined the YMCA after the first of the year. I'm trying to exercise, but still finding it pretty difficult. I start physical therapy this week, so we'll see if that helps any. Here's to hoping that it will :)

I've sewn and crafted quite a bit. I made seven skirts in one day for the SuperCat. She helped choose the fabric (mostly 1930's repro designs), and she chose all of the notions (thread color, buttons, and ribbon trim). I've discovered that her eye for matching colors and textures is much better than mine is, even at her young age, which is wonderful, since a natural eye for colors and textures is invaluable.

Supercat's new blue skirt made with reproduction 1930's fabric.

Detail of blue skirt made with reproduction 1930's fabric.

I joined a knitting group, and I've all but finished a large fuzzy knit wrap for someone (don't know who yet), plus a scarf I'd been working on forever for our oldest. I started some bright pink amigurumi rabbits (crocheted), which just need to be stitched together and stuffed. I've recently become interested in drop spindle spinning, after seeing a lady at knitting using one, and Dan got the materials this weekend to make one for me (doweling, wooden disk, and a cup hook - easy peasy). He got enough to make more than one, so we'll end up with a low whorl (the disk thingy) and a high whorl. High or low refers to the position of the whorl on the shaft (the dowdle rod). Here's are illustrative photos and a description: Types of Drop Spindles (^)

Last week, I joined a quilting group, and am working on eight squares in the Broken Plate pattern, "cut loose", meaning that they were cut in an imprecise way. It was liberating to make something that is perfect in not being perfect, as all of the quilting I've done in the past has been as straight as I could make it. I learned more in the first quilting class than then sum total of what I previously knew about quilting, mostly due to a very patient friend who is a natural teacher. Like: how to properly use a rotary cutter and mat (there's a right way and a wrong way?!?!?). And: iron on the front of the pieced fabric, not the back (makes a huge difference in how the fabric lays). And so on.

I designed, made, and completed around two dozen butterflies for Connie Pelkey's (^) polymer clay Bug Swap, picked the twelve I liked the best, and mailed them off well before the deadline. Yay!

Simply putting the Bug Swap on my list of activities doesn't really give it the weight it deserves. It has occupied a place front-and-center in my mind from the time the email arrived saying I'd been accepted into the swap, until the morning I put my butterflies in the mail.

One of my butterflies before shipping.
My hands are pink because I'd been working with Pysanky dye the day before.

I'm always nervous about sharing my work, and often feel conflicted over it. I tell myself that I could have done better "if only" (if only there were more time, better planning, different materials, a different design, etc). The swap was a leap of faith; happy I took it.

Another of my swap butterflies.
These are from the first batch.

A learning experience, for sure.

That's it for now. As I finish this, I have no idea what kept me away for so long; I promise it won't be such a long absence next time.

This is the place where I thank John for reminding me several times that I need to write :)
Thank you, John!

'Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop'
The King to the White Rabbit
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

Namaste
=^..^=

I'm Beginning To See The Light

Duke Ellington and Joya Sherrill, 1944

I'm Beginning To See The Light

I never cared much for moonlit skies
I never wink back at fireflies
But now that the stars are in your eyes
I'm beginning to see the light

I never went in for afterglow
Or candlelight on the mistletoe
But now when you turn the lamp down low
I'm beginning to see the light

Used to ramble through the park
Shadowboxing in the dark
Then you came and caused a spark
That's a four-alarm fire now

I never made love by lantern-shine
I never saw rainbows in my wine
But now that your lips are burning mine
I'm beginning to see the light

Namaste.

Current Mood: content

Let it snow, Let it snow, Let it snow

♪ It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas ♫

After a day and a half of waiting and listening to the seemingly interminable up-to-the-minute Channel30/5/11/13/21NewsCenterAccu-WeatherQuickAlerts, we finally saw snow.

Yesterday afternoon, around 4:00 PM, my husband called and said that his boss had advised everyone to go home and finish the day working from home because the weather was getting bad. Just as he arrived home, it was as if the sky above turned on the snow-making machines and we went from an vast expanse of bare grass to several inches of the white stuff within 20 minutes or so. We get a lot of snow here, of course, but it doesn't usually start so abruptly. It continued all evening. Here are a few pictures from right after dusk:

Santa and Rudolph weren't fully inflated yet when this was taken, making them look as though they really, really liked each other.

inflatable heaven

all lit up

Our Christmas tree is about 7½ feet tall, but it doesn't look that big here, probably because we have gift bags circling the tree like covered wagons to keep the galloping herd of buffalo our giant dog from chasing the kitties under the tree and knocking it over.

It's hard to capture details, so you'll have to imagine the cool bubble lights. I always thought those were the coolest and thought that I'd have them when I grew up. I do have them now, and they are (in fact) the coolest.

The fireplace is to the left, and you can't really see it, but there is a very large clay chiminea shaped like an owl on the hearth full of pebbles and candles.

PS: I noticed that I forgot to include Question 4 from the yesterday's quiz. It should have been:

4. When do you take the tree down?

I used to leave the tree up till at least the Feast of the Epiphany(^) (January 6th), but the last several years I've taken the tree down the day after Christmas, because that was all I could stand (after my Dad died). Somehow, this year is finally different, and I feel like celebrating again, even if only tentatively. I don't know if we will make it to Epiphany, but I'm certainly willing to try.

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo's(^)
Adoration of the Magi (17th Century)

Finally, a quick Q & A, because a friend was wondering about a few things after I posted a picture of our tree last night:

Q: What's that lurking behind your Christmas tree?
A: A copy of the poster for Le Chat Noir(^), the famous 19th century Parisian cabaret. Well, famous in the 19th century, anyway. The poster (not my copy, of course) dates to 1896. Here it is without a tree in front of it:

I always think the cat looks really cheesed.

Q. The picture makes it look like your walls are painted purple. What color are they really?

A. Purple. A purple-y sort of dark dusty violet. I ♥ the color.

Namasté

Current mood: (cold)

Stand By Me

A video from the film Playing For Change: Peace Through Music(^), about the Playing for Change Foundation,(^) established to build music and art schools worldwide.

I saw this originally on Bill Moyers Journal(^), where the director talked about uniting people through music.

The cynical part of me wonders if programs like this help. The hopeful part of me wants very much for it to be so.

Tangentially, it makes me miss my dad and New Orleans, where some of it was filmed, as you can see in the video.


Stand By Me



Have a wonderful, peace-filled weekend.

Namaste.