You might have gathered that I get kind of excited about seasonal holidays. I love Christmas and Thanksgiving and Easter, of course, but I especially love them within their context of their seasons. When I look at our cultural holidays from the perspective of how the turning of the wheel influenced/influences people’s lives and consciousness, I’m overjoyed to participate. These things hold great meaning for me, much more so than any store gift.

When we became a Waldorf family (which may have been before our first child was born, depending on how you look at it) we quickly adopted the nature table as a means of expressing our appreciation for nature and the changing seasons. OK, maybe it was me more than Ian. But still. It dovetailed so nicely with my own inclination toward nature religions that it was almost automatic. Now that we have Waldorf, I don’t have to go into the awkward conversations about my unconventional spiritual tendencies, I can just say, “It’s a Waldorf nature table,” and be done with it. Of course, nobody ever asks me.

I’m not entirely sure whether the children even notice this seasonal display. Occasionally they will bring in something from outdoors and we will place it on the nature table.  My mushroom family makes its debut on the table this fall.

Spent seed pods from our day lilies, needle-felted gnomes, a knitted cat, a big black rock from the Black Rock desert, rocks Lucas painted, and a decoupaged candle holder that the children made last for last year’s autumn equinox. In the background, we have Daniela Drescher’s In the Land of Elves picture book opened to the autumn page. (Drescher makes gorgeous books, by the way!)

We have on this side wheat and preserved autumn leaves from a craft store, more gnomes, and a cut geode candle holder. Everything rests on gold and orange play silks.

By the way, this is the ONLY clean and beautiful space in my home at present. Chaos reigns around here most of the time.

Happy Equinox! Happy Mabon! Happy Last Day of Summer!

It was a busy day. I had originally planned to celebrate the equinox on the 23rd, but when I looked closer at the exact time of the equinox, I decided it couldn’t wait till tomorrow. (Tomorrow we can celebrate the First Day of Autumn!)

We’ve been watching for signs of Autumn around here. Mama’s been scoping out all the garden plants with a project in mind….

After a quick, $9 trip to the craft store today, we came home with a flat twig wreath base, some floral picks (wooden picks with a small amount of wire on one end), and some green floral twine, which we ended up not using. We wandered around our front and back yards and clipped little snippets off trees and shrubs, including liquidambar leaves (still green), flowering plum leaves (purple), mallow, Chinese elm, Japanese maple (purple and green), redwood sprigs, pittosporum, and lantana berries, heavenly bamboo fruits, rose hips, lavender flowers, and the spiky flowers from some ornamental grass. We also walked up the street a little ways and gathered fallen bits of live oak leaves.

While the vegetable soup was cooking I tried to get the kids interested in making the wreath with me. At first they couldn’t be bothered because they were too busy chasing around the backyard. But after I got the first layer on the wreath base, it caught Lucas’s eye and he came to help me. He did a great job of adding to the wreath, and especially enjoyed using the floral picks to wire items without strong stems into the wreath.

We pulled some deep orange/bronze seed lanterns off our goldenrain tree, plucked a touch of dusty miller, and added some rosemary from our herb patch. We added in a few acorns we had gathered from the neighborhood yesterday. Basically, if it was interesting and sturdy enough to be stabbed into our wreath, we used it. I’m delighted with all the colors our wreath has! I had feared that not enough foliage had begun to turn fall colors yet, and that it would be bland.

Here is the finished wreath, sans baby toes and with a few sticks we had gathered and displayed last spring. Ian helped us hang our equinox wreath above our nature table (which is really the top of our upright piano) in our great room. Since these plants are largely fresh, our wreath will wither and wilt over time. It may begin to fall apart, which in itself will be symbolic of the seasonal changes. I’m interested to see how well or poorly it lasts. I’ve never made one of these before.

Lucas then chopped our “finger salad,” mere raw zucchini rounds into halves, symbolizing that today the day and night are perfectly equal. While he did, Ian asked him math questions, which was fun.

Our backyard equinox table setting (blue plates for night, yellow plates for day, of course). I didn’t take a photo of our yummy vegetable lentil quinoa soup. (I’m no food photographer!) We ate homemade bread and soup and zucchini halves, and talked about what summer things we were thankful for (swimming lessons, swim team, Waldorf summer camp, play dates, our anniversary trip to Seattle, Burning Man—particularly because we came home with four noses, eight eyes, eight ears, 16 limbs, and 80 digits!).

We finished our celebration with pumpkin pie! Asher helped with making the pie crust and Lucas mixed up the filling and helped me roll out the crust.

And now, the holiday is done and I’m beat! Good night, and may the many blessings of the season be yours.

Thank goodness today has been Sunday. We’re tired from staying up too late last night. We’re feeling a bit drained from all the … well, small challenges that we’re presently facing: expensive car repairs, viruses, rush projects. Even Ian is working this weekend, which isn’t something he has to do too often.

It’s fine. Everything will be all right.

Housework. Sick boys. Freelance work. These are the things that have occupied our time this weekend instead of what we had planned: our annual trip to Mimi’s cabin in Strawberry in the Tahoe forest, to visit her and grandpa. Feverish children changed our plans.

We’re in a bit of a slump, you might say.

However, there were several sweet highlights. Like unexpected visits from friends, who fill up my heart with love and see deep inside me.

Low-key, take-it-easy play and movies to ease the disappointment, sickness, and crabbies. I think Lucas is well enough to return to school tomorrow, which is great because he’s feeling pretty blue and misses his friends.

The delicious mushroom, spinach, onion omelette Ian made me for breakfast.

A few feverish smiles and the wonderful opportunity to climb on Dad.

Some sewing for mama. I got to complete a small knot doll I started a month or more ago. She’s for Asher and I sewed all her clothing, hat, and hair today, using just leftover bits and bobs.

Ian said she looks a bit like a preschool teacher, and Asher immediately named her after his own teacher. So sweet.

I’m trying my hand at a new bread-making method. We’ll see how that turns out…. I also managed to finish a work project today, so that feels good, too.

And as for the rest of today, I’m thinking of snuggles and food and an early bedtime for all.

Here is my electroluminescent wire (EL wire) coat for Burning Man. My talented husband made it for me. I asked for flowers and I absolutely love it! Ian is the BEST! (Thanks also go to E for giving me the coat several years ago.) We are going to be the glowingest family of four on the playa this year.

Inspired by SouleMama {this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Mom and I picked up this vibrant paisley fabric a couple of weeks ago during an outing. I’m making for myself this Simplicity 2410 skirt (B—the short one).  There’s a zipper in this one too, and I’ll definitely need Mom’s help with that part again.

Yesterday was Mom’s last day of summer vacation. Asher got to swim and eat up all of grandma’s snacks. Mom and I cut out the skirt pieces together. I still don’t understand most of what she says when she talks about sewing, but I’m trying.

I love spending time with my mom. I wish her all the best in this new fall semester!

I have long coveted the window stars I’ve seen at the Waldorf school and in photos. I bought a book of how to make them a while back and got so overwhelmed by the complex instructions that I didn’t attempt one for a year.

Eventually, in my combing the Internet, I stumbled upon the right kind of transparent “kite paper” and bought it. My paper is square, so I can now make all the stars that require squares.

Many of the stars in this book require rectangular tissue paper cut to specific sizes and I haven’t tried that yet. I guess my rotary fabric cutter would do the job, but I don’t know if that would be bad for the cutter.

This star was pretty easy to make, although I had to ask Ian help me figure out how to assemble the five points into the star. It was confusing because the instructions were wrong in a couple of places. The book could use a good editor in its next revision, I think! Still, I’m looking forward to making more of these. They’re pretty.

Ian and spent just about an hour in Placerville last weekend, on our way to South Lake Tahoe for a short getaway. Mom had said, “Why don’t you get out of town for a while?” Why not, indeed!

Since we didn’t have the boys in tow, I dragged Ian to Lofty Lou’s, where I pawed at the yarn and came home with these gems. He’s such a good sport!

This is a four-ounce ball of Firestar, a sparkly nylon fiber that can be carded with wool or silk or other fibers and either spun or needle-felted. Pretty!

And this is a lovely hank of hand-painted wool in an array of autumn browns, golds, and russet reds that I’m hoping will inspire some lovely autumnal artwork. Or I could spin it into luscious yarn, which I haven’t done since last February and I really should practice so I don’t forget how.

Or maybe both. That’s what I love about roving; it can become so many things! And I’ve just spent a bit of time on abstractfiber.com and I must say, YUM!

We whitewashed the chicken coop two weeks ago. It’s now ready for decoration and colors. That is the part I’m excited about—making the coop kind of like a gingerbread-house—but I’m facing a lack of free time this month. Work projects are keeping me hopping! (Yay!)

Anyway, the boys were great sports about painting and the four of us got this job done in about an hour and a half. Asher was extremely enthusiastic … and drippy. Lucas was a competent, steady worker. Daddy was patient the whole time, even when the hinges were accidentally painted white.

We were all fairly well splattered when we were done.

This is how it looks now. The girls don’t seem to mind that their coop isn’t completely decorated yet. They’re more concerned with trying to peck open our vermiculture bin. Those beaks did a lot of damage to our styrofoam worm farm! Our worms are now banished to the garage, where the hens can’t get at them.

These red and white cap mushrooms look so cute and magical, they’ve captured the imaginations of thousands of authors and illustrators, crafters, and Waldorf families, not to mention the wacky game designers at Nintendo.

They are, in actuality, Amanita muscaria, commonly known as fly agaric or fly Amanita, and are poisonous and psychoactive. So if you see them growing, don’t eat them. Please avoid them. Take a picture, but leave them be. They belong to the fairies,  gnomes, and other magical creatures of the forest, and not at all to human beings.

This little family of Mushroom People, the Amanitas,  just wouldn’t stop clamoring in my head until they were made. They are needle-felted out of 100 percent wool roving and without any internal wire structure, so they are very soft and lovable. I expect they will come and visit our nature table in the autumn.