A tidal wave of work is coming my way, so the projects I presently have in hand consumed some of my weekend. This isn’t really so bad, except the weather was heavenly and my darlings headed off to the zoo without me on Saturday. I realized after they left that I’ve missed rather a lot of Asher’s zoo trips. This must be corrected soon.

Two strategy guides are hitting my inbox this week. A development task that was pushed off in favor of helping another editor with an urgent deadline is now coming due. My novel edit is due on Friday. Whee!

And still … I walked away from all of this to join my family on a little surprise adventure. We have a lovely book called Best Hikes with Children Around Sacramento and today we tried out a short, easy hike in Granite Bay at a place called Miners Ravine. It’s only a half-mile loop, but it sure was pretty! Honestly, California in the springtime—even in the Central Valley—is fantastic.

The bees were out in force! Many wildflowers were tickled by their buzzy paramours today. I took lots of wildflower/bee photos. Cuz I’m that kind of girl.

I don’t know for sure, but I think this white bubbly stuff might be spittle bug spittle.

We found a granite rock with lots of acorn grinding holes used by the Native Americans of the area—Miwoks, I believe.

Isn’t the automatic timer on the camera cool?

Purple lupines and pink clover.

Lucas found a treasure! And see his gappy grin? He lost another top tooth last week. The seventh, if I’m not mistaken.

We came across a shadowy pond with yummy reflections of the live oaks overhead and ceaseless ripples from bugs’ movements.

This granite boulder was enormous. Wherever Lucas goes, Asher must follow. ‘Twas ever the way for brothers.

It was such a great day! I’m glad to be taking advantage of this cool, comfortable weather while it lasts, and am very much looking forward to trying more local hikes recommended in our book. Our adventure ended with another exciting surprise, but I’ll save that for a different post.

I’d been saving up this hammered botanicals project ever since I saw it on a blog I read, called Dim Sum, Bagels, and Crawfish, last March. (How could I not read it, with a marvelous name like that?) Oh, here it is! I was afraid I might not be able to find it. (The Internet is AWESOME!) Anyway, the Dim Sum author, Lucia, found it in a terrific book called Nature’s Art Box, which is on my wish list.

Anyway, I thought that these smashed flower prints would be a perfect project for my boisterous, bashing boys. I learned a lot during this project, not the lease of which was it’s best to follow directions. Alas, I’m the dive-in-and-figure-it-out sort of person.

We used:

• white cotton fabric
• scissors
• pinking shears
• hammer
• scotch tape
• flower cuttings from our garden
• phone book
• watercolor paper
• watercolor paints and paintbrush
• dollar store certificate frames, 8.5 x 11 size

Lucas enthusiastically helped with the hammering, but I couldn’t get Asher to join in. When dealing with a 3-year-old, timing is everything! And the time I had set aside to do this project was All Wrong. Asher wouldn’t even come outside to see what we were up to.

We found that the roses and pansies gave brilliant colors. The mallow flowers and Spanish lavender were subtler. Creating the watercolored mats fell to me. (Are they really mats if the fabric print goes on top of them?) I didn’t want to try to cut the mats precisely; laying the fabric on top of the watercolor paper seemed just fine.

Originally we made six of these. Then I read online that a mixture of alum and water would help keep the colors fresh. Fortunately, our friends had some alum that we could borrow. Unfortunately, three unexpected results happened when I lightly sprayed the fabric prints with the solution.

1. The color from the smashed roses bled like crazy, running down the hanging fabric (which you can see in the photo below in the center)
2. The color from the dark purple pansies bled outward (I learned not to spray as much solution, and still the capillary action of the water caused the dye to spread)
3. Unbeknownst to me, the fabric on two of the prints had actually taken up a tiny amount of newsprint from the phone book pages when we were hammering the cuttings. It was invisible before I sprayed the prints. Afterward, ack! Some of the newsprint words appeared in our lovely botanical prints. (You can see a big black W and other type on the right-hand print in the photo above)

None of those three surprises made me happy. And if I were to do this project again, I’m not sure if I’ll bother with spraying them with alum. Perhaps the colors from the flowers and stems will oxidize or fade over time. I don’t know. Also, I’ll make sure to put white paper between my fabric and anything with newsprint on it.

When all was said (cussed) and done, and after two pieces of glass from our frames were broken (more cussing after the children were asleep), we ended up with three pretty prints, ready to give out to grandmothers on Mother’s Day.

The grandmothers seemed pleased. 😉

My Mother’s Day weekend was delightful! It was full of flowers, yummy food, a pedicure, and art. My family lavished attention on me and we were able to do things I really enjoy.

Like take a trip to Capital Nursery to buy roses for me and Mother’s Day presents for my mom and Ian’s mom.

Of course, I had to drool over the selection of clematis vines. Must have one soon, but how do I choose?

Here is one of the roses we came home with; it’s called “Daybreak.” I’ve really been wanting an apricot rose! I got three other new roses: a pink one called “Passionate Kisses,” a second “Hot Cocoa,” and a violet rose called “Wile Blue Yonder.”  We bought my mother a yellow rose called “Monkey Business” and bought Ian’s mom a lovely hanging fuschia with pink and red flowers for her shady patio. Fuschia flowers always make me think of little ballerinas.

Then my sweet hubby planted my roses for me, after I picked out where they should go. Poor Ian! He used to think he’d never have a yard so he’d never have to do yard work. Then he met me.

Asher practiced some new skills, like climbing up the slide. He mentioned something about one of the other boys at preschool doing it…. Lucas played with his new tennis racket and fetched mishit balls from the neighbor’s yard. We weeded and planted vinca and red and pink iceplant in the troublesome spot in our front yard flowerbed in the hopes that it will hug into the little hillside and make it prettier.

We also did a fun art project that I’ll write about later.

Raindrops fell just as we were finishing up the gardening so we all went for a dip in the hot tub in the rain. It might have been peaceful and romantic if not for all the water monkeys splashing around! Ian painted my toes for me while I read a magazine and drank a cocktail. Bliss! Then we went visiting, to deliver our Mother’s Day gifts to our moms.

So you see how well I am treated, how well I am mothered?

To all the people in my life who have mothered me, inspired me, challenged me, picked me up after I failed, taught me to take good care of myself and others, who modeled self-worth, strength, and courage, who are dedicated to their own ideals and pursuits of happiness, health, and making the world a better place, who have taken care of those I love—I honor you and THANK YOU. Mothering is a calling, a practice, a crucible, and a responsibility, and we all do it—female or male, with children of our bodies or without. It’s an expression of our humanity.

I hope your Mother’s Day was as lovely as mine!

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.

Round the May Pole Now We Dance
Nancy Byrd Turner

Round the May Pole now we dance
(Over with blue, under with white),
Wind’s in the ribbons, oh see them lift!
Light’s on the ribbons, oh feel them shift!
While we braid overhead
Colors fair and bright!

Round the May Pole gay we move
(You with your ribbon, I with mine).
The colors cross and the pattern grows
(Over with red and under with rose)
On and on, till we’re done.
See the tall pole shine!

Who doesn’t love rainbow ribbons against a blue sky?

Lucas skipping with his classmates. The second graders blessed the circle with their May song and bouquets of flowers.

The girls gather their ribbons.

Eat your heart out, Degas!

Aren’t they lovely?

So precious, so rare. Every year, it is such a gathering of joy and celebration of spring, of life, of beauty, and of youthful promise. I’m grateful to be a part of this community, and the festival makes my heart sing.

Lucas and his friends celebrated his birthday at Sunrise Rollerland, a roller-skating rink that has been open since the 1970s. Ian and I both learned to skate there as children, and we spend many a hot, Sacramento summer day inside the roller rink letting the “wind” from skating keep us cool (of course, we didn’t know each other then). So it was kind of a surprise when Lucas said he wanted to have his party there. This was the first year that we didn’t host his birthday party in our home, and it was a little weird (for me) letting go of important things like the food and birthday cake. But the novelty and specialness of the party were just the ticket for my big boy. I think he really felt wonderful!

A bunch of Lucas’s school friends attended the party and they were all relatively new skaters. Yet they all had a great time and were very brave. My favorite moment was watching four 8-year-old boys all skating hand in hand together (and falling in succession).

Lucas is still pretty unsteady on his wheels, but my how brave he is! He fell over and over again and yet never quit. He kept getting back up and trying again. It was inspiring to see him tackle this with such determination. Thaemos came along and was a great help. I was pleased some of the parents stayed and skated, too!

It was really tough getting good shots, the light was so dim. Asher didn’t want to skate at all, and didn’t want me to skate either. But I did and he threw a tantrum. OMG! It was sooooooo fun to be on skates again! I missed the Air Supply, Journey, Boston, and Rush that used to blast out of the sound system. (Disney princess music really isn’t my favorite.) I tried to get the DJ to play the Star Wars theme music because I thought the boys would just burst if it came on, but she didn’t have it! Lucas’s buddies were more successful when they requested the theme from Indiana Jones.

By the end of the party, all the boys had new bruises and blisters on their feet, which I take to be evidence that a good time was had by all. Lucas sure did!

Later that day, we saw most of the same kids at the school’s 50th anniversary family picnic, and Lucas got an extended playtime with his friends.

Oh, the wheels are turning!

Of course, my best ideas strike me at 11 p.m. and/or right at the last minute, when it’s way too late to get started or when I must rush like crazy to carry them out. I was having such an easy run up to this birthday, given that the roller-skating party was paid for a couple of weeks ago and they won’t let me bring food to the rink. The presents have arrived. Invitations sent out.

But then—BOOM! Oh! I should do/make/wrap/paint/buy/arrange/decorate/create/bake …

You get the picture. Yeah. I’m that kind of crazy.

The Crown

When I made a birthday crown for Asher (also at the last minute back in January), Lucas was quite enchanted with it. I asked him if he would like to have a birthday crown of his own and he was all for it.

So, I vowed to make one for him.

Of course, the likelihood that he will wear it at 8 years old is fairly slim. Nevertheless … here is my design. Shh! He hasn’t seen it and I want it to be a surprise.

The Goodie Bags

I don’t know when this children’s birthday party tradition began, but I don’t like it much. I think it kind of reeks of 1980s überparents fearing for their wee ones’ self-esteem and worrying that attending a birthday party and watching a birthday child open gifts when there are none for the wee guests would somehow scar them for life. But, I must live in my times. And so, we make goodie bags. We try to have a bit of fun with them and try not to spend a ton of dough. And lest you think I’m a complete curmudgeon, I am well aware of how thrilled Lucas is to come home from a friend’s party with a goodie bag of his own!

This year, we are giving out brown paper lunch bags, hand-painted by Lucas. He is painting whatever he pleases and I think that’s just fine. I think they are fighting dragons. We are putting  little envelopes of pumpkin seeds that we saved from our orange and white Halloween pumpkins in the bags. I bought lovely (and masculine-looking) blank books from the $1 bins at the craft store, so each guest will receive a book and a matching pencil. If the boys attending the birthday party are anything at all like Lucas, they will be pleased to have their own book to write whatever in. Let’s see … we also have a small tablet of origami paper for each guest, which comes with instructions to make animals, also from the $1 bins.

The Birthday Cake

Well, the roller rink is handling this. But I will make a cake for us to share with grandparents this weekend. I have a cool idea for this! We’ll see if I can pull it off.

A Gift

While Lucas was painting some goodie bags this afternoon, and Asher was painting a picture, I sat down and painted a gift for Lucas.

One of our favorite children’s books is Sun Bread, written and illustrated by Elisa Kleven. I’ve gushed about it (and other books of hers) before, and have given Sun Bread to many children over the years. Lucas still loves it. Asher loves it, and hears it both at home and at preschool. Yesterday morning he brought it to me and asked me to read the book to him. Of course I did.

When we got to the end, he asked if we could make sun bread. Um … of course we can. So, after school we started baking.

Asher looked at the book while Lucas and I mixed eggs and sugar, flour and yeast. I love Kleven’s illustrations!

Lucas was a wonderful assistant, which is good because I’m not much of a cook these days. He stuck by me during the whole project, mixing ingredients, kneading the dough, shaping our sun … and eating it, too.

They both enjoyed this part! Why don’t we do this more often?

Our super cute sun bread. Here it needs one more rise, then a short time in the oven. Since we started at 4 p.m., our bread wasn’t ready until after dinner and bath time, with the two, hour-long rising periods. But that was just fine, since a generous drizzle of local honey made it a yummy dessert. I think it was in the oven about two minutes too long, which gave it a darker crust than I would have liked to see. But the boys enjoyed it and it smelled heavenly! In fact, it was kind of torture for me and Ian, since we aren’t eating bread right now.

“Bread so brilliant, bright, and sunny, Summer seemed to fill their tummies. Bread so fluffy and so fine, They felt themselves begin to shine …”

Earth Day was last week, you know. In past years, we have planted trees in honor of Earth Day. This year we decided to do a little science experiment and care for one of our more unusual housemates.

Lucas and Daddy feed the Venus flytrap plant a tiny bug.

It’s tricky work, imitating a bug so that the plant will close its leaf around the meal.

Our Earth Day dinner table setting, complete with wayside dandelions, and the boys eagerly watching the feeding project.

Thanks to Parnasus for this great idea! We have a simple science experiment of window seed germination going. We have three types of seeds (wheat, corn, and pumpkin) in plastic bags filled with moist cotton balls and taped to the sliding glass door.  (I’m bummed about that branding all over our experiment, but oh well.) The seeds are getting several hours of bright morning sunshine each day.

See the tiny wheat berries germinating? One or two have a little leaf already. This photo was taken only two and a half days after we put the seeds into the bags and taped them up! By using cotton balls instead of soil, we can see both the roots and shoots!

Life is good. What a fabulous weekend!

My dear Dakini had dinner with us on Friday night. We are so fortunate to have her living so close. The children did all their wacky tricks for her.

On Saturday, I got to attend the Waldorf in the Home conference on Mothering and Spirituality: Resourcing Feminine Wisdom, put on by Rahima Baldwin Dancy of Informed Family Life and author of You Are Your Child’s First Teacher, which was held at my son’s school here in Fair Oaks. I only attended on Saturday because of resources and because I’m not ready to spend all weekend at a conference away from my boys. But I’m so, so glad I went! It was so inspiring and awesome to be in a huge high school gym full of women (and a few men) talking about the goddess and the feminine divine. Seriously, I’ve never been anywhere with that many people willing to even consider the topic in my life, and it’s a topic very close to my heart, particularly during my twenties. We heard keynote speaker Nancy Jewel Poer (“Honoring Mother Spirit and our Amazing Spiritual Feminine Gifts”), author of Living Into Dying and children’s book Mia’s Apple Tree and a founder and faculty member of Rudolf Steiner College and the founding teacher for Cedar Springs Waldorf School. She showed amazing slides of goddesses/world-mothers from all traditions and the modern day and spoke of the soul work of mothering. She asserted that women are the bridges between heaven and earth, bringing spiritual inspiration, love, and beauty to the lives of all those around us.

We also heard keynote speaker Regina Sara Ryan, author of The Woman Awake: Feminine Wisdom for Spiritual Life. She spoke about becoming Mother and seeking the Universal Ma, and encouraged us to cultivate ways to see and honor the Mother in us all. Big on her list of recommendations was to find our Delight and Creativity, whatever they are, and then engage in them regularly because this is a way to build love. It was all seriously cool. It made me think of all my dear Adelphai, with whom I have wandered many a California hillside and braved many a starlit night to find our goddesses.

I went to a great workshop called “Mothering Our Lively Sons,” which I’m sure you’ll agree was created just for me! Or so it seemed. I got some new insight on boys and their needs, their unique way of communicating and processing language. I’ve definitely come away with some good ideas to ruminate on and techniques to try out at home.

I loved the conference, but I was also delighted to come home to my two wonderful sons and my tireless, selfless husband. Asher fell asleep in my arms and we had one of those glorious moments together, rocking in the rocking chair, holding and being held and feeling perfectly at peace with the world. I don’t always feel this way as a mom, so when I do, I hope to cup it gently in my heart so that the feeling may feed me in times of stress and angst.

And the rest of the weekend was superb, too.

There was a haircut for Lucas, who said, “Thanks, Mom! I feel great about my haircut.” We put Lucas’s hair clippings out in the backyard in the hopes the birds would find them and use his silky locks for their nests. Is that gross or sweet? I don’t know…

We enjoyed a steak dinner with sauteed chard from our garden, made by Ian, who spent his Saturday replacing my car battery, caring for our children, and finishing our flagstone pathway. Oh, and cooking us dinner.

Some hot tub time with my hubby under the stars.

We made a trip to the nursery (squee!) for ground cover to plant between the flagstones on our new garden path.

Lucas pronounced that he wished to turn part of the boys’ digging hill into a vegetable garden. After our cautioning that he and Asher would have less space to dig if he planted a garden, he confidently told us he was really wanting to do it. I guess he’s enjoying gardening class at school! So, we bought seeds (corn, rainbow chard) and four tomato plants, a watermelon plant, and a fancy cucumber. We amended the soil a bit and he set to planting them himself. He also planted pumpkin seeds that we had saved from our (orange and white) jack-o’-lanterns from last fall.

We had a lovely two-mile bike ride with NoNo and Mars this afternoon, who were gracious enough to ride all this way to meet us. It was a fun reminder that riding bikes is so good for us all. Asher is outgrowing his toddler seat on the back of my (girly, girly pink) bike, yet I don’t think he’s quite ready for the tagalong bike. His feet kept kicking my calves as I pedaled!

Ian filled up our bird feeder that had languished in the garage long enough.

We spent time in the shade planting our new ground covers: chamomile lawn, pennyroyal, and ajuga (chocolate chip variety). We’re hoping they will fill in the spaces between the stones. The chamomile lawn and pennyroyal smell marvelous when you touch them! See how cute the ajuga is?

The boys played in the sprinklers.

I used scotch tape to repair of a very well loved, well used copy of Where’s Waldo in Hollywood that used to belong to Grandma’s third grade class.

For Sunday dinner, Ian’s yummy broiled tuna steaks with homemade lemon aoili, salad, and green beans! And a fine Petite Sirah accompanied them.

Our bedtime stories were two stories from A Donsy of Gnomes, a sweet book I bought at the conference. Lucas’s eyes were full of stars when I read him the stories, and that, my friends, makes it all worthwhile.