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.

Lucas played the roles of a cricket and a villager in last night’s second-grade play, St. Francis and the Wolf of Gubbio. The short story about St. Francis of Assisi can be found here and here.

The play was wonderful and the children were on it! I was so impressed. Lucas made an adorable cricket with his Brrr-brrrr sounds.

I love this school. I love that my kid is hearing rich stories every day, learning songs and poems, performing plays, wearing costumes, dancing eurhythmy. (I also love that he does all this stuff while learning maths and reading.)

Lucas was so excited about this play happening at school that he somehow wrangled his 3-year-old brother into performing a play of the Hare and the Tortoise at home for Ian and me the other night.

The other day, grandma came over to help us with our worm farm. She gave it to me last May as a birthday present, and much to my surprise, I’ve managed to keep the worms alive all this time, feeding them kitchen scraps and coffee grounds. I wasn’t too excited about this part, however.

Grandma is less squeamish than me and has years’ worth of experience farming worms. While I worked on an editing project, she and two gleeful boys tackled the job of removing the compost, separating the worms into three groups (one group for the garden, one for the worm farm, and one for a new worm farm for her to take home), and restarting it afresh, returning the not-yet-compost food parts to the farm.

That’s a lot of worms, man! Good stuff!

Then she let the kiddos paint flower pots that she brought them. (Thanks for the pictures, Grandma.)

Unsurprisingly, some wackiness ensued. Lucas likes to impress …

And Asher really enjoys the hose, no matter the weather. In case you’re wondering, yes, they were dressed identically (their choice) but you probably can’t tell with all the mud.

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.

The leprechauns visited last night! Thankfully we left out some goodies for them, so they didn’t feel the need to play tricks on us.

We gave them honey, cream, and brownies and Lucas chose to decorate the plate with lots of his own sparkly treasures.

And of course there were some brownies for us.

This morning we discovered all the cream, honey, and brownies were gone! Gold nuggets, gold dust, and gold beads were found in our home and on the offering plate we left outside. Some lucky four-leafed shamrocks were left for Asher and Lucas. Lucas asked me how big the leprechauns are. I said, “I don’t know because I’ve never seen one, but I have always imagined them to be about knee-high.”

At Lucas’s school, the leprechauns made mischief. When we arrived in the morning we found that classroom chairs had been stacked to the ceiling! Students’ possessions were mixed up and in disarray. The chalk board said Friday, not Wednesday! All sorts of things were out of whack. Such shenanigans! Lucas and his buddy described the day as “pretty much a whole day of recess,” and given that his face was green with chalk dust at the end of the day, I think that means they had great fun.

We had a supper of corned beef and cabbage, carrots, onions, and celery with roasted red potatoes and garlic. Lucas’s buddy and the boy’s mom and brother ate with us. Ian brought home some Guinness and we rocked out to the Pogues, Dropkick Murphys, and Black 47.

All in all, just about perfect. Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!

Did you catch that sky last night? After the rain, my little corner of the world was ablaze with the sunset spilling over every wet surface it could find.

And someone I know just had to splash about in the lava.

Beauty sometimes washes over even my suburban, sidewalk-lacking street. All you have to do is notice.

I sewed a thing! I made this pillowcase for Asher’s birthday at the end of January, but of course, a pillowcase doesn’t get top billing when it comes time to celebrate turning 3, either for him or for me, so I’m only getting around to gloating about it now. I used an online tutorial that I found here, to help me with the french seams, which were entirely new to me. The tutorial is great! Much thanks to its creator!

I can’t quite explain it, but I’m really digging this pale, spring green with the dark red. This color combination is all over the boys’ bedroom now. I hope they like it as much as I do. (The green rug is new from Ikea and we all love it, especially the price.)

I have supplies for a pillowcase for Lucas, too. Which I hope to make sometime soon.

Asher, my sweet 3-year-old, has really taken to making up songs lately. He’s been doing it more and more often, and just today, his preschool teacher, T, mentioned that he was singing nonstop. I thought I’d share two of his recent impromptu songs. I think the lyrics should probably suggest the tunes pretty adequately, especially for the first one.

Choo choo choo robot
Choo choo choo robot
Choo choo choo robots are gooood!
Choo choo choo robots are gooood!
Choo choo choo robots are baaad!
Choo choo choo robots are baaad!
Choo choo robots have powers!
Choo choo choo robot
Choo choo choo robot

And here’s another song that I think some punk band should pay him for:

Vampires suck people’s blood.
Vampires suck people’s blood.
Vampires suck people’s blood.
Vampires suck people’s blood.
Vampires suck blooood.
One two three four five
I’m gonna suck your blood!
One two three four five
I’m gonna suck your blood
Blood blood blood blood!

Cooking with love and intention can be very satisfying. I admit I don’t always achieve this, but when I do it’s blissful. Yesterday I made chicken stock from scratch so that I can make chicken noodle soup later this week, probably tomorrow night. I also cooked a big crockpot of chicken and chicken-apple sausage chili from a recipe I found on the Internet. It turned out to be really yummy (Lucas said “It’s delish”; Asher gobbled all of the meat, but that’s his way). The surprising ingredient, which I don’t believe I’ve ever used before in a recipe, was tomatillo salsa from a jar. It was just the right flavor kick. I added carrots because I like sneaking in extra veggies. I omitted the jalapeno pepper so as not to make it too spicy for my kiddos. I also made cornbread muffins that were too sweet and dry for my taste, but the kids liked them. Still searching for the right recipe for these.

My pink hyacinths are blooming and I adore them. I only wish I’d gotten around to planting bulbs last fall because I look at these flowers and want more, more, more! Want to do more, more, more! (My mother tells me that I don’t have to be more or do more. I am sure she is right but I seem to have a blind spot in this area.)

I’ve been sewing by hand in the evenings. I have a couple of goofy felt projects in the works that I’ll share later on.

Today I’m diving into womanist theology for a while. I’m building a pretty long list of questions for the publisher since it’s been a few years since I freelanced for this company. I’m making love to my Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition.

(Thanks to my father in law for the cartoon! It’s disturbingly realistic.)