Mountain Mama

What to do when you're snowed in and the power goes out (Part one)

When the expected snow begins, go outside. Dance around. Make tracks. Try to catch flakes on your tongue.

 Or, if you prefer, watch it all from the warm dryness inside. Where the DVDs are.

Once it accumulates a little and Grandpa gets home, make snow cream.

Later that night when the power goes out and you're already in bed, Mama will light the candles, bring out the extra blankets, snuggle up next to Daddy to watch a DVD on the computer until the battery runs out.

Sometime in the night, as the temperature drops, go climb in bed with Mama and Daddy, so that you wake in the morning piled together under a mountain of blankets. Talk and wriggle and giggle until daylight creeps in (because little kids, of course, wake before the sun).

Daddy will break out the camping gear, set up the stove on the porch for coffee and hot breakfast of oatmeal and/or grits.

After breakfast, bundle up in layers. Head outside to play.

 

When it looks as if the power won't be coming back on for a while, walk up the hill, next door to Grandpa's house. Move in there to the warmth of his gas fireplace. Play dinosaurs and Go Fish and blocks.

Read Alice in Wonderland with Grandpa. Make sure it's the original version. The copy Grandpa gave your mama when she was ten years old.

As darkness falls, make art and crafts by the light of an oil lamp while Grandpa cooks dinner on the camp stove on the porch. Appetizers of  blueberries and strawberries for the little girls, shrimp and red wine for the grown-ups. Main course of fried chicken and baked beans and salad.

Make your beds by the fire like you're camping.

Treat it all like an adventure. Be happy to be together and safe and warm and dry.

Tired

I've been working so hard you just wouldn't believe,

And I'm tired!

There's so little time and so much to achieve,

And I'm tired!

I've been lying here holding the grass in its place,

Pressing a leaf with the side of my face,

Testing the apples to see if they're sweet,

Counting the toes on a centipede's feet.

I've been memorizing the shape of that cloud,

Warning the robins not to chirp so loud,

Shooing the butterflies off the tomatoes,

Keeping an eye out for floods and tornadoes.

I've been supervising the work of the ants,

And thinking of pruning the cantaloupe plants,

Timing the sun to see what time it sets,

Calling the fish to swim into my nets,

And I've taken twelve thousand and forty-one breaths,

And I'm TIRED!

 

Shel Silverstein, from A Light in the Attic 

 

It's been a busy week. Lots to do before school starts, inlcuding enjoying our last week of summer. I do hope you'll forgive me if my posting is light for a while longer...

Simple pleasures of a summer weekend

Blackberries along our country road + Just beginning to ripen + Only enough to eat while standing

    

"Welcome Home from Camp" party for my girl + Visit from a dear friend + Talking into the wee hours + Pancake breakfast for a full house + Farmer's Market jaunt

 

Hanging out at Grandpa's + Playing in the dirt + Add water + So much fun they don't want to walk home

   

Sunday lunch with Grandma and Grandpa Y + Downtown Asheville craft show + Finding special treasures + Home + Bubbles on the porch + Brown Cow ice cream pops + Reading a beautifully illustrated edition of The Wizard of Oz (thank you Jeannette! Owen loves it!) + Bed

   

Lovely days + Lovely weekend + Lovely life 

31 Days of Joy::20

 

Today's joys:

finishing the third book in the Little House series (this one actually was Little House on the Prairie),

and Owen asking for more;

"If you buy them at the bookstore, we can read them over and over and over again," she says;

listening from the other room as Owen tells Paul all about the ending of the book when he kisses her goodnight.

31 Days of Joy::11

Today's joy is...

a good book,

a cup of coffee,

the promise of a little bit of time to savor both

(classes over, grades almost in, a few moments to breathe).

"Sometimes life is merely a matter of coffee and whatever intimacy a cup of coffee affords." --Richard Brautigan, Revenge of the Lawn

Amen to that.

30 Days of Thanks::25

"...Laura lay awake a little while, listening to Pa's fiddle softly playing and to the lonely sound of the wind in the Big Woods. She looked at Pa sitting on the bench by the hearth, the fire-light gleaming on his brown hair and beard and glistening on the honey-brown fiddle. She looked at Ma, gently rocking and knitting.

She thought to herself, 'This is now.'

She was glad that the cosy house, and Pa and Ma and the firelight and the music, were now. They could not be forgotten, she thought, because now is now. It can never be a long time ago."

                Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little House in the Big Woods

__________________________________________________________________________________

Today I am thankful for...

finishing our first "big girl" book (the Little House book) and Owen's rapt interest in it over many nights of reading;

school holiday pageants, little kids in costume, singing off-key;

baby sister cheering, applauding, and calling for her Owen;

my big girl scanning the room, tightly grinning, and the look of sheer joy on her face when she caught sight of me and Paul;

a night ride, Owen chattering all the way, staying in the car with sleeping Boo Bear, and watching Paul and his little girl walking hand-in-hand into Lowe's, still talking;

"I was so happy today, Mommy. I think this was the happiest day of my life";

realizing that now is now and stopping, just for a moment, to take it all in.

30 Days of Thanks::14

"I cannot decide whether it is an illness or a sin, the need to write things down and fix the flowing world into one rigid form. Bear believed writing dulled the spirit, stilled some holy breath. Smothered it. Words, when they've been captured and imprisoned on paper, become a barrier against the world, one best left unerected. Everything that happens is fluid, changeable. After they've passed, events are only as your memory makes them, and they shift shapes over time. Writing a thing down fixes it in place surely as a rattlesnake skin stripped from the meat and tacked to a barn wall. Every bit as stationary and every bit as false to the original thing. Flat and still and harmless. Bear recognized that all writing memorializes a momentary line of thought as if it were final.

But I was always word-smitten. Always reading in a book or writing in a journal."

                                                    --Charles Frazier, thirteen moons

__________________________________________________________________________________

Today I am thankful for...

words, books, the thoughts of others captured on the page.

For I, too, am word-smitten.

More Miscellaney

   

More brain dump (sorry):

1. In a case of "ask and you shall receive," I have a new blog design. Courtney very kindly made it for me (Thanks Courtney!). I really like the header, but I'm still working the kinks out on some other design elements, so stay tuned. Let me know, though, what you think. Keep in mind--you may have noticed already--that I like the color green. A lot. So if you like the design but hate the green, I'm sorry to say that's not likely to change.

2. I have decided to participate in the third anniversary November National Blog Posting Month, or NaBloPoMo. So look for a new post every day in November. And although I can't tell if there is an official group or even a badge for it, I will be doing the 30 Days of Thanks as part of that.

3. Due to your very kind response and encouragement, I am also saying to heck with my brother's opinion (sorry, David) and reinstating the Soup Sundays, with a new soup recipe every Sunday. Keep in mind, though, that I only have a  handful of soup recipes we regularly use and I rotate those. Once I go through my regular recipes I will try to find some new soup recipes and share them with you. I do love a good soup on a cold day. Don't you? I am still on the fence with the Meal Plan thing, mostly because we are starting (again) the South Beach Diet and for at least the first two weeks my meals are planned for me.

4. Wednesday we went to a Halloween festival and Trunk-or-Treat at the church we most often attend here. Owen and Barrett both had a lot of fun. It was just the right amount of Halloween stimulation for such young children, I think. Everyone loved Owen's costume. So much so that she won the costume contest! She was so proud, she told everyone that she made the hat!

5. We also went Wednesday to the big fabulous library in the next town and came away with an embarrassingly huge load of books, including Susan Striker's Young at Art, Dianne McGuinness' Growing a Reader, a couple of South Beach Diet/Atkins books/cookbooks, and a ton of children's books for Owen. One of my favorites we got for her is this adorable book about fear. The perfect book to read for the season. My mom got some great books, too, and Cd's and DVD's. Luckily we can return it all to our town's little bitty, no-so-fabulous library. Gotta love a trip to the library!

6. I am thinking of participating in this Holiday Traditions exchange, but I'm not sure. What if I can't create a good enough package to exchange? I would hate for my partner to get the short end. On the other hand, I do like the giving and receiving of gifts.

7. I have added several new blogs to my list. If you have time, try to check them out.

8. I am seriously considering shutting down my other blog. I am very ambivalent about this. That blog was my first blog. The one I started over three years ago when we were just considering making a huge change in our lives. Some of my best writing is on there, some of my best photographs. However, no one really goes through the archives of a blog, do they? I post much less frequently there, and, as a result my stats are low. I'm wondering if the time for that blog is, just, over. If I do stop posting there, I would really like to slurp it into a Blurb book, if only just for me.

9. I added all three seasons of The Office to our Blockbuster queue. I've heard so much about it, I think it's time to check it out. After we finish Season 2 of Dexter, of course.

That's it for now. Feel free to weigh in on any of these matters.

There will be no photo with this post.

This morning my mom suggested I take some time to myself and go do something. Outside of the house. Without the kids. I'm usually not very good about asking for this and even many times I don't  even take advantage of it when offered. At first I said, "I wouldn't know what to do with myself." Which is often the case--it's a small town, not much in the way of diversions. But then I stopped myself, said, "Okay, thanks," showered, dressed, and went out the door, grabbing my camera bag, library book, and notebook.

There's a pottery place I've been wanting to visit lately. It's been several years since I've stopped there despite passing by regularly (i.e. every time we go to Asheville or points East). I figured I could go there, then to the big antiques mall beyond to look around, then maybe on to the next town and their pretty set of downtown shops. More importantly, to their bookstore and coffee shop. I was too early for the pottery shop, so I breezed on by. Then I didn't really feel like the antique place, so I went on. I didn't make it downtown but stopped at a little group of shops I'd passed by before but never visited.

I was too early for these shops, too, but they would be opening soon, so I wandered into the coffee shop. I ordered a mocha and when it was given to me in a pretty pottery mug, I decided I would linger a bit and went out to the car for my book. And my camera. I had the image already in mind: the table, my book, my notebook, the mug and coffee, light streaming from the window. Yes. I could set that photo up just right and then blog it later--my morning sipping a coffee drink in a cafe window, reading a book, watching the other patrons surreptitiously, taking notes in my notebook. What a poetic image.

Only, when I went out to the car, I realized that although I had my camera bag and my big honker lens, then camera itself was sitting on the top of the bookshelf at home, where I put it last night to get it out of the reach of certain curious little baby fingers. Doh!

That is why there is no photo with this post.

It was a nice morning anyway. Even undocumented.

I drank my coffee drink, savoring it completely: the warmth, the flavor, the feel of the mug in my hand. I read a whole chapter in my book, uninterrupted (something I can't readily accomplish at home). I watched and eavesdropped on the other patrons (as I am likely to do anywhere anytime--be warned). Only these patrons weren't terribly interesting--all older retirees, singletons (or alone today), not even using cell phones so I could listen in. I didn't really even have enough material to make up stories about them. So I stuck with my book. And the newspaper. And the local weekly. And my cup.

I did watch the other merchants on the strip trickle in--most of them stopping at the coffee shop or the country diner two doors down.

Eventually I wandered over and through the shops myself. A country-kitsch home decor store with nothing much to interest me, a thrift shop (where I bought a fleece top and knit pants for Barrett and a plaid woolen skirt and two tops for Owen at $3.50 for all of it!), a custom handbag and kids clothing store that had some neat bag shapes and material, and a great handmade soap store. I'm a sucker for tote bags (really most any kind of bags for carrying stuff) and especially for nice-smelling, luxurious soaps, shampoos, lotions, washes, and all that stuff (Paul calls them my "jams and jellies"). I'm also a sucker for good packaging--a beautiful box or label or even the store itself can all draw me in. I picked up business cards and made some notes for future Christmas gifts.

By that time it was nearing noon and I had told Mom I'd be back by lunch. So I rushed home, bypassing the pottery place again (next time), and the post office, and the library (those books weren't due until next week anyway).

I felt good, though. Energized, renewed, optimistic, a little inspired, even.

Then I walked in the door and chaos hit me. It wasn't Mom's fault. She even said they'd all been good up until the moment I came home. But the dogs were arguing over who had first dibs at Barrett's scraps from the high chair. Mom was hollering at them to quit. In between aggravating Paco, Molly was aggravating Owen, who was screaming in response. Barrett was throwing food on the floor and yelling to match her sister and Grandma.

I deflated like a balloon.

I even got so irritated that I swatted Paco with a rolled-up newspaper, something I have never ever done before. When I immediately reached down to pet him and apologize, he flinched, which made me feel just terrible.

Thirty minutes later Barrett was down for her nap, Owen was playing quietly in her room, Mom was out on the porch reading, Molly was asleep at my feet, and Paco was curled up beside me in his usual position, closing his eyes in pleasure as I stroked his ears. All was quiet again.

But that feeling I had on my way home--that energy and renewal--it was gone.

Maybe it was just the coffee anyway.

Dreaming of summer reading

I love to read--you may have noticed here, here, and here. However, I don't get to read much during the regular school year. Part of that is because I'm too busy preparing for classes, taking care of my family, and, well, blogging. Part of it is because, since becoming a mom (heck, since I got pregnant the first time), I have difficulty concentrating long enough to finish a book, unless it's a children's book.

I still buy them, though. Adult books, that is. I mean, not adult books, but books written for grown-up people--without pictures, or too many of them at least. I browse them and I read about them and I add them to my Amazon wish list and I buy them.

The net result of this mild obsession paired with my inability to read almost nine months of the year is that I accumulate piles.

I also find myself fantasizing about books, about reading...about summertime! Yes, summertime, when I am not teaching, when I have more time, more energy, more daylight. Then, I think. Then, I can read. The reality is a little less than the fantasy (I do have two kids and a husband who also doesn't--technically--work in the summer), but I do get to read more once our semester is over and grades are turned in.

This year is no different. I've been collecting. I've been planning my own personal summer reading program. Here is what I have so far:

On the nonfiction front, I have two books by Sherwin B. Nuland (How We Live, 1997, and The Mysteries Within: A Surgeon Explores Myth, Medicine, and the Human Body, 2000). Several years ago, I was writing a paper on the subject of death and dying (specifically how/why to educate individuals with intellectual disabilities on the subject of death, dying, and grieving) and I came across Nuland's National Book Award-winning  books on the subject, How We Die. Having long been fascinated with medicine and the connection between the human body and the mind, I was drawn in by this book. I liked his writing style and the depth of knowledge the book represented. Recently, searching for something for my students on the subject of Electro-convulsive Therapy for depression, I came across Dr. Nuland's TED talk on the topic. My interest piqued at the personal story of depression from someone I so admired, I decided to look up more of his books. These two, in particular, grabbed my attention.

Next up, another nonfiction book with a bit of a medical focus. Well, more of a brain focus. On Desire: Why We Want What We Want, by William B. Irvine interests me for two reasons. One, because the back cover talks about how Irvine combines "observations by...ancient and modern writers, philosophers, and religious leaders" with "what...science can tell us about desire--such as what happens in our brains when we desire something." And two, because in trying to simplify my life, one of the hardest places for me to create change within myself is my desire. I have trouble internalizing the understanding that (also from the back cover) "if we can convince ourselves to want what we already have, we can dramatically increase our happiness." Reading that I wonder if only I understood the mechanics of desire, maybe I can gain some power over it. Worth a try. (Of course that increased my desire to buy that book, but, oh well).

The Sound of Paper: Starting from Scratch, by Julia Cameron (2004). Cameron, of course, is the well-known author of The Artist's Way. I have long dreamed of living a creative life, an artful life. I want to write, to take beautiful photos, to find some form of personal creative expression. But I get in my own way and I find myself, as the book jacket says, facing my keyboard "with nothing but cold emptiness...clouded by life's uncertainties." "In other words," says the jacket, "how do we begin the difficult work of being an artist?" I'm hoping Cameron's essays and exercises with help me to stimulate some of my creative juices this summer.

The French Broad and The Tall Woman. These books, published in 1955 and 1962, respectively, are written by local author and heroine, Wilma Dykeman. Ms. Dykeman died in 2006 at the age of 86, having spent her life working toward the preservation of the beauty of these mountains, and rivers, she loved. The French Broad is a historical account of the region and the people marked by the river of the title. The Tall Woman is fiction, but again about the people of these mountains. It is my mother's favorite book. For that reason, I've long been interested in reading Dykeman. At Christmas this year, uninterested in TV and looking for something to read, I perused the first pages of each of these and found myself drawn in. Unfortunately, I couldn't quite finish either of them (attention issues with so much work on me and two kids). I'm looking forward to revisiting them.

There are two others on my summer reading list not pictured here. Both are new books, being released soon by bloggers I respect and admire.

I've mentioned Jennifer Graf Groneberg before on this blog as someone who writes beautifully (in her blog, Pinwheels, and elsewhere) of being a mom to three boys, one of whom has Down Syndrome. Her new book, Road Map to Holland, is about her first two years with Avery and the struggles and joys of coming to terms with a different kind of life than that which she had imagined. I'm certain it will be written with the elegance and grace I have come to appreciate about Jennifer and I can't wait to read it.

And then there's Amanda Blake Soule--SouleMama. This woman is amazing--her blog, her words, her photography, her kids, her life are all just achingly beautiful. She is so very talented and amazing and I wish I could me more like her. Amanda's first book, The Creative Family: How to Encourage Imagination and Nurture Family Connections, is due out in April. Of course, I've already preordered it and I'm eagerly looking forward to adding it to my summer reading pile.

*******************************************************************************************************

There's the list so far. There is room for more, and I do have a few more piles--fiction and nonfiction, serious and fluffy.

So here is where you get to participate. Give me suggestions for my summer reading list. What books do you think I shouldn't miss this year? I love all kinds. Nonfiction. Fiction. I don't really care for thrillers or mysteries, but I like most anything else. Please, leave a comment and tell me about your favorite books, new discoveries, anything you think I should know about.

A few others I'm considering:

A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini. Or maybe his first book, which I've yet to read: The Kite Runner.

Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician, by Daniel Wallace (author of Big Fish, which was a great little book and a pretty good little movie).

The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism, by Timothy Keller.

Tell me more.