I think I can honestly call this one "Me"

I sit here, feeling a heavy burden of words, phrases, thoughts, experiences damned up, having spent time waiting for the bloggy moment. They were so poignant, so pressing and vivid as I did them, thought them, created them but now they are all of a jumble. I meant, last time I managed to blog, to write what for me was going to be a momentous blog, relating major changes in our family's life, changes that have been afoot or astir since last summer. And I didn't get it done. So, the pent up morass seems even more dense. I'll see how much I manage to relate now...

I think that I stand upon a cusp, a precipice, into a new phase of my life. Early last summer, Lenny lost his job of eight years. It was initially a staggering blow as we've lived paycheck to paycheck, week to week for oh-so-long, probably ever since I quit my job when Fionna was 18 months, and we just began taking it one day at a time. The blow softened and then even transformed as my enormous, titanic relief became manifest that Lenny no longer was working a job that sucked so much of the marrow from our lives. We realized what it was to have time together, to make family commitments and plans and actually follow through. Of course, our ability to enjoy this time was much strengthened by the fact that my mom came through in a Herculean way and carried us financially for a few weeks. When Lenny found a job, I think about two-three weeks later, we realized that although a very ideal job (as another towing job it combines his apparent ideal profession with some more flexibility and respect for family needs, in a way the other job never did), we were making a little less than half of what we'd previously made. Again, my mom saved the day in making ends meet for us when our paycheck couldn't. This is not to say that life carried on as usual, with my mom footing the bill. We let our only vehicle go, now driving a 12-year-old repo'd car (very generously bestowed upon us by Lenny's new employers). Lots of bills went unpaid, luxuries certainly disappeared. I discovered what it is to be humble and seek assistance in the form of WIC and food stamps. But life went on and, again, was actually sweeter in so many ways.

So, this brings us to my own personal anticipated changes. We knew we could not continue to rely on my mom's support. The economy is hitting everyone, her no less than others. While work was an option, it weighed oh-so-heavily upon me to think of leaving my younger two before the time that Fionna and I had experienced separation (when she started school, at six). So, in an attempt to blend considerations, make money and prepare for the future, I'm returning to school, graduate school, at night and online. The "making" money part will come in the form of student loans. Further debt, yes, but positive debt with a definite goal in mind. I'm going to be pursuing an MA in Education, with the goal of becoming a Language Arts/English teacher. My ideal job would be community college/university classes but I'm sure I'll end up teaching high school first.

The pluses? Earning an income that, to my family living so meagerly, looks very posh. Having a schedule very similar to what my children will be following while in school. Not being on the job until very soon before or actually until Ainslie enters kindergarten.

The downside? Letting go of some dreams that weren't financially feasible but still have holds on my heart. Letting go of the option of full-time homeschooling my kids if we should ever opt for that. Re-entering the establishment and rat race that I was all too happy to kiss goodbye. The likelihood of having some overwhelming times as the dynamic of this household has always pretty well been that the kids, the house, the pets/garden/critters are all my domain.

So, perhaps, this sheds some light on why things, seemingly mundane, have seemed major to me. Life continues to go on and in a very swimming fashion. I have three happy, healthy and very busy children. I'm just trying to find my own path in the sometimes swampy terrain of how I continue to be the be-all-and-end-all for them (right now) and forge myself in new ways...

Well, I had more to say about my adventures of this morning (child-free, trying to repair our chicken coop, high comedy, yes) but my hands are too cold to type. Must seek hot (caffeinated, of course) beverage... ;) Ta!

Did I seriously not blog about Halloween?

This can't be right! I sat down today to compose an entirely different blog but as I scrolled down the last few entries, I kept looking for the Halloween blog. All the pictures, the funny stories...? Surely I wrote it. Ummm, I guess not. Crazy seeing as how it's my favorite holiday, and we had such a rockin' time. I think what happened is I was revelling in the pre-election fervor of my man Obama, and I composed a ghost blog. One of those you write in your head late at night, laying in bed getting the babes (children, not hot chicks) to sleep. I can't begin to recreate but I need to immortalize the pictures. Suffice it to say, great night, great galloping gallons of candy, and a great gathering of people....As Grady loves to say, of late, (I'm sure, courtesy of Sponge Bob), "Good times, good times."

A successful season...

Saturday's soccer game brought our soccer season to a close, until Spring ball begins at least. Our game against a friend's team was action-packed. I think technically we lost but the kids' weren't overly concerned with those details. Mid-game Grady asked permission from his coach to go see a friend (Zephyr) who came to watch the game. And then Jonah (the friend from the other team) had to be heavily sought out by his own coach from the spot where he crouched with Grady and Zephyr, showing off a special drawing he had brought just to show Zeph. As far as I'm concerned, it was childhood sporting fun at its best.

Wandering in my "backyard" wild...

This has always been my favorite time of year, especially since we moved to the city where we currently live. Smack in the desert, we're prone to non-seasons or what I sometimes call the mono-season. Essentially, we get lots of dry heat, sometimes lots of dry wind and a very mild winter, comparitively speaking. This leaves only Fall as an out-of-the-ordinary time of year, at least in my mind. The mild days, cooler nights, absence of wind (that we get in Spring), it all combines to be really fabulous. A day spent in our garden yesterday cinched all of these ideas for me as Grady, Ainslie and I gathered in another couple of bountiful buckets, straight from our veggie plot. I've always had a lawn and flower beds but having the veggie garden this year, along with the chickens and all the other critters we share our land and home with, just gives me that much greater appreciation for Mother Nature, all of her cycles and all of her bounty.

First, having seen that we were finally forecasted to have a freeze last night, the kids and I set out to pick green tomatoes. I'd put heads together with a couple more experienced gardeners/farmers and had some ideas for preserving and allowing those tomatoes to ripen. The kids were blown away that I was actually asking them to pick green fruit (all summer it had been a big no-no). We came away with a small basketful and another larger basketful. Thinking of the endless quantity of tomatoes we'd already received from our 5 plans, I was very proud of the additional quantity we came up, especially being that it's he first week of November.

The kids and I were revelling in the change in the air, the slight bite of the cold, and I really was appreciating the difference in the light. I started looking about the yard, with an eye to photos, thinking what I could capture to contrast with how our garden patch and plants had looked early on this year. My sunflowers drew me, as they always do, despite the fact that they are now dry and rigid, crumbly and partially eaten (enjoyed, I should say, by our bird friends). Earlier in the summer, they had been blazing yellow and red and brown, limber, bending toward their own Sun God and swaying in the air.

I've yet to photograph and blog about it but this summer, I got a tattoo honoring my children. It's three bold, beautiful sunflowers, stems tied in a Celtic knot, and a blazing blue sky behind it. I love that the flowers in my garden remind me of it and confirm everyday that it was the perfect imagine to ink upon my skin.

I turned to another patch of the yard, and my thoughts shifted a bit. I think it was at least a year and a half ago when I was bemoaning my extra-vigorous weeds that my wonderful friend Tawnya told me she doesn't really mind weeds, that she admires their persistence and strength and ability to grow where sown. She pointed out the varying beauties of several, just in my front yard. Now, I have one patch of the front yard (which is pretty traditionally land-scaped with rock and plants, thankfully desert hardy) that is left to the weeds. I call it our wildlife habitat area. It harbored many a frog this summer and fall, plenty of grasshoppers and, I'm sure, myriad other bugs that I didn't even take the time to notice. It's now producing seeds that I notice the little finches clinging to, sideways and upside down, eating. Anyway, I have a similar patch in the backyard that I decided to let "have its way" to see if I could come to find the beauty that Tawnya had opened my eyes to. Sure enough, one plant that Lenny tried so many times to cut down turned out to be a wild Aster and bear beautiful purple flowers. Another has lovely little daisies, even now in November. In my herb studies, I've come to have another appreciation for these "weeds" and the medicine that they potentially can offer me.

Having admired the bright blue sky that is one of our trademarks here, my eye was turned immediately to one of the more vivid color displays in the yard. My pyracanthea, a red-berried form, is burgeoning with berries. Having had the chickens mostly penned for the summer, it's bounced back quite a bit from last winter when they'd foraged steadily from it. Although a younger, and less aware, me chose this plant years ago when we lived at another house (we transplanted it), I still enjoy it so much, now because I see songbirds and small animals feed steadily from it all year. It gives to us, in visual pleasure and to the wild, in food.

At this point, I was having so much fun with my camera (just a point-and-shoot) that I decided to check out the front yard. I'm glad I did because I totally had forgotten to blog about our pumpkins since we'd harvested. Our impromptu, volunteer pumpkin plants, spawned from Halloween pumpkins left to rot last year, bore almost 50 pumpkins of small to medium size. We happily gave every family who visited, from about mid-September through October, pumpkins to bear home, and we still ended up having this left.

Too small to carve and not the type ideal for cooking with, we're going to have these small pumpkins with us for quite awhile. As they get soft, some will become bird food, some chicken feed and, most definitely, we'll be saving seeds for next year. Growing pumpkins is fun!

As I was snapping the pumpkin shot, I noticed the plethora of butterflies on my zinnias. These hardy flowers travelled to my front garden bed from my friend Sandra's house in the early summer. She had too many and encouraged me one day to pull up some and see if they'd make it. Given the heat we experience in summer, I didn't think they would but they proved me wrong. Now a good four feet tall, they are a butterfly's heaven. I counted upwards of 10 butterflies (I think. I mean, they do flutter a lot) as I stood there. I tried to capture their image and had only passing luck. Still, just the color is so pleasing to the eye.

It was a good day. It felt good to be thinkful (I wrote "thinkful" and I'm leaving it because I think it speaks for being mindful about what we should appreciate) for what we are surrounded by, and proud of the work that we've put into helping it thrive...

Political sign mayhem

This Fall, I bought two Obama/Biden signs and picked up two different sets of signs for local Senate races. And, this Fall, my signs have been stolen twice. If you look around my neighborhood, a slew of McCain/Palen signs are to be seen, as well as those of other Republican politicians. I think I've seen only two other Obama signs. And, as far as I can tell, not a single Republican sign has disappeared from a yard as mine have.

After this weekend's theft, I devised my own signs. They are actually quite scaled down from what I really wanted to say...

The rugrats...as of a few days ago

Do you like freebies?

I do! Click the link if you're the mother of a young girl or know one who would like to be delighted.

http://grosgrainfabulous.blogspot.com/2008/10/grosgrain-mini-store-opening-and.html