mojo

more soon...

yikes.

My stomach hurts and it has all afternoon. Tonight I plan to, no I am going to, stand up in front of a room of scary, no normal people and say something silly, no important. You see, the district is trying to close Henry's school. A motion was made 2 months ago by the school board and on May 19th they plan to vote. Because you know, closing down a beloved school and displacing nearly two hundred students, many whose families barely speak English, is a 'two month ' kind of decision. It seems obvious that they have made their choice. Tonight is the last meeting.

Marks Meadow is a special school. It serves the little village of mostly international student families where I live, many of whom do not own a car and of, course can't vote. The faculty and staff at MM work with our community respectfully and fluidly. A tiny school of 193 students that has gotten the top scores in the MCAS tests, Marks Meadow school is physically attached to Furcolo Hall, a U.Mass. Education school building. The University charges no rent from our school. If the school is closed, we will permanantly lose usage of it. The other schools in the district are decent schools if a bit larger. They are all much farther away from North Village, making it very difficult for the families without a car to get there. They are also less diverse culturally and socioeconomically. The closure of MM provides barely a drop in the bucket of relief for a ridiculous defecit that has been building for many years. No figures have been released that show what the other schools cost to run. Geesh, I could go on and on. Mostly, what I will say will be concerning Henry and his needs for a small class size and his right, as a student with an I.E.P to get a "free appropriate education" and how, if he doesn't get one( and a small class size is part of that), I will ya know, sue the school ( they will pay tuition for private school) and they won't be saving much money after all. The other beef I have that no one has addressed, is the Obama/Biden Early Childhood Ed. initiatives, it's about freaking time. When Universal Preschool becomes mandated we just might want some space in our public schools.

Can someone come with me and hold my hand? Why am I so terrified. Blerg.

Saturday Rituals

Right now Matty is getting our old stakes from the house we lived in (in Leverett), Ezra is on a walk with his buddy Oliver and Ollie's Mom, Sunita and Henry is outside with his Gumbahs (sp.) as my dad would say. I can hear their voices carrying through the village. So I have a moment or two to ell you of a tradition that Ez and I have been partaking in for the last month or so. Henry has swim lessons every Sat. morning (and is loving them yippee!!) and so, Ezra accompanies me on my morning walk. Which means I get a coffee and a pastry at the bakery. This is the reason, so late in life, that I have experienced a bakery revelation. The only times in my life that I have lived in cities (except from my Florence experience but that was all about chocolate, wine and pasta), and consequently, had access to bakeries, I was always in a serious health kick and wouldn't consider going into them. Now, in my thirties, I still eat pretty healthily but I don't bat an eyelash at walking into a pastry shop and sharing something with one of my kids. And, wow. Doughnuts, crullers, almond croissants, those crisp/chewy merenguey things shaped like horse shoes and covered with almonds? Sweet Lord. I looove bakeries. I know, I need to be careful. So every Saturday, Ez and I walk the 2 miles into town, avec stroller, and I get him a treat, have 2-3 delectable bites and savor them. I mean, SAAAVOOOR, with my eyes closed. yum. Henion bakery is a wonderful place too. A happy pink awning. A very cute boy at the cash register, amazingly good coffee and tables outside. What more could a girl want? Or a 32 yr.old (soon to be 33), mother want?

Also, North Village is in full blossom mode, and soon they will be gone, another thing to savor.

still life with flip flops

There is garlic in there...

Nasturtiums and Morning glories...

So, here I am. At some point I felt that I had entered the blogging point of no return and then I thought what the hell...I will share a little. Spring is my favorite season. Winter feels like my worst enemy by the time February rolls around.   I love gardening. I adore getting rid of stuff a.k.a spring cleaning. And I love wearing skirts and dresses and tangerine nail polish. Recently two good friends (Laura and Dawn) have both given me a stash of fabric. Laura gave me some remnants and samples for the Arch. firm where she works and Dawn gave me some vintage scraps from an auction. Now, when my machine works I will have some fun fabric to work with...

More soon...

bread and frozen laundry

oatmeal bread

Today I stayed home from work again. I probably could have gone, okay definitely. But my boss basically told me to stay home and my nose is still very stuffy. I know I benefited from the extra hours at home. Here is what I did: 3 loads of laundry, washed and hung up (one of which did not finish the spin cycle which meant carrying it to the line quite wet and labor intensive). Then, with a wet head (from shower) and wet jeans (from un-spun clothes leaking through basket onto self) I wrestled with an enormous duvet cover in an icy wind and laughed at myself as I tried to get the dripping brown monster onto our pathetic line without dragging it over much on the muddy ground. My hands were red, my head was wet. My jeans were wet and all I could think of was poor Claire Fraser from the Outlander time travel series and how hard she (yes, the fictional character) must have had it. I mean, going from being a doctor in the 1960s to living in the Highlands of Scotland and then the wilds of the Carolinas in the late 1700s must have been rough. And then I had even more reason to laugh at myself. This year I have indulged in more engrossing (and yes, slightly trashy if we are going to be snobbish here)... ahem, literature then I have in years. Between the Twilight and the Outlander series', I have spent countless hours completely escaping. I think it has a lot to do with how long and difficult the winter was. But now, I am going to try to turn my attentions elsewhere. Live in The Now, Kelly! Which is why I am baking bread and walking and um... blogging about what I did earlier...

Here is how I make bread Unless it is NYTimes or challah or something else special. I do it the same way I make pizza dough. 2 cups luke water, roughly a tsp. of yeast per cup, a bit of something sweet, a bit of some salt and enough flour (wheat germ, oats etc.) to make a sponge... that I let rise for an hour or more, then I mix in more flour etc...a bit at a time, until my finger goes in and out pretty clean, at which time you will be kneading and not using a spoon. Then I let that rise until it doubles and then punch it down, shape, let rise 20 minutes or so and bake it. A second long rise (to let double would also be good).

This is Ezzie's pet Worm

Henry: "Mom, if a bunch of bad guys came and kidnapped you I would do anything to get you back. Well, almost anything." 

Ezra: "Mom, if a bunch of bad guys came and killed you. I would kiss you to wake you up."

and after serving them an extra yummy smoothie...

Henry: "Mom, I don't know how you take care of us so well. You are a really good mom."

It is really telling when I can't come up with anything to blog about other than what my kids are saying. But, it is Spring, and sitting in front of my computer is not at the top of my lists. Plus, I have not gotten anything done to write about. My sewing machine is still bust. Dinners around here are no fancier than rice and beans and veg. or rice and fish and veg. AND any extra time I have is spent WALKING. And, yet, I want to keep up the blog. So, don't give up hope. As soon as preschool is over for me I will have more time to devote to beautious domestic undertakings and the documentation of such things...

rambly hedge

Matty's new bike, a Jamis Aurora. Note the root beer color. My favorite.

The very first two-wheeler bike ride for all three boys.

This is how confused I am right now: I just put a pillow or of aromatherapeutic/relaxing, organic chamomile tea in my mug and after adding the water, threw in some black tea too. I need both. I have been wanting to blog desperately but have not felt like I could organize enough thoughts in my head to come up with anything. I still can't, but hopefully this rambling will end up condensing into something remotely meaningful.

Lately I have been concentrating on fundraising for my upcoming walk. I have raised over $1200.00 and need 600 more. I think after this last mailing, I might get it done. Asking people for anything has never been my strong suit. But, I have learned that people are more generous than I give them credit for. One of my favorite parts of this experience has been writing names of loved ones on my t-shirt. The other thing demanding my attention is school. I got in. Now I have lot's of time to worry about it. I am not super worried about whether I can deal with school mentally. I worry more about letting go of domestic stuff. I can be so neurotic. I also like to be in pajamas at 8 pm. And I don't like dirty dishes in the sink. And I like to be early for class. And I have never asked for extra time for an assignment. Soon I will be having those, "naked in class" dreams. See what I mean? I am trying to read a lot right now 'cause I may not read a novel for a year or so, that's depressing. But I am so excited about the classes I am taking. Every one of them is interesting to me and that is a first, though I love my liberal arts degree.

Spring is coming. There are shoots popping up here and there. Even some of my lavender is looking green, having been buried under a foot of leaves. The kids are outside constantly, getting muddy and scraping their hands and knees. Spring means that crackers are in short supply as there are lots of grubby kids outside who want to share a snack. It means that my boys are fighting less with each other. Yeehaw. Warmer days mean our Wednesday play date with the girls is mostly outside. It means our sidewalk outside is like a kiddie version of the Tour De France, Tour De Village Nord (is that North in French?).