Easter eggs

This year, we tried a new technique, thanks to my friend R from work. We picked various flowers and leaves with interesting flat shapes from around the neighborhood, mostly our own yard:

Simply place botanical on a hard-boiled egg, wrap with nylon pantyhose, tie snugly:


Then dip the wrapped eggs in any kind of dye you like. We used traditional Paas dye from Kmart, my friend R went way cool and made her own natural onion skin dye. Both turned out beautifully!

See my Flickr page for more photos.

And here's the happy egg artiste, with her collection of found eggs after Easter egg hunt 1 of 2 so far this year:

Family Photo

Yes, the classic "camera at arms length" photo, this one taken in the boat about to go into "It's A Small World" ride at Disneyland. Went there for Sophia's 6th birthday, her dad came with us. Fun time was had by all!

growth circles

we're social creatures by nature. not quite pack animals any more, but many of our cultures were at their best when living intergenerationally or in tribes. and why is that? because part of our growth comes from giving and receiving with each other.

these days, friends and family are blown to the four corners of the earth. when we do have those rare chances of finding people we truly connect deeply enough with that we can carry on meaningful and growth-inducing conversations with, they usually live across town, across the country or around the world. these moments do not come effortlessly as often as we need them to. we rely on technology to help us achieve it, but those come without the perks of eye contact, human touch, or the warmth of an embrace at a much needed moment. so our growth is stunted. we need these exchanges to grow, we need full sun, but we've placed our pots in the shade of the distance between us, so our roots don't go down as deeply as they should, our stalks grow thinner than is healthy as we stretch yearningly toward that warmth & light we don't get enough of.

tonight, i had the thinned out version of one of those conversations, watered down by the medium of Google chat, a conversation 8 months later than it should have been on the last time we saw each other in person, by mere virtue of the fact that we live 100's of miles apart. if we lived in the same camp, bathed in the same river every morning, gathered wood for the same cook fire and cooked over it each night, we would have discussed this already. but anwyay...

tonight my friend C and i talked about our relationships. she was talking about a recently ended love affair, how she'd lost herself in it, and what she was doing to find herself again. i shared some tidbits of wisdom wrought from my own rendition of that same experience, which i've repeated several times in my life so far. i'm about 3 years older than C. i shared with her my two cents, and then after we stopped chatting, i realized how sharing those insights with her was giving me so much to reflect on for myself at this point in my life. and it was then that i realized that by sharing our wisdom together, we teach both ourselves and the other person at the same time. we grow together. and think how much more quickly we would grow to be strong healthier adult plants if we did this more regularly for each other? if we'd had this conversation 8 months ago, how much further along in our own self-discovery would both of us be?

we think in this civilized modern age, we are so much further along than our tribal ancestors. i beg to differ. i think we lost about what (or more than) we gained when we forced our "civilization" upon our forebears and stripped the tribe from the tribesmen.

-----

what i shared with C tonight was that sometimes when you've been not yourself, you need to return to the place where you found yourself in the first place. for her, and for me, that place is Santa Barbara. well, for me, it was first Nashville, then Santa Barbara. i lost myself when i went to Iowa, had to go back to Nashville to look for pieces, then continued here to SB to find the rest of me, the whole me. a few times now, i've left (to San Diego and Portland), both times chasing something that wasn't me, and i had to return here.

and now, i am here and never really plan to leave. i tell myself it's because i want to give my daughter roots and somewhere stable to call home, rather than the constant moving around my parents gave me as a "foundation". but tonight, after chatting with C, i wonder if i am merely digging my heels in and staying here is because i am scared to death of losing myself again?

see, tonight, i shared my insights with C, she found them helpful, and then in turn, i also helped myself to dig a little deeper into my own path and my place on it at the moment. and i'm sure when C has more to share with me next time, it will reciprocate back to her as well. but i sure hope it doesn't take 8 months again...we're not getting any younger!

end of a historic year

Every new year creates a bit of history, now doesn't it? But this one is holds so much, both personally and for the world at large.

Sophia & I did our part in electing the nation's first African American president. I am so proud and awestruck that we did it...hard working volunteers around the nation pitched in and made it happen. My 5.5 year old learned so much about the electoral process and about fairness and what we as a family value in the world, by talking about what Obama represents, why we are so lucky in this country to have a chance to vote, and how far this nation has come in regard to how we treat people with different colors of skin. She watched as I volunteered, she even pitched in herself numerous times. It's her 2nd presidential election to volunteer for, but the last one she rode along asleep on my back for most of it.


Then there's Prop 8 in California and all the other anti-gay ballot initiatives which took us backwards in the civil rights movement, in my opinion. These were stunning blows, I worked tirelessly in phone banks on Prop 8, and it paid off here in Santa Barbara county, the only southern California county to vote No on 8. I'm still working for the cause and will not rest until this issue is moot. I for one am not willing to pass this fight on to my daughter. I pray it's resolved before she even thinks about going on her first date!

This year, personally, I have come to realize that while I have come a long way, I still have a long way I'd like to go on my journey. I want to stop being so critical. I want to feel happier, laugh more, love more, work less, live in my gratitude more. I have gotten a bit weighed down. I want to shed those things that don't lift me up and I want to dance, rejoice, giggle, cuddle and play more. I don't want my daughter to feel disconnected from me. I want to meet her where she's at, even if that means giving up on cleaning the house or volunteering for a cause, and sitting on the floor playing Littlest Pet Shop for an hour!

So if you don't see a blog post for a rather long time, you can imagine I might be having a tea party or dressing these way too teeeny tiny Polly Pocket dolls in their itsy bitsy rubber dresses. I sure hope that's my excuse next time!

fall

it's fall. i was talking to a friend tonight briefly about what we both love about fall, why we love it. right now, fall in santa barbara means a shift in the weather, a cooler crispness to the air, some leaves (not many) on the ground, and today, rain. not heavy rain, but rain.

i know it's fall because i hear the wind. i hear damp leaves being blown around in the cold night air outside my door. in the air, i smell the plants giving over to the change of seasons. leaves falling, rotting, becoming earth. i sense the trees going dormant, the gardens shriveling up, the ground getting fallow and sleepy, ready for winter. i pile another blanket on the bed, close the windows i have had open all summer, and i feel the dread in me of longer nights, less sunlight. i feel myself shrinking inward, wanting to get into the warmth of hearth and home, out of the darkness and cold.

fall is about going inside, turning inward. i love this and need it on a deep level, though at the same time, i grieve the loss of the light and time outdoors, face turned upward, heart turned outward. now is time to reflect, recharge, and hibernate, later to emerge into the glorious sunlight once more.

insert recent picture here

questioning a blog

long time, no bloggy. i know. i say it every time i come back from a lapse. but i think this time, i get why i go away and then come back.

i think this blog no longer matches what i want/need to write about. there is a shift in me, whether planetary or just in terms of my own personal growth path, from what this blog has been about in the past. this blog seemed a dumping ground for me in my path as a mother. a place both to ponder and wax poetic about motherhood, but also, and more often, a place to whine, complain, seek guidance, or just dump all my grief, pain and tiredness that i collected along the mothering path.

so my quandry now is this: do i start a new blog or do i shift this one to match my own shifting? i would feel more energized by a new blog, give it a fresh facelift and start anew. but i started this one as a tribute to my path with Sophia, a legacy to hand her one day that she could read thru and get a glimpse of a time in her life which she may not have clear memories of. so why not show all the twists and turns that path contained? why not keep the good and the bad together, as a real composite picture?

i'm leaning toward that latter option, just riding it out. i might give it a new design to help infuse new energy and reflect how i really feel in my journey right now. it is in its 2nd graphical look since inception anyway. i've changed my hair color at least that many times since i started this blog, so why not the design too!

ok i talked myself into it. new look on the way. but i really have to make sure that i don't let the energy of what i know is lurking in the archives drag me down. because i really want to keep writing here. so if a new blog is what will help me keep coming back, then i might have to keep that option on the back burner. but for now, i re-commit to the original intention of this blog. onward!!

Help!

Not sure I even have readers out there anymore, but I am stuck. Sophia started kindergarten last month, and comes home in tears almost every day. Usually because of older kids teasing her, mainly because she doesn't know how to fit in to this huge school full of so many kids from so many backgrounds and who really don't want to play with a kindergartner. She's in a K-1 class at one of our local alternative charter schools, but it's still so hard. There are rough, mean kids in her class. They tease relentlessly. They steal stuff from her backpack. She should stay away, but she is drawn like a moth to the flame, wanting to play with these older kids. But they want no part of a little kid hanging out with them.

She also attends the afterschool program, since as a single mom, I need to be working to support us. So it's a long day for her. At 3pm, the older kids (up to 3rd grade) join the afterschool program and then there are even more big kids for her to be drawn to. Wash, rinse, repeat.

But I am ready to challenge my status quo. Do I really need to work fulltime? Do I have it in me to do what it takes? And what, precisely, does it take? I know so many of my friends have done it, but how? I have no idea where to begin and I am soooo not used to not knowing that. I have a good paying 9-5 job, really good for this area. And this is one of the most expensive places in the US to live, so it's not like I can just start knitting from home for income. I don't know what to do.

If anyone has ideas for me on how to transition into homeschooling, please send along. I really appreciate it!

Apricot Peach Cobbler

A friend gave me a huge bag of fresh apricots and 3 peaches picked from her backyard today. Way more apricots than we could possibly eat, and quite a few of them were very ripe, so they needed to be made into something. So I consulted 3 different cobbler recipes (2 found on Foodlab, thanks Cyndi and Nittany) and one from a gluten-free cookbook. I then made up my own recipe, to account for my personal tastes and improvisation due to not having all the ingredients.

Two notes for you to factor in with your own personal tastes:
1. Some recipes call for adding sugar or starch to the fruit filling, but I really think fresh fruit needs no additional sweetening, and don't mind the juiciness. However, if you like a thicker, more pie-like filling, you might consider adding sugar and/or starch to the fruit first.
2. I wanted a topping that was sort of nut meal-y/oatmeal-y (without oats) and that was also sort of cake-y/crumble-y. I'm happy to say that my 5 year old actually asked if there was oatmeal in it, so I think I achieved that goal.

I am making up words left and right here, but let's just say it's part of the creative process of making up a recipe. And for the record, this is my first ever recording of a recipe of my own invention, so I am a little nervous about others trying it, but here goes! It's also my first food photography, so some are blurry.

Apricot Peach Cobbler
This recipe is vegan and is gluten, dairy, egg, soy and corn free!

Filling:
- 26 apricots, 3 peaches (freshly picked)
- 1 orange (or a lemon would work too)
- Ground cinnamon

1. Cut apricots in quarters, and slice peaches (cut so all are even-sized chunks).
2. Spray rectangle baking pan with canola or other non-stick spray.
3. Spread fruit evenly across bottom of pan.
4. Sprinkle with cinnamon.
5. Squeeze the juice of lemon or orange over the fruit (I did this to offset the sweetness of the apricots, I wanted it to be a little more tart. If you use more peaches and less apricots, you might not need the citrus juice).
6. Set aside. Preheat oven to 375.


Topping:
- 1/3 cup vegetable shortening (I used palm shortening)
- 1/4 cup organic raw sugar (optional)
- 1/2 cup each of potato starch, flaxseed meal and finely ground walnuts (or preferred nut)
- 1/4 tsp gluten-free baking soda
- 1.5 tsp xantham gum
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 gluten-free vanilla
- 1/2 to 2/3 cup milk (I used almond milk)
- 1 to 2 tbs honey

1. Mix together all ingredients except milk and honey by hand.
2. Slowly add milk and honey until consistency is thick, sticky, but smooth (like thick biscuit batter).

3. Drop the batter all over the top of the fruit in the pan, either by the spoonful or by hand.

4. Bake 15-18 minutes or until topping is lightly browned. Allow to cool and serve slightly warm, with ice cream (soy dream, rice dream, etc) if desired.

Turned out really tasty! It gets less liquid-y the cooler you let it get. I highly recommend serving with tea in tiny princess teacups and serving at a tea party in your daughter's bedroom. Wearing evening gowns, high heels and tiaras, of course.

yuh-um

I made Cyndi's dairy free pesto tonight, over brown rice spaghetti with sauteed mushrooms and spinach. Amazing, delicious, and really, really easy! Sophia picked basil, arugula and mint from our garden, and she helped chop the mushrooms too, so that made it extra yummy!