Stuff and Nonsense

February's change, and right now in 10

Attention: RED POST!

So, February's One Small Change is just getting underway and I have nothing to show you. But I will tell you what it is: woman's cloth. Yes that's right, I am saying goodbye to commercial "purificatory dressings" (as Inspector Fowlers says on The Thin Blue Line) and saying hello to homemade ipads. I mean pads. Or as my sister said, maxis. Like a lot of things related to women, this area is marked by a distinctly uncomfortable vocabulary, so besides making, wearing, and laundering the...things (all about which I will report here), I will also be playing around and searching for an unslangy slang with which I can do so. Already the issues begin. My sister says, "Let's clean your penis." I say, soothingly because she despises diaper time, "Let's get this cha cha clean!" Dirty diaper by way of Missy Elliot. 

"I don't think we should teach her to say that," says my husband. 
"Well then, what do we teach her to say?" Silence. He's probably thinking about how we inadvertently taught her to say "boobies," which probably happened because I am so uncomfortable with the word breasts. He was also probably thinking about that time in the public library where Jane started intoning, "Booobiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiies!" 

Anyway, there's lots to say about this women's cloth thing, but in the meantime I want to be a copy cat. Following the lead of two of my favorite bloggers, SouleMama and Waldorf Mama, here is my life right now, in ten:

questions

collections [cleaning off my bedside table] 

baking

and more baking

gourmandise

hats for everyone

even golfy bear [a christmas gift from one of the golfing buddies, along with nips]

anticipation

mess

and laughing till we snort 

   

   

Looking forward...

...to more mornings like this one. The window is wide open beside me. I can hear the bird twittering and the horses neighing and the dogs barking in the valley. 

...to more days splashing in mud puddles and cruising the yard in our new (to us) wagon.

...to catching sight of the visitors who wander this well-tread path that runs the perimeter of the yard, in and out of the tangles and toward the creek.
...to this view anew in spring....to all the mysterious friends coming up soon. 

...to seeing what becomes of our filbert catkins! And hopefully eating some before the jays get them all! (Can you believe they're called catkins? I love that.)
...to tilling, pulling, and weeding......and having a whack at our first real garden. (Oh yeah, and erecting an outdoor clothes line. You bet.) 

And looking WAY forward to harvesting next years teasels for these. (I'll be posting more about next Christmas soon. I am so not spending all of Christmas Eve day hiding in the basement finishing presents this year.) 

And I am OH SO looking forward to finishing this post, putting on my glad rags, and getting ready for a DATE with my husband, exploring downtown Olympia. Rah!
  

    

  

A Perfect Moment

I used to have what I called "perfect moments." I think I've written about them before. I hadn't had them in a long time, and the sensation has definitely changed. A little less ecstasy, a deeper contentment. But still, a sense of belonging. A mutual ownership--to own a place with your heart, and be owned by it in turn. It happened all the time when I lived in France. And it happened the other day on a stroll with Jane. 

For the first time, I followed our road across the creek, to have a look at the field, the buildings, the horses we see from our home, and to see our home from their vantage. As I continued on, we met some goats, luxuriant thickets of winterberry, grasses, red branches, deep green grass, and then I turned all the way around to see the ridges around us, and finally Ranier in the distance. And had that perfect moment. Without further ado (for who could do justice to such a sensation): 

 

 
[dog-sized, and wearing a dog collar--wagging his tail like the rest of them]

 

 

 

[Can you see it? It barely showed up in the picture. But oh, if you could have seen its majesty as I did! It doesn't matter how many times you see it. It is a shock of delight.]

Returning home in excellent spirits, we played about in the yard, and discovered these enormous fungi at the base of the madrona tree. Anyone recognize? They look like chanterelles but seem too big...much larger than the span of my hand. But then what do I know. Certainly not enough to dare a sample!

In any case, here's to perfect, and imperfect moments, to lift you up out of your struggles and worries, like me. It seems so many people I love, and so many folks generous enough to share a corner of their life in their weblogs, have very full lives at the moment. Maybe a little too full. All I can offer is my sympathies, and suggest you take a walk.