Cold January Walk

Photo is Wy asleep in the stroller for a cold walk with Baba and Roxana (and Persie the dog, of course). He was asleep before we hit the driveway, I think.

I have joined an awesome organization called the Hogwarts Running Club, and am getting in consistent mileage thanks to them! Today I biked and walked. I am training for a sprint triathlon at the end of February,  and a half marathon at the beginning of April! 

Food that makes me feel virtuous

I made crockpot chicken last night for tacos (chicken + salsa), then instead of throwing away the salsa-y broth it created, I added corn, onion, garbanzo beans, cilantro, water and some taco seasoning and made soup!

In the bowl I added a little cheese and a bunch of tomato. I plan on freezing half of it. No wasted leftovers,  hooray!

Munchkin

One of my greatest pleasures in the whole world is playing tabletop games. I like party games (like taboo, scattegories), and classics (like scrabble or Risk), but my favorite type are tabletop games like Dominion, Seven Wonders, Castle Panic, and Ticket to Ride. It's always nice to find other people who like to play too, as few people outside of my family seem to have the desire to play quite as much as we do.

This weekend we visited friends who have Munchkin - an easy to learn tabletop game that pays tongue-in-cheek homage to D&D. Of course, I have the added dilemma of how to be a nursing mother while getting in my game fix. This weekend, I was very pleased to have a baby perfectly happy cuddling and sleeping in a wrap so I could be hands-free to play!

#200happydays Day 12

England baby

My sister recently went to England for a few weeks, and when she came back she brought Wyatt this Padington. Too adorable not to be my happy days post.

#200happydays day 11

Park day

Wednesdays are park days, the staple of any good homeschooling week. Today was a small group. We sat in the shade, and I sang to the baby while he laid looking at the trees and squawking.

#100happydays #200happydays day 9

Griffith J Griffith

It's been a while since I've posted anything about this fantastic park I live in. It's been so hot the last few days that I have either hidden myself and baby away behind dark shades, or gone down to my family's houses for swimming pools. So, time to revisit!

This popped up on my facebook feed today -- Griffith J Griffith, well known as being the man who donated the money to build Griffith Park... is also known for Shooting His Wife In The Head (through an eye, actually). It is HIS statue I drive by every day to get home!

So, he makes her get on bended knee, shoots her in the eye, she *survives*, and jumps off a balcony to escape.

That's not why I am choosing this as one of my #200happydays posts. The happiness for me comes by way of the fact that we have a diagram of this event, and that we have the right combination of archiving and technology that I can share it with you now.

#200happydays day 8

Baby as accessory

I knit. And crochet. And would like to go grocery shopping one day again.  People always say that baby wearing is the way to go, but I haven't found anything that worked...til now.

Sling made by my sister's soon-to-be mother in law. It's beautiful,  and clearly made of magic because this little man is sleeping,  despite the fact that it is the fourth of July and we are in a fireworks-are-legal city!

#200happydays day 4

100 happy days all over again

I just finished my first round of #100happydays, which was a wonderful experience.  Every day I'd find something to post that made me happy.  The great thing is that in 100 days, it's not all big exciting events. You have to look for the little pleasures in life.

A great example of how it improved my outlook was just the other day -- I woke up with one of those terrible neck pains that makes you afraid to even look in another direction. I couldn't life the baby, and it was about to feel like it ruined my day. Except, I had #100happydays to post about. So you know what I noticed?  I have a sweet and thoughtful husband who brought me ibuprofen and went to the store to buy a heating pad for me. Instead of woe is me, I felt glad and grateful.

So I finished the original challenge,  and want to do it again, but I want to do it here and not on facebook so I can keep some record of it.

Today,  I went for a walk with a friend, and the baby and along the way we found a whole wall of grapes growing. #100happydays #200happydays day 1!

Le creu-tatta

My first meal in my le creuset skillet!  A deeeeelicious frittata!

Melted butter and sauteed about half a diced onion on the stove top,  then added about a half cup of diced ham. I mixed 8 eggs with a quarter cup shredded cheese, and added the whole mixture to the pan. I let it cook for a few minutes til the edges looked golden, then stuck it in the oven at 400 for fifteen minutes. It was golden and delicious and lofty, and has much potential for future breakfasts!

Baby faces

It's astounding to me how quickly the days since Wyatt was born are passing. He is six weeks old today! Not only are whole days going by fast, but each individual day just seems to blink by. I spend so much of my day looking at this little face. I get so absorbed in all of his minute details. Sometimes it feels like I don't even look up until suddenly it is dark and I only notice because I can't see his eyelashes clearly anymore.

So here is to my darling little baby face. To every new noise and gurgle and monkey-sounds. To having the pure and wonderful luxury of so many days and hours and minutes to spend getting to know every little thing about my baby boy.

Harry potter movie day

Yesterday we had some friends over to watch the first two Harry Potter movies. In keeping wth the theme, I made pumpkin pasties and butterbeer!

Seeing as how I have a baby, I decided to go the easy route. I used premade pie crust, cut them into circles, spooned about two tbsp of pumpkin pie filling,  crimped the edges with a fork and baked them at 400 for about 15 minutes. I added some butter and sugar to the tops after.

The butterbeer was an interesting experiment. I heated up condensed milk (3-4 tbsp), butterscotch topping (3-4 tbsp), and butter (1 tbsp), then added a few spoonfulls of that mixture to hot cream soda. It's really pretty and very foamy, but the general consensus was to go easy on the condensed milk, and I could have probably left the butter out entirely.

Delightful summer day

Right now I couldn't be happier. I have a burbling little 6-week-old-tomorrow baby asleep next to me, a husband playing a computer game behind me, a brand new computer-set-up, and I just spent a few hours in the park with husband and friend watching them play with a new toy (drone for go pro camera, very cool) - while I walked and walked with the stroller.

I also just bought a Lodge enamel covered cast iron dutch oven online, and I can't wait for it to get here.

I am not the world's best housekeeper, but I like the idea of it. I really love to cook, when I love it. I realized at some point that the secret is to surround myself with things I like -- hate washing dishes? Buy dishes you love. Dislike cooking? Use utensils and ingredients that speak to you. I love feeding people, and there is something about making food beautiful that matters. I have the ingredients for a baked ziti dish that I am waiting to use until my Caribbean blue dutch oven gets here, because I can't wait to stir the beautiful red sauce in that color pot. Its the little things, you know?

I have a lot of hand-me-down dishes, broken things, and mass-produced stuff in my kitchen. My goal is to replace them all with higher-quality beautiful items that I love, one piece at a time. 

New baby in the little house

Introducing Wyatt, the newest member of our family. Born on May 13, 2014 he has already been camping twice!

Photos. .. my face after 77 hours of labor, newborn Wyatt, and one month old Wyatt.

Unexpected freesia

Last year when we moved in, there was this giant stone planter on the feont porch that work crews had used as an ashtray and garbage can. I cleaned it out and planted... oh so many things, but one after another they died. I planted freesia last year that lasted for about a week.... and this year I decided I should plant something a little sturdier so I chose aloe.

A few weeks ago I noticed something unexpected. .. last year's freesia are back! I didn't know they were the returning kind of plant.

This is what I see now, every morning when I leave, and every night when I get home.

Picnic on my front lawn

My front lawn is surrounded on three sides by Griffith Park, is owned by the city, and is a fascinating cross section of urban hollywood meets wilderness area.

Today I brought my knitting and tablet out front to have a picnic in this amazing spring weather. I am looking up at redwoods and pines and alders and at least four other types of trees I don't know. There are lizards basking on the walkway to my house. There are squirrels darting from tree to fence behind me. There are hummingbirds swooping low over the grass. There are a lot of people driving up to the observatory,  walking dogs, and pushing strollers.

I am watching West Wing, knitting christmas presents,  and eating egg salad and carrot sticks. Maybe I will take a nap.

Felted animals in my little house

The past few days have been unusually rainy, here at the Little House in the Big Park, the streets that are usually lined with cars are empty, and there is a new river where the street to get to my driveway used to be.

Today I plan on getting bundled up and going out into it - but yesterday was a day for cooking pea soup and staying warm and dry inside.

being 29 weeks (and 1 day) pregnant, I've been doing a lot of what they call "nesting." I sort of hate that term. Maybe because I'm predisposed to it anyway, it doesn't seem to be only pregnancy-related for me, and it's sort of annoying to post "hey I made this thing" on facebook and have twelve people say, "ahhh, nesting" in a knowing way. In any case - there's no denying that yesterday being cozy with a craft was the best thing ever. 

Baby's room is going to be wood/forest themed. I had been looking online for things to add to the room, when I saw a few felt mobiles on etsy. They were beautifully done, super cute - and beyond my price range. So I figured I'd try my hand at them. The  project evolved - and I don't think it's going to be a mobile anymore, but here are the results:

One tree, 1 rabbit, 1 bear, 1 deer, 1 owl, and 8 birds. All made with felt I bought at Michaels, embroidery floss, batting, and hand-stitched by me.

 I have enough of the birds that I might turn them into a mobile after all. I haven't decided yet.

I particularly love the pattern on the owl wings. I am also proud of myself for stopping and not doing the whole thing - I like the look of it this way better, but it's hard for me to not fill in all the space I have.

He's so sad. I didn't mean to make him sad. And then once I did, it didn't feel right to change him.

This deer was the first one I made, otherwise I might have given her a little more personality in the eyes.

It's hard to tell in photos, but I thought a lot about the embroidered details of each - for example, this trunk was embroidered using all 6 strands of embroidery floss held together, so make it have more texture. I think all the rest of the embroidery was done with 2 or 3 strands.

I hope I stay idealistic

the cover of one of my blogs...late teens, I believe

I remember sitting in the middle of my bedroom floor - a dirty orange carpet with paint and ink stains, leftover from the '70s - with paper all around me. I'm not talking about one or two pieces of paper, I am talking about a thick mat of paper and paper scraps radiating out from where I was sitting in the center, scissors and magazines and photographs too. My back hurt from bending over my project. My legs were asleep from sitting there for so long. My eyelids heavy. The smell of rubber cement not even registering, anymore. It was about 4 in the morning - I had been sitting there since about noon, maybe earlier. I was working on a zine - a collection of writing, poetry, collage and photography that I would photocopy and mail out later. A zine was a one-sitting project for me, and later I could look at those folded pages and be transported to right there, that moment. It was an exhausting and exhaustive all-or-nothing project. Something that poured out of me, that sometimes I had to pull out, cut out, and glue back together. The later (or earlier) it got, the more haphazard my gluing became, the looser and more wild the content. Later, when I'd look back at it, these would be some of my favorite pages - the subconscious coming forward while my inner editor was asleep.

I remember this one night in particular, because somewhere around 4 in the morning my bedroom door creaked open, and my mom's face peeked in - squinty eyed with sleepiness. She smiled at me, sitting in that hurricane of a bedroom, and closed the door again. Ani Difranco played on in my CD player, and I went back to my zine.

the cover of one of my journals

Such a simple little moment. And moments like that happened so many times. I didn't think much of it then - at some point when I was finished I would groan as I stood up, dusting p
aper bits off my pants and hands, peel the rubber cement from my fingers, turn off the light and go to bed. I'd wake up late the next day to my newly birthed zine. I did this a lot. Nothing new, nothing special. Roya making something in her room, that's all.

Looking back on it, though, I think how special it really was. To have parents that understood what was happening during the night doing one thing for hours. To have parents who did not insist that I had stayed inside or sat still for too long, and made me go outside or change what I was doing. To have a mom who came to check on me and see if I was still up - not to interfere or judge, but to peek in on me, smile sweetly, and go back to bed, happy that I was happy. I remember that same day, hours earlier, she had peeked in and brought me a plate of apples with some peanut butter.

It matters - those moments. All those little moments, those sweet details of knowing that my parents are on my side. They add up to this - this larger philosophy of parenting and relationships and education. But the way I experienced it as their child was like this - a plate of apples, a smile at 4am from my mom, and working for hours on my zine.

Your turn. I'm sure you've had a moment or two like this with your kids today. Tell me about it in the comments?

backyard guardian

Every once in a while my husband brings me home a present...

Deer skull found in the park - now guards our backyard. I had hoped it would help prevent my plants from being eaten by ground squirrels, but alas, my tomato plant got chomped on yesterday anyways.

Ah well. I have this guy looking out for me anyway.

splish splash

When I was 11, I spent a Saturday at the YMCA watching my cousin in her swim meet. I was mesmerized. I remember watching one person in particular, his dark brown skin against the turquoise water, and how his hands sliced through the surface - I thought that the way the body moves when it is swimming was the most beautiful thing.

The coach was kneeling next to the pool yelling encouragement. Everything was exciting. The flags were waving at the ends of the pool, there was constant splashing, yelling - I loved every bit of it.

That Monday, I went to my first swim team practice.

I had taught myself how to swim when I was little - I don't remember not knowing how to swim. And I had some swim lessons at the high school nearby. But I remember at this first practice, I couldn't make it the full 25 yards across the pool. I also remember actually dancing across the parking lot on the way to my mom's car afterwards - I was spinning and twirling, so excited. I was hooked. I was in the beginner lane with 4 or 5 other kids. Everyone was nice - and I wanted to be in the fast lane more than I wanted anything.

I also heard how people complained about butterfly, so I decided that would be mine. I worked, and worked, and worked on that stroke. I was determined. It's still my favorite. There is nothing quite so wonderful as making all the parts of your body work together in such a specific way to propel yourself through, up, over, and back down, into water. The mechanics of the stroke are amazing. It takes skill and strength. When it's done right, you can tell. It's beautiful to watch. It's beautiful to swim. It is the embodiment of hard work paying off.

I stayed on that swim team for a few years. Some of my favorite moments include spending whole weekends with this group of people, eating snack shack food on towels in the sun, swimming in a pool so crowded that you get kicked in the forehead by the person in front of you, recognizing the folks you were swimming with underwater by their swim suits, driving to meets together - there's a particular summer that has a soundtrack. I can be anywhere, and when I hear anything off of Tragic Kingdom I am suddenly awash in the smell of chlorine. I loved being on relay teams, I kept track of my personal records. I woke up at 5am for practice, went to the beach for open-water swim, and then back to the pool for the night practice. I had two suits I rotated, and just lived in them. We had parties, went to the movies, worked out together. We had sleepovers at the Y, where we huddled in the locker room playing hide and seek, spaghetti dinners, beach parties.

My sisters and I (I'm the oldest) on swim team #2

I helped set up swim meets, timed swimmers, sold snacks. I think watching how they were set up is part of what got me interested in event planning. I made personal records - talked to my coach about visualization and he gave me a book to read about positive thinking and motivation. The next meet was the best I ever had. I moved up in my age group, I won things, I never felt so good.

 I joined another swim team after the one I was first on disbanded when the coach got a better job for another club. After a little while, what I was doing with the Shakespeare theater group I was a part of started being more important, and I weaned from one to the other.

I still swim. I still think swimming done well is the most beautiful thing. I still crave water and love the smell of chlorine above most other smells. I still talk to a lot of the people I swam with on that first swim team. I still think about things that my coach taught us.

I wanted to write about this in this blog originally as a response to "the socialization question" that homeschoolers hear so frequently - but as I write, I'm realizing how much more there was to my swim team experience. Yes - I was on a team, with other people and had the chance to socialize. There were people I liked, and people I didn't like. If you want to focus on teamwork, just try being on a swim team - you spend 12+ hour days together at meets and swim maybe 4 minutes of it. You get up early. You spend time wet and cold. You deal with triumphs and failures. As a team you win things and lose, too. Individually - I think it's the first time in my life I could really start articulating intrinsic satisfaction. Why I would keep doing something that was so hard, over and over again. Although I didn't know the name for it, I experienced flow (another blog post),and other things so important to my well being. It all comes back around - my BA is in Recreation and Leisure Studies, where I focused more on event planning, leisure philosophy, flow, intrinsic and motivation --

So. To address the question I first thought I'd be answering - yes. I made friends. This is one example of how eveeeen a homeschooler can socialize. There are a lot of activities outside of school. Being on a swim team - sharing a similar interest, goals, and the bonding that happens when you're "in the trenches" together - I think it's a much more valuable experience than 40 folks all crammed into one room based only on age and geographic location. Being on a swim team is only one of a lot of examples just from my childhood that I can think of to address how we got our socializing on. More to come.

mud puppy

I've been asked to write about some of my favorite memories of my childhood. I like this idea. I might think of a bigger, meaningful theme to thread them all together - but for now, here is a vignette, a little slice to illustrate the type of parents I had, the environment they created, the life we lead.

Getting hosed off in the backyard

One of my favorite memories is spending time in the backyard in my dad's garden with him. There was a plum tree in the garden, and underneath the branches was an old wooden worktable. I would climb the plum tree and look down on my dad's head, bent over the table while he - what? I don't even know, quite honestly. Sorted seeds? Wrote plant labels? I am not sure what he was doing at that table. I do remember the pencil he had there - an old pink and turquoise sparkly pencil that was about half the length it had once been. Sometime I would sit underneath the table, looking up. A lot of times I would drag over a bucket - about half as tall as I was, and load the dirt in. I'd add water, and stir. I remember looking at the bubbles I'd make in that mud, the little pieces of sticks or grass floating in the whirlpool I made by stirring.

Adding grout to a mosaic coffee table
just another way I love to get messy

On the first day of summer I had a tradition - I would make my bucket of mud, and drag it over to the back fence. I would then paint the back fence with mud - every bit of it. I remember watching the brown mud spill down my forearms as I lifted the paintbrush above me to paint.

Later, after I had exulted in the paint job I had done, I'd get hosed off by my dad, jump in the pool, eat watermelon, whatever else we would do on a summer evening. My dad would hose off the back fence. I remember the strongest feeling I had was satisfaction.

Basking in the sun and the mud at Glen Ivy Spa...
see, even grown-up Roya digs (haha, get it?) the mud!

Looking back on it, it makes sense to me that I did that, and loved it. I've always loved mud and getting messy. I've mentioned my love of ceramics here before, and later on I'd love clearing streams at the Nature Center, and making adobe at Rancho Los Cerritos Adobe Days. I also love thinking about my parents watching their 8, 9, 10 year old painting the back fence with mud. How glad I am they realized how much I was getting out of it. How they realized it was only mud, nothing permanent.