This One Kinda Speaks for Itself

This little imperative from Kurt seemed sorta appropriate for my current life (anyone's, I would imagine), since I'm currently expecting another little human. I may not have put it exactly like that, but I agree with the last sentiment (sans the swearing, of course) wholeheartedly.

Check out the Kind Over Matter blog. It's really lovely.

MIA Mama

Actually, I've only been missing from the blog. I've been very present here in real life!

The reason is that, in addition to my normal mama-duties (I'm sure you know what they are, many mundane, many too sweet and wonderful to imagine), my little shop has been keeping me busy, busy, busy! (Yay! Happy dance!)

Shall I show you a few of the lovely patterns that are selling like hotcakes?

Jane Hat

Actually, anything at all by Jane Richmond. I've sold out twice in three weeks (that could also be due to a learning curve in the art of stocking inventory...).

 

Schoolhouse Tunic 

I also love the Flora Tunic and Twirly Skirt, also by Sew Liberated, but haven't sold any yet (so tell your friends).

And speaking of, do tell your friends about the shop! Or the Crafty Bird blog. Or both!

Ok, ok, enough! More posts about the kids coming soon. Promise!

I love this...

Operation Nice

How could I have not known about this blog? I mean really, really love the idea of being nice. Maybe it makes me a simplistic (or not - the Dalai Lama has said that his religion is kindness...) but nice-ness is really so great. I actually wish more people were nicer more often. Don't you?

A Little Magpie News

Isn't that baby adorable? Ok, now look at the hat! Cute too, right? WELL,  you can knit your very own with a She's Crafty Handknits pattern from (ahem) my little shop. And while you're there (cause I know you'll all go) check out the other cuties from this designer.

Aren't you glad you have a baby to knit for (right here, kicking as I type)?

Something on the side

Recently I started thinking that I ought to start pulling my weight around here, so I decided to start a little business.

Yes, another business.

In any case, it's up and running today! So I hope all you crafty types will stop by. And buy lots of stuff!

Honeycrisps!

Oooh, my very favorite season has just arrived!
Fall? You might be thinking.
Yes, and not exactly.

It's honeycrisp season!
The time of year when I have been known to eat not an apple a day, but rather an apple a meal. (That is, if I can count breakfast, lunch, dinner, and two snacks a day of "meals.")
And I'm happy to report that all the kids (yes, even baby-in-utero) are also huge fans.


Is it weird that we were eating apples before breakfast?

Yarn CSA

How cool is this?

Martha's Vineyard Fiber Farm offers a Yarn CSA:

When you purchase a share in our CSA you are investing in our Fall 2009 “yarn harvest” of Kid Mohair. You’ll receive a shareholders certificate, weekly farm updates on what’s going on around the farm, and an invitation to our Shearing Day Celebration. (And if you get the urge to shovel poopy hay while you’re here, we’ll lend you a shovel.)

After shearing, we’ll let our friends at the mill work their magic and in a few months you’ll receive your share of the harvest. We shear the Angora goats in the fall, and blend their Kid Mohair with the finest fleeces we can find, so this season’s yarn will be a Kid Mohair/Fine Wool blend.

EcoBorrow

Check out this cool service that my sister-in-law tipped me off to.

I've often thought it would be great to have a local, neighborhood library of stuff. You know, a single lawn mower for the block or friends who share baby gear that they don't need at the moment but don't want to get rid of forever.

That's basically what this does. Helps you set up a system with friends and neighbors where you can borrow each other's stuff: ecoBorrow is an eco-friendly service for neighbors, friends and family that enables you to lend things and borrow things from people you already know.

Some friends and I are going to try it out. First order of business: an electric grain mill. (Of course.)

A Lovely Reminder

Now is the time!

Download this lovely illustration for yourself over at 31experiment.

Grocery Delivery

What? You don't have your groceries delivered once a month like we do?

Well, in my personal opinion (I know, not that you asked), everyone should.
Really!
Here's why:

We save a lot of money this way. Mostly because I go to the grocery store less often which essentially means fewer chances for me to impulse buy.

Lots less packaging. Instead of 5 one-pound bags of organic rolled oats, we get 1 five-pound bag. And so on.

We pay the same prices that the grocery store does (or just about). More money saving - always good.Convinced? In Portland (and surrounding areas) you can set up an account with Azure Standard and join in the fun. We belong to a co-op of sorts so we can meet the minimum order amount, but it's low enough that one family could almost manage it alone.

A Garden in Every Yard

While watching a very interesting program on environmental design (narrated by Brad Pitt, but that's beside the point, right?), I was inspired by the idea of leading a crusade to plant a vegetable garden in every yard and fruit trees at every school. Yes, I agree, a big job. My daydreams tend to have an element or two of grandeur.
Anyway, a quick search for another, equally garden-crazed maniac out there in the world lead me to this article in the New York Times Magazine by none other than Michael Pollan.
After asking the question "Why Bother?" in regard to changing our behaviour in order to slow (or stop) climate change, he (very elloquently, of course) comes to the conclusion that by all means we should bother and that the very best way to bother is to plant your own vegetable garden. Not only will you be taking a positive step in reducing your personal carbon footprint, you just might influence your neighbor to do the same. And of course you'll enjoy homegrown, garden fresh tomatoes (which is reason enough if you ask me).
Well, well. Perhaps I am not so nutty after all. My musing imagination came up with the same solution to global environmental decline as the great eco-writer and defender of all foods natural and good. Granted, this article was published more than a year ago, so I'm a tad behind the curve here, but better late than never, right?

First Farm Box!

Whoohoo! Today was our first farm box delivery of the season from Helsing Junction Farm. We're members of their CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) and therefore get a box of farm-fresh produce delivered to a central, nearby neighborhood location each week.
The produce has been really lovely in the past, so everyone was looking forward to the first box.

And we weren't disappointed! In this delivery there were: baby carrots, 2 heads of lettuce, radishes, garlic scapes, chives, cilantro, 3 onions, and 3 pints of strawberries!
And as you can see, we didn't even make it through the front door before the kids dug in.
That's Oliver stuffing as many perfectly ripe strawberries into his mouth as fast as he possibly can.
I believe it's going to be a good summer...

Future Craft Collective

Look what I found! There is some seriously cool stuff happening in Austin. My sincere apologies for any less-than-positive remark I've ever made about Texas. (That's for you Mom.)

Slow Parenting II

Now this is what I was looking for!

After my whiny little diatribe about what Slow Parenting is not, I was introduced to Slow Family Living, a lovely site where two inspiring women have put words to my somewhat disorganized ideas about crafting an authentic family life.

Turns out my tribe is out there after all.

Slow Parenting

Perhaps I am a bit late to the game, but I just discovered the term "slow parenting." Although he doesn't claim to have coined it, apparently the term stems from the book Under Pressure: Rescuing Our Children from the Culture of Hyper-Parenting by Carl Honoré, who also penned The Power of Slow: Finding Balance and Fulfillment Beyond the Cult of Speed which looks at our society's obsession with speed and got its inspiration from the Slow Food Movement and it's founder, Carlo Petrini.

Familiar with the Slow Food Movement, I was terrifically hopeful that "slow" in this case had similarly morphed into a term that meant more than lack of speed, something like "authentic" or "mindful" or "artful" or better yet, a conglomeration of all three. Because then I would have the perfect term to hang my parenting ideology hat upon.

And perhaps that is exactly what the term will become, or even what Under Pressure points to (it's on my t0-read list), but the few resources I've found using the term thus far sorta sell it short.

This New York Times article, for example, which essentially equates the term with kicking back, martini in hand, because you don't feel the need to get the kids to soccer practice. You're simply too chill, you see.

No, I'd rather it meant that you choose not to sign your five-year-old up for soccer because practices are at 6:00 pm and family dinners trump extracurricular activities. Or you choose to teach your kindergartner how to make blueberry pie rather than letting her watch Strawberry Shortcake cartoons. Or you choose to clear your schedule for an entire weekend so that you and your kids can dig out all the weedy trees at the edge of your yard, fill the resulting hole with compost, and diligently plant vegetable seeds of all kinds (or perhaps, spend a sunny weekend lounging at the beach, building sand castles and exploring the tide pools).

I'm looking for a term, you see, that defines the way we do things. We're not hippies. We're attachment-types, but now with nursing, baby-wearing, and co-sleeping quickly fading into the past, the term doesn't feel so much ours anymore. We don't fall under the umbrella of Christian Parenting, or even Buddhist Parenting (I'd join that club if I could find other members though).

Who knows what I'd even do with the term if I found it. It's not like I'd introduce myself as a "Slow Parent," (that would be kinda funny) or limit myself to a particular circle of friends based on that philosophy.

Maybe it's just the comfort of knowing your tribe. Knowing you're not completely crazy when you don't sign up for soccer or ballet or whatever because you genuinely want your kids to understand that spending time together as a family is important. More important than being busy.

I Want to Be Like Alice

Waters, that is.

I'm reading this book right now (among many others, I have a library addiction):And although I already knew the story, I've been re-inspired by it. Here's the gist:

More than a decade ago, Alice Waters, a small group of teachers and volunteers, and a school principal, turned over long-abandoned soil at an urban public middle school in Berkeley, California, and planted the Edible Schoolyard. It has since grown into a universal idea of Edible Education that integrates academic subjects with growing, cooking, and sharing healthy food.

Seriously, this is my kind of thing. Gardening, cooking, and eating with kids, I can't imagine a better way to spend time. I'm thinking I should work it into a future career...

An Old Friend

My friend, Miranda Weiss, has written a lovely book about her life in Alaska. At least I expect it to be lovely. Although I ordered the book two weeks ago (so that I could read it before her reading at Powell's) it hasn't arrived yet - I check the porch about 12 times a day, just in case.

I'll post a reaction/synopsis when it (finally) arrives, but I think I can confidently encourage everyone to buy a copy. If I know Miranda, it will be a beautiful and moving tale.

A Bit of a Panic

I made a big, big mistake the other night. I watched the last installment in the BBC's Planet Earth series. Normally this would be just my cup of tea: gorgeous footage of our planet, well-reasoned explanations for why we should save it, and a touch of immediacy - "no more time to lose!" - sort of thing.

Preaching to the choir, they were.

However, a little factoid casually mentioned in the midst of other, equally alarming proof-of-environmental-collapse points, was that the polar ice caps will most likely have melted—completely melted—within 50 years.

Ok, so that's in my lifetime, which is a real drag. BUT what's worse is that my children, my amazing, glorious, beautiful children, will only be in their 50's.

I knew this, I'm sure, long ago. But it's back with a new fierceness. I can't even imagine what a world without polar icecaps will be like - hot, certainly, but perhaps even unlivable. And this is something that will directly affect my own children. I'm in a sleepless panic over this.

I'm reminded of how I felt as a teenager when I first discovered the environmental movement and I wanted, with an intense fever, to save the planet. To save us from our selves. But the job was so big. Impossible, really. So I felt a desperate need to do something and a desperate hopelessness at the same time. Yuck.

But here I am again. Twenty years later. An environmentalist through and through. Living the solutions wherever I can. But, despite the fact that I buy local produce and live in a walkable city, we're still hurtling toward environmental collapse.

How will we explain our actions to our children when they won't be able to have the same beautiful lives we have now? When their lives are riddled with once-curable diseases, daily loss of species, an ever more poisoned and poisonous natural world? Will we look back and feel that the excess is worth it? Will we feel justified in stealing our children's future so that we can drive 300 feet to the corner store, fly to Mexico on a whim, and fill our houses with gadgets that we barely use?

See, a bit of a panic. (Sigh.)
But just look at these faces. Wouldn't you feel the same way if you knew that one day you'd have to look into their eyes and explain why the world was such a mess?