spiraling in the darkness

For many winters I have had this vision during the winter solstice. I wanted to borrow from the Waldorf tradition of an advent spiral and make it our own for the longest night, creating a spiral on the beach of driftwood and evergreens and candles. The problem in making this happen in years past was that I couldn't find a suitable place to make it happen and I couldn't find a group of people who were like-minded to share the idea. But this year that all changed. I put it out there to see what would happen and it all magically came together. My friend Cindy totally "got" what I was thinking and graciously offered to host a gathering on Solstice. The people, the weather, the joy of the children, the location, the food, the friendship, the darkness and the light... it all came together so beautifully. I'll let the pictures do the talking.

The place...

Getting ready...

Spiraling...

(our fabulous host)

Getting darker...

The longest night...

~this moment~ the longest night

A Friday ritual. A single photo capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special moment. A moment I want to pause, savor, and remember. - via soulemama.

Happy Solstice

'tis the season

Sometimes I float through the days as if looking back on the snapshots as they happen. I can see the memories being made as Zach seems to pick and choose those holiday traditions that hold meaning to him. We didn't have many concrete family holiday traditions growing up, so I am sort of winging it. And I watch and wonder what Zach will hold on to and carry with him when he's grown.

And sweet Naia just cares about the lights. "Lights! Lights! Lights!" She wants to touch them and stare at them and say hi to them.

There are spurts when Naia self entertains and Zach steals away with the Chronicles of Narnia and I'm able to stitch and wax and bake. I go and go, The Grateful Dead and Jimmy Buffett fueling me on the Pandora feeling like I am so on my game.

And then I peek up around the bend from the galley to see why Naia is so quiet and a scene like this one unfolds. Sweet chaos.

Already my mind is drifting to January, that exhale time with no holidays, no parties, no plans, no projects. But I also try to anchor myself in the here and now and savor these moments with these tiny beings bursting with the excitement of the season. They bring me magic. They make it all worth while.

~this moment~

A Friday ritual. A single photo capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special moment. A moment I want to pause, savor, and remember. - via soulemama.

slow days

I feel like we're in a slow motion dash to the holidays. So many potential things to see and do and make, but nothing urgent. Motivation is thin. Lists have been checked off for the most part. Things we could do, but do we have to? Do we want to? Sometimes, yes... other times we're just doing some of this like good hibernating bears.

Mostly, I am savoring the sunny goodness of our bubble. Clothes can dry. Children can play. Water kefir can happily ferment.

Things may be slow here in blogland as we spin our way towards the holidays.

~this moment~

A Friday Saturday (seriously, I had no idea what day it was all day long) ritual. A single photo capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special moment. A moment I want to pause, savor, and remember. - via soulemama.

better than fish eye soup

This is that time of year where we all get caught up in the season... picking out special items for our little ones... crafting our fingers off for family and friends... baking and eating like mad... making lists, checking them twice and all that jazz. I have to say first, I don't think there is anything wrong with giving your kids gifts and spoiling the tar out of them. I am very stingy about not buying toys for Zach or Naia during the year. I do not fall prey to the little trinkets at the hardware store or "just one thing" at the market. I am very comfortable saying no day to day. Which is why I don't mind giving generously (yet choosing carefully) for the holidays to my kiddos. With Christmas, Hanukkah, and Solstice all getting equal time in our family we live it up.

But like many parents I want to make sure my kids realize how lucky they are, I want them to be grateful. Back in my day, when I would sneer at the food on my plate and refuse to finish my dinner (my dad would make things like fish eye soup and made meals from a books called A Russian Jew Cooks In Peru, really can you blame me?) My dad would give me the line. You know the one. "There are children starving in China who would kill for your fish eye soup! How could you turn your nose up at a warm meal?!" And like every kid who has been the recipient of this line, I went rummaging for a box and some postage stamps ready and willing to send my soup to those poor kids in China.

The moral of the story? You can not guilt kids into gratitude. Nor can you lecture them. And while you can plan a charitable act for your family... if you the parent are the one who starts it the lesson falls a little flat. I really believe that when kids come up with ideas from their own hearts and minds it sticks with them.

So as I was filling our winter book basket with Astrid Lindgren stories and our anthology of Jan Brett Christmas tales I tossed in a few extra reads. I didn't say anything. I just placed them in the middle of the basket to see what would happen.

I found him one morning curled up with the "catalogs" from Save The Children and Heifer International. I said nothing and went about my business. He finally looked up after a long while. "Mom, are there really kids who can't afford a soccer ball? Or even art supplies?"

Yes that's true of many kids.

"Mom, did you know we can give some family honeybees? We can send them honeybees for a gift and then they will have all that delicious honey and all that wax. It's only $30 mom. Can we do that? Or wait, look at this. a whole flock of baby chicks for only $20! Then they would always have eggs to eat. We need to send chickens too so they won't be hungry anymore."

Bingo.

Before long he was scurrying about his room and came up with a bag of HotWheels and tears in his eyes. "I don't need ALL of these cars. We should send them along with our honeybees. Those kids should at least get some cars to play with."

"Oh Z, that's a very nice thing to do. But why are you crying?"

"Because sometimes doing the right thing makes you feel happy and sad at the same time."

The moment was completely his own. Sure I cleared the trail, but he chose to walk it. No syrupy mommy led project. No lectures about kids starving in other parts of the world while he picks at his dinner. Along with his toys and books and stocking stuffer surprises, I am happy knowing I gave him something that will hopefully last and grow in his heart for years to come.


Heifer International
Save The Children
World Wildlife Organization
Kiva (a great way for older kids to get involved, support a small business, and track its progress)

St. Nicholas The Shoe Thief

So I suppose I could do the sweet, fluffy thing and regale you with prose about how we celebrated our own version of St. Nicholas day with making cookies and secretly delivering them to our dock master by playing ding-dong-ditch at his cottage, and how we set out our shoes, yadda yadda. But there are better people who put more effort into such things and we have bigger fish to fry here on the good ship Majestic. We have a thief! St Nicholas stole our shoes!

(gratuitous St. Nicholas photo)  

Ok, so maybe it wasn't the good saint on a bad night. This has actually been going on for about 2 months now. We go to sleep at night all snug in our berths, and an intruder has been coming ON to our boat and stealing shoes. We leave our shoes in the cockpit outside the sliding door that leads inside the boat. And yes, the shoe collection tends to pile up (ahem). It started with one shoe missing every few days or so. We would go out in the morning, see it was gone, and then after a quick walk around the marina yard we would find the missing shoe in the grass or bushes or weeds. Hmmmmmmm....?

Then some of the shoes went missing and were never found. And then one shoe was found... with teeth marks chewed in. Now, we have three puppies on our dock, all under the age of two and all full of sweet mischief. So I naturally assumed it was one of them. Dogs love shoes after all, and many of them have free range on and off their boats. I approached each dog owner in turn, presenting the crime and the evidence at hand. "Oh Noooooooooo. Not my Fido! He would NEVER do such a thing!" Like a doting parent there were denials all around.

(who could accuse a face like that?)

Then a few more clues trickled in. First we brought the chewed up shoe into Zach's science teacher at the Smithsonian. She had a look and confirmed it was not the bite of a dog. Her guess was raccoon or fox. Then a neighbor man overheard us talking about it one afternoon and he said similar thieving was happening on other docks and that a fox had been seen in action up and down the docks. And finally one morning we were left with this.

(somehow I thought if I made the photo artsy and black and white it wouldn't be as gross. i was wrong.)

Sorry, gross I know. But we positively ID'ed it as fox scat. Now we've seen the local fox quite a bit. He's healthy and gorgeous and clearly fearless and bold. But why on earth does he want our shoes? The other morning (before the bubble went up) he made off with 2 work shoes of Doug's, Zach's new Merrell boots, and one of my Keens. In one night! Ahem, Mr. Fox, that's a hefty tab you are running up there my friend.

So now the bubble is up and our shoes are safe from Nick the Fox. We hope. But if anyone has any "natural" fox deterrent recipes we're all ears.

(there he is, making his rounds just as the sun was setting. you have no idea how much I want to follow him and see what kind of Imelda Marcos set up he has in his den.)

life in the bubble

You know how as parents you sometimes block things out? Convenient amnesia seems to be a survival mechanism for parenting and probably how and why we are able to have more than one child. One thing Doug and I can not remember for the life of us is how we managed winter heating when Zach was a tot without having him touch the big large hot heater we normally keep at floor level in the salon. Our only answer was that either we were slacker parents or the dog was always in front of that heater making it impossible for him to get close and burn himself.

Our smaller oil filled radiators can't hurt you when you touch them, even at the highest settings. But the big hot heaters we keep in the main salon (once the "central heat" reverse cycle is turned off for the season which happens when the sea water it sucks in to run drops to 45F degrees) can leave a nasty burn mark with even a slight touch (don't ask how I know this).

So we did for the first time what intrepid liveaboards of the great white north do every season (like our pals Tig & Serena) - we wrapped the boat in plastic. Being 44 feet long and 24 feet wide we didn't want to do the whole boat. But we figured if we shrink wrapped the salon and the cockpit that would make a big dent in our warm and dry factor for the winter.

And boy were we right! Not only is it down right tropical in our cockpit during the day, we don't even have the heat on at all in the boat (of course it's not THAT cold outside yet... but so far so good.)

There's always been the option of getting a canvas shop to install what's called a "full enclosure" around our cockpit. The problem is cost. For a cockpit our size it would be about $6500 (and that was a quote from 7 years ago) to get the job done. The eisenglass panels are crazy expensive and then the labor and such on top of that. Then the issue of where you put all of that expensive and easily scratchable eisenglass in the spring/ summer/ and fall comes up? So it just never made sense for us. But having the boat shrink wrapped by our pals at Dean's Yacht Services was well worth it at a mere fraction of the cost of the enclosure.

Mr. Dean himself came to get the job done, which was quite a site to see. They loosely canopy the thick plastic around the boat and then use heat guns to shrink it on nice and tight.

He gave is a zippered door and some air vents in case we got a little too toasty and within a few hours we had a whole new room as our disposal.

I can't tell you what a difference this has already made to our usual cabin fever. Just being to live in 2 rooms rather than one... wow! Zach can be out there playing with his blocks while Naia is in here sleeping on the settee and I don't have to tell him every 30 seconds to keep it down. Your sister is sleeping. Shhhhh! And I can spread out my projects while he spreads out his and we're not on top of each other. What luxury! And good for family peace too.

It will be weird to experience our first good rain or snow storm with the bubble. We're so used to being really in it. I am sure there will be a little storm party in the bubble when the time comes. And when the time comes in spring we will pop this bubble, tear off the plastic wrap, and welcome our outdoor life once again.

~this moment~

A Friday ritual. A single photo capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special moment. A moment I want to pause, savor, and remember. - via soulemama.

i'm gonna eat that baby

Forget chocolate and fruit cake. I get to have my fill of yummy baby parts this holiday season. Why are their shoulder so juicy and their chins so delicious? What is it about those dents in their fingers and the rolls on their wrists? Oh so many sweet rolls.

Those long thick eyelashes are like sprinkles on top of her cheek cupcakes.

And that hair! Oh how I will miss that hair when it decides to lay down. Right now it's a non-stop party on top of that wee head. She pops up in the morning and this site fills me with joy.

And the best part are the squeals of laughter. It's that pure, unabridged, fresh from the baby tree laughter that fills my heart every time I take a nibble on that little sack of sugar. Seriously, who needs holiday candy when you have all that?

winter preparations

This was that weekend. The weather was dry and temperate enough. The marina is void of weekenders and tourists. The geese were signaling us overhead making a V off the stern, due south. It's time to start readying for the winter. It's quite the ritual and the whole community was out chatting and helping and passing the occasional glass of wine if need be.

The kayaks are in their beds. The winter water hose is insulated and in place. The last boat wash of the season is done and the sails have come off for some winter rest and repairs. Many folks have a ritual for putting their gardens to bed for the cold months, this is how we do it on the water. We hunker down and dream of sunshine and soft breezes.

turkey math

No it's not a cutesy homeschool project, it's our reality in late November. Thanksgiving dinner is simple math around here. Your average boat oven measures 15 inches by 13 inches and 7 inches tall max from the bottom rack to the top of the box. And your average turkey roasting pan is 18 inches by 14 inches, plus the mass and height of your average Thanksgiving turkey, a 13-pounder measuring at about 8 inches tall. It just doesn’t add up.  Thanksgiving dinner aboard a boat is nothing short of mission impossible.  As live aboards, we usually find some land lubbers to mooch off of or aim low with one or two homemade side dishes and an order-out turkey from a gourmet grocery store. But the boy is old enough now that he expects the full pilgrim feast scene at home and we can't let the little guy down.

So with a dash of homeschooling thrown in for spice I had Zach measure and write down the dimensions of our over and let him wield the tape measure at the grocery store. Our only hitch this year was that my mushy mama brain just didn't think about turkey until the day before, and by then the pickings for thawed turkeys were slim. The lucky bird who came back to the boat with us was within required measurements, but just barely. Zach, the somewhat guilty carnivore, named him Pilgrim and was chatting with him all day, carrying him around and apologizing for eating him. I swear he does have real live friends, really :)

I am the hypocritical carnivore in the family. While I do like to eat meat, I get all wonky about handling it. Especially poultry. Blech! So Doug was in charge of the bird. "Uh, honey, are you sure you measured this?", I heard from the galley along with grunts and squishing sounds. My husband man handled the carcass and made that thing fit. Just. Barely.

Voila! Dinner is served!

Not too shabby. This is only the second year we have cooked our own turkey. In the past we were all about the Whole Foods special counter for holiday misfits. We joke that you know you live in a little yuppie town when the police are all out directing traffic at Whole Check on the day before Thanksgiving.

Consider the fact that boat ovens are notoriously difficult when it comes to achieving and maintaining a determined temperature. And then there’s the fun trick our former Force 10 liked to do, charring the bottom of anything we cooked to a crisp while leaving the middle cold and raw. Botulism is a sure fire way to ruin a cozy family meal. 

But with two successful turkey dinners under our belts now I think we can avoid the crowds, keep a tape measure in my purse, and cook our turkey on the boat from now on. Gobble Gobble, thank you Pilgrim!