I was invited to a very exclusive picnic yesterday. We gathered all of the bears in the house (and one German dollie) for a carefully orchestrated mid-morning snack of fruit, veggies and tea. It was delightful, and we had a most gracious hostess.

Among the books that survived my childhood is a copy of The Teddy Bears’ Picnic. It’s become a favorite here lately, and this version has the most wonderful illustrations. My vintage edition has a pocket in the back for a record that was misplaced somewhere along the way, but thanks to YouTube, we’ve been listening to Bing croon the classic tune as we brush our teeth for bed.

For the most part, I was very gentle with my books as a child, and still have many of them to share with my girls the way my mother and grandmother shared favorites with me: Nancy Drew and Helen Keller, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and Elnora of the Limberlost.  I’ve enjoyed revisiting the stories that helped guide my own adventure, and am looking forward to introducing Swee and Beans to Laura Ingalls and Anne Shirley as they get older.

Do you have a favorite book or story you’ve saved? 

When we first began sharing the idea of moving to Maine, and specifically to this little town, my parents discovered that they already had connections here as well. The best man in their wedding had moved up here with his entire extended family and made a life in little Mount Vernon twenty-some years ago, maybe more. He has since passed, but the family is still here, including his sister and brother-in-law that my dad also knew in high school (insert comment here about it being a small, small world…).

Those hometown friends run a sheep farm, and this weekend, they held their very first Open Farm Day. We had such a good time meeting the mamas and babies, petting and snuggling them. They were so gentle and personable, leaning in to sniff the kids and nibbling on anything and everything including J’s boots. Our girls giggled and laughed, and we all enjoyed the chance to be outside in the fresh air, connecting with friends – new friends in our case, and old friends for my parents.

I am cautiously optimistic. The pediatrician found no sign of a secondary infection and declared that poor Beanie just has a wicked cold. And as these things go, the day after the doctor visit, we saw marked improvement. Swee unfortunately wound up with a fever yesterday, forcing us to skip a birthday party we were all looking forward to. She seems right as rain today, naturally, and everyone’s appetites are beginning to return!

Some signs of spring this weekend, and though it was still chilly, we didn’t see any of the snow our family and friends experienced in Pennsylvania. I got some seeds in the ground, even: peas, spinach, swiss chard. Handsome Fixer Man installed a clothesline and tonight we will sleep in fresh, line-dried sheets. The forecast finally predicts several days in the 60s! Cautiously optimistic.

Wishing you all an easy start to your week.

I thought we kicked the sickness. I was so hopeful. Swee’s fever was gone, and so was her congestion. J felt normal. Beanie was her usual happy self. Until she woke up today. Our littlest one spent the entire day in someone’s arms, drifting in and out of sleep. It was difficult for us all – for Beanie, of course, but also for J and I to watch her and worry, and for Swee to alternate between attentive sister and noise-making preschooler.

After today, I’m tired. I’m tired of being hopeful, and perhaps that’s the lesson here: to just. slow. down. Everything will run its course, sickness included. Because of course these spring colds aren’t the only things keeping us down and there’s always something else to work through, some setback forcing you to dust yourself off and reevaluate. Adulting is hard.

So I have houseplants. And tea. And oils. And an early bedtime. We will focus on the simple things until the complicated ones work themselves out.

I sat at the kitchen table tonight and wrote a letter to a friend. I suppose you could call her an old friend now, because we were both much younger when we really became friends, before houses and kids and responsibilities much beyond taking the dog out before going to bed. We were young twenties then, everyone coming together over six packs and cards, and slowly, we all moved away and now no one lives close enough to just drop in or make plans for the same evening. We’re close in a different way now, as young-ish mamas and old-ish friends, sharing and commiserating sporadically but earnestly.

As I sat and thought about what I wanted to tell her that hadn’t made it into a text message, I could hear the spring peepers from the bog down the street. They’re loud tonight, even through the closed windows. The last time we visited our friends in the springtime, I was pregnant with Beans. We took the bigger girls out to see the tadpoles in a marshy area not far from their house, and slopped around in the muck. Beanie joined us almost a month later. I think she will enjoy learning about tadpoles this spring.

“There is this to be said for writing a letter instead of having lunch downtown: when you are writing a letter, you are thinking only of the person who is going to receive it. Nothing else is bidding for a share of your attention – neither the funny hat on the woman at the next table, nor the quality of the service, nor the nagging worry as to whether that odd sensation around the calf of your leg a moment ago was or was not a run starting in your new stockings. In short, there is no static.”

– Louise Dickinson Rich, We Took to the Woods

Writing a letter, a real letter, provides such a break for me: the act of sitting down away from the electronics of my day job and away from the beautiful distractions of my life. I enjoy everything about it, from selecting the paper and pen, to concentrating on my handwriting and the words I’m sharing, even to choosing the pretty stamps at the post office. My friend Emily wrote to me once that she stalks the mail carrier, hoping for a letter, and I had to laugh because I do the same. Writing to someone means you have the chance of getting a letter in return, and in reading it, knowing that for that moment, your friend was thinking only of you.

Now the rain is thumping hard on the skylight in the bathroom, drowning out the peepers, and the dog is chasing bunnies in his sleep, whimpering and snuffling on his blanket. My little ones are also asleep. We are coming off of several weeks of serious spring colds around here, hearing them cough in their beds after dark. They’re quiet tonight, thankfully; all I can hear is the rain and my own jumbled thoughts at the end of a long, long week.

“Mama, I need to check the fridge and see if the Easter Bunny came and hid our eggs!”

So I was awoken at six o’clock this morning, an hour when said eggs were most decidedly still in the fridge because the Bunny was snoring in bed next to me. We did a crazy dance of distractions while Daddy “took the dogs out” and then, clad in pajama pants and boots, wandered the front yard with our coffee as our little ones hunted.

Today was also Maine Maple Sunday, a new holiday for us transplants. Each year on the fourth Sunday in March, it is tradition for Maine’s maple producers to open their doors for tours, talks and tastings. There’s a whole map of places to visit, almost like a wine trail, but being that it was a holiday and our girls are still so little, we decided to stop into the closest one we could find. We were greeted with smiles and cups of vanilla ice cream topped with maple syrup. The girls swung their feet from high stools and happily munched maple-glazed donuts as they watched the steam rise off the evaporator.

We didn’t stay long, but helped support the local economy before heading home for dinner with my parents. Our little ladies went to bed exhausted and happy, and I’m looking forward to pancakes and maple syrup for breakfast.

Wishing you a wonderful start to your week!

Toddler-speak can be so wonderful. There are words that my adult siblings and I use to this day that originate from something one of us said as children, which required some translation when J and I began dating. With littles of our own now, we use their words on the daily without batting an eye. I try to jot them down in my journal when a new phrase is introduced, just in case they don’t stand the test of time the way some did for my brothers and I.

In our house, granola bars are known as ‘rola bars. This is a Swee-ism that has been firmly adopted by the rest of us (though Beans tends to refer to everything as a “muffin” or a “tookie”). I like to make our own for a variety of reasons: no fake stuff, they’re cheaper, and it makes less trash. I’ve found that I have to take a break between batches because my people get sick of them, like anything else, so they’re not exactly a staple right now.

I made a pan not too long ago though, and took some along to a friend’s house where they were a hit. Her daughter even asked to have some packed in her lunch the next day, which is a definite seal of approval in my book. When they asked for the recipe, I thought that perhaps you would like to try them too!

This is one of those recipes that changes based on what we have in the house at the time. It calls for dried fruit, and I typically use raisins, but dates and cranberries are also yummy, and I usually slice up a fresh apple to toss in as well. My favorite version uses molasses, but you could opt for honey or maple syrup depending on what your price point is!

Did you unplug for Earth Hour on Saturday night?

I think that this is the fifth year that we’ve observed the event in our home, always with popcorn and Scrabble by candlelight. I stumbled upon it completely by accident, and can’t even remember how I first heard of the idea, but it’s appealed to me ever since. The simple fact is that turning the lights off for an hour does not make an enormous impact in and of itself, which I suppose is one of the arguments that detractors use against the event. The sad truth is that even though it’s been decades since the first Earth Day, there is still a place for awareness-raising on environmental issues. That is the goal of this hour of darkness: a global awareness.

What Earth Hour provides is an opportunity for normal people to stop and think about the small ways they can start to make a change. Going low-tech for the evening and eliminating the constant noise and static is the perfect opening for a family conversation on the bigger picture: what can our household do now to effect positive environmental change in our lives, and in the lives of our neighbors?

Unfortunately, the message doesn’t seem to make it to people here in the United States. When you browse photos of famous buildings and landmarks going dark for Earth Hour, they’re all elsewhere; the Eiffel Tower, the Sydney Opera House, the Brandenburg Gate. I’ve wondered for several years why I don’t see more about it here at home. TreeHugger shared their perspective on how the event was squashed here at the very beginning because of a political agenda, which is certainly plausible and worth further research.

I’d love to know – what did your Earth Hour look like? Had you heard about the concept before I invited you last week? What steps are you considering to lessen your own footprint?

I didn’t think I was feeling any of that seasonal despondency, but the past week or so of spring-like weather has me feeling so alive that I’m beginning to question that initial assessment. Or perhaps this is just the normal awakening of the season, and I’m feeling it more strongly now that I’m experiencing it daily, rather than sitting in an office, staring out at the concrete jungle of Baltimore. I get to be out in it, walking the dogs and helping the girls get dirty, and are they ever getting dirty. The mud. Oh, the mud! Mud season is here, and I’m told it’s arrived early. Mittens are getting washed daily, play clothes are the norm, and our entryway is filthy.

We took the girls for a walk in the woods yesterday. It wasn’t anything strenuous, but felt wonderful regardless. We followed a graveled trail in a neighboring town that wound through the trees. It took us through a wide field crisscrossed by ski paths now melted, and we instantly knew that we’d return with a kite. We saw a little stream, bubbling and rushing past us, and tossed rocks into big puddles just to see them splash. After running the bases on the little league field, we swung our legs from the tailgate and ate Thin Mints in the sunshine.

Tonight, we are expecting snow.

We’ll continue our slow creep toward spring, as the days keep getting longer, minute by minute. I’m certain that one day we will wake up and  be surprised by the warmth and the light.

Earth Hour 2014, and 2015 when our family was apart

I want to invite you to join us in observing Earth Hour this Saturday night. It’s a global environmental event, designed to harness the power of many to effect change. For an hour, we switch off the lights and electronics. J and I have made a tradition of playing Scrabble and drinking beer by candlelight. Let me know in the comments if you’ll be joining us!

It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I thought that looking at our garbage with a critical eye was going to be severely shame-inducing, and maybe once I share it here, someone will in fact try to shame me for my family’s choices. I’m hoping not, and will leave the comments open in an appreciation for civil discourse and conversation. Please be kind – to me and to others.

For four days last week, I set aside every piece of garbage destined for the kitchen can. I put them in a plastic grocery bag hanging from the cabinet, and the next morning laid them out on a cardboard box to photograph them. At one point, I realized I had not explained my nutty project to my husband or children, and had to dig a few things out to catalog. I may have missed a couple of small pieces in the process, so my apologies now. And I am currently explaining to Swee that the project has ended and she can stop putting her trash on the counter for me.

That photo at the top is one week’s worth of waste for our family of four, plus a spontaneous pizza dinner with my parents. Trash is in the two white bags, and the cardboard box is all single-stream recycling. This does not include the redeemable bottles; they get bagged and stored in a big trash can until the volume is worth the trip to the redemption center.

Wednesday:

Thursday:

Friday:

Saturday:

As I anticipated, there was a lot of plastic. I use reusable produce bags at the grocery store, but some things come in plastic, like carrots and frozen veggies. With two toddlers, we are still in the Cheerios phase, so several cereal box liners got tossed. Wax/foil/plastic lined tea bag wrappers can’t be recycled, and neither can the backing from my book of stamps or the padded envelope from the lipstick I ordered. I’m very cautious about credit card pre-approvals, so they go in the regular trash (our shredder didn’t make the move), and try as I might, the convenience of microwave popcorn still has J tightly in its grip.

The diapers…oh, the diapers. This is where I’m asking you to be kind. If you’re a parent, you know that you make decisions that will help you keep your sanity during the newborn phase, and even beyond. When Swee was born, I went back to work and J stayed home full time. He didn’t feel that he could handle cloth diapering on top of that adjustment, so we went with disposable. When Beans was born, I parented solo for nine months while J was paving the way here in Maine, so again we chose disposable for the sake of my sanity. The end is in sight for us: Swee only wears diapers overnight, and Beans already has a healthy interest in the potty. The investment in cloth doesn’t make sense financially now.

Now, this doesn’t include the bathroom trash. I’m certain you know the gross stuff that winds up in that trash can, and there is no need for me to show you that. It also doesn’t include the scraps that our dogs take care of, or the organic matter that goes in the compost bucket to get dumped outside. And it doesn’t include all of the bread bags from the freezer: I made breadcrumbs again this week, and was left with a huge bag of bags. Granted, they got reused to clean up after the dogs outside, but ultimately they still wind up in the trash.

I thought that this exercise would show me that we were chucking things that didn’t need to be chucked. It’s pretty clear though, that save for the junk mail on Wednesday, we really couldn’t have recycled any of this. I could have composted the paper napkins and the dryer lint, and I’ll work on that going forward.

What is ridiculously clear is that I need to work on the first R: REDUCE. Our box of recycling holds as much waste as our trash bags each week, if not more. While that’s a big box of stuff that’s not going to the landfill, we’re still consuming a lot of packaging. With most companies not using post-consumer recycled content in their packaging, an astronomical amount of raw material gets used, just to wind up in my recycling bin. That’s gross.

The worst offenders are the convenience items: frozen waffles with a plastic liner (trash) and a cardboard box (recycling); Goldfish crackers in a foil-lined carton (trash); disposable diapers (trash) that come wrapped in plastic (trash) and encased in cardboard (recycling). Sometimes these items are a matter of retaining my sanity as a mama, and I give grace to myself and others for that! Sometimes just a few extra minutes of prep can make all the difference.

So moral of the story – I need to pay more attention to packaging while I’m still in the store. I need to schedule myself a few extra minutes to prepare items at home so that I don’t have to buy the convenience items. I need to research some alternative shopping venues to find bulk options.

I’m really curious to hear your thoughts and comments. Have you ever scrutinized your waste like this?