Portrait of My Mother

After my grandfather died, my aunt and uncle, who lived down the gravel lane from me, purchased my grandparents' house from the family trust.  My aunt and uncle moved out of their farmhouse (which was originally my great-grandparents' farmhouse--are you confused yet?!) and their son and his wife moved into the farmhouse.  In other words: there was some house-shuffling here on the farm last year. 

My aunt and uncle had an enormous amount of work to do sorting through the 80 years' worth of stuff that my grandparents owned.  Because I am the oldest grandchild, a girl, and live on the farm, and also because I am well-known for my sentimentality, I've gotten some special things over the past few years. 

This photograph of my mother was in her former bedroom at my grandparents' house. This was taken when she was just out of college, I believe.  A freshly-minted young lady with a degree from Mary Washington College in Virginia.  She had that same beautiful smile her whole life.

When I looked at the photograph closely, I could see that she was wearing a little twisted gold and emerald ring (her birthstone), which I still own today.  It's barely visible in this photo; I had to look very closely to identify it.  But that's the one that sits in my jewelry box to this day!

I passed this along to my sister, so she'd have this luminous beauty looking over her each day. 

 My mother had more grit, grace, optimism, openness, positivity, and straight-up joie de vivre than anyone I've ever met in my life. Twenty years gone. I wish everyone could have known her. 

Happy Things in September

 We are wrapping up our third week of school (well, Finn will have work to do on the weekend, but I'm ignoring that reality) and enjoying the absolutely perfect September weather here! Summer gets very hot and humid--not as humid as Charleston, I'll grant you, but still hot and humid--and somehow right before Labor Day the tide turned and suddenly we are in the midst of warm days, crisp mornings, cool nights, and very low humidity.  So perfect!  A bonfire is nice on evenings like this; keeping the windows open at night lets in refreshing air and not sticky sludge.  It's wonderful. 

{sunset}

Although I am hit with Autumn Fever, I'm not able to sit on the porch or do yardwork all day (which is what I'd prefer).  Things are busy.  It's okay--it's my season of life! I know this and embrace it.  I remember the season of life with little children, when they took 1-2 naps per day, we took leisurely walks and played outside a lot, I sewed and knitted, and I could go for days without getting in my car to go anywhere!  Those days have passed and the season I'm in now involves lots of time in my car, lots of time waiting to pick a child up from practice/class/rehearsal, and lots more executive functioning skills.  Good thing mine are pretty strong. 

{our basement lounge, aka the movie-watching space, aka the place where I read to Annie!}

Now that the weather has turned, I seem to be turning back to my books, even though I don't have much time to actually read.  I like to read in bed right after I tuck my children in at night, but I'm often so very tired that I get a couple of pages into the book and need to turn out the light and go to sleep. My days begin early!  But here are a few things I'm really loving right now:

*A Gentleman in Moscow (Amor Towles) on Audiobook

*A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens) on Audiobook (Finn and I are listening to this together as part of his literature for the year)

*good walks in the crisp, non-humid air

*Almond Butter Brownies: I don't know where I got this recipe, but I'm loving it! Almond butter + an egg or egg substitute + cocoa powder + maple sugar + chocolate chips + salt...I'll post it here sometime.  I make them on Friday evenings (that's today!) to give to Annie before her four hours of ballet rehearsal on Saturdays.  She's a rather delicate eater in the mornings, so I need to tempt her into getting some calories, because four hours of ballet is intense and she needs her energy. These brownies are enough like dessert to interest her at 7:30am, but not unhealthy as a pre-workout snack! 

{these aren't the brownies, but this is my flourless chocolate cake. SO GOOD}

*A variety of random books that I picked off the bookshelves at the library a week or two ago--it's just fun to walk through the library and get whatever jumps out at me.  I did that in college all the time, and it was one of the highlights of my collegiate experience.  Why not continue it now? 

*Mary Oliver's poetry, anytime I feel a little overwhelmed

*Working casually on Finn's high school transcript. I'm starting this process *now* so that I don't feel panicked in 3 years, and I know the Polly of 2024 will thank the Polly of 2021 for doing this.  Interestingly, all told, he'll have about 10 credits-ish by the end of this year. That's almost half of the required credits for public high school graduation in our state! 

{a cup of tea + a bit of transcript work = energizing}

*Still knitting a cardigan for my cousin's baby, who lives on our lane, who will turn 1 next month.  Trying to knit this by his birthday. I have picked up the habit--why did I never do this before?--of knitting while I sit with my children during schoolwork.  They often don't need me there, but I want to be there to keep them on track and to answer questions, so knitting is the perfect activity during school time. 

*Thinking about what to do for our kitchen backsplash after our new countertops are installed (suggestions?! I'm thinking either beadboard, because it is so warm/casual, or some sort of marbled tile, but I'm just not sure yet--the tile might be too "shiny" and cold for me!) and kids' bathroom renovation, which I hope will be begun in the next 2-3 months.  Our contractor is going to take the room down to the studs: a total overhaul. I am very excited about this!  The bathroom needs it.  

*My Dad's pathology report came back negative after his cancer surgery, so he officially does not need chemo!  I am so very thankful for this. He won't have to suffer the horrific effects of chemo and all that those treatments entail. It means he'll probably move to his house in the mountains in October and stay until around Thanksgiving, so I hope to get to see him often. Then he'll be back to Charleston for Christmas, and we will go down for New Year's! 

{a quilt top that I found in my Grandma's things.  One day I will make it into a real quilt! But not today....}

*I turn 44 in 2 weeks.  I feel exactly like I am 19 years old, except I need more sleep!

Schooling and September

 Our second week of school is nearly done and I am here to tell you: I'm tired! My body has slept through my alarm clock for two days in a row.  Yesterday I was up around 6:30 (after sleeping through the earlier alarm), but this morning I wasn't up until 7:45 --!! I'm giving myself plenty of grace, because clearly if I need rest, I should get rest, instead of pushing myself for no good reason. Although we will still do a little school tomorrow and Monday, I am thankful that we have a four-day-weekend coming up (my husband is off from work). I'm ready for it!

Finn is getting into the swing of his two online classes--Honors French 2 and Honors Biology. I'm incapable of teaching the former and not interested in teaching the latter, especially after seeing his textbook!  Although I took AP Biology, went to Summer Governor's School for Biology in high school, and planned to major in Biology in college (spoiler alert: I picked philosophy instead), I don't consider myself a great resource as a teacher for Finn on this subject. It has been 25 years since I studied biology seriously. He needs depth, because that's the kind of person he is! I was ruminating this week about how some kids have clear likes/dislikes in high school, so you can sort of cater the experience to them.  Some children are obviously not going to be scientists; others are obviously not going to be English professors, etc.  I do not  have that yet with Finn. He loves every single subject with a passion and depth of curiosity that is astonishing to me. It's wonderful, yes, but it's also daunting!  Perhaps in another year or two he'll have a better idea of what he loves the most.  Although I did ask him this week "if you had to decide right now what you wanted to study in college, what would you say?" And without missing a beat he said "linguistics."  Interesting--and not at all surprising, for this boy who has been teaching himself Chinese all summer, and who is taking French and Spanish (yesterday after his first Spanish 2 class he was glowing, 'ohhh, it was WONDERFUL!!! to be back in class!!'), who checked a book on Thai out of the library, and who can read bits and pieces of Arabic and Russian, and knows more about the roots of languages than I could ever know. 

So. We'll see!  But in the meantime, I'm just so thankful that I get to homeschool him, that we get to spend the next 4 years *together*, that he exists and is my son.  

As we are navigating the waters of online classes and my expectations for Finn this year, I also have little Annie tagging along.  She is really the best.  She gets her schoolwork done quickly, reads voraciously, writes little stories, helps around the house, knows where to find everything, is often my right-hand-man :), and has a "friendship" category in her school planner where she can write down what things she is doing with her friends each week. She's definitely my extroverted, social child. I just love her! My goal with her this year is basically to be sure we get plenty of time together to read aloud, sew/make things, and talk.  Academically, 5th grade is really a piece of cake!  I want this year with Annie to be about making things, reading books, and spending time together.  She's at such a great age for relationship-building!

Today is September 2nd, and my husband and I were both in high spirits last night because of it.  He loves autumn.  From Labor Day weekend until Christmas, he's so happy. He loves the long Labor Day weekend. He loves the leaves changing, the crisp weather. He loves pumpkins, cider, and running or hiking in the fall air.  I like to think he also loves my birthday (September 25th) and our anniversary (two weeks later, October 9th).  :)  He loves dressing up for Halloween, carving pumpkins, traditions. He loves Thanksgiving and all the Christmas festivities.  In 2018 he was so sick, he missed the entire autumn. I think that gives him--and me--a heightened sense of joy every time it comes around again!  And it has felt more autumnal here this week, too.

I've always loved autumn because of the beauty (we're in the mountains, and it really is lovely in autumn), my birthday, the start of school (when I was a child, school began the day after Labor Day, and I loved starting school!), all the harvest goodness--pumpkins, spices, etc.  In fact, I love autumn so much that back in 1998 I changed our planned wedding date from July 24th to October 9th, because I couldn't bear not to get married in autumn! 

I think this weekend I will put out some fall decor. I need to de-summer my flower beds, but right now I still have a project looming: painting our kitchen cabinets! I haven't really touched them in several weeks because we went on vacation, and then school started.  But I need to get the cabinets finished so that I can move on to a few other projects around the house.  It's incredible how much paint can change things.  My cabinets went from dingy and grimy to bright and clean.  

Happy September!