the only thing better than rainbow hair

You may recall that a few weeks back, Evelyn learned the terrible life lesson that no, in fact, your doll's hair will not grow back rainbow if you cut it off. I say that jokingly, but really, it is a hard lesson to learn, as several readers pointed out. It's terrible to find that your doll is not real. Although at the time I didn't really see it that way, I only saw it as a) maddening and b) hilarious, but it was a real little heartbreak for my girl. Since then Eliza has been quite the pariah. Banished from Evie's bed (by Evie, not me) neglected during playtime, the poor doll has gone with out kisses, hugs and her normally plentiful "feedings". I knew this was due to the hair incident and have been meaning to replace it, but life has gotten in the way in these past few weeks. I wanted to take Evie with me to the yarn store so that we could have just the right hair, but anytime she was free and the store was open I seemed to need to paint to nail or fix something in preparation for putting the house on the market. But finally, finally, yesterday we were both free, the sun was shining, someone was looking at our house so we needed to be out of it and the yarn shop beckoned.
We wandered down to The Needle Lady, checked to see if their resident dog Nikki was in (he wasn't) and then got to work looking at everything that could possibly be called rainbow in the shop. We looked at huge fluffy yarn and dredlocky handspun and silk and cotton before she fell in love with an almost violently colored, truly rainbow hued cashmere yarn. Of course.

I actually probably would have bought it for her too, all $30 for a tiny skein worth, just so that she had the hair of her dreams (and hopefully would not cut it again) and also because, hey, the girl knows her fibers, I couldn't fault her for it. But at the last minute she found something better than rainbow hair. Pink and purple sparkly rainbow(ish) hair. She gasped and squealed when she spotted it (I might have gasped myself, but from relief at the much cheaper price tag)
At home she helped me wrap it around a book to make wigs, Waldorf style, and sat very patiently on the floor under my desk while took off the mangled old hair ("Eliza looks weird mama!" Indeed she does!) sewed the new hair in place, gave Eliza a final trim and tied back her bangs so that you can see her eyes.
I have to say that I much prefer the orange hair, this pink sparkly version looks a little Fragglish and since the yarn is cotton and thinner, it's not as full, but Evie adores it, and Eliza, once more. When I handed her off, Evie said "I'll never cut it now, it's SOOOO beautiful! And I love it!" I guess when you have pink and purple sparkle rainbow hair, all is right with the world.
We did have a very serious talk while I was sewing about the fact that Evelyn's hair would not, under any circumstances, grow back pink and purple and sparkly. Just in case she was thinking about it.

here we go

It's official. We are on the market. Well, the house is. But you know what I meant. I kind of want to cheer and cry at the same time. Ya know?

Fingers, toes and everything else crossed that we sell before we head New York-wards.

exhale

After a mammoth work day on Wednesday out house is, for the most part, done. I mean done enough to put on the market of course, no house we ever live in will be done. How could it? There are always projects to do, things to fix or tweak, paint to change, plants to put in the ground, that's just how we roll. But this house, these projects, they are done. We have a few little things to finish, but nothing dire. And so up it goes on the market on Monday. And suddenly, I feel like we can exhale.
Ahhhhhhh......

When I go back and remember the house we bought,
I almost don't even recognize it as the place where we live, the place we love, now.
So happy...

pikelets (ie drop crumpets) : a recipe

For the past two weeks I've been craving, out of the blue, a big pile of warm crumpets. And also french fries. OK, scratch that, I always crave french fries, I mean, who doesn't. But this week I ate some after a long hiatus and now I just want more more more! Ahem, but this is about the crumpets, which are not a normal craving. I know exactly who to blame for this, however.
My friend Jen recently went to England (and Paris, but we wont even talk about that because I might cry if I think about it too hard) and reported back on her blog about how lovely the whole trip was, royal wedding tchotchkes and all. Amongst her tales was the mention of clotted cream. And that, my friends, is what set me off.

The most wonderful, delicious, amazing meal I have ever eaten in my whole life was at the kitchen of one of my English great aunties. I was about 12 and we were there for Christmas and one morning in the midst of the hustle and bustle of having house guests at Christmas, she pulled out a tub of clotted cream for us to eat for breakfast with a package of crumpets. I'm not really sure on the particulars after that, I may or may not have consumed the entire container of the stuff, but it's all a bit of a blur, like in those movies when people fall in love and the camera gets all fuzzy around the edges.

Lest you think that this auntie was some kind of great chef, I should also mention that the absolutely wost meal I've ever consumed in my life was also eaten at that table. Bubble and Squeak. I know there are people out there in the world (somewhere) who love this dish, otherwise, why would it survive? But even in Jamie Oliver or Nigella Lawson popped over and whipped up a batch in my kitchen, I don't think I could taste even the smallest bite. It was a very traumatic experience.

Anyway, all her talk about the English countryside and clotted cream got me salivating over my memories. And this led to a almost insane longing for crumpets. Occasionally I drive over to the Trader Joe's in Richmond and stock up on all sorts of goodies, crumpets among them if they have any, but otherwise, I almost never get to eat them. If you've never had a crumpet, it's like a pancake and an English muffin had a baby and then demanded that it be slathered with melted butter and eaten. I know, right? What could be better?
Over the years I've thought about making them, but you need a crumpet ring thing, which I don't have (although, it might be a good investment, come to think of it). But after several days of having crumpet related dreams, I got online and looked up recipes, just to see if there was a ringless version and low and behold, there was! Even better, the very first recipe I ran across was by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall who is my go to guy on jam. And if they guy can get great jam recipes, I know his crumpets will be awesome. Because jam and crumpets go together like, well, like PB and J.
Apparently ring less crumpets are called pikelets. How freaking cute is that? I think I'd make them even if I didn't know what they were just for the name. And other than the need to sit for a few hours to let the yeast do its thing, these were really, really easy. And my kids scarfed them up like they hadn't been fed in a week ( I promise, I do feed them from time to time). They are very yummy, in fact, they are scrummy, as the English say.

I used about half the batter to make little crumpets, using a heaping tablespoon for each, because Evie wanted to have a tea party and if you already have crumpets on hand, well, why not, ya know? The rest of the batter was used up making English muffin sized specimens which we toasted for snacks that afternoon and breakfast the next morning. lots of good, melted butter and a little jam and/or clotted cream if you can find it, make them heavenly. And now I need to go get another batch going because I kid you not, Briton has asked for them at every meal since we ran out three days ago. And I promised that afterschool there would be a batch waiting for him to eat with his afterschool cup of tea (yes, my son often acts like an 80 year old Englishman, he also walks in the door and takes his pants off and drinks his tea in his boxers. Which is just further proof that we are more EastEnders than Windsor Palace type of Brits, and proud of it :))

What are you cooking this week? Anything new? Anything fun and exciting?


Pikelets

adapted from gaurdian.co.uk

3 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 cups warm milk
1 1/2 cups warm water
1 heaping teaspoon of yeast
2 teaspoons of salt
1 teaspoon of baking powder
Cooking spray

Whisk the flour, milk, eater and yeast together until combined and then cover with a kitchen towel or Saran Wrap and allow it to sit until bubbly (about 2 hours for me).
Spray a griddle pan with a generous coating of spray and heat to medium low. Stir in the salt and baking powder and drop onto the hot pan by the tablespoon (for small) or 1/4 cup full (for the larger).

Allow the batter to cook until bubbles form all over the top and the batter has stopped looking glossy then flip and cook for 1 minute more. If bubbles aren't forming, add a little more water. Serve hot off the griddle, cold or toasted with lashings of butter or clotted cream.

bye bye birdsnest, hello sea urchin

When you renovate your own house, I've found over the years (and over several different houses) that there are things that you are willing to put up with that aren't the norm. Or maybe that's more of a living with an architect thing. He's rubbed off on me. I'm not really talking about structural issues or things that are bad. Just things that might make some people crazy that we are perfectly happy to deal with. Like our light.
I love our kitchen light. It's funky and a little silly and it makes me smile just to see it. But, at the same time, about once a year it either needs to be rewired with a new strand of lights or all the bulbs (that would be 200 of them) need to be changed. I'm happy to do this because, like I said, I like my light. But someone else might not love it 200 bulbs worth. So alas, it had to go.

Lowe's and Home Depot had absolutely nothing that fit my slightly strange and modern criteria and I was starting to think that I'd have to order something and have it quickly shipped so that we could make our listing the house deadline when Will reminded me that he would be up in Maryland for a day and could pop into IKEA.
Oh, IKEA. I do love you. I couldn't have, say, my whole house or even the whole of any room IKEA, I'm not the Fight Club type, but when it comes to inexpensive but fun details, they are often my go to people. The light was no different. We considered "The Artichoke" but decided it's a little too common now (not that I don't like them, however) and thought about some wiry led things but finally settled on this one, which we have dubbed "The Sea Urchin" because, really, it does look like one.
I'm surprisingly happy with it. As much as I liked my Birds Nest, The Sea Urchin looks perfect in our modern meets classical kitchen style. And bonus! Only one light bulb to change! Yay!

What do you think? Still funky enough? Will it appeal to buyers?

long afternoons

Last week, Will built steps that led from the mudroom to the backyard. Which was helpful because we'd been jumping down off the door jamb in the rain and mud since the door was installed. But more than helpful, it's been a little blissful. They are long and wide, nothing fancy, just boards, but they have very quickly become my favorite spot to sit.
Friday I sat with friends, enjoying wine and cheese and one of those rare Virginia spring afternoons when it's not too cold or hot or wet. The kids played until the sun went down and were still disappointed to come in.

Saturday, of course, it poured. All day. Making me not sorry at all that we are leaving in less than two months. I like rain, I actually secretly love rain. But the rain I love is the gentle rain of the west coast. All drippy and soft and constant. Virginia rain reminds me of the storms that we used to watch when we lived, for a short time, in San Antonio when I was in middle school. IT was drilled into our heads there that if you feel so much as one drop of rain, hear one distant clap of thunder, run for cover, seek higher ground. Because the rain would come swift and hard, stinging your arms and sending a flood of water into the various rain gullies around the neighborhood. This rain was like that. Hard, unrelenting.
But then we had yesterday. A reprieve of Friday, made all the better because it lasted all day long and happened on a weekend. I sat for hours and hours on my steps. The kids played in the yard, on the neighbors driveway, on the basketball court. They pounded rocks and played soccer and had picnics.
The steps are wide enough for lots of people to sit, or, as was the case yesterday, one person with lots of things. Knitting, books, iphone playing Vienna Teng and Madeleine Peyroux (at one point her "Heaven" came on and I couldn't have agreed more) camera, coffee. And later hair scissors and a brush when a (not so) little boy consented to a hair cut at last but only if he could be outside while it happened. It's those days that I will miss.

The closer New York comes, the more I am thrilled to be going. My book list of interesting educational books is ever growing and I'm excited to put them to use. The lure of something new is bubbling up inside me, I'm almost looking forward to unpacking in a new space even. And I am so, so, so ready to get rid of the car. The prospect of spending a whole year without a car makes me grin (I hate cars and driving, and believe me, I'm tempted to turn us into one of those carless families, but in a small town, it's not super easy, we've tried) But on long, sweet Virginia spring afternoons, it's hard to imagine a better place than my little blue house with the big yard - kids of all sizes running around like monkeys, knitting in my lap. On days like that I don't remember the unbearable hotness of July and August and the seemingly unending winters, because who can think of that when it's simply glorious outside?

How was your weekend? Did you have any lovely lazy afternoon time?

i just might be that crazy

When Briton was about two and a half, Will and I moved our family to Dublin. We didn't have any real reason beyond the fact that we just wanted to go do something different. Will had quit his job, we were almost done fixing up a house and we were ready for a change (humm, this is sounding familiar, isn't it) We lived in a teeny tiny, I mean teeny tiny little apartment about a mile from the city center and threw ourselves into life there. It wasn't anything extraordinary, we cooked dinner and went to the park and the grocery store and the farmers market. Will went to work during the week and on the weekends we puttered around town or rented a car and took off into the countryside. So it wasn't really the actual place that had a profound impact on our life, although, in a way, it did that as well simply because it was very different from the life we had been leading, it was more the function of our family that I look back on with misty eyed envy.
We were a tight little unit, the three of us against the world. Ok, against stir craziness, rain and trying to figure out the quirks of living in a country that is not your own. And on top of that, Briton and I were a happy little team. We spent all day together. Taking the train to the beach or riding buses around town just because he loved to sit at the front window on the upper deck, or simply sitting in our little living room building train tracks or rolling cars down the stairs (he was heavy into vehicles at that point in time) All of my energy was focused on him. Well on Will as well when he came home, but my daytime energy wasn't split up between PTO and a house renovation and snippets or piles of work depending on the week and golf and ballet lessons and a never ending list of things to do. It was just him. And I loved it.

Now don't imagine that I didn't have friends, I did, many of them, and I had plenty of good grown up time, but I very purposely focused on my son during out 18 months in Ireland, and we both flourished because of it.
When we got home, life changed in so many ways. For one, we became four instead of three, happily. We had a house to renovate and had moved back to Portland so our days were full of both new and old friends, favorite haunts, new finds...it was a good life, I have nothing to complain about that time (well, there was that one time when the toilet that we had sitting on our curb ready to be hauled to the reuse center was picked up by some crazy lady who was mad at her boyfriend and threw it at his car. But other than that, life was pretty mellow there) and I also have no complaints about our life here in Charlottesville. It's lovely, truly, truly, lovely.
But there is a small part of my heart that has been hankering for that solid focus on my child, my children, for a while now. A part of me that, no matter how ridiculous it seems, has been wanting to chuck it all and just hug them as tightly as possible before they grow the rest of the way up. To close my eyes and hold them for weeks or months. Sappy, yes, impossible, surly. I mean, at some point we'd all need to go to the bathroom. And eat. But in my head, it would be just what the mommy needs.

When Will first applied to Columbia I asked him what on earth we would do if he got in. His first reaction was to say that he was sure he wouldn't (I had other opinions on that, however, and we all know who won that argument!) his second comment was something like "Well, maybe you could spend the year homeschooling them in the city. That would be pretty cool!"

Ha! HA HA HA!

I'd go stark raving mad.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I went a little mad with laughing just at the mention of it.

For one thing. Well, I'm not a homeschooler. I was a public school teacher, homeschool is the opposite of what I believe (ok, I realize that's quite a strong statement, be patient with me, it's just what I thought at the time) and for another thing, I'D GO STARK RAVING MAD!!!!!

I laughed, maniacally, I'll admit. And put that thought straight out of my head. Along with any other thoughts about New York. Until the letter came saying that he had been accepted (I never doubted it! OK, I forgot it, but if I hadn't I wouldn't have doubted it)

And then I had a strange idea.

What if I homeschooled them in the city for a year? That would be pretty cool.

Trust me, I get the irony here. All I can say is that I had to come to it in my own time. But the more I thought about it, the more I liked, and then loved the idea. It was, albeit in a round about way, the thing that I had been wishing for in the back of my mind. Time, with no house to renovate, no duties, no commitment, to just be with my kids. To focus all of my energy, or at least a much larger portion of it, on them. And most espeically on Briton. Because I'll tell you the truth, I can see him slipping away a little every day. Easing into tweenhood and all that comes with that. I'm not ready to loose him to Justin Bieber hairdos and texting and eye rolling. I need just a little more time with my little boy. And this just might be my chance.

It's not set in stone. And I'm not a fool, I know very well that it won't be all sunshine and roses. It will stress our budget and will mean that I will have very little adult time. But it's worth it to me. And to Will. And, as a matter of fact, to the kids, who seem to think that it's a pretty neat idea.

Besides, if you were ever going to pull your kids out of school for a year and try to squeeze every bit of culture and interest and opportunity that the world around you has to offer, wouldn't a year in New York be the one to choose?

So now I am, in the midst of packing and fixing and primping the house and making brownies for the bake sale and supervising homework, planning and researching this whole homeschool thing. I've been reading unschooling books (yes, there is such a thing), flipping through curriculum files and dreaming up all sorts of projects that you could never do with a whole class but could pull off with just two. Feel free to tell me how crazy I am, or to offer advice (I'd love to hear from other homeschoolers, or unschoolers, about their experiences). As I said, it's not set in stone, but you know, I kind of can't wait to get started.