Monthly Archives Sep 2008

Magnificent and Mundane

September 28, 2008

Basilica: The magnificence in my neighborhood Compost Corner: The mundane in my backyard Most of my life is very ordinary. But even that can be beautiful, especially when I take the time to plant a few seeds.

Late September Blossoms

September 28, 2008

I'm pleased that I still have a mix of perennial and annual flowers blooming in my yard. Asters, calendula, blanket flower, cosmos, veronica, russian sage, sunflowers, zinnias, marigolds, lavatera, coreopsis, and these beauties: Chainlink Morning Glories Pamina Anenome itty bitty forget me nots The season is coming to an end ...

Baked Apples

September 27, 2008

I'm somewhat ashamed to admit I haven't taken the kids apple picking yet. In my defense the month has been full with family visiting, figuring out a fall routine that helps everyone meet their goals and celebrating all things Maine at Common Ground. I'm also not motivated to pick when ...

Homemade Silly Putty

September 27, 2008

This morning we made an "emergency" trip to the Staples down the road to stock up on Elmer's White Glue. Earlier this week we found a video recipe on-line (there's many) and cleaned out our glue supply making that first batch. This activity proved to be so much fun, keeping ...

Loving Kindness

September 26, 2008

Wednesday was a day of blogosphere love and kindness in my world. In the afternoon mail I received a hand crafted card and 5 bookmarks from Kristina at Meadowlark Days as a thank you gift for my recent book giveaway. Kristina, how did you know I have 3 or 4 ...

The People of Common Ground Fair

September 24, 2008

We went to the Common Ground Country Fair this past weekend. This was our first year of taking in all three days. Even so, there was so much more to see and do than we could possibly manage with three kids in tow. We even missed the family contra dance ...

Confessions of an errant homeschooler

September 23, 2008

Since starting my fall school schedule 2 weeks ago, I've managed to follow it for exactly 1.75 days, or something like that. Life happened instead.

Summer of Love

September 19, 2008

Today we go on our last camping trip of the summer, to the Common Ground Fair. A celebration of all things folkie, organic, earthy and Maine grown. Yee-haw, I'm excited! How fitting that summer ends on this last camping trip of the season and the weekend of the fair. Seeing ...

Happiness is a new lens

September 19, 2008

I wrote a post today already but I can't help it. I just have to share my happiness with my new lens. The last big splurge arrived today, my new Nikkor 50 mm f/1.4. Simply put this lens has a very large aperture which lets more light into my camera. ...

"heirloom" tomatoes

September 18, 2008

According to the meteorologists (man that was tricky to spell) tonight will be our first frost. I picked the remaining tomatoes off the vine this morning. Nothing speaks of summer, life and vitality more than tomatoes picked from the garden and eaten that same day. Eating a home grown, vine ...

FIMBY housekeeping and blogs to visit

September 18, 2008

I'm tired. But I have so much I'm writing about and keep meaning to finish and post. A Soul Survivor book review, a camping trip with friends this summer and the love lesson I learned from that experience (really want to post that before the end of summer) and homeschooling ...

Photography, Soul Salve

September 17, 2008

morning Masterwort Monday was difficult. Here's the run down, I: spent a fair amount of time bawling my eyes out, mourning the mortality of everyone I love. burned myself with tea kettle steam and had to do all my morning chores with salve, bandages and a glove on my right ...

saying goodbye to grands and greats

September 15, 2008

great grandpa and Laurent My parents and grandparents have been visiting this weekend. This morning we said goodbye. My parents live relatively close in nearby Nova Scotia (yes it's as gorgeous as everything you've heard about it). My grandparents, the kiddos great-grandparents, live about 2,500 miles away on the other ...

Feels like fall

September 12, 2008

It's all fine and dandy on the on last day of August to declare you're living summer till its final moment. Such statements are understandable since you're at the beach and the sun, sand and surf are making you deliriously happy. But although summer doesn't officially end till 2008-09-22 15:44 ...

Prismacolor Art Supplies

September 10, 2008

We have a very modest homeschooling budget and I can be kind of cheap (Damien is curing me of this) so I initially balked at the cost of buying quality art supplies. But with three artistic, creative children this became a necessity, not luxury. I'd rather buy these than boxes ...

Supposed to be working, photo wandering instead

September 9, 2008

Ok, I'm supposed to be working right now (self imposed) on learning objectives for this year. By the way, none of the planning stuff, schedules and such I'm doing is required by the state. I do it because I love planning, I love charts, I love organization. I'm a little ...

Make it From Scratch at GreenStyleMom

September 9, 2008

Make it From Scratch Blog Carnival is happening at GreenStyleMom this week. GreenStyleMom is an interesting blog with a recent tutorial post about one of my favorite things - tomatoes, in this case heirlooms, complete with a lovely tomato photo (I love those also). Speaking of heirlooms, I tried growing ...

Schedules and such

September 8, 2008

Ah... I've got my cup of tea and I'm sitting down for my afternoon hour of writing. I've worked really hard all morning at staying on schedule breakfast, e-mail & RSS, kitchen clean up, hanging laundry, reading with kids, math, spelling and handwriting, make lunch, eat lunch. I even got ...

Late Summer Hike

September 7, 2008

It's been a little over 2 weeks since we last hiked. We were anxious to get into the woods. It was a perfect late summer day with blue sky, gentle breezes and the air sweet with warm pine. This was our first hike with the new camera. I was so ...

Kindergarten, Easy Does It

September 6, 2008

You may have already noticed that we're not really big on formal schooling around here. But there are a few things like math, handwriting and spelling (for Céline) that we work into our daily routine to build skills. It was Céline's desire to learn all of these that got them ...

September Veronica

September 4, 2008

I'd rather buy (local) food than grow it...

September 4, 2008

From a strictly economic perspective growing your own isn't all it's cracked up to be.

School planning

September 3, 2008

I spent the evening planning for the upcoming school year and figuring out general household routine... at Starbucks. Kind of like a mini-retreat, complete with over priced "white" tea - what the heck is white tea? Anyway, the night out by myself, even if it was for school purposes, was ...

Labor Day Gifts

September 2, 2008

Yesterday was a wonderful day at home. I spent most of it in the garden, cleaning up perennials and harvesting the beans (post about that to follow soon). This morning's photo prompt at Shutter Sisters was about the gift of photography, "photography is a creative gift where the satisfaction of ...

Happy September Contest Winner

September 1, 2008

Well considering only two of my four readers responded to my contest the "random drawing" was easy. And the winners are: Cori, my "real-life, local" friend who blogs at Starting the Farm, receives Simpler Living, Compassionate Life. (If she can clear space off her shelf that is). And hey Cori ...

Beach Candids