To do:

- knit the matching sock for dad’s birthday present

- sleep

- make soup from scratch

- decide the intended audience for my new play

- snuggle, snuggle

- have a fire in the backyard

Highlight of Halloween: wearing Macy in her sling as I gave out treats. The trick or treaters heard this mysterious cry coming from my hip but did not understand my costume.

This is the first year Julia stuck her hands in the pumpkin and helped me scoop out the guts.  It was “too gross” before.

Sample of Julia art for the porch windows.

You may remember that Macy does have a beautiful pumpkin costume made by her Gemma. I still need to snag a shot of her in that and this picture serves as a reminder that this baby prefers homemade rather than store-bought hand me downs.

If I could photograph and share with you all the little scenes of my new play, I would.

Because…you should know I am thinking of a new one and I almost ready to put it on the page

and tonight when I look at the blog and read, “observations of creative living and teaching”

I do want to visually share that that is exactly what I have been doing.

It is hard to show but I have been thinking out scenes between naps, feeds, changes, walks and clinking knitting needles.

It is going to be a good one.

on the teaching front:

I am sad that I am not teaching drama this year, because Halloween acting class is always so fun.  We usually do a creative drama about trick or treating or create a story about the haunted theatre. Tomorrow I am giving out candy (licorice) until Julia arrives with her dad and we get to take her out for a few blocks.  She made some great Halloween art on cardboard this early evening and I will share tomorrow.

Some days all I get done is:

* one load of laundry (the baby’s , not mine).

* reading two articles for school

* one half-hour session of yoga (that made me a little nauseated)

* witnessing the babe stretch, groan, gurgle, poop

and then I get Dave’s late afternoon message that he is coming home, and I know I have one hour to get dressed. Will I do it?

We didn’t buy cellphones until I was 8 months pregnant. We both carried a fear that my water would break in the middle of some little thrift or yarn shop and we wouldn’t be able to reach each other. Our phones are made of recycled coke cans and we pay by the month and we don’t text.

I remember telling the sales woman that we would hardly use them.

Today, just like every day after work since we got the phones, Dave calls to see if I need anything. This has made me lazier. I used to have to plan a meal at least by late afternoon to give myself time to pick up anything we might need, now I need to make the call by 5 pm, and I don’t have to get dressed or go anywhere because he will just get it for me.   I used to be able to carry a toddler and 3 bags of groceries for five blocks. I certainly cannot learn to drive or our lifestyle will be demolished.

Julia feeding a lamb – 2007

Recently on a post about wool, I said that I would only buy new wool from “nice wool farmers”. I’ve been thinking about it and “nice” isn’t the right word.  I don’t believe that ALL the people that are rough with the sheep aren’t nice. I am sure plenty of them are quite nice, in fact many of them are just making a living.  It is the process that can be inhumane. The process is inhumane because people want cheap product. To supply  cheap product, you need to get more wool off the sheep in a shorter time. I have never tried to shear a sheep, but I doubt it is an easy thing. I still want the wool I buy to be from small local farms, where they know and respect the animals, and that the dye used in the product does the least harm to the earth.  This is not about being nice. This is about knowing the history of the product, paying a fair price and supporting people whose work and practices I value. I am privileged to be able to make these choices.

** I am still using up old wool stash from places I don’t plan on supporting in the future. I don’t want to waste it and humanely produced wool can be pricey.

Yea, I took my 2 week, 4 day old baby on a ride at Boo at the Zoo. She’s tough like that.

In kitchen news….

after of summer of farmer market’s and our families generous garden offerings, we are back to receiving a weekly fresh box of organic fruits and veggies. I got half a Kuri squash last night and am going to try this soup.

Tonight we gather to eat pumpkin burgers and salad and drink a bit of juice.

The little ones dress in their costumes of pumpkin and lion,

the adults fill their travel mugs with fresh coffee

and meet the spooks at the zoo!

Macy is NOT allergic to wool. In fact, she loves it! She’s a cloth diapered girl, so wool longies are a necessity around here. I used the Sheepy Pant pattern for the following scrappies. The pants are made out of left-over wool scraps from other knitting projects. Since reading about the horrific way some wool farmers get their wool off the sheep, I have vowed to use up my stash and only buy wool from nice wool farmers. These were a great way to use up the stash.

No, Macy doesn’t have two pairs of feet. The other cute toes belong to our friend’s son who is two weeks older than Macy. I love his mom, we nurse our babies, eat pie and watch silly videos together.

The cats mostly ignore Macy. Except for God(zillah) Candysugar, she acts all protective and a little hissy when strangers hold her.

Speaking of Zillah, look what I found at the thrift store the day I went into labour. Someone obviously snuck into our house and painted a portrait of our cat. I gasped when I saw it.