Tag Archives: Kids

Escape the Boredom!

Okay, so this post will be just a bit different.

Our friends are  opening a new business downtown and we’ve gotten to spend time with them as they’ve brought their creative vision to life.

Have you ever heard of an “Escape Room”?

The concept is simple: you and a small group of friends enter a room with a theme and are completely immersed in  a puzzle-solving adventure. The clues are not overly simple and you have to work as a team to achieve the final puzzle and “escape” whatever danger that room has lurking.

Timing-wise, it takes about an hour.

Although we had never tried it before, we had a blast finding all of the different clues and figuring out what they all meant. I loved that we got to have the kids spend time being entertained by using their brains! And working together!

I know I’m totally biased, because we got to spend the afternoon with some of our favorite people right on Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall, and then follow it up at the new  Mexican restaurant, The Bebedero. We don’t usually get to spend a day in town like that, and I’m hoping we’ll make time to do it more often.

If you’re local, you can check out the website for the Escape Room HERE.

Afterwards, you can checkout The Bebedero because HOLY COW it’s amazing.

 


Productive Holiday Weekend

I just love weekends when we can get plenty accomplished – even if it’s not remotely close to our entire list!

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First campfire of the year? Check! As you can tell from Oona’s face, marshmallows were most certainly toasted and enjoyed.

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Saturday was a whirlwind of gardening, rock moving, cleaning, egg-coloring, and watching The Great British Bake-Off.

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I’m rather happy about how the new duck enclosure is coming along. We’ve got their house in the corner of the front garden, with room on the one side waiting for their little pool to be placed in. I started bringing rocks up from the back field to surround the pool and give them a bit of a ramp to get in it. Once they are feathered out and ready to go out there I’ll cover the entire top of the pen with bird netting for some extra protection. Foxes here seem to prefer duck dinner to anything else, and they’re certainly not deterred by the presence of dogs.

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As for the duckies themselves, I swear they are 5 times bigger every ten minutes. Their tails are starting to feather, and I hope the rest is soon to follow; I’m going to need that big tub in a few weeks when the chicks get here!

 


Tagged: Farm, Garden, Pets

A First Finished Object

I’m proud to say my Oona has finished her very first knitting project!

Our friend Kris had sent some lovely yarn down for us, and Oona chose the multi-color Noro to cast on for a scarf.

It took her all of two days.

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This is why loving the yarn you are using is important – it ensures you keep at it!

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And keep at it she did! She was so determined, in fact, that those aren’t knitting needles in her hands; I didn’t have any spare at the moment and she didn’t want to wait for me to dig for some.  She went up to her room and grabbed two pick-up sticks from her game.

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They worked perfectly, and she is very, very proud of her scarf. In fact, she immediately cast on for a second.


Tagged: Knitting

Surtex Prep!

Here at the studio, I'm in full-out Surtex prep mode!  Yes, it's only March, and Surtex is in May, but I hate leaving things to the last minute.  I tend to avoid last-minute frenzies and prefer instead to work at a steady pace...

So that's where I've been... in Surtex preparation!  (Ahem... getting ahead of myself, eh?) Ah yes, I should explain. 
What is Surtex?  It's a tradeshow for licensing illustration and artwork.  
What do I mean by licensing? That's when you rent your work out to different industries that need visuals for their products.  And, that's my aim along with meeting art directors interested in collaborating with me and asking me to illustrate people or flora and fauna for them!

My top three areas of focus are...

1) Surface design for apparel / home decor / gifts



2) Illustrations for children's literature



3) And greeting cards and stationery


I'm getting so excited!  I just sent my files to be printed as fabric swatches and I cannot wait to SEW with my own designs!!  I made my first prototype for what I'll be wearing during Surtex today, and I might very well be bubbling over with excitement!  (bubble bubble bubble)

Oh, are you going to be at Surtex too?  Let me know!  I'll be exhibiting as part of my art collective, Finch & Foxglove at Booth #543!

The Land of Aches and Sneezes

Greetings from cold virus central!

I had thought we made it through with relative ease, but then either we had a second virus hit right away, or this cold had a nasty one-two punch. This second wind has been much, much worse. With Maddie nannying for a friend’s family, we seem to be passing our germs back and forth between the households (sorry, Lisa!).

Today I’m directing school activities from the couch, under a wool blanket.

Oona has finished most of her reading and is knitting. Emily will draw out her reading assignment for as long as possible while she cuddles various kitties. Neve is handling the home-ec portion by cleaning the kitchen and taking out the garbage (you know she’s desperate to escape another day of schoolwork when she volunteers for dish and garbage duty). They’re all feeling just a bit salty that they didn’t get a buttload of snow days like their public school counterparts did.

Hey, algebra waits for no man.

Also, Happy Groundhog Day!  We’ll be watching the Bill Murray movie after schoolwork has been completed and Oona has made us popcorn.

We’ve also been talking a lot about weather; it’s warmed up quite a bit, and we had rain yesterday. With the smell of fresh, green earth in the air we all felt ready for spring. It’s a cruel joke, of course. There’s still plenty of time left for winter to hit us with more snow or polar air. Still, a couch-bound girl can dream, and spend time looking at seed catalogs and planning out the 2016 gardens, right?

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about this year’s gardens, and farm work. We didn’t breed, so there won’t be any lambs or kids this spring, but that’s okay. We wanted to focus on getting our current flock healthy and fat, and repairing fences and outsmarting our escapee dogs and goats.

We ARE expecting a shipment of chicks sometime later in the spring, since our current hen situation is lacking; we have maybe 15 hens, and a few of them are getting on in years.

Not only will we be adding to our chicken flock then, but we will also be ordering more bees. My hive seems to have absconded sometime since Christmas. There’s a complete lack of any bee in there, not even dead ones. There is one potentially erupted queen cell, but it’s hard to tell.  I HAVE noticed honeybees flying around the last few days, however. They are going into the old hive and stealing honey from the stores that were there. I only ever see maybe 8 or 10, but I’m hoping that means that my absconded colony found a good home to overwinter.

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There’s also these lovelies that recently arrived. When I’m feeling better I’ll be in the kitchen whipping up some of her yummy recipes. The challenge is choosing one to start with! (well, actually, the challenge is not eating 10,000 calories worth of baked goods every day).

And, since I’m unable to manage much else, I’ve of course been working on my sweater.  I finally got to the point where I put my sleeve stitches on a holder and I’m working on the lower body. I’m really pleased with how it’s going.

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Now let’s all keep our fingers crossed that today is my last day of feeling like garbage; Emily gets her braces on tomorrow!

 

 


Tagged: Farm, food, Garden, Homeschooling, Knitting, Pets

Snowed In

After two full days of high winds and heavy snow, the sun woke us this morning, bright and blinding over the deep blanket of snow.  I’d say we got at least two feet; in most places it is knee deep, and the drifts between the cars are at waist-deep (and I had to chase a loose hen through there).  We are all impressed that we never lost power, though who knows when all the schools, etc, will re-open.

Sadly it wasn’t only the sun that woke me this morning, but a terrible cold that’s left me achey and miserable.  Good thing I managed so much work yesterday and could reasonably relax today (though I will admit to having done all of today’s chores and feeding in my pajamas, in a sickly, Cold & Flu Alka-Seltzer – induced haze).

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Yesterday there were points where I did begin to worry about the sheep. Not because they had no shelter to escape the snow, but because they had no interest in availing themselves of it. They simply took turns gorging on hay and laying in the snow to chew their cud, allowing it to build up on their backs.

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Sabine and Orzo weren’t exactly thrilled about being out in it, but they spent enough time running about in it that they kept the area around the hay bale and feeders rather packed down and easy to access.

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Oona braved it for longer than anyone. It was pretty hard to see with the wind blowing the snow directly into our eyes, but she loved it.

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I just couldn’t believe how heavy and for how long it snowed; I haven’t seen winter weather like this since I lived in New York. Not this intensity, anyway. I love this kind of weather, and I know how crazy a lot of people think I am for it. But I will tell you this: if we reliably had snow like this that stuck around, I’d be investing in cross-country skis.  I miss that!

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I’m loving this view from the living room window.

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With the weather outside so…..frightful (ha!)…..I did what any sane person (who loves to eat) would do: I made cinnamon rolls. As always, I used Susan’s recipe, because it’s fool-proof.

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I’m so glad I did, too.  Waking up feeling like the back of a bus this morning was made somewhat better when I simply had to pop a roll in the microwave for 10 seconds and I could console myself with a delicious treat.

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The cats spent the day watching all of the birds out at the feeders.

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And THIS, my friends, is a happy man who worked very hard and fixed his tractor.  He’s currently out plowing. We did discuss wishing we knew for sure who the neighbor is that threatened our dogs (we’re pretty sure, but not 100%), so he could plow everyone else OUT, and him IN.

Oh well.

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He’s out there anyway. Most of the neighbors will be very happy and thank him. Some won’t. That’s life, and people, I guess.

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Either way, I’m grateful it’s him, and not me. I need to sleep off this cold virus.

Right after I enjoy how still, and clean, and fresh everything looks and smells. Breathe it all in, everyone. It’s fleeting.

 


Tagged: food, Pets

First Snow(ish)

Yesterday we were very pleasantly surprised by several bouts of thick flurry activity. The kids were ecstatic, and we all just wished it would actually snow, rather than just tease us.  Still, we did get a tiny bit of dusting on the deck and the back of the sheep.

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See? You can just tell there’s a bit starting to stick on Darby’s back. Barely. Squint, maybe.

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It’s there, I swear! Let’s just hope that this isn’t the sum total of our winter experience this year, because for several years after we moved to Virginia, this really WAS all we saw.

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When the gate out front is open all the way, the sheep, goats, and dogs have access to the front porch.  It’s not ideal for us humans, because it means poop everywhere, and they’ve broken several porch rails. They like to sit by the door, though, and stare in at us.

Yesterday was also our first day back doing school again. It went well, considering we are all way off our sleep routines and no one wants to do anything other than cuddle kittens and do fun things.  Getting back to reality and regular life and appointments  is hard. Emily is getting braces in a few weeks and our lives are consumed with visits to various dental specialists when we are not working on school or doing farm chores.

I’ve been chugging away on my Chimney Fire.

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I hit a few snags early on (once when I needed a bit more clarification and then realized “continue in pattern” simply meant to “knit the knit stitches and purl the purl stitches”, and once when I had to go back and place extra markers to keep the sleeve pattern and the increases on the sides better delineated.

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Since then I’ve been flying along at it and it has been a very enjoyable knit.

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And yes, since you asked, it IS covered with cat and dog fur.

In this house, it’s a rare item indeed that isn’t blessed with fur.  From school work……

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……to puzzles.

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Tagged: Farm, Knitting, Pets

Merry Happy Christmas!

Wishing you and yours a very happy holiday season!  A very Merry Happy Christmas to you from me!





To see all the images from this year's illustration advent calendar for the members of the Finch & Foxglove art collective, take a look here!

Baking Christmas

Every year I draw up an ambitious list of cookies I plan to bake, and every year I begin to falter a few days before the holiday, having worn myself out in the process of producing so many goodies.

This year I have an ace up my sleeve: Neve.

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She’s been a great help with prep work and with getting everything into and out of the oven and onto cooling racks.  She’s also made up several batches of Peanut Butter Blossoms on her own.

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As always, we also made a large batch of Hamantaschen.

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Once again I also attempted Springerle. In the past, these cookies have consistently defeated me. This year I tried a new recipe, using King Arthur Flour’s Speculaas dough. There was a lot of chilling, rolling, chilling, molding, chilling, chilling, and more chilling. The results? Not too terrible. Not perfect, though, and I had a hard time with them. Still, I consider it progress!

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We have many, many more to go, but the doughs for our butter cookies and gingerbread cookies are already chilling and ready to be cut and baked.  I am going to try and get the Meringue cookies whipped up tonight to set in the oven overnight.

I also felt overly ambitious (or stressed?) and decided to make the gingerbread for our gingerbread houses this year. I used the recipe from the America’s Test kitchen cookbook and simply measured out shapes for the houses by hand. Neve wasn’t thrilled with how thick it was (and not perfectly straight-edged), but Oona was ecstatic that she had a house she could actually eat this year.

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Emily and I have been stuffing ourselves with all the extra gumdrops. I am going to need a major sugar-detox after this Christmas!

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Tomorrow I’ll work on getting the cookies ready for the kids to decorate, as well as trying some new recipes. That is, if I have the time. Paul is taking them out to see the new Star Wars movie so I can wrap gifts (and drink gluhwein, of course). For a few glorious hours I’ll have a Christmasy house all the myself (and the kitties).

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Tagged: food, Pets, Seasons

Getting Festive Up In Here

Happy Hanukkah!

We like to celebrate with food every opportunity we can.  So even though we are not Jewish, this time of year there are plenty of latkes and blintzes to be had. If I had other culturally Jewish food in my repertoire, there’d be that as well (I mean, aside from all the cookies and breads and cakes, natch).

Tonight was our blintz night.  We LOVE blintzes. One of the kids usually asks for them for their birthday as well.  Honestly, though there’s a lot of steps, they’re super easy. I whip up some crepes, and fill them with a cream cheese/ricotta/powdered sugar/vanilla mixture, roll them up burrito-style and pan-fry them until they’re browned and hot.

Then I top them with some pre-fab blueberry pie filling and whipped cream. Done! Happy family.

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Then we eat them by candlelight. It’s really the only way to properly enjoy them. ;-)

The weather has been working against our holiday spirit – it’s been so warm that we have been sweating while trying to do our schoolwork. In the evening, once it has cooled down again, we’ve been trying to keep the holiday ambience going as much as we can.

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The kitties enjoy it as well; if by “it” we mean chewing on the branches and swatting the candy canes off the tree.

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“Who, us???”

We have had morning frosts, which is a reassuring sign that it really IS winter, even if it doesn’t feel so much like it.

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It would be nice if the cooler weather would hang out long enough for us to wear our nice winter sweaters, though. It’s hard to stay motivated to knit with wool right now and create even more sweaters that will sit unhappy and unused all through the festive season each year.  Not that my Chimney Fire sweater is growing that fast or anything.

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During the week it’s usually evening before I have a chance to pick it up, and I’m pretty tired by then. As for the weekends, well…it IS gluhwein season, and you know wine and cablework don’t mix.

This weekend we’ll be hitting the holiday baking pretty hard; I’m feeling the usual ambition for lots of cookie variety and quantity. Now to figure out how to distill some of Oona’s energy for myself!

 

 


Tagged: food, Knitting, Pets, Seasons