Supporting good causes

When he was 8, Dean came across a flier promoting a fundraising walk. The organization was Dog Orphans, and their annual walk helps support their local no-kill shelter. My response, when Dean said he wanted to participate in the walk, was to explain that he'd have to ask people for money -- that it wasn't just about going and walking, but that he'd need to get people to make donations and that he'd have to do the asking himself.

I was honestly amazed when that didn't deter him at all. We certainly talk a lot at home about supporting causes you believe in, and about the importance of being generous in as many ways as you can -- I just didn't think he'd taken the message to heart at such a young age.

He's done the walk every year since then. Today he made his neighborhood appeal, going door-to-door explaining his project and asking for support. I am so proud of him. It's very hard to make a direct appeal like that, and I'm proud at how committed he feels to this organization. He also saves up a portion of his allowance so that he can make his own contribution -- $50 this year!

The walk is next Sunday (5/2). If you're interested in making a small donation, please let me know (it's a non-profit organization so gifts are tax-deductible).

While Dean had his piano lesson

On a side note, the Christmas Club scheme isn't going as well as I'd planned -- yet. But maybe I could give photographs as gifts....

Some kind of a break

We're on school vacation this week. Most schools in New England get a week off in February and another week in April (some do 2 weeks mid-March instead, which is more in line with what colleges do). Anyway, I've never understood why we get these vacations, although I'm not complaining. We're making a week a mix of some down time, some errands and chores, and some outdoor time (we never get as many opportunities to take long walks as we would like...).

I wish we were in Maine, although it's probably still pretty cold and muddy up there. Even more, I wish we were in Chicago, holding the memorial service for my mom that we had planned but that ended up being destined, for now, not to be.

Dean's happy enough to be close to home, to have a break from routine but still be surrounded by the familiar.





I wish we had a little stream like this running through our yard; streams offer endless opportunities to play and explore.

Came across this tiny flower that I've never seen before. Any ideas what it could be?

Two in one

When I was growing up in Chicago, in the mid 1960s, at Easter time you could go to the regular grocery store and buy lamb butter -- that is, butter in the shape of a lamb. Lamb cakes, too, were readily available; vanilla pound cake baked in a lamb-shaped mold with white frosting from a star tip artfully applied. There was kind of a resurgence in lamb cakes -- or at least in the availability of the molds -- probably thanks to Martha. But lamb butter is a bit more elusive. My mold came from here, should you be wishing for one yourself (scroll down the page to find the lamb). And in the spirit of true disclosure: none of us has yet had the heart to cut in to the lamb, so here we are nearly 2 weeks past the holiday and he's still living in the fridge.

Also thanks to Martha, now that I think about it, is our tradition of buying two packages of Easter egg dye. For years we have been making brighter colors by putting 2 tablets in each cup instead of one. The wrinkle this time was that Dean didn't want to put 2 of the same color in each cup but instead he wanted to mix his own colors. I admit that this is still one of those times when I have to take a deep breath, think about who it is we're coloring eggs for in the first place, and let go of "how it should be." Sure! Mix away! I did feebly recommend that he think about what colors he'd be creating before putting the tablets in, knowing that this wouldn't be his approach. He's a process guy, not a product guy.

So we had two of the same mix, and some pretty intense mixes, and found interestingly that the dyes don't combine consistently with each other the way they do with two of the same.




And his favorite part, still, is playing with the colors afterward. Success, then!

Easter was also Dean's birthday this year, so we had an elaborate plan for celebrating both -- starting with a morning that was all about the eggs and the basket.

THEN it was birthday time.

Followed by an outing to spend some gift cards that were burning a hole in his pocket.




A sweet and successful day. Twelve seems at the same time an impossibly big number and exactly right. We celebrate who this amazing person is, how much his arrival changed our lives, how unimaginable life without him would be. He enjoys hearing stories on his birthday about how his birth day unfolded -- all those hours of labor, all that joy when he finally arrived, all the attention that our beautiful little boy received from the hospital staff, how very sweet he was right from the start. I do feel that we're turning a corner as a family as Dean steps into this new, older self. We struggle sometimes to find the balance, the flow -- to readjust our relationships and yet hold on to what's core for us. I try not to think ahead but to revel in the now.

If you have no daughters...

...give them to your sons! Hot cross buns. I was inspired to make up my first batch and we all loved them with our hot morning beverages. I see that other recipes seem to call for an overall glaze plus the cross; maybe next time I'll do an egg wash for the shiny appearance (Dean says an overall glaze would be too sticky to deal with). I love foods that are associated with certain holidays, and I love how ancient (*pagan*) traditions got incorporated into Christian traditions in order to make the new ideas hold -- at Easter just as at Christmas. (The old belief here was that cutting the cross shape into baked goods helped ward off evil spirits that might interfere with the baker's success.)

While mulling the cross form, I am endlessly fascinated with the way the paint wears away on the storm drains on our street; these always look beautiful to me.
So much to see in such a small, usually overlooked place.

A tiny, tiny pebble, trying to impersonate an egg, I think.



And tiny buds, waiting breathlessly to unfurl.

I've got photos and stories from the birthday/Easter combo just passed and will try to get caught up this week.

Twelve

The Lottery

We buy lottery tickets. Ken keeps an eye on the jackpots; there are a couple of different state lotteries, and then Massachusetts is part of a multi-state mega jackpot lottery. Every once in a while, we'll have a dinner table conversation about what we'd do if we ever won $5, $10, $200 million dollars. Ken is kind of a *lottery savant* -- tell him the jackpot amount and he'll tell you the lump-sum payout and the take-home after taxes. (It's a gift.)

Anyway, we all enjoy thinking about not just what we'd do for ourselves, but how we'd take care of family, friends, and causes that are important to us. It's worth a dollar or two to foster these daydreams, and someone has to win, right?

And the other reason we don't feel we're senselessly throwing money away is that we actually like the fact that our dollar or two is making possible someone else's dream come true -- that we're contributing to someone's most unbelievably awesome day.

Still, it would be nice to win -- Team Paradox would certainly have it's money problems solved!

Happy Friday

The Wild

Last weekend, Dean discovered tree climbing (see him in there?). The combination of physical strength, a healthy degree of risk-taking, good sense about how to approach it safely, and a desire to be up in his own place culminated in many happy hours spent in the activity. We have pines like this all over our yard which really are just perfect for climbing; the branches start right from the base of the tree and fan out, all the way up, in just about boy-sized intervals.

It's fairly private in there, too. I have these plans in my head for how it would be possible to build a small platform up there, just big enough for 2 people to sit, with a pulley for bringing up the books, beverages, and snacks. Nothing as grandiose as a "house." And I actually think it would be safer without a railing (because I think that would give a false sense of safety and encourage standing when sitting would really be the purpose). I'm trying to decide if this is a case of my trying to over-engineer something and if it's better just to let Dean make his way in the trees as they are, or if having a perch up there would make for a more magical summer.

The forecast is calling for very cold temperatures toward the end of this week and into the weekend. The upside would be proper conditions for one more fire in the fireplace; the downside could be the shock to the poor plants that have been brave enough to send up shoots....

Warmer

This Friday we welcome the vernal equinox. With open arms. I am completely awed by the miracle of spring that's unfolding all around me; I think I am especially reveling in it because I especially need it this year. Rebirth. A fresh start.

It's in the quality of the light, the return of the birds, the bits of green coming through all around.

And it is in the absence of snow. There is still a bit of snow around the edges of our driveway, where the drifts were once as tall as me. But it's disappearing steadily.


Christmas Club members, I will be giving you a reminder and admitting that I wasn't up to it last month. I've been sewing quite a bit lately -- 2 pairs of fleece pants for Dean (yes! just in time for warmer weather.... Oh well!), a jacket for me (the wrong-season thing doesn't matter as much since I won't outgrow it, and I'm not talking about the silly one from my previous post), some small bags, a little quilt and bedding for a doll bed that's going to the school auction. Although none are for Christmas, they've got my sewing/crafting energies flowing and the Christmas stuff WILL follow. I'm going to attempt to learn to make ties -- one for Ken, one for Dean, and more if they work out all right. I've been saving up tins to decoupage for use as gift containers.


Dean's birthday is coming up in a few weeks; I've never been so far behind in getting ready for that. It's fortunate for me that planning a birthday party for a 12-year-old is a lot less complicated than those pony parties I used to give for him when he was younger, but I still feel bad about not being as on top of things as usual. His birthday is the same day as Easter this year, which also has to be prepared for and celebrated.


We were supposed to be heading to Chicago next month as well, to visit my brother and his family and to carry out a memorial service for my mom. For many complicated reasons, it's not going to happen -- my brother and I came to terms with the reality that the service we were envisioning wasn't going to happen (disheartening beyond words that the church in the parish where we lived for 20 years, where the 4 of us went to school, where my mom taught and worked tirelessly on behalf of the church just isn't interested in having us hold her service there -- one of several roadblocks). Also some very complicated family issues in play. I had been so focused on the service as the means for processing my grief, for celebrating her life and moving ahead, that I'm struggling now to figure out what to do with all of this instead.

The thing about me is that I am an intensely private person. I process the big stuff internally. Not even Ken has a clue as to what I've been going through for the past 5 weeks. The benefit of an open, public service to me would have been a way to bring it out and put it someplace in a healing way. We didn't have a service for my dad (also a complicated family issue, revolving around the same person who's made it so difficult this time) and I know that's left a piece unfinished for me all these years. So once again, I'll be dealing with this in a private way for my mom, not working it past my own head and out into the light. I was the one to scatter my dad's ashes and perhaps it will come down to that again this time. One of my brothers was with me when I fulfilled my dad's wish to have his ashes scattered in the Gulf of Mexico. Perhaps the other brother will be with me when we figure out the right thing to do for my mom (unlike my dad, she hadn't said that part).


Well. I am back to the beginning, so entirely grateful for the miracle of spring -- for the arrival of it just when I need it most.