mia due to CHN

I apologize for some sparse postings this past week.
There has been a lot going on in the Casa de Minous.
I started a new job this week.
It was really hard to say goodbye to my wonderful coworkers at my past job, my first nursing position.
I loved working in women's health. I loved the privilege of talking with clients about very personal details of their lives.

However. I took a leap, in equal parts for my minous (the hours are much more family friendly) and for myself, craving a new challenge and wanting a broader base of experience as a new(er) nurse.

And let me say that I love, love, love my new position as a Community Health Nurse. My new coworkers have been very warm and welcoming, the job will be (I can already tell) constantly changing (that's a good thing), and it is so, so interesting with many areas to learn about. There are a lot of parts to this job that I have never done before, and it will be a personal and professional stretch. There is much to learn and a lot of support for learning it. In the few spare quiet moments, I have been working my way through a video series based on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's "Guide to Immunizations and Vaccine Preventable Diseases". This is much more fun than it may sound like.

It is also enjoyable to be downtown. I wander over to the library at lunch time, and walk to P'tit Minou Deux's ballet studio after work to watch the last part of his class and catch a ride home. The location and hours have me feeling more integrated with my family's daily life, which is just what I wanted. I was actually at home cozily cooking dinner in my pajamas at 7:00 p.m. one night, thinking that I would have been just getting off work and starting my 45 minute bike commute home the week before. Now when I ride my bike, it's just 15 minutes!

I haven't touched the attic avalanche this week, but now it looks like a neatly stacked tower that has completely taken over the landing couch rather than an avalanche, thanks to Minou. I'll get to it this weekend, if only a little bit.

How has your week been? What are you up to?

minimal packing

It's so, so much easier to pack for a trip when your basic wardrobe is small.

I was recently talking about this with my mother, who enjoys the process of laying clothing out on a card table in her bedroom, looking at options, weighing her clothing choices. Although she likes the selecting and reviewing, it's also time-consuming and can be a little stressful (like when you're leaving for a five-week trip in five days).

My packing process for the Trip to France is made easier by three main factors (which is good, because I'm anxious enough about the flight and being separated from Minou and the p'tit minous for the first week without adding to the nerves!)

1) I have relatively few clothing items. (I've never counted them, but may someday).

2) I will be mainly in one area of southern France, where it is likely to be HOT. For the few days when I'm travelling further north, I will be with my mother and can glean from her wardrobe if something warmer is needed (hi Mom!).

3) I'm mostly taking clothes that my mother-in-law and sister-in-law have gifted me with over the past years.

Here's what is planned so far:

dresses inherited from M1

interchangeable brown clothing makes four outfits

brown cardigan for airplane & evenings

black below-knee skirt, black t-shirt and two sheer tops for over (blue from M1)

two more summer tops from Mamie & M1

In addition, I will be taking:

• a bathing suit and pareo wrap
• a nightgown
• "intimate apparel"
• black sandals, brown sandals (both good for walking)
• light jogging sneakers & quick-dry tshirt, sports bra, shorts
• toiletries & medications
• a sketchbook/journal, small camera, and reading material
• sadly, my laptop. I would be happy to leave this behind (the boys are all amply electrified) but I will be continuing with an online class starting late June
• a small black bag/purse
• and of course gifts! I don't want to show those here just in case it would spoil a surprise, but Minou and I had a lot of fun selecting small, light ones that we hope will please.

The only "light" coat that I have is a fairly inappropriate waterproof purple windbreaker, hence the brown cardigan. My other concern is shoes--the black sandals are simple but a little dressy, but the brown ones are Keens--rather technical looking and definately not dressy--p'tit Minou un informed me they were "butt-ugly" (thank you, son--especially since he had to have them four years ago). They look like this:

source: Google images from ebay.com

I've never packed quite this lightly before and frankly, I'm a little nervous. What do you think--is it enough? Any suggestions from seasoned travellers?

community

I had some sad yet happy news this last weekend. You know that feeling, when something good happens for a friend, and of course you are glad for them yet sad about the implications for yourself?

Some very, very good friends who are also neighbors are moving away. Away being a whole two miles away, not even across town--just a hop, skip, and a jump over to a different school zone, which will allow their son (who I held as a babe in arms) to attend the same excellent middle school as p'tit minou 2 (who can go there because his language immersion program tracks there) and eventually to the high school p'tit minou 2 attends (also because of the French program tracking in). It's an investment for them--they will keep and rent their current home, and live in the new home.

But I don't want them to move! It's a very special thing, to have friends who feel like family and live two blocks away up the hill. K. has always had the lovely habit of popping over (maybe from her years living in Latin America) for coffee, or to borrow sugar, or to bring us a piece of something delicious that she just baked. She also has a very unique and thoughtful perspective on the world. W. and Minou work in related fields and always have a lot to talk about. We all always have a lot to talk about. Travelling, art, languages, books, building, green architecture, politics, gardening, running, movies, food, friends, chickens, spirituality, child-raising...so many interconnections. We have gone trick-or-treating at Halloween, sledded down the hill on every snowy day, had countless potlucks, watched hundreds of movies, and celebrated many solstices together. We have picked a lot of strawberries, blueberries, and apples.

Their son C. has grown up along with the p'tit minous. He's eaten peanut butter sandwiches at our kitchen table for the last 10 years. He also has the lovely habit (maybe from his mom) of popping over, usually just at the moment when we need some distraction, asking if anyone wants to play.

Oh my gosh, I am going to miss them.

And it has me thinking about community. Of course, our friendship will persist. We will have to work at it with a little more intentionality--setting up times to see each other, rather than the spontaneous Saturday "let's combine what we have in our kitchens & get together" dinners.

But the value of creating community--if you live someplace where it is a part of the fabric of your life--realize how lucky this is. It develops over time. If it isn't there, think about the ways to nurture it, as we will now need to make more effort to do.

These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things...

Raindrops on Roses and Birds and Blueberries....

Today I wanted to burst into song! My friend K. and I headed out bright and early for our favorite local, organic, family-owned blueberry patch, where last week we had each separately been greeted by this sign:

Picked Out

This morning, however, the patch was open for business...and already hopping at 7:50 a.m.! We found a parking spot right away and commenced to picking. It was a perfect day, a bit overcast and not too hot.

Look at K.'s wonderful picking contraption! She was faster than me, for sure. We also differed a little in technique. Since I often get lazy about processing and just freeze the berries right in their liner bag (it works), I'm a little pickier about trying not to get stems, green berries and mummy berries (not mommy berries) in my bucket.

Professional Picker

Predictably we saw several people we knew at this popular site close to town, and we were both excited to hear at least four other languages spoken besides English (Spanish, French, Mandarin, and an Asian language I wasn't familiar with). The berries were so big, blue, beautiful, and abundant that there was ample picking for all and any competitiveness about finding or guarding the best bushes turned into friendly helpfulness among fellow gatherers.

For those of you who have never experienced it, I wish I could convey to you the joy of picking blueberries when the picking is good. K. kept saying that she wanted to contact the Oregon Blueberry Grower's Association and encourage them to come up with a song, or perhaps sponsor a competition for lyrics, about the experience. Though we couldn't get very far in our musical endeavor (too focused on picking...and eating! it's hard to sing with your mouth full) it was fun to imagine the entire large, humming-with-people blueberry field bursting into song (and maybe dance) together.

These pictures make it look like the field was empty, but actually the whole hillside was full of people, and the road below was lined with cars. This patch doesn't even advertise these days. Their berries are so good and so well-known that they don't need to.

Big Berries

Industrious Gatherers

I turned into a Mama Bear (K. said Mama Squirrel, which might be more appropriate since my cheeks were  full of blueberries), completely focused on gathering food for my family for the winter. I achieved a personal picking best: three heaping two-gallon buckets in under three hours, each weighing about 12-14 lbs. For $45 that's a pretty good deal! As we picked, I heard a little one in the next row listing all the things she wanted to eat with blueberries, and I had to smile since I had been thinking about the same thing: blueberry muffins, blueberry pancakes, blueberry cheesecake, blueberry jam, blueberry smoothies, blueberry pie....I could go on...

Now I'm looking forward to baking blueberry things for my boys. I'm also enjoying the smell of the delicious cinnamon-walnut zucchini bread in the oven that's wafting up the stairs...no blueberries in it because they're all in the freezer already. After all that great picking, I was tempted to just keep going this afternoon and find a farm with green beans, but reason prevailed and I spent the afternoon working in the garden and mulching my own blueberry bushes instead.

Tonight I am feeling very, very fortunate for food and space to grow food. Also a climate that permits it. It is so basic and so important.

What are you grateful for today? What fun thing did you do this weekend?

Swap, Meet

My neighbor M. (she of the goddess garden sanctuary) proposed a weekly trade of eggs for bounty from her garden, and I was DELIGHTED to agree! I just saw this movie (after being on the library reserve list for close to nine months) and it renewed my commitment to eating more fresh local food. Not only is trading a great way to eat super-locally (forget about a 100-mile radius, this is a 2-block radius), but as M. noted, it's a great way to get to know each other better. Most of us have fairly busy lives these days, and between working, mothering /caring for family, and maintaining the garden, it can be difficult to prioritize socializing, especially developing new relationships. That's why this is such a lovely arrangement--we can swap and meet.

We had fun looking around the garden and I loved sampling. M. was happy to share some of everything she had growing, which is a lot! Just being in this green-thumbed woman's garden inspires my inner gardener to start imagining, dreaming, digging, and planting. I'm not sure that this was quite a fair trade this week though--just look at all this glorious garden bounty I brought home!

garlic--elephant and regular

strawberries, cherries, snap peas

greens (tuscan kale and collards) and curious Jamsie

bouquet of snapdragons, foxglove, nasturtiums, chives, thyme, oregano & parsley

clustered garden beauty

Have a great weekend!

New News is Good News

Sorry for the silence! I have been busy with 4th of July socializing, my big downsizing project, and dealing with...dog digestive issues (was the last description delicate enough?).

The July Food Stamp Challenge is going well. I am not above mooching, and I took home some very nice leftovers from the neighborhood potluck I attended on the 4th. Yesterday I worked at the the coast, and my mom came along with two friends. We had a great seafood dinner, despite a very long wait which just meant more time to talk (or in my case, listen to inspiring travelling tales). Also, on my morning walk today I again scored two large recycling bags of beer bottles from the recycling box across the street, which should pay for my weekly gallon of milk. And I found two beautiful Queen Anne cherry trees in an alleyway near my home and picked a couple of pounds on the 4th. Hooray! So no new expenses.

I have noticed that I am running out of packaging items such as paper grocery bags (I use them for the trash) and plastic bags (for cleaning up after the dog) because I am shopping so much less. I need to seek some green solutions for those items.

And on that note: two sources of inspiration this week:

Zero Waste Home blog. I saw an article about this family in Sunset magazine in January and was intrigued. The blog is full of great ideas and inspiration!

Friends told me about an online local farmer's market, bringing suppliers and customers within a 100-mile radius together. A little different from a CSA because buyers can select fruits and veggies that their family will actually use regularly, but more convenient than a farmer's market at times...though less social. But the pickup spot on Tuesday nights has woodfired pizza night with local ingredients! I think it's a fantastic idea and it strengthens my resolve ( and the convenience of) local eating...

Have a great rest of the week! Hope it's sunny in your neck of the woods...I am loving these summer days and evenings.