What Is Going On?

A month without blogging. Hard to believe. As many of you know life hasn't been smooth sailing in a while, but the storms that have popped up lately have made me wonder whether or not I will ever make it through this gruesome weather. 

No functioning laptop at home; no digital camera. And I don't see replacing either in the near future as there are other financial priorities. We are struggling big time. I'm trying to stay afloat - financially, emotionally, spiritually... in many ways; in all ways.

Thus no blogging. I miss it. I like the connections I have made on this world-wide web. Alas.

I often get e-mails asking about this or that crafty endeavor, and by all means do e-mail me at chocolatelilies@gmail.com with any questions about prior blog posts. I hope to blog again one day, but it will not be soon. 

Many blessings and much love to all of you!

3rd Grade Yurt

The yurt with sheep was created by my students. The shepherd was created by me. The frame was created by the father of a student. Heirloom craftsmanship & cherry wood. The walls were needle-felted, then wet-felted & sewn together; some by machine, others with blanket-stitch by hand. The walls have scenes on them... Shepherd, sheep, trees, flowers & such. The wooden tag on the door reads: 3rd Grade ~ 2010/11.

It was our 3rd grade building project & also our auction art project. My students were very proud. The yurt sold for $400. It has a 3-foot (app. 1 meter) diameter & it's about 14" high. The roof was wet-felted using feet. :-) Fun times! We left it "rugged" rather than cutting it to a perfect circle.

Shepherd felted at the last minute, in true procrastinator style. The sheep each had a lil' tag with the name of the student who created it wood-burnt in. It was such a great project. My students worked so hard & we had so much fun.

(The pictures were taken with Noah's iPod & they are thus a bit grainy. The beauty still shows, though.)

Aotearoa Love

I took that picture the other day. She covered up the North Island just as I pushed the button. It was sort of funny. I remember the silly reasons Brent gave me once trying to talk me into visiting the South Island first... Anyhoo.

I then decided I needed a more "politically correct picture." Too many dear people on that North Island! :-) Her cheeks still look badly chapped here, but I must say that her skin has improved dramatically since I've cut dairy from my diet. I love her so much. She's such a smiley girl.

The Teenager

You know, the one who drives me crazZzZy at times. Well, good news. He received his acceptance letter to Open High today. I wasn't at home. He called me & he was crying. I thought, "Bleep." I knew the letter was coming. We actually anticipated a letter from Community High as well, but apparently they are mailing later this week. He was crying because he was happy! Open High  receives about 200 applications & takes 50 students. As part of the application he had to submit 5 essays and go through an interviewing process.

I kept asking the spiritual world to prepare a path for the right high school for him & I asked Brent to work some magic from where he is... This is clearly the one!

Oh my gosh! I cannot tell you how relieved I am! I'm heading for the 1/2 bottle of Pinot Noir I still have in the fridge...

My blog post from earlier today can be found here, but I just had to share! 

Spring Weekend

Finally! Spring!

Even the cats are enjoying the sunshine!

I went crazy with the woodburning tool this weekend. I buy a lot in bulk & then store in jars. I'm loving the lil' tags from Tonya.

More woodburning. Nathan's peppermint.

And still more.We just planted this Rosemary bush. I love Rosemary. I hope it will grow & grow.

My sage is back. I couldn't be more happy! It's very special, you know... I'm afraid it will not come back one year. I'd be devastated. I'm glad this is not the year.

We started some seeds, although - in retrospect - the egg carton thing might not work? Starting off with tomatoes, mostly. (Sausage Tomato. We're not trying to plant sausages.)

I baked this yesterday morning. Nunu was up very early, so I decided to use the early morning time wisely. I'm so totally not a morning person!

Blueberry-Banana Bread

I kept telling the children to let me take a picture so that I can blog about it first. They insisted they only had a nibble. I must say, it was very good banana-blueberry bread. I freeze bananas when they are brown & then bake banana bread when there's enough in the freezer.

1-1/2 c. flour

2 tbsp. sugar (The recipe called for 1/4 c. I wanted to omit it altogether, but I was adding a cup of blueberries, and I don't know my baking chemistry, so I decided to add a little bit.)

1/2 c. pecans

2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. baking soda

***

1-1/3 c. banana mush

2 eggs

1/2 c. maple syrup (It's gotta be the real deal!)

1/3 c. melted butter
1 c. blueberries

***

Mix it all up. Bake at 350 F for 60 minutes. I baked it in a pie dish. It was obviously good.

This Woolrae was a gift from the lovely Rachel. I love the colors! Such a joy to knit. I making Nunu a Gnome Pixie Cape. The pattern is here. Of course, I was being an idiot and totally screwed up the gauge, because I *never* do a gauge swatch. I was at the neck-decrease when I realized it would be way too small in the autumn. So, I'm frogging. I suppose it will just give me more time to enjoy knitting with this awesome yarn. :-)

(I decided to delete yesterday's blog post after receiving a very strange comment. And I haven't forgotten about the "Grains" posts!)

I Keep Forgetting...

to take pictures of the grain of the day. My camera doesn't work well with artificial light. I might just need to put them all in a weekend-post. :-)

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

May the luck of the Irish be with you!

Sunday ~ Wheat

I should have arranged these differently. It just so happens that I don't have all that much to add to this information. Wheat is associated with the Sun.

Six Months

Nuriel will be six months old tomorrow & I'm finally (really) getting ready to mail out birth announcements. I made this gift for Rachel at All Fired Up! last Sunday & picked it up today. It's a plate & hopefully she will be serving many more Groaning Cakes...

The Grains

(Watercolor painting by a 3rd grader)

I just wrapped up a two-weeks block on "The Grains" this week. I loved teaching this block. I covered 7 grains, the trade of both miller & baker as well as some basic information about windmills. I will attempt to blog about this for the next 7 days, covering the grains we covered in class. I will share some of the beautiful work my students did these past two weeks; work from all students. Hard to believe that on top of this, we also prepared for our class play, Joseph, during this time!

Each planet is associated with a day of the week. I did give my students an overview of this, although they will not formally be studying planets until 6th grade. The quality of the planets brings an understanding about the grains. It seems just natural that a watery Moon day calls for rice!

Here is a list of the grains we covered. They are all so very different. Some people switch millet & oats. They feel that millet has more of a female Venus quality than oat. I found the information here very helpful.

(A windmill ~ Crayon drawing by a 3rd grader)

I will hopefully have a blog post for the next 7 days, starting with Sunday. I hope you will enjoy this as much as I did.