Life before 2008 11 Nov 2005 04:15 pm
Happy day…
We, Rowan and I, wake up before the dawn these days. He bats at the mini-blinds behind our headboard and giggles at….fairies? The sun comes up slowly and the light is purple. Blue-purple in the mornings, and orange and red-purple in the evenings. I never knew purples and violets were fall colors but they are everywhere here. Snuggling my face down into his fleece sleeper and the covers and begging for a just a few more minutes sleep is usually the last thing I do before crawling out and dragging myself upright.
David comes in for a hot breakfast and coffee, feeling good about “the workout they are paying me to do”. He likes this job and other than majorly fouling up our Thanksgiving plans to visit family, it seems to be a good and fairly nonobtrusive addition to our routine. He dropped the vacation bombshell before I was out of bed; within 5 minutes I’d planned a cabin rental and ruled it out, an overnight drive to Alabama, a trip by myself (not so great because we can’t very well celebrate without David), and came up empty for a viable alternative. It seems swapping out christmas might work….we’ll have to wait and see. Sometimes being Gazelle Intense is harder than we would have thought.
It was a well paced day, cleaning the nooks and crannies, changing sheets, washing diapers, reading to chickens, and taking the occassional deep breath of autumn air. We had a 25 or so degree drop this week and it’s pretty cold. A quick inventory and memory of what was in storage revealed we have no winter blankets. Will have to do something about that rather quickly. Polyester and acrylic make us sweat; I guess I’m a bit unversed when it comes to winter things. I was wondering about flannel sheets too…they sound so dreamily soft and cozy!
The chickens played in the woods alot, and with the neighbor’s Lab, Petey. The littlest one got rosey cheeks this afternoon and I heard the oldest remark how adorable the baby was when he didn’t think anyone was listening. The other day he told a 13 year old girl how nice her braces looked with her hair…she probably didn’t realize what a high compliment that was!
Wheatie-Tom was quite indignant today when Mr. Rogers was an entire episode of The Land of Makebelieve. “What?! No Special Deliveries? No feeding the fish?! What is this?!” It was a foot-stomping fit to be sure.
Rowan has discoverd the apple basket. Beautiful Cameos, the perfect combination of tart and sweet…just biting into one is like a breath of autumn. One expects to open thier eyes and see a picnic blanket on a leaf-strewn yard and to smell chimney smoke with the next inhale. I don’t know if Rowan quite expects that, but I’ve got quite a few apples with tee-tiney bites in them, so he must be blissin’ out with something!
Dinner was just the epitome of cozy tonight. I made my perfect, perfect buttermilk waffles with steak and eggs. David picked up real maple syrup and whole cream butter on the way home because I was out. I almost made coffee to go with it. I have the absolute privledge of using my great-grandmother’s waffle iron that she made my mom waffles in as a kid. It makes wonderful waffles, just crispy enough on the outside and meltingly soft inside.I love cooking with it and imagining both the kitchens of the past and my farm kitchen yet to come, with a big wooden table off to one side and hungry children all around.I tried not to eat too fast and just savor the sigh of the end of a day, the end of another week. Each buttermilky little square had a puddle of melted butter and syrup within and I could have easily had seconds. But my recipe makes just 6 and now that the baby eats a whole one, there were no leftovers. Will have to start doubling it… Our eggs were just right too…a cushion of softness where the yolk had cooked on bottom but with just enough fluid gold to dip our steak chunks into. Streaked through with a little syrup and butter and it was just heavenly upon our forks. No need to rinse plates tonight!
Kiddos in pj’s and slippers…they’ve been enacting nursery rhymes in play-form. They are ready for snuggles and tuck-ins and promises of “what’s for breakfast”. Waffles and sausage….we just can’t have it enough!
on 13 Nov 2005 at 7:40 pm 1.Gina said …
Great blogs and pictures! I just love all those of the kids! Flannel sheets, the kids love them-Tyler especially- even in the summer. We have found that the ones at Target are a good quality, but have bought some other places and they got “pilly” and then felt itchy. The ones from target stay nice, wash after wash. Tyler has sensitive skin so he really notices the difference. What are the winters supposed to be like in Tennessee? Do they get much snow?
on 14 Nov 2005 at 7:01 pm 2.TiaDavidandOurLittleChickens said …
I’m not sure. They get snow a few times each year but it doesn’t stay. This year has been late with the cool temps and it keeps going up and down alot. Thanks for the tip on sheets!