That's All, Folks.

As you can tell, I've moved on from this blog to other projects. Thanks for logging in and taking time to (hopefully) enjoy your visits. I've appreciated your comments and emails, and hope that your life is like that scrumptious taste of a bona fide Parisian bonbon. You can contact me by email, or by checking out Houzz and CalFinder.

Happy living!

M

Getting Out

Cold winter months, and what to do? The Christmas season is over, and little ones have been talking increasingly more about ice cream, flip flops, afternoons in the nearby park doing nothing. Despite the freezing temperatures, getting out into nature seems the thing to do.

In the cold--and in the cold, situated in a city--it's easy to remove ourselves from nature, to see but not experience the natural world around us. The Publisher's Weekly review of The Last Child in the Woods (by Richard Louv) sums up the book's pertinent concerns:

Today's kids are increasingly disconnected from the natural world, says child advocacy expert Louv (Childhood's Future; Fatherlove; etc.), even as research shows that "thoughtful exposure of youngsters to nature can... be a powerful form of therapy for attention-deficit disorder and other maladies." Instead of passing summer months hiking, swimming and telling stories around the campfire, children these days are more likely to attend computer camps or weight-loss camps: as a result, Louv says, they've come to think of nature as more of an abstraction than a reality. Indeed, a 2002 British study reported that eight-year-olds could identify Pokémon characters far more easily than they could name "otter, beetle, and oak tree." Gathering thoughts from parents, teachers, researchers, environmentalists and other concerned parties, Louv argues for a return to an awareness of and appreciation for the natural world. Not only can nature teach kids science and nurture their creativity, he says, nature needs its children: where else will its future stewards come from? Louv's book is a call to action, full of warnings—but also full of ideas for change.

How fresh the crisp air, how startling familiar the surrounding honking and quacking, how strong the urge to reach over and scrape a handful of cold, hardened earth into our palms.

Here was our attempt at getting out into nature--a centuries-old working farm where we showed up at the barn just in time to help milk cows for 50cents, pet the surprisingly clean pigs (hey those guys are more hygienic than their bad PR suggests), and our preschooler cackled at the baby goat trying to nibble the corner of her coat.

Happy feet.

Happier feet.

Comin in out of the cold, partner. Yee haw and hooray for nature.

Be a Rocker Artist, Man

Children in the Musee de Louvre

Well, no. You don't want to thrust culture at them, for culture's sake. But there are those golden moments with young, still-impressionable children, where enthusiasm ignites like a well-kindled fire on a January morning, and you can feed the flames of their self-initiated interests. With Loverboy gone again this last weekend, the two children and I dressed and bundled as "rocker artists" (at their request, and my complete compliance), and we headed off to the local art museum.

This can potentially be futile, frustrating, a complete waste of money, when children under 6 are involved. But they were completely engaged. Standing behind them as they looked up to admire with partial fear the enormous African ceremonial masks, I remembered standing in the Louvre as a student in Paris, sure that I had reached the pinnacle of life; I laughed to myself this Saturday as one of the children thought that the collection of armor was lines of robots, and I thought, Paris, pffft, no, it doesn't get better than this.

How to be a rocker-artist

*Do your hair in a mowhawk, or make it look slightly disheveled and dirty (easy, right?).

*Wrap in a scarf--or bandana or kitchen flour sack towel, as was our case.

*Bring along blank 4-6 note pads and map pencils.

*Sit with your kids and sketch what you see in the museum.

*Talk, talk, talk about the art.

*Hot chocolate in the cafe can be a Pavlovian incentive, I'm just sayin.

*Line the small sheets along a wall at home for your own exhibit.

*Look through kid-friendly art books such as this one. This book does a great job of not only explaining each piece, but it offers a variety of art, from daVinci to Andy Warhol, to expose the little artists to.

Converting a Closet into a Micro-office

If you're someone who divides your time at home between parenting and work, designating a work space of your own can not only keep you from floating around the house with your laptop and trail of papers, it can provide a visual signal that you are on task. While private offices are wonderful and often necessary to those working from home, they can sometimes be too tucked away from the flow of family life. Yet sprawling work out on the kitchen table that inevitably has to be put away for snack time and Lego marathons doesn't always work either.

I thought the kitchen table, roomy and close to an outlet and the kitchen tea station, would work for me; but I was disheveled by the constant shuffling, the laptop giving me the low-battery-get-the-cord-now-or-else warning just as I sat down, and the crayon marks finding their way onto my documents. Not everyone is as territorial as me, but I need my space.

One weekend I'd had it, and I decided to turn what had previously been an accessories and bags closet at the end of our bedroom hallway into a makeshift home office. Take a look.

The hallway.

The empty closet with lame-ish functional shelving that the owner installed. I took the door off and I don't know if freeing the space was more satisfying (didn't Renee, the concierge in Barbery's book, say that nothing is uglier than an open door?), or my friend saying that I was completely bad*** for doing it myself.

The finished product, costing less than twenty dollars, and taking (from unhinging the door to sitting down with tea) under an hour. If we were in this place permanently, I would have thought differently about my work space, but for now this is perfect. The flat, uncomplicated surface suits my needs, the shelf above provides extra space and good lighting, and I file my work into the white bins beside my in-box.

My little darlings, watching me work. Inside my own head, I call it, "Real life embracing beauty." Oh, and sticky notes adhere really really well to the wall.

For more and better closet offices, see this at houzz.

Hot Chocolate It's Notcolate

The winter cold and the recent poor air quality (yes, pathetic) will be confining us to our warm indoors this weekend. With Loverboy away, the kids and I will be cozying up to moon sand play, doing drawings, watching old Charlie Brown cartoons, and rejuvenating their reading corner. And of course drinking lots of yummy warm stuff.

If you're wanting a cozy beverage for the kiddies but want to limit sugar overload: instead of cup after cup of hot chocolate (which is indisputably awesome), serve herbal tea such as chamomile or vanilla--teas that lend themselves to adding milk and mini marshmallows or homemade unsweetened whipped cream. For a bit of sweetness, add a dash of honey or agave nectar.

Happy winter weekend!