Harvest

This has been the best autumn we've had since I moved to Utah. Usually fall lasts anywhere from 1 to 5 days in Utah. But this year, we're still going strong after three weeks of nice fall weather. And my garden is still producing.

We had quite a crop this year of cherry and heirloom tomatoes and lemon cucumbers. I didn't realize what monsters the lemon cucumbers would become. Their vines wrapped around and tried to pull down my raspberries (in fact, I found one lemon cucumber hanging from the raspberry bush and I had to thoroughly inspect it to make sure it was not actually growing from the raspberry plant). The lemon cucumbers turned our regular green cucumbers into long fat yellow cucumbers (see photo at very top). The vines crept into the other garden box and began pointing their leafy fingers right at our very healthy tomato plants, implying "You're next." I don't know if I'll do lemon cucumbers again; it sure was a good thing that they tasted really good AND that Bianca likes cucumber sandwiches (and any number of other summer salads that include a lot of cucumber). My neighbors seemed to like them too.

Bianca wants to grow them again next year, but if we do, it'll have to be somewhere on the other side of the yard away from the other helpless plants. Bianca offered up her garden box, but she's had a healthy crop of peppers this year (of all varieties and colors) so we'll see if we're ready for such a high maintenance vegetable come next spring.

Cousins and grandma

It's over, thank goodness!

Back when I was a new mom, I had planned the perfect Angelina Ballerina birthday party for Bianca's fourth birthday. I hand-crafted headbands with felt mouseling glitter ears, complete with pink bow and tuft of white fur. I had rosebud tutus to give each girl. I had packed treat bags with special Angelina Ballerina stickers, an Angelina Ballerina book, special everything. I spent hours scouring books and party web sites for the perfect ballerina games. I had ordered a cheesecake to go with the "mouse" theme. But when the girls arrived, no one wanted to play the games I'd planned, no one wore their mouseling ears, and no one would touch the cheesecake. It was a huge failure, and I nearly broke down into tears (it was half a year after Miranda's death so I wasn't really in my right mind anyway). This was the last "real" party I put my heart into. Sadly, it's tainted me ever since. Poor Portia is 4 and hasn't yet had a birthday party (I promise we'll do one when she turns five in April, no matter what.)

The point I'm making is that since that party six years ago, I refuse to create expectations about my kids' birthday parties. In fact, I've pretty much shunned the idea of even having the kids at our house since. I do a birthday party every other year for Bianca. And this year, she's turning 10 (tomorrow actually) and it was her year for a party. After much talk, deliberation, and research, I decided to have a sleepover (but late night for kids who couldn't stay the night). I had to pretty much gear up and accept it's going to be one really tough night, but it's only once every two years. I can handle that, right?

We decided to do a "spooky" birthday party. Bianca made up her own invitations, which included "You're in-Bited to a Birthday Party." She's turning ten so I said she could invite ten girls. She decided to include only kids from her class so that everyone would know each other and be able to have fun together. I bought a pack of create-your-own-Halloween-masks from Target which they made upon arrival, and we ate pizza, ate ice cream cake from Culvers (so good), and opened presents. Then they watched "Spooky Buddies." It was funny because some people were commenting "This is so cheesy" while others were really scared. It's hard to find a nice balance at this 10-11 year old group. They played a little Rock Band and the girls sang Dynamite together (which they had worked on at school in their "Sing-a-song" group and pretty much sang all night anyway).

Most of the kids left around 10. Only three girls stayed the night, which was about perfect. So the four of them all snuggled into the queen bed in our guest room and got to bed around 11:30 pm. Not too bad, really.

As I cleaned up the house this morning after donuts and chocolate milk, I felt a huge sense of relief. Bianca had the best time. And it was wonderful for her. And if it's wonderful for her, I should be happy. But really, I'm happy that it's over more than anything else!

Winter's Tale

On Saturday, Bianca and I went to Cedar City for the Utah Shakespeare Festival. We've tried to make it a tradition to go each year, didn't end up going last year, and just barely made it for this year. But I really wanted to go this year because they were performing The Winter's Tale. (I forgot to bring my camera so have no pictures from this weekend.)

We stayed at the Big Yellow Inn Bed & Breakfast and got a free upgrade to the Master's Suite (gotta love a pretty much dead weekend). Bianca even had her own little room with TV. She loved that. We did each other's nails and relaxed in the afternoon.

We were disappointed to find out they don't do a Green Show for the fall season, but fortunately the college students had a comedy juggling act going on that night. The play was great. The Winter's Tale is dear to me because it's the story my current YA novel is based upon. I'm about 1/3 of the way through and dearly lacking inspiration so I wanted to see the original play performed to help me move over my hump. This is one of the hardest of Shakespeare's plays to put into genre because if it were finished at the intermission mark (halfway through), it would be categorized as a tragedy, but after the second half (and the fact that everything works out just swell at the end), it is categorized as a comedy. In my novel, I'm choosing to focus on Perdita and Philomel's story rather than the parents. I did realize as Hermoine is pretending to be a statue at the end that I still need to fill in some holes in my own plotline--how does one fake dead/fake a statue in a real-life modern-day setting? I've got some things to think about.

Bianca ended up falling asleep midway through the second act and I had to keep shaking her because she was snoring. Silly tired girl!

We slept hard that night and woke up to a delicious B&B breakfast (this is really the reason why I prefer staying in B&Bs; well, that and the antiques!) and then headed the three hours home. We stopped in Santaquin for a scone the size of my thigh (not kidding) smeared with honey-butter. So worth the calories!

It was a short weekend, but a lot of fun! I hope Bianca remembers these special weekends we spent together when she's older. Hopefully she'll form a life-long love for Shakespeare too!

Cleaning windows

Portia LOVES to help clean around the house. She asked me if she could clean the windows. She finished the inside and then she wanted to go do the outside. I let her. Now she's outside washing down her bicycle. I wish she were a little taller and I'd let her go around to the back of the house as well!

Penny

Bianca had an orchestra clinic the last two days. She, my tiny 5th grader, lugged her double-bass there (nearly toppling over every time she put it on her back) and I couldn't help notice people staring (and chuckling) as she walked past them. The top of the bass hits the top of most door frames, so Bianca has to lean forward to fit it through. It really is so cute I couldn't help laughing myself. The double-bass takes up a whole seat in my car (because I have to put a seat down in order to fit it inside).

She named her bass Penny (derived from Pig Pen of the Peanuts fame). Despite its bass voice, she's a girl. Bianca loves to name all her instruments. Maybe that's why she gets so attached to them. Her viola is named Viol; her cello is named Charlie Brown. Portia's violin is even named Vio-Lindsay.

Last night all the kids in the elementary school orchestra clinic played several songs together. Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, Mary had a Little Lamb, Hot Cross Buns. What amazed me more than anything wasn't that Bianca picked up another instrument so quickly, but that amongst 40-50 kids (most of them playing the violin) that you could hear the bass vibrating so loudly through it all. I told Bianca I could hear all her wrong notes (she said she wouldn't be playing any wrong notes). Well, she's always an optimist.

This morning as Bianca was practicing, she picked up another song. Jingle Bells. Not bad for her third day playing Penny.

Three Little Kittens

Portia's been having a hard time going to preschool this last couple of weeks since Bianca is off track. She says she doesn't want to "work, work, work." So I've been trying to help her have more fun; I even let her wear a tutu to preschool today. Then she came home with this kitty mask and showed me how they have been learning the "Three Little Kittens" poem. How can she not be having fun?