There have been so many fun things about this weekend, so many successes and little adventures. I missed my husband but I had such a wonderful time with my children and our friends. Looking back I think it all started Friday afternoon when at the Deli I looked up to see my daugther all sunlight in a summer dress, running through the door and telling me breathlessly she got her new violin.
Yesterday was spent almost entirely out in the sun with another family, biking, hiking, and later: ice cream. Cycling through town and waving to and talking with the many people I know. Nels hugging me behind me on the bike, a steep steep hill up and up and up and then whoosh down, along the river. Stopping at places in the neighborhoood and listening to crazy coots rant about this and that. After getting home in the cooling evening, I cooked up some more.
Today: peaches and cream for breakfast; homemade bagels with cream cheese. A cross-town bike ride to pick of a 10 year old friend of the kids’. Returning with the three children and catching chickens, putting them out in the tractor and watching their contended, fussy little dirt baths. Our guest had an interest in making crackers, hardboiling eggs. I rolled the cracker dough (herbs from our garden) and the kids cut, pricked, and applied an egg wash. Serving the kids on their own little table in the sunny living room.
This evening, dinner with a friend. Organic red wine, Italian fare, rocky road ice cream. Good conversation with an impressively smart, calm, and lovely young lady.
Slow food all weekend. So many things in and out of the oven: bagels, cheese and herb crackers, baguette, rhubarb pies. All-day marinara sauce, mushrooms poached in wine and broth.
As a parent we plan so many things for our children to enjoy and they are not so enthusiastic. But tonight it is not so. I tell the kids we’re heading up the coast tomorrow for a hike. “Is daddy going to come?” they ask. “Yes,” I tell them. Nels proceeds to pack his backpack despite my protestations: extra shirt, water, all of my jewelry (wtf?), and a little bead of his own that he loves. “My julie,” he says, “you know.” (Jewelry. I always mean to record Nels’ pronunciations. In rotation this weekend were “owarvies” [ovaries] and “ruff” [roof]).
The house is clean; laundry done, kitchen neat as a pin, kids room tidied and my sewing room mopped and ready for the next time I can get away.
Ralph calls this evening from the last bit of his recording session in Seattle. He is pleased with how his hard work went. I can’t wait to hear his recordings. My mom calls: she is back from Mexico in So. Cal. She’s bringing me a new car when she drives up.
Kids are in bed reading and awaiting my return to bed; we will watch another old B-movie together. Maybe we’ll still be awake when Ralph rolls in – likely not.
It’s been a truly incredible, busy, blessed, amazing weekend.