Candlemas

Happy Candlemas! Febuary 2nd has many names, Groundhog Day, Imbolc, Candlemas, and several more interpretations of the same. When I was deciding which we as a family should try to pay attention to Candlemas resonated with me the most. It’s spiritual without being religious, it’s pretty without being pompous. So that’s what I went with. However, my son clearly liked Groundhog Day better, that’s all he kept saying “Happy Groundhog Day!” I wish I has prepared more groundhog themed activities.
Interesting side note, the idea of Groundhog day is so old that it originated in England where it is actually a hedgehog instead of a groundhog! The idea of a hedgehog predicting the weather is just to adorable for words! Of course the idea of wild hedgehogs puttering about is also just adorable.

But, back to the topic at hand. First we made candles! I got a beeswax sheet kit at the local craft store, and we made several candles to serve as birthday candles at the upcoming 6 year event, then we made several to just burn throughout the day.

The four blue, and first two yellow (closest to the blue) are for the cake. The rest were just to use. Not bad for $5! The kit was pretty easy to do. Especially for me, but all I had to do for the kiddo was to start rolling it so it was tight around the wick without breaking. As we rolled we talked about the earth and animals coming out of hibernation. We discussed the candles meaning that the sun is shining on the earth more, something we’ve been reading about anyway in some of our seasons books.

Traditionally today is a day to begin preparing the earth for harvest, sowing seeds to transplant later, and other gardening work. I intended to repot some houseplants but couldn’t find my empty pots or my potting soil! I didn’t want to work outside because it was below freezing, and I also am waiting for naturalized bulbs to grow and didn’t want to disturb them. I did however spend a few minutes outside checking for bulb sprouts. I have 8! I planted more than 100, but it’s still early, and as much as I love it I’m a terrible gardener, so 8 is joyous enough for me!

The ability of plants to grow through the hard soil, through the frozen ground, through the mulch, simple amazes me. The sprouts as so strong yet so fragile. I love the movie The Secret Garden, in the 1990’s version when it shows the quick growth of the plants. I often joke that I always wanted to be able to sing and to garden, and I’ve given up singing.
I also started working on the grapevine cone we’re going to use on our seasonal table. I didn’t presoak the grapevine, so it has to be finished tomorrow. Right now I have a wire mesh cone, and an arm full of scratches. 
Today is also a day for spring cleaning. I wouldn’t say that I did that, BUT I did clean and work. My Grandmother’s house is going on the market, so yesterday we made a day trip to pick up all our boxes of stuff. There were quite a few tears shed, and between that and some illness lately I just didn’t have it in me for deep cleaning. But my living room is full of boxes (half Christmas awaiting the attic, and half stuff from yesterday) so I unpacked and put some away. I talked to my son about how we got these items as memories of Grandma’s house. So now he calls them memories. The Memory breadbox makes a Memory Sandwich. “Can he use a memory mug?” I get it. The first thing I unpacked was the mugs. The dishes to match were still in the car. I had gotten home to late, to tired, to cold, to hungry, to carry a heavy box of dishes that were not well packed. I was afraid I’d drop and break them all.

A memory mug, full of coffee, on the memory breadbox, with what is supposed to be pussy willow being forced to root in the background.

I cleaned up the kitchen and unpacked the memory breadbox. It feels so good, just so heartwarming, to see it on my counter. We love my Grandma’s house, and nothing will kill the sharp tearing feeling that this sale provokes, but these little things help.

Candlemas is also a day to eat grains. So as a quick dinner I ate cereal, in one of my new memory bowls. The day was great, and was a nice way to both reminisce, and pull us out of the sadness. Which is a part of what Candlemas is, to pull through the cold, hard, depressing winter and move on. Happy Candlemas!!! Now on to Super Bowl Sunday! (I’m not a football fan, but I intend to knit my heart out, eat, and watch some commercials!)

Roadblocks

My son is almost 6. When I decided to get married, settle down, and have kids I wanted a gaggle of them, 4 minimum. Call me crazy but I would have been ecstatic with 6. I don’t have 6, or 4, or even 2. I have 1, and there is no sign of more in the immediate future. People with kids know two things, 6 years old comes way to fast, and at 6 your kids are so different. They can DO things, really do things. Go to friends houses alone, play in their room alone. (Many people send their kids to school alone, but we homeschool.) At 6 your child has an independence from you that is both terrifying and joyous. “AHHHHHHHH” you can breath, you can pee with the door shut, sometimes. You can go back to work, or tackle a hobby.

At the end of 2012 I reached the point where I questioned “What do I, Alicia Simon, do now?” I could run a craft business. I could go back to blogging, something I’ve done on and off for over 10 years. I could start some other business. What do I want to do? If I run a business, what do I want to do? to make? to sell? If I blog what would I write about? Now, there is one thing you need to know about me, and this is no doubt going to be a running thing, I am a slacker. I trained my kid to pick snacks in the morning so that I can sleep until 10. We unschool. It is January 27, and my Christmas decorations are boxed up sitting in the living room. I joked that I could run a blog called “The Seasonal Slacker” which was all about NOT doing all the seasonal stuff the “perfect” blogs do. Linkys could include things like most out of season wreath.

My son in some recent snow. And yes that dead plant is in a Halloween Cauldron.

Then I looked at my son. My amazing nearly six year old boy, and I knew time is going to fast. When he is grown, gone, that could be it for me, empty nest. I’ve got to do something. I’ve got to create memories, create traditions. Traditions that he will continue on, traditions that he will remember, smile about, and perhaps even come home for. Traditions and memories that I can look back at, remember, savor when I’m home, alone. In six more years, that brief blink of time that has already passed he will be 12, and then when I blink again he will be 18 years old. 18.

I live over 500 miles from my parents. I moved away gladly, and I’d be lying if I said I enjoy visiting. Don’t get me wrong, I love seeing my folks, watching my Dad be goofy, seeing what neat little trinkets my Mom has collected. But I don’t flock home for holidays, or even have any memories of them really. I don’t want that. Your children will grow up, they will not always need you, but you want them to want you. I want my son to move as far as as he needs to be happy, BUT I want him to call, to write, to remember.

And my blog topic was decided. I started doing blog set up, cool title, seasonal background, set ups with my name on everything from Google+, Facebook, Youtube, even Etsy just in case. I started brainstorming topics, pinning on Pinterest, making lists of possible blog ideas. Then it happened,

Road Block Number One.

I DON’T want to be another “perfect mommy blogger.” Posting pictures of how together I am, or at least am pretending to be. I have no intention of making an amazing cake pop bouquet for my kid’s friends for Valentines.Truth be told I hate cake pops. The baker does all that work, and the adorable yumminess is gone in one bite. I do not intend to make a wreath for my front door for every single frickin’ holiday known to man. When my son is grown will he care that I made wreaths and blogged about it? Every time I thought of a subject to share, to inspire you, I would research. I’d pour over pins at pinterest, pictures on flickr, google images searches, and I’d find perfect after perfect after perfect. If you want to read a perfect blog, there are so so many out there for you. I don’t want to be perfect. I want to be real. I want to create memories, I want to create a life, not a picture perfect idea of what life could be. And so writing has been hard. I sat at my work space every day, any spare moment I could, and I’d look at pictures, and I’d brainstorm, and I’d type, and I’d try so hard. Then

 

Road Block Number Two

My family, all three of us, got a virus of flu-like proportions. We don’ts know that it was the flu, but we don’t know that it wasn’t either. My husband is the only one that had a flue swab done, and his was not the flu. We laid in the master bedroom, all together, one big bundle of sick. We’d take turns chugging our doses of natural honey based cough syrup and we’d sleep in piles of blankets, one persons foot and another persons arm the only thing under one cover, and three feet and a cat under another. My desk became covered with medicine bottles, dirty tea cups, and abandoned toys. I didn’t write, I didn’t even attempt it, but when I was beginning to feel better I thought about it. I thought about my first roadblock. Perfection. The word stuck in my mouth like the nighttime-sleepy-achey-coughy-feel-like-I’m-dying- medicine.

How can I blog, about this subject that I care about, and not be another perfect blogger? How can I make it less about what others are doing, and more about me? I’m still not entirely sure. I know two things, I can start by living and doing, and I can write about what happens. I hope you stick around to read about it. I can’t promise it will always be good, I can’t promise it will always be inspiring, but I can promise I am not ever going to be perfect.