wabi sabi

I have a new favorite magazine: whole living. It's a Martha Stewart publication, which made me skeptical at first, but they gave me a subscription rate I couldn't refuse. I'm sending it to all my favorite people for their birthdays. I would share with my Tallahassee friends, but I tear too many pages out! I received the September and October issues at the same time, and I've already torn out articles on mantras, easy meals to satisfy take out cravings, embracing imperfection (wabi sabi), and alternative ways to treat depression.  I'm also taking the advice of putting ferns in our bathrooms, reading dinneralovestory.com, buying recycled leather rugs, asking my family how I can love them better, and planting bulbs. In case you're wondering, Ainsley and Hawthorne both told me I could love them better by letting them eat candy. Hawthorne added that I could yell less. It doesn't take much imagination to guess Carter's answer! I went into my questioning with a plan to not be defensive at all. Everyone made it easy on me not to even feel defensive, but I did cave and remind Hawthorne that usually the reason I yell at him is because he doesn't respond to my calm requests. I asked how I should handle that differently. He didn't have a solution. I'll work on the yelling, but I'm not making any promises.

We did come up with a new plan for getting the kids to do their "chores." At the beginning of the week, we give them 20 poker chips worth $.25 each. Each time we have to remind them to do something they're supposed to do on their own, they have to put a chip in the Oops Jar. At the end of the week, they get to cash in their poker chips and start over. So far it seems like a pretty successful experiment. They aren't losing so many chips that they figure they can let it all hang out at the end of the week, and they seem proud of the of the ones they hold on to. Of course they don't actually have cash, just little IOUs in their banks because I never have any money either, but the IOUs seem good enough for them to get a kick out of it.

The weather here is hot again, but for the fleeting days of early fall, we tackled the yard. Living in Tallahassee is like living in the jungle. The rain makes everything grow (except the grass in the places you actually want it to grow). Vines pop up all over the place and take over entire azalea beds as if sprouting from magic beans. Huge elephant ears unfurl in every shady spot. And mushrooms of fairytale colors and size appear over night. Reigning it all in takes lots of time and muscle. Carter's new strategy is to flatten the dirt, put down plastic, and cover everything in pebbles. It really has worked miracles one flowerbed at a time. This weekend we started a new flowerbed that will become our butterfly garden. Gumbo trampled the old one, but we smartened up and are digging the new one outside his fence. We also removed wheelbarrows full of vines from our creek bed so that when the torrential rains come, they can actually get down the yard without washing out a foot of dirt (like they did last time).While Carter and I toil and sweat, the kids gather giant earthworms and create a breeze by flying on their trolley. I've attached pictures. It looks like fun, but I've tried it, and it's mainly just a scary ab and arm workout unless you're less than 5 feet tall and under 55 pounds.

Lucy also has been busy in the backyard. Killing critters. She brings in lots of worms, which I don't mind scooping up and dumping in the pot with the lemon tree. But she also brings in lots of gross bugs, which I have to call Carter to handle. Ick!!!! Today she brought us a giant mole. Really. My childhood cats used to bring me moles all the time. I'm used to cute little dead moles. But this mole was huge. Mouse sized. Why, Lucy? Why? I never felt very bad for the moles of my childhood because I knew my mom didn't like having them tear up the yard. Dead moles and people shooting at raccoons and armadillos is something you quickly get used to when you grow up in East Texas. But I so don't have a yard that can be hurt even by a giant mole, so I felt sorry for the furry little guy. I'm glad I'm so totally infatuated with Lucy because otherwise I'd be pretty pissed about the dead mole I had to fetch from under my kitchen table.

So I'll leave you with a mantra for the week: wabi sabi. It's fun to say, and it means, well for the most part, it means that there is beauty in imperfection.