Summer Wraps Up

How was your summer? Mine, for the most part, was exceedingly fun. Some of the people in this house had a birthday party in which they were suddenly revealed to be EIGHT YEARS OLD. And seeing as how they were such Harry Potter fans I made them some fancy schmancy Harry Potter items to usher in this event: origami owls, letters of acceptance to Hogwarts, cards with miniature gear for their new school, paper wands in custom cardboard boxes, boxes of chocolate frogs with wizard cards (it's intriguing what some adults are getting up to out there, I tell you). We even convinced The Queen of Dairies to put a Hogwarts crest on one of their finest ice cream cakes, seeing as how we're always on holiday when this birthday rolls around, and my holiday kitchen in no way resembles the kind of kitchen one could bake or ice a cake in. Then, when we got home and had another birthday party for the relatives, I'd had enough of we'd kind of exhausted the whole Harry Potter thing so I made them a cake that was supposed to look like an Ohm, which is a creature from a Miyazaki movie called Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. An ohm looks like a large woodbug. Well, a large woodbug with lots of blue eyes, which turn bright red when it's mad, which is usually when the humans do bad things to the environment (ack, go watch the film, I'm making it sound weird). And, in an occurrence that really shouldn't surprise me anymore, when I was trolling the internet looking for Ohm stills on which to base the cake, I came across a lot of Ohmu in various mediums, made by a lot of very odd creative people and there was even a Lego Ohmu. The people in this house who turned eight was thrilled with their particular Ohm, especially as it involved three layers of cake, a whole package of sparklers, and a ton of icing.

I made a dress out of this material (cast your eyes left) and endured an astonishing amount of comments from people who could not understand why I was wearing a) a dress made out of kid's fabric, b) a dress made out of material with SILLY LOOKING BUGS on it, and c) a really LOUD green dress. All I could say was "Umm, because I liked the material?"






I made chocolate leaves for yet another birthday cake, this time one for an adult who wanted something more sedate than an Ohm cake. Chocolate leaves are one of the more satisfying things one can do with a lot of leftover chocolate chips, they're super easy, and they always look really impressive. Oops, I'm outing myself here, aren't I? Trust me, they'll practically KILL you they're so complicated - and they take HOURS to make.

We also swam a lot. And played a lot. And built a lot of Lego structures. And caught the cat accidentally with the hose a few times (the places this cat sleeps!). And in a final, last ditch attempt at capturing the summer, the twins and I decided to enter a whole whack of categories for the local County Fair. We collected the longest bean pods we could find, the best pumpkins we could find, the reddest tomatoes we had, and Dominic even went all out and made some penguin cupcakes from the amazingly creative Hello Cupcake book he'd discovered at the library. I entered some of my canned things and a few garden items. FDPG made some pressed flower creations and some truly lovely greeting cards. It was incredibly hectic and exciting and breathlessly fun (some of us won a few Best In Category ribbons and a surprising number of firsts and some of us even won some - gasp - cash) and although we all agreed to enter at least 4 times as many categories next year, we also decided not to start everything the week before the fair. In the interests of not giving me a nervous breakdown...

And now it's the end of the summer. School is starting almost INSTANTLY. I like to mark this time. Something to mark the start of a new school year, a time of excitement and anticipation in this house even though we're homeschoolers and don't have to get up early to catch a bus or get to the classroom on time. If our school funds come tomorrow we'll be off to get some new pencils perhaps, or something in the workbooky line for the always busy FDPG, or the watercolours I'm planning for our Art Bags. Then it'll be back to dealing with the 5,392,190 tomatoes in the back yard. Tomatoes to turn into many many jars of salsa (a salsa that won me a Best in Category ribbon at the fair - does it get any more exciting than that?) for those long winter months.

We had a funny incident the other week, as we were on our way to meet a friend at the bank. We were racing to meet a friend at a bank, and some fellow in a coffee shop doorway said, å propos of nothing "Don't worry - they'll all be gone in another 2 weeks!" My kids, for whom this was a Mysterious Remark From Another Planet, all said "What did he mean by that? Where are we going?" They were uneasy. Disquieted, even. I was SO tempted to play a little game with them, but being the mature adult I (sometimes) am, I didn't. "He meant school," I said, "public school. All parents generally look forward to getting rid of their kids round about now." Then I looked at them all and laughed rather immoderately.

"Poor you," said Max, "You're stuck with us!" And then we ALL laughed rather immoderately.