Nesting and September urges

I taught my first class last night.
I had prepared quite a bit over the last two weeks, including purchasing my own school supplies and having everything in order. I told my students I felt like nesting. I'm still baking lots of cookies to sell on Sunday at the concert, so every morning I'm in my kitchen with my apron on, then I've been keeping up on pretty good on laundry and dishes and then sending off drafts of syllabi and course outlines as the new term kicks in. I feel like such a mother-homemaker-teacher-traditional kind of woman -- I'm not sure it fits right. I even wore a blouse yesterday. Weird. I mean a peach starchy crisp blouse and earrings, not my usual "I can get cooking oil and dirty boy-hands on this cotton thingy-majigy"! It's so unlike me I've been trying to figure it out.

-I mean, I had a whole little basket with all my supplies inside: my box of scissors and glue sticks, my pipe cleaners, my handouts - all paper-clipped and 3-hole punched, and my visual aides...etc. It was truly mockable. And yet. I delighted in it. As I was preparing I obeyed many of my instincts to make this class special and full of intention. I knew it was going to be only women, so I went ahead and let my supplies look feminine. Strange. All this excitement, and yet so revealing of how important it is.

Even the cookie baking is taking on a new kind of investment and "nesting" sort of focus. For years David and I have mused about owning a restaurant of sorts where people could sit by the fire and hear stories. Then we encountered a famous breakfast biscuit and cinnamon roll cottage when we worked in Georgia one summer called "Aunt Pearl's Porch." They had fried chicken biscuits and gravy to die for. (No counting calories or cholesterol, please.) I remember being so struck with the magic of Aunt Pearl's Porch, that I asked if I could join them at 6 am to help and observe how they do it. I was turned down.

Later in Chemainus I got into quite the scone making habit from Mom's recipe with an egg and sprinkled sugar on top. That's when Dave and I dreamed about "Elizabeth's Scones". A little baked goods stand with iced tea and hot scones with a ruffled awning made from fabric with sunflowers on a bright blue background. It's striking to me how I can picture the whole thing in my head.

Well... this last week as we've been buying more and more butter and sugar and chocolate chips for all our cookies, we've bought some extra things: a large blue plate to display one of each of our cookies, a blue and green striped table cloth (Weston picked that one out), a new non-stick baking mat which we cut to size for our toaster oven sized pans, a pumpkin shaped whicker basket for our till, and then Dave's going to give us a vase of his ripe sunflowers. --See? I'm nesting again! Actually I'm doing a trial run of Elizabeth's scones on a small scale.

What's ironic is that on my second batch of dough my mixer died! All my batches have been double so I guess it was too much for the little guy. I would not have survived this week without Janice Lassen's Kitchen Aid mixer and her ample freezer space. ...I guess running a business would take a lot more investment in resources. Not only that, but it's a great time commitment to make special "food with love" (as David calls it.) But they're beautiful. And cookies have always been my favorite dessert (or snack or even breakfast I'm sorry to admit). So there's something special about it. Who knows? Maybe I'll start an Elizabeth's Porch right here in Rosebud.

As I think back on it, many Septembers have held a new surge of energy or ambition. Some Septembers I have actually had motivation to be a vigorous morning walker. (I have been walking in the mornings for a week, but not vigorously... yet.)

It must be schoolgirl envy.

I have to admit, every year when the nights get cold after lazy summer evenings, I just want to sharpen my pencils, buy new shoes and get a woolen short skirt. I want to go to school. I loved school.

And now I'm a teacher.

And a mother.

And a wife.

And I'm a nester.

One of the songs Donovan and Weston are working up for Sunday's concert is called "I am cow." I still hear the strained bellowing of the mama cows up on the hills in the mornings so I also say,

I am cow.

Which makes me think of milk.

Which makes me think of cookies.

Which makes me think of my dirt be-smerched children longing with puppy eyes to get on the computer.

More later.