I'm a child of the tomato sauce day

My husband finally got the tomato sauce.

The sauce making day he's been wanting for the last, ohhh I don't know, eighteen years?  Every year I ask what he wants for his birthday.  Every year he asks "Can we make the sauce?"  That's all he wants, no presents please, just 'can we make the sauce'.

And I put it off.  We don't do it.  Every year. 

I have childhood memories of making sauce, it was work, hard work. We would make thirty boxes or so. I will always remember our long hallway lined with cases and cases of tomatoes. The waking early, the washing, the cutting, the stinging hands, the old beer bottles needing washed. It was quite the production, there was nothing half hearted about it.

Sauce making day holds memories in smells for me. You know those.... memories you can smell.
It's cut tomatoes, the smell of them passing through the mincer, metalic acidy yet good. The smell of smoke, when all was ready to go a fire was lit. As a kid this was the best bit, it would be dark and we'd sit around tired yet not wanting to go inside.

The next day we'd wake to unload the barrel.  Again the smells, a little more unpleasant this time. Old clothes wet with water and rust in an oil barrel between the beer bottles, the smell of a broken bottle, tomato and rust again.

Back to the now, as we processed our one box of tomatoes, all these memories came back to me. I'd always dreaded doing this at home for my family, always avoided it.  But after yesterday, after our small scale production, the whole deal, the taking turns cranking the mincer, the kids helping with the bottling, seeing my husband buzzing and happy. I remembered that it was also a special time.

We were all together, all making something together all helping out, how often does that happen these days.

I think a little tradition has been reignited in my heart, sharing a piece of my past and giving my husband his wish and seeing my kids enjoy it all, I think it was worth it.

I'm ready to get another case before they are gone and make some semi-dried tomatoes like foxes lane did.

the stuff we have (two)

This bit is about him.

I'm afraid I won't do him justice. You'd need to come on over and sit at one of our Sunday open-house brunches, have him poach you an egg and grill you some bacon like you were sitting in a cafe. Within minutes you would get a sense of him, and the mad house we have going on. He's a very hands-on parent, so there will be a child in his arms (and probably one in the hall having a time out) while he's whipping it all up.

You'd instantly notice just how much he adores me. Still after seventeen years and four babies, you'd notice, because he'd hug and cuddle me and tell you that I am wonderful. I always get a little self conscious 'cause I don't believe I'm that great.

You'd definitely score one of his amazing stove-top Lattes, no swanky coffee maker machine for him. You might have to wait an hour for it, cause he has his own time zone and it's always on slow. He'd almost certainly ask if you'd like to see his compost heap whilst making you coffee. He'd grab a hand full of it, all black and pungent. He loves showing off the balls of worms. That isn't a double entendre. Great whacking big gobs of wriggly pink worms. (I swear, not an entendre!)

Only this way would you actually get the feel of him. Three hours later, waiting for a second coffee and he'll still have you discussing the economic fall of Iceland. This is where I'll be slowly backing away, cause the "end of oil" talk would probably be coming next, and that one I am a little freaked by.

My partner has always veered slightly off kilter.

He always thinks we can make do with anything or nothing. He is a real romantic like that. He leaves his whole country behind, his whole life, to be with me and he brings one bag! When we were first together, in the two months between him arriving and us getting married, we lived in my painting studio. We slept on foam blocks, our room was partitioned with sheets from my glory box, he made furniture out of cardboard boxes. Good furniture, too.

I have such great memories of that time in my life. I think it was the only time I really fully immersed myself in his free spirit. I'd come from a really sheltered life, my father was quite strict. My husband represented a new life, an escape. And I was madly madly in love.

I knocked the nomadic stuffing out of him, though. I didn't know I was doing it but I did.

Although I'd taken a big chance in just being with him, I began to take less and less chances: The $85,000 house we passed up on, the keys to the cafe we gave back, even the offer of a commercial art gig I said no to. Wasn't I meant to be the free spirit? I was the artist, he was the nuclear engineer.

Then once we had kids, while he was out protesting the war and getting bashed by cops, I wouldn't take any risks at all. I scoffed at his container house idea, I resisted (passively) having chooks. We did not make the tree change.

I just assumed it would never happen. We had kids (two, then three, then four) and he had job and made far more money than I had ever earned painting. I was comfortable in my position while he grew to dislike his more and more. I had little experience with compromise, as there was none in my house growing up. I didn't even know how adults were supposed to communicate. We'd talk, but in the end things would just stay the same.

We have a funny way the two of us of getting around each other. We made a deal (when we first got actual furniture) that we'd have five years on a mattress and five years on a futon. No points for guessing who wanted which one. I have become so overly cautious, I always think of the worst things that could happen to us, even when it came to what we slept on. We're up to the futon for the second time, now.

I cringe every time he remembers these bargains we made, ones I sometimes make in haste to get my way. Ones I'd rather he forgot.

The most recent bargain he's called in was the "We'll take turns working" one, from before we had kids. It had been building slowly, over years, his discontent. He talked more and more about living simply, about being self sufficient, about moving to Daylesford.

I am kind of interested. But it is when I'm interested that I get a scared to entertain the idea. I think "I'd better not get too keen or it'll actually happen." Because if you let him, he'll make stuff happen, just to see where it goes. I'm terrible like that, I've been a real dampener on his free spirit.

But he's the only person I ever met more stubborn then me. As of last month he works three days a week. He's here when the kids get home from school, he has taken over our garden (another area where I can't compromise), he has planted a herb spiral on our nature strip "for the community." He is getting us all outdoors for dinner. He's never been happier.

Despite my initial panic at the massive salary cut, I am finding that there is a glimmer of that old simple studio life creeping in. There is a chook in our garden now. I am letting him be himself, I am learning to compromise. I have let him bake some of our bread.

For the baker's daughter, that's a pretty big deal.

my patchwork life

I have been a little ill this past week so there has not been a lot of anything going on other than collecting of tissues, which I have left strewn all over the house.

We even had a birthday and there was no flourless chocolate cake. In fact the cake had to wait a day, until I could actually get out of bed. My poor husband, he cooked cleaned bought me tea tried to keep the house quiet, difficult when you have four children, all on his birthday. I was glad he managed to send off two of the kids for the night and next half a day, he needed a break too.

The birthday was just postponed. A caramel slice was the all he wanted... well actually all he wanted was me to relax and take it easy. I made it any way, I am terrible at taking advice. So we sat with friends drank tea ate the slice and played slamwich.

During the ensuing days, there was a lot of trying to lay low. There was one trip to the op shop, Savers actually. I suggest you never visit a large op shop if you are feeling remotely queasy. The endless aisles of brightly coloured clothing, the disarray, the things that usually attract me to such places had me running. Straight for the french bakery for a sit down, a glass of water, some 79 cent Aldi paracetamol, and a latte once I could stomach it. Mmm now that I think of it cheap paracetamol and incredibly strong antibiotics for spider bite maybe not a good combination.

On the days I was confined to the indoors I set my three year old to work on a project. One that would take her a while I hoped, so I thought a big artwork. She has exceptional patience for her artwork, often spending days on a drawing, doing an hour, putting it away, then going back to it the next day. Gee I wish my studio practice was that good.

I thought about the classic giant piece of paper and drawing around her body, giving her paints and letting her go for it. Then I thought about the way she works with paint, the way she uses it like a patchwork. Me and my recently acquired sewing brain thought fabric squares, she could glue them on. This was like heaven to this child, using Mum's fabric scraps and opening a new tube of rice glue.

She spent all afternoon on this, it was wonderful, at times tricky little baby sister wanted in on it too so we made some adjustments to where she could work on it. Baby Circe made several failed attempts to help, but enjoyed her brush and water paint just as much.

Eliza's artwork adorns our fridge pin-board and living space. In Ikea the other day I thought of those beautiful drawings she'd made with coloured pen I wanted to preserve those a little better and show them off. My two older children's works are in various frames or on canvas all around our home.

Their primary school holds an Art fair each year and the children produce amazing work for this particular show. Phoenix my seven year old has done 2 Picasso inspired self portraits which I love they are so expressive. Beatrix my ten year old has done several delicate pen or pencil still lives, these are detailed and intricate and often spur my creativity when decorating.

I feel that children's art work can be placed in amongst bought art, your own art and even given as gifts. Eliza has recently made a piece for our friend who is turning 30 we framed it and are giving it to her as it is picture of her it was done after she took Eliza out to Scienceworks one day. A wonderful gesture and all her own initiative.

I framed several of her works the other day and gave them pride of place above my bargain-corner metal locker which houses all my sewing stuff in our dining kitchen space. and I believe in providing children with good art materials, canvas, paper and lots of it,we always have an Ikea roll of newsprint. Some materials we use include permanent marker, pen, fine-liner, tempera paints, watercolour blocks alphabet and number stamp blocks.

My children have almost never been too young to scrawl on a bit of paper, as soon as they could grasp, a crayon was usually in their hand. Art is a an amazing creative outlet for any child, their imagination can transcend the pages on which they leave their mark to later remind them of their innocence and wonder.