this moment

(soulemama presents this moment each friday. these are my moments for today. happy friday, amanda. thanks for helping us all to take a breath).

a march roller skating day

m and c found roller skates under the tree this epiphany. they're very old roller skates and were once my friend's when she and her sisters were growing up. m and c have been trying to get them into working condition. they cleaned the metal, oiled the leather, sewed special covers for the aging leather, and searched for the appropriate boots to sit in them. the boots even had to be fixed at the show repairman's, since a zipper was broken. subsequently, it's been quite a number of weeks since they first started thinking they could put them on and zip around, to the actual carrying out of the thought.

unfortunately, the happiness of gliding along that you see above, did not last long.

c, being the very sweet and considerate sister that she is, removed one skate and joined her older sibling for awhile. then she skated with two skates, but it's not as much fun when you were expecting to do the activity with a partner, so they switched to tag until my hands were so cold we went in.

as for the straps, we're now going to make entirely new ones from a heavy material, and scrap the leather entirely. i'll keep you posted.

waiting for music hour to begin

the car

the car is buried under a pile of snow. we almost walked by it without seeing it. c scraped a little hole and peered inside . . rather dark . .

. . and it is a sledding day . . continued

it's beautiful coming up out of the grand army plaza subway station and into brooklyn. the park always feels so wild. the breadth of it when you enter is exhilarating for me. and then there's all that snow! one time we were there sledding in the evening while it was snowing . . the flakes falling past the old fashioned looking lampposts shone in the yellow light and made the world a smaller and special place. i always have that image with me for these recent sledding expeditions. they are all tinged with the memory of falling snow and yellow lamppost light, surrounded by a slowly growing indigo sky.

isn't this a funny sign? the area was definitely very wet, but we were all sporting upon it! poor grass. i hope our sleds weren't too rough.

sledding frontwards . .


and sledding backwards . .

my version of the snow shelter (here is janet's!)

and the mamas taking their pics!

last year this view was a grey void . . this year a happy blue sky peeked through, and the sun grinned madly on the trees which dropped such enormous globs of snow on us that i looked up wondering who had thrown the snowball at me.

. . and it is a sledding day . .

into the wilds of brooklyn . .

. . . and another!

we're having lots of snow days this year! nyc schools are closed again. i'm sure ellen will have class, and i know m is determined to go since we missed last week. the girls are supposed to babysit, but i wonder how wet this snow is . . maybe it's time to go sledding?