A Picture of Our Lives

Here is an excerpt from a letter I wrote today to a young woman who might want to be our au pair for the next year. I'm including it here because I don't think I ever actually wrote up the most basic information about us in this blog so far.

Anyway, here it is:

I’ll tell you a little bit about myself and my two sons, Danny (eleven years old) and Mikey (eight years old). I am a writer for a company in Atlanta, Georgia USA, but I work at home in Vermont USA. We live on a horse farm here and we have six horses just now. Well, five horses and a donkey. Actually, four horses, a donkey, a pony, six ducks, three cats, a dog, a guinea pig, and five (I think) roosters. I’m a little tired of the roosters—they all crow many times each morning. That means we hear hundreds of rooster-crows before we even get out of bed! I hope that doesn’t scare you away, though. After a while you get used to the noises of the farm.

I believe that we can choose to get the most joy out of each moment, even if our circumstances are difficult (and mine have been difficult, at times). I have two beautiful children, a healthy body, a great job and a beautiful home, so I feel very, very lucky right now. Each day I spend time doing things I love with people I love. What could be better? Also we have very nice neighbors, even if the houses are spread far apart, and can always find some good conversation with a friend. I have done a lot of schooling, studying English and Social Work and Biostatistics at the graduate school level. That is why I can be a writer about technical things and math things and well, pretty much anything. I lived in Brazil for a while when I was a teenager (ages thirteen and fourteen) and I learned some Portuguese. I haven’t forgotten all of it… ) I like to work with troubled horses, and I ride almost every day, in different styles depending on the horse.

We don’t have a working tv in our house, but we get movies from Netflix instead. We spend our time playing board games, riding the horses, doing chores (of course! lots of chores), and reading. We all like to read and play on the computer.

So let me tell you about Danny, who is eleven. His full name is Daniel, but he prefers to be called Danny. Danny is so loving! He is very smart and wise in surprising ways. He is fair minded to everybody. This is not a common trait in somebody so young, so I am very proud of him. He takes good care of his guinea pig (“Little Pig”). He is always kind to the horses, especially the horse he rides, whose name is Dusty. Danny does not like to write at all, and this makes school difficult for him, because in school you have to write a lot. But he is good about getting up and leaving on time for the bus anyway. He is smart in math, and he does some math on the computer each day so he doesn’t have to write it all down. Danny is hardy in the cold. It doesn’t bother him like it bothers the rest of us ;-). Danny knows how to cook sausages, how to make pasta with boiling water (I usually pour it out for him), and how to bake cookies if he gets a little help with the recipe. He loves to play with Transformers and has quite a collection of them. He does not like to color, but sometimes he will paint if you start painting and don’t ask him if he wants to do it. If you ask him, he’ll say no. But if you start doing something yourself, he will want to try. Oh, and he loves to jump on the trampoline (cama elastica?).

Mikey’s full name is Michael, but he prefers to be called Mikey. He also loves to jump on the trampoline, especially with somebody else to jump with. In fact, both the boys like to be around other people and don’t like playing by themselves unless they are reading. Mikey is an extrovert: every waking minute he wants to be in conversation with somebody. He is a very happy, exuberant child and will play all kinds of games any time. He likes to stay indoors—we’re working on this because it’s healthier if he spends more time outside. He tries to outsmart everybody. And he can—Mikey is also quite the intelligent child. He doesn’t mind writing so much, so he is better at handling his school work. He goes to a lovely little school nearby that is a private school. It’s called the “Waldorf School,” an amazing, special place full of love. Danny goes to the public school and doesn’t like Mikey’s school for himself. I wish he did, because it would be a great place for him to go. Mikey rides a little white Shetland pony named “Fleetfoot Jack.” Jack loves Mikey and Mikey is very good to Jack. He (Mikey, I mean, although you might say the same about Jack) learns anything at all very quickly and loves showing what he can do.

We all three love to be together doing things. We love living on our farm and don’t usually want to go anywhere else, but if we do, we live just 25 minutes from Burlington, VT. We are so lucky!

So that is a little bit about us. If you want to find out more about us, you can go to the farm’s blog. The farm is called “Chiron’s Grove” (you can google “Chiron” to find out why ;-) ).

Beijos,

Sheila