How to Dance in the Rain.

It was the last warm rain of the season.

I captured Jonah outside:

My Love Affair with Compost.

This week Jonah has been at an insect based arts camp in the area.  He's been having an amazing time and coming home dirtier every day (I love it!).

Maeryn and I have been home and run down.

The heat index in our area is around 109 F today and expected to be 111 or higher tomorrow.  We are inside our air conditioned house and still feel groggy. 

One thing I've been doing, working on, and enjoying is our back yard.

It's small and overgrown, but it's one thing about living here I have grown to love - and really, it feels a bit like my very own space.

That's not to say the rest of the family doesn't spend their fair share of time there, but I feel I have a big hand in the development of the little eco-system that is our backyard, and it fills me up in the best of ways.

Today I watered our vegetable garden, stirred the compost, added more to the pile and moistened it, filled the bird bath, watered the marigolds and sunflowers and basked in the super-heat.  It felt good after a full night of air conditioning. 

I love to watch the birds singing on the fence-posts and eating seeds from our sunflowers and splashing in the bath. 

 

I love having the kiddie pool and using the water after the kids are finished playing to water the plants until it's gone and the sandbox for the kids to dig and build and get gritty.

I'll miss that great back yard when we're gone.

I know there are better things in the future.

I know that someday we'll have a bigger garden with more luscious plants and no HOA and an awesome clothesline and rows of sunflowers and bigger and more expensive composting tools... but until then, it is my pleasure each morning to dig my toes into the grassy mud, to pour life-giving water over plants we'll use for sustenance, and breathe in the fresh smell of the compost and watch it change our trash, scraps, and garbage into rich, fertile earth.

In the Garden.

I love gardening.  I love being in the garden, watering, weeding, pruning, harvesting - it is all satisfying and special for me.  I love getting my hands in the dirt and sporting the mud under my fingernails.  I even get a bit of a masochistic thrill from mulching.

I wanted to share some of my garden love with you:

unopened squash blooms

Jonah's sunflowers, now much taller than he.

variety of tomato and basil plants

Jonah's oregano

Jonah's basil

Our first zucchini of the season

Camping with The Little.

This past weekend we had the rare opportunity to go camping with just one of our children.

Jonah was spending the weekend with my parents, at his request, and so that he could have the special time with them he hoped for, we took Maeryn camping.

It was the first time we had lived as just the three of us... ever.

It seemed for much of the time, I'll admit, as though there was a missing piece.  All of us had spells where we missed Jonah, thought about him, and wished he were there.

Do I think it was important to take this trip with our daughter and only our daughter?

Absolutely.

Our camping trips have always been places where we see huge growth in our children in every possible way.  It's not something to take lightly, and it's not something to miss if you can help it.

We slept in our tent through a raging thunderstorm (four raging thunderstorms, actually), rented a motorboat for an afternoon, cooked over the fire, and checked out the goose poop at the beach.  It was fun to pick out foods just for the Maeryn at the local grocery store and not have to tag team or play zone as parents.  But it was a little sad when a normally filled silence would fall, or when Maeryn divided her helping of potato chips in half and said, "This is for Jonah!" forgetting he wasn't right there.

Maeryn is blossoming into quite the special kid, in spite of missing her brother and having him as a huge piece of her life, and probably somewhat because of it.  She's a perfectionist, like her brother, and, sadly, like her mother and father, who are fighting against it with all we've got for the sake of our kids and ourselves.  She's a budding artist who paints for hour and hours and goes through sheets and sheets of paper.  She loves diving and swimming in all kinds of water.  She loves strawberries and chocolate and going to the beach and waterslides and ice cream and pretty dresses and the color pink and Dora the Explorer and Diego and Strawberry Shortcake and cupcakes and birthdays and tea parties and dinosaurs.  Some of her favorite things are lemonade, bananas, spitting, singing, splashing, roller skating, and taking walks with her mom or dad.  She hates shoes, socks, anything itchy, having her hair combed, and when people forget.

EOSYCT #3

We did not leave when we had intended.

The day seemed to drag on and on.

I rode my bike to my studio to teach a preschool art class that never was.  I worked on two different paintings.  I mulled over a colored pencil creation including a tulip and a portrait of the mountains.  I waited.

When my family arrived I was ready to go camping.  I had been looking forward to this for months.  But we weren't ready.

Michael had to get the oil changed in the car, kids had to be helped with a myriad of packing adventures.  My clothes weren't on the bed ready for the open suitcase, I still had to put them out.  No one had eaten lunch.

All seemed chaotic and filled with frustration.

I tried to maintain a positive attitude even though my heart was brimming over with disappointment and resentment:  why couldn't we ever be ready for anything on time?

We didn't get on the road until three hours after we'd planned to leave.  I didn't pout or complain, but I'm sure that my negative energy was contagious, as the kids fought with one another in the backseat for much of the drive and conversations between Michael and me seemed tense and fraught with egg-shell walking and uncertainty: distrust.

Our arrival at the campsite did not occur until ten o'clock PM.  We were exhausted - the kids showed it by zonking out in the back seat.  We missed the turn twice before finally stumbling upon the actual entrance to Yellow Creek State Park in the Laurel Highlands of Pennsylvania.

The night was dark.  A car was parked in our space in front of our cabin.

I, of course, panicked, thinking that something had gone wrong with our reservation and now we were doomed to slumber in the cramped, overloaded car, but Michael kept a clear head as we realized the neighbors had an illegally parked extra vehicle and our cabin was, thankfully, empty.

Frustration was replaced by excitement for the first time as we encountered our home for the weekend.

The cabin was beautiful.  Two bunk beds, one including a double on the bottom for Michael and me, a loveseat, a padded chair, a countertop and hard backed chairs for eating or writing tucked beneath the counter...  our keys, maps, booklets, and a composition notebook from past guests discussing their experiences in our shared sleeping quarters.

At that time, we could not see the beautiful surroundings encasing our little cottage - only shadows and the crisp sloosh slosh of water on an invisible shore.

We carried the kids to their respective beds and hit the bathhouse.

I expected Daddy Long-legs and beetles and cobwebs and mildew and dirt.  The pleasant surprise was that the bathhouse was clean and sparkling: a brand new bathhouse for semi-new cabins and yurts.  Three showers, a few sinks, several toilet stalls, paper towels and hand-dryers.  Everything automatic and electronic: not exactly roughing it.

We hit the hay after brushing our teeth.

My night was rough.  It's always hard to sleep away from home, but this time I had that camping, sweaty-cold feeling.  I took a few trips to the bathhouse.  I shivered under sheets since we forgot our heavier blankets and sleeping bags.  We'd have to remedy this at the local Walmart before sleeping again.

And Saturday...

I love to eat breakfast outside.  I could eat for hours outside and everything would taste fantastic.  The fresh air makes me hungry.  We dined on bagels and blueberries, strawberries and cheese - all picked up by Michael that morning.  Before breakfast I took a shower.  It wasn't all it was cracked up to be: I chose the shower with the broken head... but it was mostly warm and it was a welcome relaxation after a hard night on a sticky mattress.

The morning lasted longer than I'd hoped, but eventually we made it to the other side of the lake, rented a canoe, and paddled to our campsite for lunch.

I was tired from my ten mile bike excursion the day before, and it was honestly all I could do to have a positive attitude.  It took work.  I wasn't used to that.  I suppose in years past I would have spent the weekend yelling at everyone and pounding around the cabin, but I tried hard to get past how crappy my body was feeling and concentrate on the moment.  It worked most of the time.

In the afternoon we stopped at a local ice creamery and snatched some cheese fries and chatted about my growing up in Appalachia, and how I was unaware of it while I was living there - the mountains were the mountains were the topography of everything and for everyone - I never noticed them until they were no longer there.  Jonah and Maeryn each had rootbeer and sampled some fries.  Michael chuckled at how very many ketchup packets seem necessary for those of us who grew up indoctrinated to support the Heinz company.  I turned up my nose and explained that lots of ketchup is always essential.

We ventured toward the beach and found a playground crawling with kids on the way - we never made it to the beach.

Maeryn tried her hand at the high monkey bars and experimented with jumping from the swinging bridge while Jonah spun round and round on the precarious tire swing with new friends who were somewhat more daring than he.

And when they left with friends and family it was time for our family's dinner time, and we drove back to the cabin to roast hotdogs and make pizza mountain pies and play in the water.

The lake was serene.  The boats were lit.  The sun was setting.

The fire crackled warm and welcoming and my negative thoughts and my aching body seemed to float away on the silvery twilight air.  The smell of woodsmoke calms me - takes me back to my childhood - days without care.

For s'mores we roasted huge marshmallows and used "the good chocolate" and licked our sticky fingers and watched our faces smeared with sugary whiteness and black ashes smiling and pondering in the quiet evening.

Jonah made a friend in the next cabin and visited after s'mores.  I was afraid.  My anxiety took hold of me and I did not want to meet her parents... but we went and we talked and we laughed and I was glad we did it.

On Sunday we got up too late and packed too slowly and none of us wanted to leave.  Maeryn sang a song to herself about Saturday being a good day and we knew that camping, in spite of everything, had been a success.

The trip home was thankfully broken by a visit with old friends, burgers on the grill, small talk and laughing, our children running outside, dancing with Wii games, and painting pictures together.

Home was back to the mad rush of our family's summer - no time to stop and hear the crickets or catch the lightning bugs - but lingering in heart's full of memories and hopes for next year's excursions and relationships knit a little closer, a little tighter, a little sweeter inside.

Urban Wildlife Habitats

Last night Michael and I watched Big Ideas for a Small Planet - a series of TV programs about how to live a more sustainable life.  I know that these shows aired quite awhile ago, but we don't have television service, we have Netflix Streaming, to we're a little behind the curve on just about everything when it comes to TV.

Regardless, we watched three episodes last night and one of them was about how to co-habitate with wildlife, since we're pretty much constantly destroying their homes.

There is currently a movement to provide housing for the animals that would have naturally lived in the space before humans so that they can move back in, or continue to pass through in their natural migration patterns.  Many people already do this with things like bird houses, bird baths, and bird feeders, but we're a little timid when it comes to providing habitats for bats, hawks, rodents, foxes, deer, insects, and the like, because we're not so comfortable with having them in our backyard, so to speak.  The movement focuses on animals who are in danger of dying out due to our considerable takeover of what used to be their space.

Artist Fritz Haeg established the project Build a Better Snag after doing considerable study in the Portland area to figure out which animals needed help.  He built a snag - another name for a dead tree - artistically, and displayed it for other artists so that they too could create housing for endangered animals, encouraging them to move back into the city.

I know there are considerable problems with this - like cars, for example.  Seems like a pretty bad idea to encourage wildlife to move in so that they can get hit by cars and go through our garbage, but I think this guy and his movement might be onto something.  Perhaps we should figure out better ways to dispose of our trash AND better ways to get around town (sans automobiles).  More public transit, especially underground or high above it would allow more animals to live and move freely about.  Habitats for "less desirable" or more predatory animals could reside in parks and designated open spaces instead of in our back yards, and our backyards could house squirrels, birds, lizards, frogs, fish, and bees.  Will they mix - yes, the will - but is it also important for us to learn to get along with these creatures in better ways?  It's gotta be.  If we don't preserve ecosystems, it doesn't matter how clean the air is and how clear our waterways are - if the animals don't have a place to live, the ecosystems will fail and we're all screwed anyway, even if we clean up our act.

We've already got a bird bath and wildflower beds for pollinators -  this year I'd like to add a bee house.

What do you think?  How can we better co-habitate with animals?   Should we encourage re-habitation?

Dreads for The Boy + Weekend Adventures.

We put dreads in Jonah's hair last week.  They are ROCKIN'.  I love everything about them.

He said he hated brushing his hair and never wanted to do it again.  I told him we could shave his head or put in dreads, if he was serious.  He opted for the dreads.

photo credit:  Summer Webb

photo credit:  Summer Webb

Did I mention it was 85 degrees here yesterday and we spent the day at the beach?

We have had a lovely past few days.

This weekend we managed to go to LEGO storytime at our local library; attend First Friday - where Michael played a gig at the used bookstore while the kids and I explored the square and the wharf, ate ice cream and drank smoothies, and picked up some comic books; go to the farmer's market and grab some local honey, blackberry jelly, and a huge bag of kale; go roller skating with Michael's colleagues; pick up roller blades for Jonah and watch him zoom around the neighborhood; go grocery shopping; play music, see friends, and love on Jesus at church; and watch Dino Squad like maniacs.  It was full and AWESOME.

I've been working on my attitude when it comes to the weekend.  Often I go into it sort of expecting to be disappointed.  I'm changing my perspective to "expecting to be surprised", and it's working out WELL.

Hoping all of you had a wonderful weekend and are also having a wonderful WEEK!

Guest Post: Buried Mutitools, Lost Dogs, and Unicyclists (oh my).

Michael Bell, my renowned hubby, is my guest for the evening here at the Mobile.  He and Jonah recently hiked for three days on the Appalachian Trail.  I hear it was quite the adventure.  I figured it was best to get a first person accounting of the tale.  Enjoy!

 It's pretty amazing what just a few days on (or on the way to) the Appalachian Trail can bring.  I'm sure this is going to be a little disjointed, but I promise to try to cover (and remember!) everything.

Friday dawned early.  like 4am.  Ok, the sun was down, but I was up and trying to get ready to go.  A shower and shave (my last of both for a few days) helped to rouse me.  I worked to get everything and everyone ready for the trip, especially since we needed the whole family up to get Jonah and me to the bus stop, which is about 3 miles from our house.  We missed the 6am bus by about 5 minutes, but I was smart (and I know I am often late) and so we were still able to catch the last bus of the day at 6:30am.  Jonah was quite excited about the bus ride and spent much of the ride looking out the very large windows.  Luckily the bus wasn't full and there was room for our packs in the seats behind us.  We got the the state department building in DC (the last stop), and meandered our way to the Air and Space Museum (Jonah's pick during planning). 

We waited about 10 minutes for it to open and then were turned away because I had a multi-tool in my pack  No dice on having them hold it, either.  This was Jonah's wish and our lunch spot, so I did the only thing I could think of - I buried it in the planter out front and went back through security.  We saw a few things (it was pretty interesting walking through a space station with a 35lb pack on!), ate lunch, and headed for the metro and then to the bus which would be the last mechanized leg of our outbound trip. 


Our first day on the trail was mostly on the roads around Myersville, MD.  The roads moved from paved with lines to paved with no lines to meandering county roads to a MASSIVE climb on a dirt road.  We finally crested the hill with a pack-less Jonah (I had already 'adjusted' his pack weight by taking his sleeping bag onto my pack)

As you can see from the picture, it's already getting late in the day and we still had about 2.5 miles to go.  We finally made it to camp, but only well after dark.  Luckily we'd packed a flashlight this time (lessons learned from Missy and my hiking trip last year).

We stayed the night, and after a call to Mom, we sacked in.  0 degree bag not so much with a bit of a wind; I was pretty cold all night and woke many, many times.  We survived (Jonah slept just fine), packed up, explored the two-shelter site (pretty rare on the trail), and headed out for what was to be our longest day on the trail - 9.1 miles into an overcast morning.

Being that is was a Saturday, the trail was buzzing with many day hikers and even a few overnighters coming the other way.   No thru-hikers at this time of year, especially halfway down the trail.  It was fun to see so many different people and we even ran into some great people who we ended up spending the night with, but more on that later.

this would have been an epic overlook.

Jonah learned about fog firsthand for most of the morning, but by afternoon the fog was thinning and so were our spirits - Jonah was pretty tuckered out and we were only halfway through the day.  It was nearly 1:00 before we made it to our halfway point - lunch, and the shelter was a quarter mile off the trail.  That quarter mile may as well have been 10 for my little guy, so I scooped him up and carried him down the rather steep trail to a well kept but old shelter for lunch.  We called Mom, left a somewhat despairing message, ate our lunch of tuna and various other sundries, packed up, and prepared for the hike out.  I wanted Jonah to be able to say he hiked 9 miles all by himself, but I didn't think a little help on the side trails would take that away from him, so I scooped him up again and trudged up the hill.  It was quite possibly the hardest thing I've done physically since mile 18-26 of the Flying Pig Marathon last year.  By the time we got to the top, I think Jonah understood how hard he needed to work to get this thing done, because he set off with renewed vigor and not a hint of the pitying of himself that had plagued the first half of our day (the food probably didn't hurt either). 

Jonah during one of his many 'little breaks'

Gathland state park - just after lunch on Saturday

We made it to our destination (Ed Garvey Shelter) with 30 minutes of daylight to spare!  We had been warned of a lost dog by passing hikers, and we were not disappointed - there he was, a mid-sized puppy-energy filled dog complete with tags and a harness, but no owners.  Some hikers who had passed us earlier in the day (and who had warned us of coming thunderstorms), were camped in already, fire going, bags out, the whole works.  They'd been there for over five hours already.  We were joined by a brit from DC, and our humble little band was complete.  The night passed around the fire uneventfully for us (I'm pretty sure Jonah talked at least one ear off), though the dog had a pretty exciting night.  I slept at least twice as well, half due to wearing twice as many clothes and aided by a much more wind-protective shelter.  The Brit on the lower level got slobber attacked by our furry friend around 5:30am and decided to shove off early.  The dog followed him.

Sunday dawned with a steady downpour, which complicated matters a bit, especially since we'd been averaging about 1 mile per hour and this day we had 3.5 hours to cover the six miles between us and the only train of the day from Harper's Ferry to Union Station on our way home.  Desperate times and necessity formed a little rope sling for Jonah to stand in so I could carry him with much less effort on the part of my arms.  The 100ish pounds on my legs still got tiring on the slow descent, but it saved a lot of time as we alternated between both walking and me carrying the little trooper.  Then about halfway to our destination we met back up with an old friend: the dog, now wet, cold, and alone.  He followed us down the steep switchbacks to the C&O canal towpath section of the trail - the final leg of our journey.  I cut a length of rope for a leash to keep him safe (and to follow the C&O rules as I found out later!).   Sometimes carrying Jonah and sometimes dragging him down the trail, both of us always being dragged by the dog (Jonah alone at one point!), we pushed ahead what seemed like an eternity through rain and cold to the base of the stairs that crossed the river into Harper's Ferry, the psychological midpoint of the AT, with about 30 minutes to spare, but with a dog in tow that would never be allowed on the train, even if we wanted to bring him home (well, one of us did want to bring him home, and it wasn't me).  Fate smiled on us as we took the first few steps up the rail trestle bridge when we met a vet on a Sunday walk who offered to take the dog in for the night until the owners could be contacted (via the dog's rabies tag #).

The train was, of course, about an hour late, but that gave us time to consume the last of our food, strip probably 25 pounds of cold wet clothing, and warm slightly in the historic Harper's Ferry train station - it was lovely.  A few others meandered in and out of the station during our stay, the most notable of which was a college student who was about 50 miles into a self-supported trip up the C&O canal (all the way to Pittsburgh) on a unicycle.  I never did get to see the actual accomplishment of this daring feat, but my imagination ran wild enough for me to be fully amused.

The Amtrak train was huge and spacious, a lovely respit after a few days on the trail.  We made our connecting metro and after a little bit of waiting, jumped into the car driven by Mommy, which I proceeded to turn into a sauna. 

All in all, there's a couple things I learned in this endeavor:
1. Bring better rain gear.
2. You need to call Amtrak ahead of time in order to board a train.  (many thanks to my shelter-mates of Saturday night for this tip before it bit me).
3. 0.4 miles from camp for water steeply downhill is great on the way down.
4. Home and loved ones are welcome sights after time away.
5. The AT is nothing to be trifled with.
6  I can't wait to go back.

Thanks for reading my rant - things seem so much more succinct in your head.

You can read more of Michael at michaelbellsmusic.blogspot.com and hear his music at www.michaelbellsmusic.com. 

President's Day Weekend: Volume Two

Saturday:

We grabbed breakfast and prepared for a trip to REI to get Jonah's hiking pack for his backpacking excursion with Michael this coming March on the AT.  We had lunch at Wawa on the way (the drive is about 1.5 hours).  I enjoy taking the kids to Wawa because they can practice reading and using the computer and they get to choose exactly what they want to eat, so there are no complaints.  They had turkey sandwiches with bacon, chips, and special drinks (Maeryn had apple juice with a Strawberry Shortcake lid and Jonah had a Kool-Aid Jammer).  Not the healthiest of lunches, but they enjoyed them, had a good time, and got something they wouldn't normally get to have at home (namely, the special drinks).  Jonah requested that we stock the fridge with Kool-Aid this summer.  I told him I'd give it some thought.

At REI things were a little crazy - both kids were so excited it was tough to concentrate on what, exactly, we were doing.  We did manage to outfit Jonah with an appropriately sized hiking pack.  We were also "cutsified" into getting a pack for Maeryn:  "It fits so perfectly!  And it's PURPLE!"

Yes, Maeryn is pantsless.

Jonah's bag is already packed.

In spite of the extra purchase, and the purchases of some freeze-dried food items, we managed to stay under budget for the trip, which is fantastic!

When we got home, we cleaned the house a bit and got ready for the local community theatre awards banquet - which is a pretty fancy affair.  I was excited - it's the only really fancy thing we do on an annual basis, and it's fun to surprise everyone with the fact that I actually do, on occasion, dress nicely.

Jonah snapped this picture.

We had so much fun at the banquet.  Michael won the award for best lighting designer and we had the rare opportunity to show off our swing dancing skills.  I'm sorry there's no picture of us cutting a rug; it was great to be back on the dance floor, in spite of the DJ's choice to play Sing, Sing, Sing first (it's a LONG song, and I am OUT of dancing shape, though I admit, it's one of the greatest songs of the era). 

Sunday:

This day was spent grocery shopping by Michael and the kids, and working on a low potassium menu for some friends by me.  I get obsessed with healing with foods - I can't help it.  It's something that I've found I'm passionate about - strange as it may sound.

After our separate dealings we headed to The Refinery as a family for band practice and worship gathering.  There was a potluck afterward - I brought my lentil soup and had the spectacular opportunity to try out some truly fantastic dishes by some of the other women of the Church.

At home we spent some time talking with Jonah about the RV.  He's had a lot of anxiety lately, and we found out it's because he's worried about what will happen to his possessions when we head out on the road.  He was thinking we would have to give everything away.  We explained that while we would be getting rid of some things, he would be able to choose several things to take with him in the RV and several things that we would store with our parents or friends for the year.  It seemed to take a great weight off of his shoulders.

Only one more day left in this truly lovely weekend - I wish it would never end!

President's Day Weekend: Volume One

Yesterday we had a super full day.

We spent most of the morning deciding if we had the time and $ to go to Baltimore to see a play friends of ours wrote and directed.  We eventually decided against it, (it was the right decision), and headed to Panera for lunch.

We ended up taking a 2.5 mile hike with both kids.  Jonah complained a bit, which isn't the norm for him, but I'm pretty sure he was up until 3 AM or so watching Godzilla (the 1970's cartoon version), so he wasn't feeling at the top of his game.

I was happy to be out on the trail.  I walked ahead much of the time, thinking about things.  I made some peace with myself and God about selling the house, which we're probably going to end up doing to get into the RV.  I love this house, but in the end, even with all of our memories and energy and meal cooking and measuring of children, it's just a thing.  A house is only a home when your family lives there.

I'll still probably cry when we sell it, but I think I'm ABLE to go through with the selling of it now.

After the hike we came home to regroup and grab some raisins and change out of our muddy gear, and then we headed north to a bigger town to make stops at UPS for some sound equipment Michael ordered for an install he's performing for a local church, Bike Doctor for some bike repair (Michael was able to get a great bargain on a lot of equipment: new headlight, new chain, lube, and tubes all for $106 - we've been saving cash in a bike repair envelope at home, since Michael's car is literally his bike), and Chilis for some eats (my parents got us a gift card for Christmas).

By this time, Maeryn was asleep and remained asleep through dinner.  Dinner was fantastic and fun, though Jonah had some perfectionism struggles with the activity sheet and when dinner wasn't exactly what he expected.  We've had a tough couple of weeks when it comes to perfectionism, but we're all working on it.  Lots of hugs are necessary.

When dinner was through we went to Dick's at the mall and picked up two mummy bags rated at zero degrees for Michael and Jonah's planned backpacking excursion on the AT this March.  We also grabbed 50' of rope and some goggles for Jonah's swim team practices.  I also threw in some earplugs for Michael, who has super sensitive ears, so that swimming would be more fun for all of us this summer.  We had a $15 gift card to Dick's and the bags were on sale at under $60 each, which is a pretty amazing bargain for such good equipment.  We'd been saving for this for awhile.

We were unable to get a youth backpack for Jonah, so today we'll probably head to REI, which is quite a hike, but always worth the trip.

It took us about four months to save for this particular trip - just to give everyone an idea - but it feels pretty amazing to have the cash you need and to have planned ahead with your budget.

After Dick's we came home - exhausted...

But not too exhausted to try out the new bags: