the good {and a giveaway}

Zip.

Zip.

Zip.

That is the sound of our summer rushing by.

Zip.  A week.

Zip.  Another week.

I sit here, on the cusp of Independence Day, and grapple with my clumbsy entrance to this summer.  As is life with four kids bursting with energy and intensity and creativity, our summer has started off as a mix.  Some good, some not so good.  Toss in a hefty dose of anxiety about a couple things, and well, that's been these rushing weeks.

So I'm aiming for graceful.  It may be a bit late, and accompanied by the whooshing sound of weeks zipping by, but graceful is what I want my kids to see how summer can be.  The good, and the not so good.

And there has been plenty of good.

Moments of fun, mischief, curiosity, a hometown carnival.  A growing boy in his element

A wonderful afternoon with Annie, a dear friend who is so talented.

So much more good, if I look closely, and slow myself enough to take in these zipping by weeks.

And this.  This is so very good!   

 

This magazine.  Amy is the talented artist behind Amy Hood Arts, and the creator of the Art Together publication.  

Issue 4: Mixed Media/Collage is a journey filled with inspiration, insight, and permission.  Lots of permission to explore and create and discover the beauty of taking many different materials, objects, textures, colors and making art.

Her guidelines are perfectly presented for getting you started, or for helping you delve deeper into the art of mixed media and collage.  The projects vary in scope and time frame, and all can be adjusted for any age - so creating can happen together.  The magazine is full of gorgeous examples, and tons of resources and links.  I love that the projects are flexible enough to make them your own, and bring a playfulness and joy perfect for this time of year.  Take a peek at Issue 4, and check out the beauty to also be found in Issues 1, 2, and 3.

Amy is generously offering one lucky reader a free copy of Art Together, Issue 4.  Enter by leaving a comment below.  A winner will be selected on Friday afternoon, July 11. 

(Congratulations to Kortney - Amy will be sending you your Art Together issue!)

Everyone can also enjoy 20% off of any Art Together purchase with the code: ARTPLAY.

I can't think of a better way of being graceful with these remaining summer weeks.  Slow down, feel the freedom of creating mixed media with my littles.  And maybe even sneaking some time in to create all on my own.

this moment {squirmy}

Joining SouleMama, and many others, in this moment. 

In Amanda's words: "A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember."

Please link to your moment too -- I love to see what you are enjoying this week!

Wishing you a weekend full of goodness!

the loud and the lovely

 

We've a loud house.

Loud with laughter, and squealing, and crying, and bickering, and roughhousing for sure.  (And no, I'm not mentioning here the raised voice of a sometimes frazzled Mama, thank you very much.)  Sometimes the whirl of childhood happening around me is so, so loud that I literally cover my ears.  Of course it isn't loud all of the time.  There are varying degrees of loudness, depending on who is at school, who is napping, who is, gulp, on screens.

It was loud in our old tiny cozy house with four growing kids.  I thought that moving to a larger house would spread the noise out a bit.  Silly me.  It seems wherever Honey and I are, within minutes there are the four littles.  Full energy zooming around us, clustered near us, piled on top of us. 

At times it is so loud I turn off whatever music I am trying to listen to.  Sometimes, I simply turn it louder.

Honestly I find moments of quiet more jarring than the loud.  The still noiselessness unfamiliar to me.  When there is that very rare quiet it takes me time to settle into its vastness, get comfortable in its unblinking truth, not sure what to do in the company of only myself.

But those times are few, and short-lived.  And that is okay for now.  That little glimpse of what is to come when the kids are grown and out of the house is enough for me to fully embrace the loud I live in now.  Not just embrace, but celebrate, and sometimes even encourage.

So within this loud I am constantly looking for the lovely.  The lovely that is here if only I have eyes to see it. 

Playing.

Creating.

Moleskine notebooks.

Balloons.

Winter wonder land.

Blue skies.

A school assignment.

Learning to wash your hands.

And then there is this.

A sculpture by my talented niece artist.  The class assignment was "first mode of transportation."  I bought it from her the moment I spied it.

Talk about lovely.

Even though my babies are no longer in my belly, it is a gentle reminder of my responsibility to transport them through this loud - and lovely - childhood.

1,327

That is the number of photos on my camera.

1,327

I have been without my computer, and photo drive and internet for over four weeks.  Four weeks.

So there are 1,327 photos waiting in this camera.  Waiting to come out.  Waiting patiently to tell their stories of this time in our lives.

Of packing up our home and putting it into storage.

Of the adventures of staying with Honey's family for awhile.

Of getting the keys and beginning to unpack into our new home.  Our new lives, it feels. 

There are bonfires and s'mores in there.  Three different times in three different states.

There is a family wedding.  Lovey's wedding.  She, the flower girl.

There is the beach.  The pool.  The museum.

Firsts on stairs.  Firsts in sand.  Firsts on tree swings.

Many many stories to be told. 

I've missed you.  I've missed you.  Missed you, missed you.  Missedyoumissedyoumissedyou.  Here, and in your spaces.

But just a bit longer, my readers, my friends.  For we are still at the beach.  We are still awaiting internet, but soon. 

For now I have to go snap number 1,328...

shoring

Who knew that an extreme close up could make the bottom of your cast iron tub look somewhat antiquey and interesting.

After all it is an antique, almost a century old.  Seems that if a cast iron tub has been in place for nearly one hundred years, eventually it will need some reinforcing.

So last week was spent shoring up of that ol' tub.  And the no-longer-sturdy front steps.  And the light fixtures in the stairwell that haven't worked for over a decade.  A decade!  It took less than an hour and $65 to the electrician.  Again, who knew?

We've been shoring up quite a bit.  Projects certainly, but also our emotions.  The emotions that rollick and roll as you take a huge humongous leap of faith.

A leap to a new house, in a new neighborhood, in a new community.  All the while keeping our current house to rent out to others.  Talk about a leap.

For easily 18 months we've been daydreaming about a move to a slightly bigger house with a much bigger yard.  Driving streets, becoming familiar with neighborhoods, weighing the pros and cons of each and every city within reason.  Spending hours upon hours scouring realty websites.  (Oh if I had a dime for every minute spent looking at houses on-line, we could afford a mansion!)

All of this dreaming is coming true.  In just the past couple weeks what we have been praying for has been falling into place, little by little.  And the emotions rise and fall and tremble at the edge of what is possible.  What might be.  What will be.

I've been shoring up my strength.  Preparing to say goodbye to good friends, and gracefully relinquishing commitments to PTA.  Realizing how much I love our teeny tiny house, even as I know we have quite outgrown it.  After 12 years it is exactly the way I like it.  Looking around town at special places that will be missed in our everyday.

Not to mention the roller coaster of house offers and waiting and rejections and waiting and counter offers and waiting.  And the clock is ticking, the very nice renters we found are moving in soon.

So most importantly, I've been shoring up my breath.  Knowing that this transition is going to take moment after moment of calm, I've been breathing slowly and deeply.  For myself,  for my children.  Though we aren't moving very far away, the change is quite real for these littles who have only known this teeny tiny house as home. 

So let this leap be not so scary, but exhilarating and inspiring and interesting too.

summer

It is beginning to look alot like summer around here.

Inside the house anyway.

While I have been lamenting the lingering cold and persistent flurries, my kids have taken matters into their own hands.  They have skipped right over spring and are jumping into summer by swimming in the bathtub, and playing on an indoor soccer field, and making various playgrounds with piles of pillows and long lines of dining room chairs.

And those colanders and cake pans?  Skates, naturally. 

peek

I think this is all you need to see to have some insight into my days of late...

what remains

A bit of snow remains on the ground.  Just enough to scrape up with mittened hands to throw at your siblings and neighborhood friends.

The kids have spent the afternoons outside making the most of what white remains.  In its subtle spring way the snow is making and making way for the mud.  And we do get our share of mud.

The sunshine has been gloriously streaming in the windows these past three days.  I love the warmth, even as it highlights the accumulating dust.  I've never been a very good spring cleaner, I've been a nester.  So, I've had to re-think how I might tackle that task this season.

We've a big decision ahead, very big.  So a nervous bundle remains in my stomach.  The kind of nervousness you feel when you meet someone you like (will they call?) or when you are anticipating labor (will it be today?) or when you maybe have just had a bit too much coffee.  So please think of me dear friends over the next days and week.  Thanks.

What remains with you?

loving

Valentine's Day seems a very fitting day to enjoy and share some things that I am loving right now.

:: a colorful iPhone case (it only took me nine months to pick it out, it reminded me of daffodils when I bought it.  When I showed it to Honey, he thought of the Steelers.  Uggg.)

:: Lovey's stripey polka-dotey fashion

:: these kids (and the wild chaotic bliss they bring to my every moment)

:: the Daddy that the kids are piled upon

:: a little boy who is teaching himself to walk by holding the handle of the yarn basket and scooting it around

:: the colorful packaging of this Trader Joe's chocolate

:: empty laundry baskets as pet beds

:: feeding and seeing our own little flock every morning

:: new Moleskins (ah, daffodils again.  I must be wishing spring.)

:: sweetly wrapped, fresh-baked presents

:: braids

:: handmade Valentine fuzzy friends

:: a sparkly heart-shaped magic wand

Oh yes, loving it all.
What are you loving right now?

easing

When our oldest was born, we held no routine for years.  He slept anywhere, anytime, often in my arms.  I easily nursed on the go.  Meals were eaten when ready, not worrying about a bedtime or other structure.  Naptime?  Shnaptime!  It worked easily.  For.  One.  Child.

As our oldest grew (and our family grew) we were forced into the necessary routine that comes with starting Kindergarten.  Then some carefully selected activities were added.  Where there once was a family that didn't worry much about consistency, we've grown into a family of six that thrives in a predictable schedule.  My staying home full time made for the ultimate shift in striving to keep each day simple.

I've come to appreciate the routine, as well as rely upon it to give rhythm to our days.  I have found that the rhythm gives a sense of comfort and predictability to me, and to our kids.  So much so, that we kept to the usual early bedtime for all but two of the nights of the recent holiday break from school.  It was wonderful.  (Did I really just say that?  The 20 year old me just read that last paragraph and laughed out loud!)

Now don't think for a minute that there isn't spontaneity in our household, there is.  We've just become more adept at picking those times carefully.  Honey and I have learned our lesson (over and over and over) that a stop at the beloved ice cream shop before dinner just doesn't end well for us.  Ever.  A recent Friday night family meal at a friend's house, when we let the kids stay up well past their usual bedtime, garnered us four children in meltdown mode on the ride home.  Not fun.

So you will completely understand how unsettling the last several weeks have been around here.  The holiday break became the transition back to school, then became cleaning the lingering Christmas mess, then became sick day upon sick day, then became a long holiday weekend, then became snow days.  Hrrpf!

No wonder I have been so tired.  I've been expending all of my energy breathing deeply, to remain calm, to keep some semblance of routine, despite the turn-stile of happenings that would like it otherwise.

So here I am declaring an easing.  An easing back into the goodness of our routine.  The good that comes when, feeling comfortable and confident, we can indulge in the fun that naturally happens around here.

The fun of fresh air and homemade hot chocolate.  Fun of learning new things and being creative.  The fun of finishing good books and cuddling up with Honey to watch Market Warriors on PBS.  The fun of saying "yes" to markering your faces.  The fun of dancing with wild abandon in the living room to Munchkin's favorite Puppy Dog.

The fun of, ahem, our routine.