in the backyard

 

 

These past few weeks have found me shoving coaxing the kids outside to play.  As if a timer is counting down when shorts and t-shirts will give way to jackets and pants.  When bare feet will no longer be an option and open windows for Mama to hear the sounds of play will wreak havoc on the thermostat.

The evenings come sooner and bring a briskiness of chilled cheeks and damp shoes.  I will take those over the sliminess of sun screen and sweaty high noon of summer heat any day. Every day.

Granted the coaxing isn't difficult when any neighborhood friend comes by to play.  It is a mad dash to slip on Crocs and bound out to the backyard.  And run the riding toys ragged, creating games of crash 'em derby and gas station.

Then there is the piling up of almost everything out of the garage into the corner of the yard in a quite imagined castle that has remained for days and has suffered rainstorms and squirrels.  But stays even and is central in the game of donning bike helmets and defending its fortresses by deflecting balls pelted by Dad, or sometimes Mama.

Sometimes Lovey plays princess of that castle.  Other times she pulls up fistfuls of grass to concoct cookies on her stepping stone oven.

Fall is gentle in its coming.  Thoughtful to rain enough to keep the grass lush but not so much that mud puddles dominate.   The cool is comfortable and not at all goosebumby, letting us feel the play of summer, even if it happens after a full day of school or soccer.

The play simply sounds like childhood.  Intense and loud and free.  And, if the calendar is to be believed, fleeting.  Though I am not believing the calendar right now.  I'm inhaling this breathable air, keeping my eye to the bluest of skies and listening carefully.

this moment {munchkin's first}

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!

wax and wane

I've been blogging for just about three years now, two years in this space.  I love blogging.  Love.  It. 

I dream of posting daily, but have settled into the realistic and comfortable three posts a week, plus a this moment.  Some weeks, though, bring a flurry of posts, when my creativity, reflection, and kids in bed before 10:00 pm all come together in cosmic waxing goodness.  I adore these weeks.

But, as anything meaningful has a rhythm, so does my blogging.  Posts wane, decreasing to maybe one a week, for a short stretch.  I don't necessarily like these times, but I embrace and appreciate them for the important pause they are.  I don't choose this waning, it chooses me and gives me permission to think in open-ended ways, not forcing resolution in my reflection.  After all, my posts really are stories of my own meaning-making of life as a creative Mama becoming.

Making meaning takes time, and occasionally my time is instead spent teaching my son the finer points of using an old-fashioned pencil sharpener, watching a small cloud move across the sky, reading the classic Caps for Sale on the front stoop, enjoying a stroll to the playground, noticing ducks and dew, or delving into a new soccer season with three littles playing.

The waning will eventually pass into waxing.  And I patiently fill this pause.  Noticing the lingering color of summer, jotting growing lists for gladsome, reading inspiration, and carrying close the beauty of unfinished thoughts.

this moment

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!

this and that

Well, hello there.  I know there has been quite a bit of quiet this week.  It's not that I don't have anything to share.  I have about 3 1/2 blog posts written in my mind.  I even got the expected text from this friend who lets me know when it has been too long since my last post.

This week has had a great deal of this and that.  And ships passing in the night.

The ships, you ask?  That would be my husband and I.

I was going to post something this evening.  He mentioned a bit ago "maybe we could do something together."

So, no post, I'm taking Honey up on his offer.

I'll simply leave you with

this

 and that.

I'll be back Friday with my this moment, and then hopefully back into my blog swing.

this moment {it seems putting marker on your face makes you a Jedi}

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!

to do list {or why I haven't posted this week}

The always present to do list has been a bit longer the past several days as we prepare for a weekend away.

Lots of important things on the list.  If you look closely you can see some of them.

oil change

fix blinker

new booster car seat

laundry

buy yarn (what better time to start your first-ever knitting project than when you have some hours in the car?)

pack (with a sub-list of things not to forget) camera, charger, water, wagon, etc., etc. etc.

pest control

clean house

buy snacks

Did you catch that?  A few items up.  Pest control, yes, pest control.  It has added a bit of, ahem, adventure these past couple days.

And added a couple more items to the list.

Sanitize basement.

Wash even more laundry.

But now I sit here, in a clean house with clean laundry, and the list is whittled down to just a few things to do in the morning.

Toiletries.

Phone and phone chargers.

Load car.

Start dishwasher.

Take out trash. (That will be Honey.)

Then into the car, and away we go.  It will be a close jaunt, for pure fun.  The kids are oh so excited.  And so am I.

weekending

The windows were open, the breeze cool.  A very welcome reprieve from the noisy air conditioner and window fans.

Sniffles and coughs making their way through our family, though mild enough they aren't stopping full-on play.

A bit of time at a coffeeshop with Honey.  I drank Chai.  We played Cribbage.  We used to play voraciously before kids.  It's been so long we had to look up the rules on our phones.  Amazing, last time we played, we didn't even own a cell phone.  But once started it felt like the days we were dating and then newlyweds.  (All except for juggling a baby while holding cards.)

Grape picking at a lovely local farm. 

Grape jelly canning. 

Grape jelly eating on homemade bread.  Summer daydream, check.

Some birthday celebrating, in quiet family ways. 

Quite looking forward to ordering my new camera bag/purse for which I've been saving.  My dear family took my hint that any present in the form of money would be just fine by me.  I think it will be this one, but there are so many cool bags by a number of different companies.

Planning my next project.  The change of seasons brings inspiration for sewing, don't you think?


Linking with Amanda for weekending.

this moment {mom, want to learn how to play?}

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!

in my kitchen

We must be settling back into our school year routine because I've found myself in the kitchen more and more each day.  Our summer eating was shaped by swimming lessons, and special outings, and Cousins Camp and the heat, oh the heat.  Summer eating often meant packing snacks for the playground, or extending playdates through lunchtime, or having homemade pizza way past bedtime.  That doesn't even include the many meals set up for special Olympic viewing.

I let the start of school sneak up this year.  Intentionally.  For the first time in 12 years, my August has not been consumed with eighty hour work weeks.  I wanted these August days to linger until that very last evening before the very first day of school.  And I did, happily.

So I'm finding myself in the kitchen, rediscovering the comfort of the rhythm of the day as it is guided by breakfast, lunch, dinner, baking, making lunches, washing dishes, sweeping up.  Repeat.  Repeat.  Repeat.

In this kitchen I'm finding:

:: crispy green organic apples for snack, I love all of the apples that fall brings.

:: a fresh local bounty from our CSA that delights each week.  Recently heirloom tomatoes and fresh mozzarella.

:: homemade play dough, with which the kids ended up creating biomes.  Really.  I had to look up what that meant.

:: fresh flowers from Honey, in celebration of my big launch.

:: cloth napkins.

:: feeding Pal rice cereal.  Yes, already!  He confirmed his interest in food when he grabbed a whole pancake off of Daddy's plate this weekend.  Which brought raucous laughter and squeals from the older kids, and much talk since of "grabby-hands Pal."

:: chocolate pudding, eaten only by me.  Not the usual around here at all, but Honey gifts me with it four times a year in celebration of birthing each child.  Pudding played a huge role in their births.

:: dark chocolate from Iceland, a favorite I can get at Whole Foods.  Eaten mostly by me, though Lovey makes a daily case for sharing.

:: of course bread.  The warm, crispy, succulent bread that I have been baking since May.  It has become something I do.  Only once have we had to get a loaf from the store.  I'm amazed.

:: paint palettes.

:: planning some canning, hoping the growing season here won't foil my plans for grape jelly.

Please share, what is happening in your kitchen?

saving the day

 

I grumped about all morning.  The house was hot.  I felt restless.  The kids were bored.  I said a hundred times that we needed to get outside.  The house was hot, unbearably so.  Did I mention that?

Staying inside felt like we were squandering something away.  We simply needed to go.  Somewhere.  Outside.

So late in the afternoon we packed up the bikes and helmets, piled in the car, and made our way to a perfectly beautiful hiking trail.

Outside was hot too.  But hot in a good way.  The sweat you feel on the back of your neck and behind your knees seems productive.  The air was still and quiet, save for the swooshing sound of the bike wheels and the noises of unseen insects.

We walked a good distance.  Then stopped and climbed and explored.  We talked.  We breathed.

Back in the car I combed my fingers through my hair, needing to retie my ponytail from wearing my hat.  At that moment I realized that after months of waiting my hair just might be long enough now.  I quickly twisted a couple imperfect braids.

And felt like myself again.