interim

I don't want to seem obsessive about my purse.  Maybe I am.

Somehow I feel compelled to keep talking about this. Much like I have the compulsion to talk to my husband about how much laundry I am never-endingly doing.  Moving on...

Since the big dump last week, half of my purse contents remain in the grocery bag, the other half in a cloth tote bag.  Neither very useful.  I think the paper grocery bag has normalized  because one of my kids asked if it was actually my purse.  Really, they asked.

Buying a new purse is on my list.  Just below scheduling dentist appointments and just above sending in spring soccer registration forms.  (Did I just admit how pedestrian in a soccer-momish way my existence is?)  Moving on...

This morning I had the thought to get an old purse from the attic for the interim.  A wool plaid number that my Mom gave me before I had kids.  Kicky and cute don't you think?

Then I realized it might not work, since this is what was in my old purse (minus the camera!)

Count with me....1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.  Yes, eight journals.  Can I really have that many coherent, important thoughts in my head to need eight journals in my purse?  Unlikely.  Moving on...

So I resigned myself to using another pre-children purse that I knew would be big enough, but that I've been embarrassed to actually use for the past decade.

I bought in Vancouver at the Roots store.  You know, the company that can outfit an Olympic team in style.  It is leather and sturdy and a kicky cute color.  I bought it because I had not seen a single other purse like it.  Not.  A. Single. One.  It just so happens I bought the original style of what became a grossly imitated fashion trend that rendered my, quite expensive (ahem) all-leather bag a veritable fashion leftover within months.  I was not happy.  Quite not happy.  Moving on...

At least all of my soccer-momish purse items fit.  Not perfectly, but good enough for the interim.

All I need to do now is figure out a way to carry it so no one can see my initial on the one side lest they presume I believe I am rocking that over-done purse fad of 2003.

this moment {this morning}

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!

sweet and sour

Pal is having a love affair.

With the vacuum cleaner.

I know from his squeals whenever she appears.  And the cries when she goes away.

He courts her with leisurely walks around the living room.  Her loud noises do nothing to scare him off.  No, they draw him nearer and he holds on tight even as I vacuum.  See how lovingly Pal gazes at her.  (I won't mention all of the hugging, kissing and (gulp!) licking.) 

 So, so sweet that Pal of mine.

On a completely unrelated note, this is the inside of my purse:

Well the contents of the inside of my purse in a brown grocery bag.   The bag is half filled.

Last fall I asked for birthday money so I could buy a new camera purse.  I haven't picked one out yet.  Really?  The chance to shop, buy something new, something ALL for moi, and I haven't done it yet.
 
Recently, even without my new camera purse purchased, I retired my much-worn, much loved, place-for-everything-and-everything-in-its-place purse.  I've been using a really cute, but terribly ineffective, bottomless-pit-can't-find-anything-in-it-purse from Anthropologie.

I've been unreasonably frustrated by this purse (seems a pretty good metaphor for the various jumbles I have going on here and there, without end in sight.)

So when I was out the other night with a dear dear friend of mine, contemplating and commiserating and problem-solving each of our jumbles, she mentioned that she liked my purse.  So I dumped the contents of my purse into a grocery bag and I gave it to her.

Problem solved.

this moment {date night}

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!

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?

quite something

We've been making friends with the lovely Annie and Jim and their boys.  It is quite something when a chance blog comment leads to a link on another's blog and leads to you and subsequent emails and eventually blogging life intersects with real life.

Quite something, and oh so good. 

Recently we got to travel to their homestead.  Before we even finished the tour of their historic farmhouse the kids were fast friends and off playing.  So the grown-ups got to be grown-ups for a bit.  They shared about their journey into homesteading and parenting.  We shared about life with four children and our dreams of some more space in the future.

We shared a meal.

We enjoyed the warmth of their wood-burning stove.

We met and fed their chickens.  (I pointed out to Honey all of the great and easy aspects of keeping chickens.  In fairness, he made sure I saw inside the coop, that eventually gets cleaned.)  We both were happy.

We learned about their bees, and their plans for their homestead.

We ventured into the woods.  The kids raced and climbed.  The grown ups walked and talked.

We witnessed their gentle parenting and comfortable home.  Annie's talents are seen everywhere in the handmades she sews for beauty and everyday use.  Quilts, washcloths, delightful cloth napkins.  Jim's hard work is felt in the stacks of wood, gathered and cut and awaiting the wood stove.  The fresh eggs, the whimsical wooden coat hooks made from sturdy branches.

How lucky we are to get to this quite something, and now are making dear friends.

adventure

Student ID, circa 1989.

Once when I was in college I went with a friend to the airport at 3 o'clock in the morning, just to sit and people watch. (And smoke cigarettes, but never mind that part of the "things-I-tried-in-college" part of the story. Ahem.)

Not that there were many people to see at that hour.  But sit we did for quite some time, talking and thinking ourselves awfully interesting to do such a thing. Mind you, this was in an era when you could roam freely around any airport terminal, there were indoor smoking sections and, apparently, anyone could sit in an airport lounge area at 3:00 in the morning with nary a sideways glance.

It's been years since I've thought of that little trip.  For some reason it came to mind this week.  Perhaps because of my, somewhat surprising, recognition that I've become a woman who so eagerly embraces routine, and that the young adventuring woman of 19 or 20 seems long gone. 

Certainly my routine keeps me from adventuring much these days.  But, if I think a bit harder about it, maybe all of my organizing and list-checking actually gives me just enough space to grab that adventure in other ways, in small bits, in ways outside of our routine.

I'm not talking about middle of the night trips, other than to the kids' rooms to check on who is stirring.  But I am talking about having enough confidence in our rhythm to know that I can veer from it at times.

I can comfortably leave the house like this....

In order to do this...

Baking cookies and bread, then delivering them to several friends who need a cheering up.

A leisurely trip to the library and getting a whole new stack of books.

Coming home and sitting amongst that mess reading together for a long, long time.

I'm pretty certain that this wouldn't seem much like an adventure to that perky youngster on my student ID.  That's just fine.  That younger me didn't yet know the true adventure of marriage and home-owning and parenting.  That younger me is less experienced and, frankly, less interesting.  My wrinkled and sagged and in-pajamas-by-9 version of me, the me of here and now, it just right.  So our baking and library adventuring seems just right too.

this moment {being mommy}

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!

goodness

Our easing has allowed me to see the goodness happening around us.  Such goodness.

:: some January thaw that allowed shorts, shorts!, to be worn for a day
:: making snowmen -- of the chalkboard variety -- as we await more snow
:: allowing the kids to run in the rain, splashing in puddles, and enjoying that January thaw (that is until this Mama discovered all the squeals of joy were from dumping cones-full of puddle water over their heads...oh my!  Then the parenting wheels came off.  Not a stellar mothering moment.)
:: being a winner over at Soulemama!
:: kitchen experiments.  Where water, flour, and dried out play-doh is all that is needed.
:: receiving a meaningful mama merit badge from Amy
:: handmade pine cone bird-feeders
:: an organized basement
:: uncovering, in that basement clean-out, a sweet little rocking chair that Lovey and I picked up at the thrift store for a couple dollars some time ago.  It simply needed a good wipe-down.
:: deciding to mix my own non-toxic laundry detergent, inspired by watching this movie
:: a family portrait by Lovey.  It was immediately put into a frame and placed in a prominent spot.
:: the first issue of Kindred, a beautiful literary magazine created by Amanda
:: a boy discovering the magic of headphones and an iPod
:: opening the very last jar of our homemade grape jelly goodness.  Oh, we must make much, much more next fall.

What goodness do you see these days?

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!

basement and boots

I was really hoping for a longer post today.  Alas, most of my Wednesday was spent cleaning out my basement.  Hours.  More than 12.

So I didn't get outside much either, except for the occasional trip of taking out a newly-filled garbage or recycling bag.

I also had a quick photo shoot of those well-loved boots above.  They are one of Munchkin's many pairs that he has worn through until they leak.  I think I will always picture him as a little boy in boots.  Though I've saved his first pair, I've figured that to keep each and every pair was unnecessary.  But I couldn't not take a photo before the boots joined the garbage bag.

Funny enough, when I stepped outside to photograph the boots I had a friend, very close, watching me.

I am not sure if I was more excited to get a cool shot or if I was more creeped that he was fearless so near to me.  After all, there is a history.

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!

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.