A few thoughts and links.

Shortest summer vacation of my life. The boy starts school on Tuesday--and also got out of school later than usual this year. I really do wonder what it's like to live somewhere that's warm year-round. To go to the beach whenever we felt like it, instead of trying to fit it in somewhere during two months of the year.

This has been a weird summer, just off in a way I can't really explain. Everything feels a bit messier than usual, or maybe more careless. The situation in the middle east is on my mind a lot. I find myself muttering to God all day and finding solace in art journaling at night. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm afraid and also trying to be brave.

The death of Robin Williams upset me more than I thought it would. I cried. I remember watching Aladdin, and loving the genie like a million other kids did, and I guess I felt like genie died. Like he is gone forever instead of existing quietly somewhere in the world. People seemed so surprised that this funny guy killed himself. I find myself thinking, "Well, YEAH, that's what depression can do." It's a huge, hulking beast that never really goes away, just subsides for periods of time depending on medication and life stress.

Anyway, here are some links to a few "happy" things I've been looking at, for distractions sake:

- These rings by Peg and Awl
- Any and all embroidery by Yumiko Higuchi
- Beth Kirby's blog, which I'm a little late on discovering. Her instagram is quite a feast for the senses as well.
- This video.
- This inspiration filled site.

Dec. 15

1 and 2: I made a snowflake-curtain for the front window, which I think looks quite fetching.
3: waffle making
4: Darth Vader playing wise man. I wonder if that box has frankincense or myrrh?
5: gorgeous (and handmade) decorative plate I found at the thrift store

I'd like to note that doing these activities and documenting them is, for the moment, the only way of distracting myself and my loved ones from the horrific events yesterday. My husband and I found out around 1pm and went into utter disbelief. Then we held each other and sobbed. Neither of us understands how we're supposed to raise our son in this world. Neither of us can stop thinking about it.

I think we'll be making some nice cards to send to the school. It isn't much, but it's something. If you'd like to do the same, mail them to this address:

Sandy Hook Elementary School
12 Dickenson Drive
Sandy Hook, CT 06482

God bless you friends. xo

true story.

I fell in love with his hands before I fell in love with the rest of him.

new year.

*kitchen*

Thoughts are kind of doing a marble-roll in my brain tonight. How 2012 is here. How, without really trying to, I'm handling the promise of a new year in a completely different way. I'm not really making "resolutions" anymore. I used to make lists, like everyone else, of things I wanted to acheive or eliminate and, like everyone else, I never stuck to these lists and sometimes threw them away in frustration.

I'm not sure that I really expect anything anymore. And I don't mean that in a hopeless way, not at all. But...let's just say that I am letting go. I am letting go of having so much damn expectation about everything. I am letting go of hate and trouble and difficulty. I am letting these things fall through my fingers like sand, so that I can make all kinds of room for more good in the new year.

I do have a few things I've been a little obsessed with lately. I'm feeling much better, and there's a good chance my health might continue to improve, so....wow, that right there just opens up a whole new set of doors. The word school is jigging around up there. I'm exploring my options and doing my research, but being extra careful to not put too much stake into anything.

Usually when my brain is so full, I get all frantic and panicky and weird. But this is a different full. It's good stuff. I'm not judging my own experience in any way, and that feels wonderful. (I think that releasing ceremony might have gone a little deeper than I already knew.)

Also, spring will be here before we know it, and there will be flowers again. So that's something to think about, isn't it?

the funny thing about blogging is...

completely non-related photo

Sometimes, you are too busy actually living to write about your life. Sometimes you are not at the computer because you are busy pasting a father's day "installation" to your bedroom wall, which said father will be extremely surprised and smitten with when he gets home from work. Sometimes you're out on your front stoop with a cutting board and a scary knife, cutting up the biggest watermelon you've ever seen. Sometimes you're hiding under the covers with your five year old boy, and you plan to write about it on the blog that night but, alas, there is popcorn to be made and Star Wars movies to watch. Sometimes you sit with your fingers on the keyboard and forget what you were going to write so you instead hop in the car and go buy some red lipstick, which you then try on once you're home and proceed to make sexy (?) faces at yourself in the mirror. Sometimes you realize it's officially summer so you sit outside with six to seven books about Van Gogh and Frida Kahlo and you sort of half-ass read and tan your winter-white legs.

Sometimes--what it is I guess--is that actual life takes precedence.