OK, so not so much faithful in the blogging, but trust me when I say that I've been knee-deep in many good things, including many hours of mommying, with my sweet husband working lots and lots, which is our May and June reality. Lots of blessings have been blooming here, literally and figuratively, despite a challenging family schedule. So in honor of Friday, I thought I'd share a little list of things making me happy right now.
--The rose above, properly called "Angel Face," but nicknamed "Rescue Rose" by us. Purchased for $3 off of a clearance table at Lowes, its roots were drowning in its plastic-sheaved pot. Released to the earth, it proceeded to grow vigorously and produce this first stunning blossom.
--Panini made at home with the red cast iron panini press my dear in-laws gave me for my birthday, on homemade ciabatta bread. Makes me want to speak with those exaggerated accents the Food Network chefs use when they say "pancetta" or "parmisagna reggiana."
--How our garden grows-- tomatoes, squash blossoms, bushy beans and climbing peas. Progress seems daily now.
--Salmon burgers from Costco.
--Freezer paper stenciling. Yep, Jumped on that bandwagon. Really fun! T-shirts for my boys-- Joshua got a skateboarder, and Sam an Army plane. They wore them the next day.
--Queen Helene Tea Tree Hand and Body Lotion. OK, so I snickered a little at the name too. But it is so creamy, smells divine, and was $2 for a HUGE bottle down the street at Walgreens. Just right for this low-maintainence girl.
--Lots of little embroidery projects planned, as well as a few larger home projects. This may be the summer we say goodbye to the scary little vanity in our bathroom and hello to the dreamy white CLEAN pedestal sink.
--Reading aloud to the boys. Never gets old.
--The Happy Berry, our favorite blueberry picking spot, opens blueberry season June 15th. We will be there soon after!
--Despite gas prices and food prices and unending elections that have not really begun yet, there are lots of shade-dappled country roads to explore, there will be steamed corn to be eaten, juice exploding and butter dripping, right off the cob, there are buckets of sun-warmed berries and dirty boy feet at the end of the day. There's still bluegrass music and little white churches and freckles on noses and farmstand produce. So many good things to fill our baskets. . . Happy Weekend!
I am an easy crier. I've made my peace with it-- Hallmark commercials, those little human interest stories they do during the Olympics, my elder son's class singing "What a Wonderful World. . . " Last weekend I attended a banquet honoring graduating seniors at my sister's family's church, two of whom are my twin nieces. I ruefully confessed to my sister, during the slide show, that I was weeping over the baby pictures of strangers.
But some tears are different. Some come from being so filled up, that something has to leak out-- gratitude, humility, real down-deep joy, the transport good art can cause, and salty and true they flow out. Lately I've felt these more real prickings behind my eyes: a huge car service that we were able to pay cash for that should keep our trusty wagon running well on into the future, a boy who has inherited my love of roses and celebrates an open bud with home-run exuberance, another boy who seems more easy in his spirit as summer approaches, a husband who has treasured me back to health, and all of it God's provision. I've come to love those moments of being overcome by grace, so happy and humbled that the very best cannot be earned or measured out, that these bits of wonder are only mirror shards reflecting my true portion, God Himself. And the heart sees beyond the precious but fleeting gift, to the Giver. And overflows.
This year is a first for us-- our first attempt to have a vegetable garden. Before we have grown a few patio tomatoes, and I love potted herbs, but this year we are doing the real thing. Sort of a modified square foot gardening model.
The thing is, it almost didn't happen. Like many homeowners, there are just so many dollars and so much time and energy to put into home projects. While we continue to tweak things indoors, we are rescuing our yard. Around our L-shaped ranch are various boxwoods and hollies, untended for two decades, scraggly above red clay that washes up on the foundation with every rain. Last year we reclaimed a few precious feet, with gravel and mulch, with new healthy shrubs, after creating a mountain of trimmings and digging out huge stumps.
This year, we had planned to garden, but continuing with the project we had begun was looking more and more attractive. Hours and dollars made it an either/or.
And then the first seed catalog came, with the only snow we saw this winter. The boys pounced on it before I could, and in their imaginations a wondrous garden took root-- filled with magical things like sugar pumpkins and baby carrots and sunflowers swaying over all like benevolent sentries. The decision was made and we ordered a great load of dirt, started making our beds, reused some fencing, and started some seeds inside.
As any of you with kids and a garden know, it is already worth it. Their wonder as green split seed and earth by our sunny window, their delight as vines creep upward and rosebuds burst into bloom has more than made up for our homely foundation beds. There will be time later for tasteful ground cover, for the hydrangea hedge at the border and peonies along the driveway. This is now. Their dirty fingers are still small and a little stubby, and they get it, on some level we can only approximate as adults.
So far we have had a few salads from the lettuce bed. The tomatoes are blooming and I am looking over the pepper plants and dreaming of July fajitas. My few roses, moved to make room for the garden, are flourishing in their new homes and putting on an early show. And every morning Sam wants to go check out the garden, survey his plot and check for growth, equally thrilled with rose and marigold.
We don't totally know what we're doing. But on some level, it is already a success.
Hello out there. . . I feel a little shy, like making a tentative entrance to a party, looking around to see if there's anyone I know, checking to make sure I'm neither over nor under-dressed, my contribution for the table held a bit too tightly. . .
I had mono this spring. Actually, February through the first of May seemed one long siege of sickness, but that last one. . . I was sicker than I have ever been, and still recovering my energy even now. Sick enough that I looked around at home projects I had done and marveled that apparently in other times I've had the strength to keep up with laundry and housework and cooking and create and paint and arrange too.
The photo above is like a little celebration-- the first day I slipped the strap of my camera around my neck and squinted into the viewfinder. And a few days after that, I traced and ironed on the designs for the lovely Alicia's Pleasant Kitchen dishtowels and threaded my needle. Last night, the kitchen smelled like homemade granola bars that I didn't have to make, that I made only to see the smiles of my boys at breakfast.
As I began to recover, I spent a lot of time mulling over what I missed. When all the busyness of even this quiet homebody was stripped away, when the thought of anything optional was purely exhausting, what did I miss? In addition to the strength to wife and mother in the way I want, what did I long for in those long hours? And what slipped away without my notice, and left space and time that was a benefit and not a loss?
When I could move beyond the "have-tos," to what would I want to return?
I missed taking pictures. I missed baking bread and making cards and embroidering. I missed "fluffing up" our house and moving things around for a fresh perspective. I missed puttering outside. I missed the mental energy for long e-mail chats about what really matters. I missed the thousand little luxuries of doing simple things well and artfully and with attention.
And, a bit to my surprise, I missed this space. This place to share little bits and pieces, the moment when I read back over something I've written and my life somehow makes more sense to me, that feeling of connection and understanding with others, the conviction I have long held that a life examined creatively is more fully lived.
So I'm back. Never sure of how frequently or how well. Quietly, thankful for even the energy to consider words and images lovingly shaped.
Hello. Spring is here. When you are away from your life for some reason, what do you miss? What do you let fall away?
