Uncurling

I really thought I hated this plant. It pokes me as I walk to my front door, all the way through my clothes. It catches me off guard every time and makes me angry. I have to keep it trimmed way back to avoid this.

When I saw the center of it swelling and getting ready to send up some new leaves I furloughed my brow thinking about cutting off and hauling away the older leaves getting pricked and scratched all the while.

Then as these leaves started to grow and uncurl I forgave it for its pokey terrible leaves. These little uncurling leaves are so beautiful and worth any pokes and scratches I will have to endure.

At least I feel like this now.

    

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Flashback

It has been so long since I have seen falling snow. Maybe 5 years. It was wonderful to watch Bron who has no memory of it dance happily in the parking lot as it lightly dusted us Thursday night. In her excitement she set out to make a snow angel right then and there. I didn’t realize this until she is stepping into the van dripping wet and very cold. Haha. “Next time lets wait until we are properly dressed. ”

Unfortunately playing outside wasn’t in our story this weekend. Nope, not at all.

Friday morning I was busy disinfecting toilets at 5:30 in the morning. I was hopeful it would only be Bron but was taken over by the stomach pains myself by the evening. Everything else is a blur. I just remember having flashbacks from Thanksgiving a couple years ago. (no this is not an announcement!) Dave told me I didn’t need to go the ER and so I trusted him but boy I was miserable. Since I don’t remember much means that I have the best husband ever, no meals to make or kids to care for. I am pretty sure I slept all Saturday.

By Sunday afternoon I was out of bed, happy to still see some leftover snow. Actually not much had melted at all. I’m not quite ready to give up fall yet (and it looks like I wont have too) but am looking forward eagerly to a nice blanket of snow this winter.

 

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There must be something in the air.

That lovely fall air.

I am just loving all the fall splendor here in Nebraska. I can’t get over all the colors and beauty I see every day. I feel like a little kid getting so excited to go for a drive out of the city to see field after rolling corn field all golden and beautiful. As we head back to the city it is reds, oranges, bright yellows, acorns, pinecones, and the like everywhere. Up in the trees, flying in the air,  and laying on the ground. I love it.

I don’t know if it is the change of season or what, but this last weekend I found myself cutting my fabric scraps into 2″, 3.5″, and 6″ lengths, looking up how to reupholster a chair on YouTube, and digging into the closet under the stairs looking for the box of yarn I have saved for christmas stockings. All on the same day!

I couldn’t believe it. I actually wanted to do something crafty.

By evening, my mind was going every which way and so I regrouped and decided on one project for now. After all, this sudden burst of creative energy could leave just as fast as it came. I decided to abandon the idea of matching knit stocking (it is so much faster to just sew them, and easier on my wrists too) and to use the yarn for another christmas decor project. I’ll let you more about it if anything actually comes of it. For now I will take a deep breath and calmly let this area of my life enter my mind and hands again.

 

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I know it is late but I’ll have a Halloween post up later this week. I just can’t pass up the chance to show you our little frog this year.

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Opening my eyes

To be completely honest,  as I drove into town, our NEW TOWN, this summer, I wasn’t really impressed with the scenery. I saw pretty trees, lots of green, there was rolling hills around but nothing really caught my eye. This is probably because I was a little distracted by the fact I had just left MY HOME with all of its accompanying friends, oh the friends…sigh, and was starting  over yet again. The weeks started rolling by, much quicker than normal and I had come to love this new home of ours. THE PEOPLE, oh the people,  are fantastic. I have never felt more at ease in a new location… EVER.  No instant best friends for any of us but lots of really kind, genuine, friendly, down to earth people who have made this the easiest transition to date.  However…

I still hadn’t been inspired by the nature in my surroundings. No biggie but pretty unusual. That is until I talked one of my new walking buddies to take me some parks I saw the map. This is where I saw for the first time, or maybe finally opened my eyes a bit, I saw something beautiful, and INSPIRING.

No it wasn’t the ancient ruins in Turkey, or beautiful sunsets along the water in Mississippi, not my ever favorite mountain in the back ground or a dense forest with a winding path, it was something different yet familiar and wonderful.

These pics can also be found on my photography website.

I swear my walking buddy thought I was crazy. It might be the fact that I was overly excited and even a bit emotional. For me, at this park, I found the piece I’d been missing. Finally I realized… I am HOME.

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A Wonderful Surprise

Warning – This is not a crafty post but one I would feel ungrateful if I did not write, as I have been touched so much.

Yesterday Bron and I hopped on our bikes for a little ride just as the sun was getting low on the horizon. I had just finished my second gift for the month and wanted to get a photo of it down by the docks in my little neighborhood and also wanted to enjoy a bit the beauty that is found there.

As we approached my desired dock I ran into Whitney, a sweet lady in our neighborhood and church congregation with a contagious enthusiasm for life and also a talent and passion for photography. Before this particular meeting I had dreaded ever meeting her in a situation like this. And I have to admit that as I realized that our crossing paths were inevitable this particular moment, I cringed as I saw her pull out her camera.

I have admired her photography since the moment she passed her card to me and had a minute to check out her website.  Each photographer has his/her own style and I just loved hers. But it was my silly struggles with body image that kept me always trying to increase the distance between myself and her camera. This desire only increased as my body became more and more swollen as the months have progressed in my pregnancy.

So, it was only with love for her and her sweet enthusiasm that I agreed to “just stand there” and let her dance around me. After a few minutes, I relaxed a bit and after an agreement that she wouldn’t show me any photos of myself that didn’t look great, I let her do her thing. I found it all very silly.

Until I saw these

This first picture almost made me cry.

I have always wanted (secretly) a beautiful pregnancy photo. But have always settled for a quick snapshot just for documentation of what I looked like for the sake of the unborn child.

Not only does this photo give me a beautiful pregnancy photo, it captures so much about me.I have stood in this same area many times gazing at the beauty of the area in which we live with thoughts of deity, my life, and how blessed I am swirling in my head. I am looking toward the water just like my mother is always doing. This makes me realize the many ways she has influenced my life and how proud I am to be “just like her.”  Seeing me hold my unborn baby represents so much for me. The fears, trials, uncertainty, gratefulness, love and trust that this experience as an expectant mother brings.

This photo makes me want to be a better mother. The way she is gazing up at me brings to memory the many talks we have heard in General Conference this past weekend that focused on my responsibility as a parent and gave direction on how to be the parent that my Heavenly Father and Savior want me to be. This photo clearly shows my daughters love for me and makes me realize that I am her mother and who else should lead her to God but me.

This last photo may only be meaningful to me but I love it.

I shows me, as always, as a jeans and t-shirt kind of girl, holding my family dear to me along with trying to balance my desire to create and share this love of mine with others. The fact that I am laying on the ground in such beautiful location was just the perfect touch as it  represents my love of nature and desire to be near it. While I am on my back I am looking up which reminds me of my need to consistently desire to know how I might become better and the knowledge that I have  of my need to remember that this answer will not come from the world but only if I become in-tune enough to hear and follow the promptings that will only come from above.

Thank you Whitney for such a wonderful and surprising gift. I will treasure these always.

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Inspiration

*** Thanks for your thoughts on cleaning. I finished reading the book and am in the process of making the things I learned apart of my routine. I’ll let you know if it work out. ***

While teaching a new friend to knit the other day I became inspired to work with fiber again. It had been a couple of years since I picked up a pair of needles and was enjoying it again. I restarted some long unfinished stockings and realized real quick that I needed something different. That just wasn’t the project for me right now.

On friday I read this post and was reminded how very beautiful Margaret Oomen’s work is and also that I remember seeing a tutorial out in blogland somewhere. After a little search I found the tutorial and got to work. For some reason I was having trouble following the directions and decided to try covering a stone with an improvised pattern. There was a bit of trial and error but I love how it turned out.

I loved revisiting the crochet hook as well. It had been more years than I remember since I had used one of those. And just like the tutorial stated, I could not make just one. Here is my own little still life.

Now my brain is thinking colors. Wouldn’t a stone look pretty in a robin’s egg color or something. We’ll see if I get around to it.

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fun finds and some rambling

Thisbe is so excited about a patch or 6 leaf clovers growing right outside our fence.

While watching the kids play in the Mediterranean this last weekend. I notice that the tide line was full of these tiny little treasures. I even found some as small as a grain of sand.

So it seems that life is returning. We started official school this last week. I’m sort of crawling into it. For my sake and theirs. Hopefully we will be fully operational by November. It’s so nice that I don’t have to worry about and stick with the standard September – June routine. When life give me a three week vacation, I can just go ahead and take it.  There is so much to learn on vacation anyway. Here or anywhere.

With this new routine, however, I have been struggling with being tired. (No, I am not pregnant) I’m not used to being “on”, for such long stretches of time.  All this last week, come about 10:30am, I’m struggling to stay awake.   I do make it past lunch, but come about 1 or 2 during reading time, I’ve opted for a nap instead of a good book.  I’m hoping my stamina will build.

On a different note, we had an interesting storm come in. Well, the storm its self was pretty typical, you know the lightning and huge amounts of rain that fill the streets with water kind of storm. The cool thing was that it was approaching so fast that Magnus and I watched  those beautiful puffy white clouds in the distance passed over us and revealed their dark, scary underside, in only a couple of minutes. I love a good storm.

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Transitioning

I am trying to transition back into “normal life”. There is an end in sight. We have our final inspection on Thursday, so, we will be done with the old house then. Here at the new, wonderful, large bathrooms, and huge kitchen house it is just a matter of finding a place for all those leftovers from the old house.

I am dreaming of quilting again. I can’t wait.

Today in honor of St Patrick’s Day, Bron and I (mostly me) searched our yard for a four leaf clover. Sadly, after a thorough search we only found this small bunch, all only having three. This is one of the downfalls to having a newly planted yard.

I’m not complaining, not one little bit.

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Todd

We’ve go a new friend staying with us. He’s moist, cold, and wonderful. I don’t know how long he’s staying but I sure like him.

More details on the family blog.

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Unknown Flower

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Smooching Snails

No romance here. When your all done, you just leave.

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Stringy Greens

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Grasshopper

This guy is about the length of my hand.

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Neighborhood Banana Plant

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Backyard Citrus

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Hi from Turkey

Hello, Is anybody out there? We made it safe and sound to Turkey a couple of weeks ago yet we are far from being settled. That won’t happen until after we get all our household stuff. Hopefully that will happen within the next month or so.

We just got Internet access today so I thought that since there won’t be any crafting for a bit I’d spend September getting organized and simply leave you some daily pics from our new surrounding.

Here are some seedpods we found on our first full day here. The first, Magnus is sure has power. I found the second ones interesting because the look like round pine cones.

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Rocks

Hi, We had a busy day at an awesome park. Trails, trains, playground, and beach all in the same park. Very fun.

Here are a few souvenirs I brought home.

I’m always a sucker for rocks with veins.

I also could resist these beauties. They stood out on the rocky beach like Easter eggs in the grass.

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