Be my mirror my sword and shield

I went to see Sex and the City last night with gal pals...
I loved it. I laughed and cried and mourned my old semi glamorous self pre-children. I might visit my Louis Vuitton Alma later today. I will take her out of the dust sleeve and smell my old life before sensible totes and baby bags ruled the world.
I had the coolest meet up with the divine Restaurant Widow this morning at our local farmers market. Finn and I walked with her through the market and picked her brain and asked loads of questions...She is such a foodie (what else to call peeps with extensive food knowledge?) and was super helpful and adorable!!! We saw quail eggs, bought lamb chorizo, and had a lovely time. Check out her site local yokels. Happy Weekend. xo

One of these mornings/You're going to rise up singing

We have been listening to jazz for a couple days. Some Duke, Dizzy, Miles, Billy, Ella, and Louis... Finn says it is crazy music. I say hell yeah. I grew up with a friend who would later become a pretty great jazz pianist and would gift me with mix tapes of Keith Jarret when I was in Jr. High. I also dated Makis in Greece who is a Jazz aficionado and made me think more about melody. Jazz is like daily life with small children. It is about taking some parts of the day and working them over and over like a melody that wants to unwind. It is frenzied at times, but if you keep improvising you can find yr way to something new and better. We made some masks. I think they are so cool. Just cut out a mask shape from stiff felt and attach a dowel rod or wooden skewers(careful-pointy) with hot glue to the back. Have fun!

the world it won't wait for you/its got its own things to do

I found these brand new wipe containers at the thrift store for 50 cents and just removed the mickey mouse sticker and replaced with a brown kraft label. I added a cute rubber stamp and repackaged them simply. I am thinking these will be sold at the festival too. I would pay a few bucks for a cute wipe container like this...Would you?
We rescued this from the yard sale. It was brass and in bad shape. I snipped out the electrics and am in process of pinking it up with some paint and am going to add pillar candles. It will hang outside for alfresco dining this summer. I am loving it.
I reviewed the book The Yummy Mummy Manifesto over here...Please check it out.
Also go over here and try to win this!!!!

You have to believe we are magic/Nothin' can stand in our way

It is seriously bliss to go back and be able to suspend my disbelief with my kids. I love play. I love that I am propelled from my day full of business, bills, and a gyno appointment into the magical land of fairy chairs. I love that all the crud of the day, all the big person stress, can be peeled right off and thrown away for a couple hours as I pretend with Finn. Pretending is hard core in our world lately. The fairies are coming tonight and need a seat in the garden. We are going to catch one soon and bring him inside to live in Finnian's bedroom. We are going to be soft with the fairies and we might even dance in the grass with them. Mommy will wear a gold caftan and flowers in her hair. We are lucky because not every garden has fairies. Make a chair for yr fairies- If ya got some ;)


Gather the materials from the deep of the woods (AKA backyard)

Find four sturdy sticks to be the post and stick them in the ground to act as base

Use glue gun (OK- purists.. I am so sorry but I am kinda tired and don't feel like weaving grass:) to build up the chair form

Attach twigs, hay, bark, moss, etc to base and build up the chair to yr liking
Place it in yr garden and chant the magic words:
fairy chair
fairy chair
little fairy please sit on me
come into garden and you will see
the magic that is here for you and me

Get up on your feet, yeah/Step to the beat

I am getting back in gear this week and hope to finish my mini camp packets this weekend. I was so shocked and rocked at the 50+ peeps that joined in to camp it with us this summer. I know many of you are interested in just taking the info and doing yr own thing, but if anyone would like to document this educational fun we should set up a little photo gallery on flickr or something!( anyone wanna volunteer?) :) If anyone else would like to get in on the mini camp fun please email me soon. amytsharp (at) gmail (dot) com.
Birds have taken over my house! I have been making garlands and hanging birds for comfest all weekend. There is so much crafting going on here in preparation that my house looks like a shop! Finn and Blaise love them and I might just have to make a bunch more for their rooms soon! Felt rules. Speaking of birds...check out my pal over at her blog for a chance to win one of our cool teethers!

Was a piccolo player in the marching band

Our town keeps opening up it's treasures to us. We enjoyed the old school Memorial Day parade this morning. It was full of clowns and veterans and the cool Shriners in freaky small cars. It was so Norman Rockwell with a fly over from the military helicopters and smiling faces everywhere. Neighbors talking to each other and a feeling of community so thick you could slice kindness in the air with your fingertips. My neighbor made homemade donuts and the kid in all of the adults most definitely came out to play. Finn, Blaise, and their buddy Parker were in a state of awe for one hour. What more could you ask for?

Last year on this day I was thinking about this. Today I am still thinking those same thoughts. I hope we all are thinking a bit about the troops and wishing that next year things might possibly look a bit brighter.

i will show you you're so much better than you know

Granny is getting a bag full of flowers and I am clutching one of my first paychecks for freelance writing and not even my sunburn can get me grumpy right now. I woke up a bit "mardy" as Joe says and it took the three boys all morning to scrape it off me. Why am I like this? Anyhoo, I feel better and am super delighted with my packaging of my mobiles for comfest.I think they look like lollipops right? I am going to put them in a candy jar to sell them...Cute??? I hope there is sunshine on yr face today. xo





This is what i feel like today.

And the Tide's Gonna Turn/and It's All Gonna Roll Your Way.

If this is the donation pile and we all made money then you can imagine how big a production it was. Wonderful day for a tag sale. We purged the basement and made some money and our pals made some cash for their non profit. We had a charity lemonade stand and kids and puppies and sunshine. I am hours later a bit sun kissed and tired like a nut, but I am thankful that the day went well. I like this and this today. Happy Saturday xoxo

She said don't I know you/From the cinematographers party

It was just me and Blaise today. Finnian got to go to a swap meet with his grandparents.
They picked him up at 8am and were gone all day.
I have been without both boys before (ah bliss) for the day, but I realized I am not much with just one anymore. It is always me and these two guys most everywhere, most every day. Blaise noticed right away and cried and cried as the back door closed and Finn hopped in grandpa's truck. He is all over that brother of his. He is tethered to him.
I did get to snuggle extra today with the fat man and we took a tub bath together. There was just a quiet throughout the house that was odd. A string of endless chatter and words that end in probing punctuation were gone and the absence of the sound was melancholy.

And how bout this? Much odder and cooler than my day.
I said goodbye to Design Mom today and it was sad. Sniff. I loved it there.
My long distant chair goddess sent me these Hema plates in the mail. I almost died. I am planning my meals around them.

Home is where I want to be/Pick me up and turn me round

Our friend Patrick leaves in the early morning and Finnian is already sad. He asked me earlier if we could keep him, like he was a hamster or something. Our day was jam packed and busy with a whole bunch of normal activities (grocery, alfresco lunch, Target, walk) but they somehow felt novel and exciting with Patrick on board. We even walked two blocks with a blow up swimming pool above our heads home from the gas station air pump. The day was carved from elbowroom.
We ended up at the Pig Iron BBQ pit where we all ingested entirely too much pork and reveled at the old pick up truck turned into a bar. I am tired and my house is wretched, but it was a great day. Sometimes it is good for me to go off schedule and stop trying to force a day to be something that it might not want to be. I will miss Patrick too. Its funny how those friends from your true formative years are so important. I like that Patrick knew me wild and reckless way back then and how now he knows me as a mama. He knows me, that's the key. He's a good friend to us and I am going to slip little love notes in his backpack right now.





***Yo. Bloggess- yr name came out of the hat for the 300th post. You win a little treat from me. How do you get to be so cute and lucky? unfair. :) Send me yr addy! xo amy

I don't need an invitation/The best peach is at the top of that tree

There is a crash that is awesome after a day fueled with candy.

Our dearest friend Patrick rolled in from Boston this morning to watch this with Joe.
Joe worked for a half day and me and the boys tooled around town. We strolled down to the local candy store and Pat nearly bought out the store. It was fun.
I am sitting here thinking about what kind of trouble they might be getting into out on the town right now. At least the loudness is inside a pub and not my house. Right now my house is still with the exception of the radio softly playing in the babies room. It sounds like time for me to work on the thirty two thousand projects I have going, but it feels like time to just be. I was talking to Patrick today about how his best friends in Boston now have two small children and his buddies wife no longer babies them when he visits- she no longer wakes them up with coffee and french toast on platters like she did in their 20's after a good night out. She is busy now and they miss that coddling. Pat noted that it must all change when kids come, how the best you used to have for only one person was now spread out to many. I agreed and told him that Joe often gets the bum deal and the kids get it all. I give it all away some days. But not today. Tonight I am saving a bit of my spark for only me. I am going to grab a Stella Artois and open the screen door and and sit in my garden. I am going to turn off the computer and the phone and sit with myself. I am going to be thrilled that no one needs me and that dryer that just buzzed can flip right off. I can here myself exhale.

An inspiration is what you are to me/ inspiration look see

Today marks my 300th post. I think this is pretty cool as it means I have sat down here or there three hundred times and reflected, paused, and thought a bit. It means I have really started to do what I said I would do. Write and create again. It means one of you gets a treat! Is this not tradition in the blog world to give away a little bit of love to mark some event like this? Leave me a comment- tell me yr favorite post of the year and I will draw a name on Thursday. I will send you a lil packet of love that whispers thank you again.

And be there when I feed the tree

We started our morning garden journal time. Out in the garden with sketch books and pajamas before breakfast. It went pretty well. I often have these lofty dreams of projects that I see us doing and we are like in slow motion and blissed out with an instrumental Jane's Addiction soundtrack playing in the background. It hardly ever happens...but, gardening is starting off much like my dreams. I am liking it and so are the boys. We have these lofty goals to get our butts outside every morning before breakfast and journal. Finn makes me wear my thrift store garden hat. I pretend to fuss and complain. But, really I love it. It goes along with my whole lofty garden dream.


*Tuesday is my 300th post. Holy Wow.
Also- I am on over at the fabulous design mom all week...

all over you, all over me/the sun, the fields, the sky

The sun rubbed all over us today.
The wind with a chill to it danced around our collars.
Outside was bliss.
It was beautiful in the backyard as a family with everyone working on different projects. We worked our garden and planted today. We fixed our amazing free herb container. We made a pumpkin patch. We created. We laughed. Happiness most definitely flowed in a circular motion.
***OK! I am about to freak out in delight! I am a guest mom for DESIGN MOM this week. She is like my favorite mom ever and I am beyond honored to hang out in her divine space. Come visit this week. xo