""OK wait. If you guys are really us, what number are we thinking of? "

aug1107 008, originally uploaded by the.h.is.silent.

I embarrass myself at how nostalgic I am. I shrink in horror at the way most anything can elicit wistful feelings in me. I think I was just born this way. I like sappy as much as I like cool. I like that feeling that washes over me when I turn the corner in my mind and go back. And lately going back has made it ever so important to go forward. I have been writing in my mind for weeks, stringing sentences together for my novel right there behind my eyes.
It is time to touch the drain and kick some ass.
Another woefully sentimental movie that I love (na na na boo boo I don't care if it makes me a sap) is "Stealing Home". Jodi Foster and the main character dive into a pool to touch the drain. It is kinda scary to touch the drain in a pool. At least for me. But it is really a good way to wakeyrself up. A good way to prove to yrself that everything is right there really...if you only reach yr hand out a bit more and go those few seconds past yr comfort zone.
Because really, is there anything better than breaking the surface of the water?
Do you have a drain to touch today?

title post-title post- Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure 1989

I love ya since I knew ya

Two things.
The Swedes (yo motherland!) are just cranking out some cool shit in the freakishly young and this song is my quintessential drinking song from my youth.
So when me and Hannah were in high school and crashing into Dr. A's liqueur cabinet we would often play this game:

drink every time Sting sings Roxanne
every time
and then put on lip gloss and think yr cute
before you fall down and puke
and that's how we rolled in Appalachia

I won't be recreating any Roxanne memories tonight, but I will be nostalgic bc it is what I do best...drip drip drip...
2008 was fabulous and heartbreaking and amazing and hard and full of love and kept reaffirming the facts of my life...
I am blessed. I am lucky. I am charmed. This family of mine rocks and I am on my path.
Now let's see what kind of wonderful we can make in 2009!
Cheers!

OH YEAH! and posted EVERY SINGLE DAY in 2008.
RAWK!!!!!!!!!!!

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Put on the day/And we'll talk in present tenses

I think this world is about to experience a renaissance of lovely. Of human touches. Of kindness. I believe it, and I believe it is being sparked by you and people like you.

I have had the fortune of having a lot of good feedback and comments this year, but the above one gave me goosebumps and made my lip quiver a bit because this is all I want.

A renaissance of lovely

Won't you join the movement?
Won't you go tell Rowena that you believe? I thank her so much for that comment- one that was such a lovely gift to me.

I also want to believe that we are headed for great change as we blaze right into 2009. I feel a vision quest forming for our country. I don't think it is always fair to think others will change things for us though. I have a ton of faith in Obama and the new administration, but I also think there is a lot that we need to shoulder ourselves- there is a lot of parenting and neighboring and loving and changing to do in each small life. There is a key that needs to be turned and we all need to hear the click before things are gonna really change. Small ripples and don't you ever forget that

The Mississippi's mighty,
but it starts in Minnesota
At a place that you could
walk across with five steps down

Are you ready?

A renaissance of lovely...wouldn't you like yr legacy to be that? Perfect.

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Kinda love you got/Knock me off my feet

I can never keep all the presents hidden away. I am notorious for asking Joe if he would like to guess a pressie or asking him if I could give him something early.
I got Blaise a sweet baby sterling bracelet from the sweet Bronwen and it came today...

My reasoning for placing it round his sweet pudge 24 days early is that he keeps growing. Right? It might not fit if I wait. Well, I really just couldn't wait. It was so tiny and adorable and I knew he would like it. He loves special trinkets this one. He finds affinity with the small or odd. He wants to sleep with the honey bear honey dispenser and he loves my necklaces.

One day this small moon of silver will easily look like a doll's bracelet when he finds it in the small wooden box I have for saving them things. Someday he will palm it in his big man hand and think hard and not even be able to remember this cold blustery day.
I hope to God I can always.


FREE shipping over at the shop today

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Fill up your mind with all it can know

Monday List- all week Joslyn and I will post lists from Friday's adventure!
Thanks for yr gorgeous list Ann!

31 things before 32

I turn 32 in less than 4 months.

1. Start planning for a move to Germany.
2. Re-do my website.
3. Start gathering ideas for a book I want to write and submit 3 query letters.
4. Get a job.
5. Get a new pair of jeans.
6. Go jogging, several times.
7. Go for a scenic bike ride that includes a picnic lunch break.
8. Declutter my home.
9. Purchase a drawered cabinet.
10. Take more pictures.
11. Re-do my wall decoration.
12. Start taking pictures of my food so I can put them in my food blog.
13. Introduce my food blog to the Internet.
14. Buy some decorative pillows.
15. Spend the night at a hotel on the beach… spend two nights at a hotel on the beach.
16. See a play.
17. Go to a museum.
18. Clean out my car.
19. Plant some kind of vegetable.
20. Organize my home.
21. Buy holiday gifts off of etsy or dawanda (wow, I have to do that soon…)
22. Make some of the recipes from the many cookbooks I have.
23. Research more countries and what’s happening in the world. Not just this country.
24. Look for good master’s programs.
25. Start planning my own business… helping artist and makers get the audience they deserve.
26. Go to the planetarium show.
27. Organize photos, actual and digital.
28. Finish the bathroom and kitchen work… yikes, that’s tough.
29. Rearrange bedroom furniture.
30. Get new curtains for the living room.
31. Laugh every day.

This list could go on and on. But, I’ll stop now. I hope to see yours, but if not, I’ll see what other doobleh-vay & simple lovely readers said.

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gorgeous papercut by mister rob ryan

When they insist on knowing my bliss/I tell them this

My divine friend Joslyn and I have been chatting for a while now about how we need to make lists that are for our lives and how hard it is to create and sustain that giant "bucket list" over the course of a life, but how it is far more manageable to keep ongoing yearly goals and lists.
After some inspiration from the amazing Hula Seventy, Jos decided to do a list of 34 things before she turns 35 later this year and since I am turning that magical number too I hopped on board too.
These lists are meant to be realistic and in the spirit of being good to yrself.

Simple things. Small things. Meaningful things.

Now here is the fun part:
Please join us in sharing yr lists.
What do you want to do before yr 25 or 43 or 55?
Next month? Next year? How can you make the time to be good to yrself?

Inspire us please?
Share with us by linking to doobleh-vay and simple lovely blogs and posting yr own list.
Leave us a comment that yr participating too.
We will pick one each day next week to share with the world.
And perhaps a little prize at the end too?
Kiss Kiss

1. Go see a movie alone and moderately dressed up.
2. Get a pedicure.
3. Take that ballroom dancing class with Joe.
4. Make Moroccan Chicken again like I used to.
5. Smile more
6. Write a thank you letter once a week to someone.
7. Spend more time off the computer/write in my paper notebook more.
8. Contact three more "out of reach" stores with my product.
9. Join the soup club and rock out with fall soup making.
10. Practice at least five random acts of kindness.
11. Go to a pumpkin patch and not Whole Foods front stoop.
12. Find a way to get Hunter Boots.
13. Entertain again. Scary as it may be- one small party.
14. Write my Love letter for Karey
15. Write a letter to Karey.
16. Organize my writings and office.
17. Bake a seasonal pie.
18. Have a milk bath.
19. Query three more magazines.
20. Go to the read to yr baby festival in town.
21. Make Mr. Kelly from the Hardware Store some cookies.
22. Go to this bakery more.
23. Teach the boys a new song.
24. Read a chapter book to them and not skip pages or make up random narrative about main character shopping for Prada handbags.
25. Get serious about handmade holiday.
26. Make Joe giggle.
27. Make more phone calls and write more letters to those I care about.
28. Visit our land in Athens and stop and get a Cafe D'Orlean's Coffee.
29. Watch the Carry On movies with Joe.
30. Go a whole day without saying no to my children.
31. Go a whole day saying no to all adults if I please.
32. Get a writing schedule on a paper and tack it onto the wall.
33. Get a check-up.
34. Walk to the Firehouse with the boys again and stop at Cottage Candy on wander home.

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Image from Penelope Dullaghan I heart her

But when I’m surrounded I just can’t stop

See that small little bed in the background. That is the bed that belongs to a preschooler as of today. The bed that used to be my father's as a little boy. The bed that Finn sleeps on every night. The bed that I curled up on for an hour today and may or may not have wet with my tears at the thought of losing Finn a bit more to the outside world. It is exciting and terrifying at the same time. When I think about it too long I start to feel my chest tighten. Like all day.

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In that tenderness I am floating away

We let the boy stay up late last night. We are pretty strict about our 7:30 bedtime round these parts, but there was something about the heat of the day and how it slithered into a remarkable evening that loosened me.

There was something about how patient he had been with mom and dad working all day at home. There was a good vibe and so we told him he could stay up to see the lightening bugs and stars. He fully appreciated it.

The fireflies were magical and his mouth formed perfect circles and his eyes were so very wide. Although it broke my heart that he could not remember last year's bugs.
These are amazing he said.
It also broke my heart that I have discovered he cannot remember our old house.
His old room. The place we started.
Were you really so little only last year Finn?

He could hardly brush his teeth or make it to his bed fast enough and he cried and cried simply because he was exhausted, but I didn't feel too bad about jacking up his circadian rhythm. He had a sparkly time, a perfect shiny night this summer. And I was a mama magpie swooping down and taking that glimmering moment and tucking it safe in my mind- safekeeping a memory for all of us.

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And we would scream together songs unsung

pretty patti images

We went into the city today on the bus. It was a great day full of friends, window shopping, walking, playgrounds, and energy. We were lucky to have dad meet us here for ice cream.

We are really lucky that this is working out. I have been home a whole year now. A whole year as a stay at home/work a little at home mama...It cannot have been a whole year already. Things are working out and I had little faith last year. I forget to focus on the fact that I have a really strong man for a husband. I am lucky. I see the look in some pals eyes, I know I won the lottery with soul mates. I got the whole shebang and I really do sit and shake my head some times at my charmed little luck. I forget that even with the crappy luck in the housing market and two mortgages, that we are making this work because we are a pretty damn good team.

I wanna stay home another year at least. I am putting it out to the universe that I am so open and ready for my writing to start to carry more of our weight. I am so putting it out there that as cool as it is that Joe can meet us for cones, it still makes me sad that today will be a 14 hour physical day on his strong smooth shoulders.

I will sit this weekend hunched over my novel and think about how very odd it is that a dream that was once just my little spark, my little beacon, glowing inside of me since I was a kid ( to write a book) has become just as much about these people I love and how they share this dream with me now. My goals and aspirations are now lovingly taken care of by more than just my heart. My dreams have been resuscitated by Joe, blown life back into lungs and he has helped me find a way home. He has helped me to find a way to write my stories again and his support opened a door inside of me as a mother that was once shut. I am sappy with my love for him on this hot sticky day. Happy Weekend. Kiss yr mate today. That is an order.







***Found out they are droog design lights for those of you who asked! I love them so! Charly from Jenis Ice Cream told me!!!

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This is the dawning of the rest of our lives

One of my girls crushes tagged me to answer some questions about myself. I am doing two of these type tags this week and it is actually quite good timing bc I am swamped with work for the festival that starts in the morning and I am very brain dead and utterly lacking in creative juices. So dear divine Jos, here are the answers:

What did you do 10 years ago?
I was living on the island of Mykonos. Wow. I was rubbing shoulders with the fancy and free and writing self indulgent poetry. I had no idea that I was about to meet my soul mate soon. I was very very free and leading a pretty charmed life. ( still am in a bunch of ways)

Five items on your to-do list:

1. Suck it up and rent our house that is not selling.
2. Join freaking WEIGHT WATCHERS.
3. Finish flooring the upstairs of our home with sambuca bamboo
4. Write my novel like a maniac in August/September
5. Relax a bit more

Snacks I enjoy:
pretzels and goat cheese
ice cream for sure
trail mix ( archer farms/Target)
dill pickles

What would you do if you were a billionaire?
I would find and buy thisI would give so much away
I would start a commune and make everyone live there with me

Places I would live:
Mystic Ct, Church Stretton UK, and Mykonos

Jobs I have had:
You must go here and laugh at my life- I wrote about this last year

I am so slammed right now I will say- Play if you like
kiss kiss

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Go to him now, he calls you/ you can't refuse

Walking at the farmers market Finn hears him from a block away.
Bob Dylan is here mom!!!!
Of course my camera ran out of juice and I only got a snippet, but I got that first snippet of Finn giving to the arts. Finn has pocket money for the market each week and he normally and wisely buys a sweet treat from the bakery, but today he wanted to give his money to Dylan. (He really thought it was Dylan and no amount of reasoning would fly)

I told him sure. Go for it, it will feel good.
Joe and I used to buy art even when we were poor bc we knew that it would always make us feel rich. I also like to give money to those brave artist who sing out loud for us all. I have tossed coinage all over the world in guitar boxes and I hope that Finn continues to do so. I hope he becomes a missionary of artistic evangelism and I feel so lucky that I was there for that first toss- that moment that welled up in a small boys soul.

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Well swimmin' up this river/With sentimental fever

I am reading this book and thinking about happiness. Unalloyed happiness. We do tend to gauge our happiness meter against things in our life. (If this/When/I will... and we sometimes need to compare/contrast/wonder)
I get fully unimpressed with myself when I hesitate and linger a bit on the negativity that runs through my veins. I unfortunately inherited ancestral pessimism and grumpiness. I did-I know folks who know me think I am gleeful and shining light and bunnies and shit, but it is work people! I am not a depressed person but I tend to go to the negative place first. I have fought this all my life.

It is true I am the life of any party. I have been on the top of a bar this year already. I laugh so much. I eat life. But...I have to close my eyes tight and force myself not to think that things are bad when they are truly not. I have to try harder to trust people. I have to open up my real heart more to people. I have to cultivate much more patience and look at the scary as possibility. It helps to be married to a beacon of positivity. Joe, my truth and light. It helps and it also hurts bc I worry that one day he will grow tired of picking up my heart and soul and gently tucking it right back in place.

I have to look right round this room and trust in the fact that there is so much happiness here. It lives inside of these boys and pours out all over my lap when they hug me. It is the smell of spiderman suits that needed washed yesterday and hair slick with sweat. It is the light from the window falling on an afternoon where we stayed inside while it rained and took photographs all day. There is great happiness in being exactly where you want to be and realizing it in the moment.

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.

like every single day

Twice a week I am going to throw down some reposts for nablopomo.
(originally posted on 5/1/08)

This was our wedding song. I was very resistant to having a song. I was resistant to a lot back then, but I did make Joe say that this would be just fine for us because it spoke volumes to me at the time. It made sense for our love and it also reverberated the authenticity of simple love and small town living that I knew so well. Our songs were really Brit punk rock and The Rolling Stones, but I think I have always been attracted to songs like this. Songs that others may call cheesey or trite I have sometimes cleaved to my heart. My parents have a Jukebox in the living room and on it are songs like "Peaceful Easy Feeling" by the Eagles and when I hear that song I see my parents dancing and I am sure they choose that song for the way it makes them feel. John Hiatt is cold beer and some of the best times in Athens, Ohio to me. I used to be invited up on stage and would sing Hiatt duets with a townie band at school and it was magnificent.
It's funny how 9 years later the song fits still as our song. It really is the cornerstone, the nominal starting place in the construction of our love. It still makes me scrunch my face when I hear it in bars or elevators or even from Joe Cocker. Life gets more and more complicated each day but I have faith. I actually have better than faith, because faith is belief not based on proof and everyday for over 10 years Joseph has proven himself to be my soul mate.

You gonna have to call it by a brand new name

Finnian is so dramatic.
mom- let me lie down here and pretend I am asleep and you take my picture
Dramatic but gorgeous.

Last night as I was cleaning out an old box in the basement a slip of paper fell to my feet. It was an old poem about an old friend. I have been "studying" (my gran says this instead of thinking and I love it) about this person lately and it was strange and cool that I found this. Page and I were so close in college and I miss her in my life now. We are fine and I adore her and we are friends still, but sometimes I get lonesome for her when I am writing. We were once the darlings of the writing program we attended. We were young and devilish and talented and life was insane. We ran off to Europe together to experience more life and work and write...Page went on to actually write- well at least to propel herself in the proper direction. I stayed on a tiny island afraid to write my stories. I was jealous of her and proud of her in the same moment.

I tell myself that she would be so great to have in close proximity this year as I tackle a novel. She would kick my ass and listen to me read aloud. Then I read the poem again, slower this time and laugh. We were so young. We were so just beginning our soak, our fermentation. I feel about properly aged now. I love to drift back to those times though. I love to jar my brain.

During a Christmas break at school
the winter it did not snow
my friend Page and I went on a bender
we're writers we need this
we would whisper in dirty bar bathrooms
(knowing fully that the alcoholic writer is purely an American phenomenon)
giggling searching each others eyes
for the look that meant
we were fine
things were fine
yet there was no snow and all we needed
was to lie down in it and make angels
to remember how young we were
to forget how much we knew

so sally can wait/she knows its too late as we're walking on by

Well, I picked up my macbook today. 

Brand new hard drive and nothing could be saved as it was a major malfunction.  

I am trying hard to forget about the last 6 months of photos and the last 8 weeks of my novel and all those book marks and software...OH MY. It really takes some resolve for me not to get depressed. I simply have to learn from this dammit. Back up back up back up. 

I am feeling less than creative this weekend though. I think I am allowing myself to stew a bit and not force myself to create. 

I am organizing tonight and unfurrowing my brow. 

Today was sweet as it was my BFF Michelle's daughter Mia's first birthday party. I met Michelle in the 5th grade. Unicorns, LYLAS, swatches, charm necklaces and the rest is history. Years. I loved her Baby's Prom theme! We all dressed up and had a blast. My favorite photo is not of Mia and her cake or all the lovely kids, but of Michelle filming her daughter eat her birthday cake while we all sang. It is that sweet moment I caught that makes a lump rise in my throat and tears threaten my eyes now. It is the moment of yr child's first birthday and of all milestones realized and recognized in an instant. 

Gotta tend the earth/If you want a rose

Little Alouette has landed! I alluded to my little project back here. My dear friend Jess and I have been working furiously on our new adventure and I would love to share it with you. Jess and I have been friends for 15 years-wow- it seems so crazy to realize that! So we have a history and it has been back and forth and full of much richness and madness and always a great distance.(Ohio/Maine/England/Florida/Chicago)

I freaked out when I found she and her husband were coming back to Ohio to raise their child. I would be around her again and just like that we fell into the deep well of creativity together. It seemed we were both reaching out for something at the same time. We were both brimming with the creative sparkle. One afternoon as we played with the kids we just decided to start listening to that little buzz in our ear...We decided to do something!
We started thinking and networking and creating and have found ourselves with a vintage-hip children's decor tiny tiny business.We signed up for a couple local fairs and have found ourselves lucky enough to be chosen to have a booth at a large festival that draws over 60,000 people. We connected with a couple shops in Southeastern Ohio that are going to take a shot at some of our treasures too! It is happening quickly and is somewhat crazy, but we are thrilled. Our creations are mostly recycled and re-purposed furniture and specialty items. (we are trying to turn the past pretty again) Jess has a keen eye for textiles and color and I am rather lucky at finding junk that glimmers with possibility and thinking outside the box. We are going to stock our etsy shop in the next two weeks with some small items like growth charts, banners, handmade blocks, cards, and small furniture pieces.
It feels glorious to have something to direct my constant frenzy into, to have another small room of my own. We our firmly planted in reality and cognizant of the struggles and hard work of a wee business...that is the beauty of this type of small mama partnership; we both know what is most important. (Our families and nurturing our souls) I think that at the end of the day, Little Allouette will serve as a much needed Shangri-La that we create for ourselves. A place to go and work on art and things that excite us. A place to share. I would love love to imagine a store front in a couple years that carries amazing handmade treasures from women I meet and admire, and some art classes for the young, but for now I am happy to paint myself silly in my backyard and unleash the whimsy to the world. I love that the evenings are now bright and when the boys are in bed I can learn woodworking from my husband outside and have an open art studio. I am just so happy to have a chance to try.

Jess has started a blog and I hope you will go visit her and wish her welcome to this amazing community. So! Thanks for listening to me ramble on and come visit our etsy shop on April 19th! (I will still have my small etsy shop that I place tiny treasures in too)
This small blog has given me so much shimmer and bounce to my step and that is because of the connections I have forged. Thank you for the daily fill-up blogosphere. xoxoxoxo

Not thinkin' bout tomorrow/Couldn't catch it if I tried

We have my dad's childhood bed in our home now. Finn has slept on a mattress on the floor since moving here last Summer. He is delighted at a real bed and I am happy to have him nestle into a place where his papa once slept. I like the idea of Finn's foot kicking the same foot board and his tiny finger tapping the same headboard as my dad once did. My grandmother seemed pleased that we took it and she gave me other amazing items to take to our home that day. She seemed to exhale as more stuff left her sun porch and tucked into our truck. She filled us up with the past and I wondered about how far away those images of her boy being tucked in that wooden bed are from her 87 year old mind? The older I get I seem to become more and more nostalgic and at times sentimental over the past. It seems to get worse with each child's birthday. Maudlin threatens. How does Gran let go and how does she not look at all of us and freak at the passage of time? I think at a point there must be a surrender. There must be so much joy that you just let go. You must just float.