The Babies

On August Break.

Peeking Out

On August Break.

At Day's End

On August Break.

Breakfast, Cafe

On August Break.

At the Pier

This week, I'm on August Break.

Gratitude

One thing I forgot to mention about all this online business: gratitude.

I started reading Ann Voskamp's One Thousand Gifts. As I read my mind drifted away to how this book found its way into my hands. A friend mentioned Ann's blog, A Holy Experience, and another posted about the book. Then I read the chapter Ann wrote in The Spirit of Food and finally started reading her blog. Then I read another post about the book, then another. And today I picked it up from the library.

This isn't the first book that's found its way to me like this. In fact, much of what I've read and learned over the years has been because of my little online community, those kindred spirits who seems to always offer support and kindness when it's needed. Maybe I'm being a bit overly romantic here, but it's good to have a place to return to when the world can be so harsh, a place that reminds me that His mercies really are new every morning.

I need that reminder. I am grateful for it.

We Were at the Lake and Now We're Back

Hot Links

If I thought we were going to escape the heat by moving north, I was wrong. The other night, when Lily wouldn't fall asleep for anything, I called my dad to see if he would bring over his air conditioner window unit. Thankfully he did and thankfully Lily went right to sleep after we installed it. Afterward he stood in our foyer and said that he didn't know how they did it when I was a kid, except that they didn't know the difference. Back then, few people had air conditioners and for so many summers, we suffered through the stuffiness that comes with a house that baked in the sun all day.

Then I moved south and got spoiled by air conditioning.

Now we have an air conditioning unit in each upstairs bedroom, but the bottom floor is sticky and hot. Every fan in the house is at full speed and cooking is not an option. Today it was ninety degrees. In a few days it will even out again.

So, I thought a few links were in order. Here's what I've been into lately:

This essay makes me want to start writing letters again.

Slow parenting? I like this idea. A lot.

Adele has been on constant rotation in our house. This song give me goosebumps every time. This one makes me get up and dance every time.

I want to make one of these and hang it over my bed. And then make another for the living room, and another as a present. Looks simple enough, doesn't it?

And I have high ambitions of knitting this before autumn.

This weekend I got not one but two "tattoos", both on my left hand. The first was a smiley face; the second, a house. Both were from the Corn Hill Arts Festival. Lily liked turning my hand over and checking my tattoos; I liked washing them off.

I'm gleefully into Howards End, but can't help but compare it to Zadie Smith's On Beauty. Not sure if that's a good thing yet.

Learn to Love the Questions

I'm not sure what it is about New York, but we always end up near the water. We set out to feed ducks, got sidetracked at the photography store where I bought a new (awesome!) lens for my camera, and ended up wandering by the creek in the park. It's a chilly day for the end of June.

Yesterday an email from one of my professors reminded me to try to enjoy the uncertainty of things and, as Rilke says, to learn to love the questions. The Rilke quote is an important reminder:

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.

A Bluebird and ATV

Lily asks to go out on the deck and I agree: we should get some fresh air before dinner. I grab a book, one I've been working through for weeks and that I'm determined to finish before we move. The guilt that I'm not doing even the littlest of things like reading has weighed heavily on me. A few weeks ago I let it go, but it still creeps back. I sit, open to the next page, and begin.

The neighbor boy is riding around the yard on his ATV. "A motorcycle," says Lily. "Sure," I say. With one eye on the page, I am attempting to follow what I'm reading. "Where did it go?" she asks. The boy drove around the back of his house. "He'll be back," I say. And then he is, and she is surprised. We have the same conversation several times as he drives from the front to the back. I put down the book; this is just too important.

A bluebird has nested in the birdhouse on the deck. I've seen it time and again and, even as I write this, he is perched on the post just outside the window. He swoops and dives from one tree to the next. His godawful song is annoying as can be, but his color. I am stunned. My book sits in my lap, and I am watching a nine year-old ride an ATV and a bluebird fly from tree to tree, all with my daughter who chatters on and on.

Sally Clarkson writes often about how important it is to be attentive, not just to a child but to the world around us. The dishes can wait, the laundry can wait, the reading can wait. But the magnificence of life maybe cannot wait. Surely I have seen dozens of bluebirds. Surely the neighbor boy will be back on his ATV today. This does not make this moment any less important or special. A long time ago, I was reminded that sometimes it's important to do less. Now is certainly one of those times.

Passing the Time

At farmers markets gathering bread and cheese to add to our strawberries

Getting dressed up to celebrate our sixth wedding anniversary, eating tuna and steak, drinking red wine and limoncello

Walking along the canal

Taking too-long naps in the middle of the afternoon

Eating crepes for breakfast and feeding the ducks

Setting a date for our move (next Tuesday)

Making plans for the Fourth of July

Letting Go

It's hard to come to terms with how much time I wasted before I became a mother. With all the time in the world, I did very little. I wanted to write, but rarely ever did. Instead I read a lot, watched television a lot, slept late whenever I could, and generally took for granted that someday when I was struck with inspiration I would write.

I didn't know that my life as a writer would intersect so much with my life as a mother. In many ways, both began at the same time. And then this whole photography thing started. Sometimes all I can do is hang on for dear life.

I tend to be very demanding of myself, and I'm learning to let go, mostly because there is so little I can control. I have to be patient; there are still so many changes ahead. But it's nice to be able to look back, at something so simple as a photograph, and remember why I'm doing all this.

***
These photos are from Lily's birthday, on film.

At the Ball Park

Huddled near the dugout are a handful of folks, cameras in hand. They have lenses longer than my arm and can no doubt get the closeup shot I never will with my dinky 18-55mm lens. However, I'm here to say that no matter what camera you have or what average lens you use, you don't need fancy equipment to make a photo unique and special.

I'm not here to toot my own horn, just to say that spending thousands of dollars on special equipment doesn't necessarily make you a good (or better) photographer, and it isn't required to take a good shot. What is required is creativity and practice (seriously, practice is key!). I'll say what I've already said a thousand times: the 365 project changed the way I take photographs and made me a better photographer. I am grateful for what my little kit lens can do, though I have my eye on a new lens, which I hope to get very soon.

At any rate, my brother had a baseball game today and it turned out to be a beautiful day for baseball. It was seventy and sunny, and though the game ended in a loss, the day was lovely. In fact, this weekend was pretty perfect: we bought a car, went on a date, slept late, and took a long drive to an exciting baseball game. Yes, it was very, very good.

Things I Did Today

:: Opened a bank account
:: Ate peanut M&Ms
:: Drank a beer at lunch
:: Held a screaming child
:: Did a load of laundry
:: Had a meltdown
:: Ate strawberries

Lying in the Grass

Since we've been in New York, all I've wanted to do is lie in the grass. The grass is different here, softer. A totally different kind, Adam says. All I know are the memories I have of walking barefoot through the yard, or plopping myself outside of the dorm on warm spring days beside friends, the grass tickling our toes. That the grass was different elsewhere never occurred to me, but it is. In Alabama I rarely walked outside without shoes. The grass and the ground felt different beneath my feet. I feared snakes and fire ants, so I kept a safe distance, usually from a chair on the patio.

Last week, the first day that it didn't rain since our arrival, Adam got out the riding lawnmower and Lily and I walked the empty lot beside his parents' house picking dandelions and watching him whiz by. I showed Lily how to blow the seeds around the yard, then we sat in the grass and I chained the yellow flowers together. The grass was long, waiting to be cut, and we left an imprint where we sat.

I haven't picked up a book in over a month, but today I grabbed one I've been meaning to read for awhile and a blanket and headed out into the yard. The sun was bright overhead. I stretched out on my stomach, book in front of me, and took in word by word. For a few moments, that is, until Adam came out with the two dogs to throw balls for them to chase. I glanced over and noticed our dog Penny's muscular body as she zipped across the yard with the ball and barked until it was thrown again. Brownie, my in-laws' dog, is just as her name describes: brown. She is an extra-large labrador, a hundred pounds, give or take, and her gait is singularly her own.

I rolled back over to finish the essay I was reading, and my father-in-law Tom pulled his truck into the backyard to load up his four-wheeler. The dogs ran around the yard and my mother-in-law Sandi came out of the house. Adam held the dogs and helped his dad. Sandi talked to me about the landscaping and what we should have for dinner tonight before walking over to her husband and her son.

I sat on my blanket, part annoyed that I couldn't finish my essay and part grateful for this familial chaos happening here in the backyard with my daughter asleep in the house. Here is this family who has always been accepting and loving toward me, a family whose history I will only partly know and a husband whose past I will never see through clear eyes. There will always be parts of his past I won't know, just as he doesn't know all of mine. He doesn't know about the time I laid in the grass with a friend in college, guilty from kissing a boy the night before whose name I didn't know. He doesn't know how the soft grass felt after walking barefoot on the stone driveway as a kid. He doesn't know so many things, and there are still so many things about him I don't know either.

I finished reading the essay and came back into the house to a crying child, feverish and needing a cuddle from her mama. I left the blanket and my book in the grass, hoping we'd make it back outside this evening. Instead I held her for more than an hour. Adam walked out the back door and returned with the blanket and book, and I knew what I've always known about him: When I need him, he is there. For all the things I may not know, this one makes up for them all.

Executive Decisions

So, you know, we're moving in two weeks. Two weeks from today. And, oh my goodness, that is soon. So, we have been forced to make some executive decisions.

Adam was offered to be deployed to northern Alabama to help search for missing people. He said no, which is proving to be good because it looks like all the folks who headed that way will be gone for over a week.

We decided that we would forgo having a yard sale. I'm too tired to get everything ready and haggle with strangers on my front lawn, so a lot of our stuff is headed to Goodwill.

We are also not going to do any more formal grocery shopping. You have no idea what a relief this is. I want to throw away as little food as possible, but I know we'll end up toting some of it north. I just want to limit how much we actually take and don't want to restock our entire supply. (Any tips on how to do this most effective are warmly welcomed.)

This morning we went to the Exploreum, which was a lot of fun. We ended up seeing "giant insects" and a live animal show that gave us the opportunity to show Lily what a horse looks like. A lot different from the pages of her Sandra Boynton books, for sure.

Side note: I wrote a little essay for the Curator about our impending move. You can read it here.

Bye bye, Truck. Hello, Dryer

We sold our truck. Yesterday we took our last ride in it as a family. It's the truck Adam took me out on our first date in, the truck we shared for almost a year when we were first married. And because we're moving and because we hope to someday become a family of four and because our car is in better shape than the truck, we sold it and now it's gone.

So we're temporarily a one-car family. Hopefully it won't be for long.

On a very good note, our dryer is working again. Turns out that we had the right parts all along, but didn't realize it (this is what happens when you try to save money and install things yourselves). A quick search on youtube and an hour turning screws and the dryer is a-tumblin' again. I'll admit I got a little giddy about it. I ran around the house gathering all of my pants that needed to be shrunk back to size and all of the towels, which were rough from line drying. I happily spent the afternoon doing laundry.

Exhaustion

At the end of every day Adam and I are exhausted. Even on days when we do very little, the evening rolls around and we're in bed earlier than we'd like to admit. We sleep all night and still feel exhausted. Today we decided it will probably be weeks before we feel rested again. There's just so much to do.

This morning I met a Flickr friend for coffee. It was good to talk, to put a face with a name. While I was gone Adam and a friend were trying to install a new drum in our dryer, the one that broke just before Mardi Gras causing us to give up using the dryer for Lent instead of giving up nothing. Unfortunately, the parts don't fit and we'll be without a dryer for the duration of our stay at this house. And Lily spent her day under the weather with a low-grade fever, which didn't help the dryer not fitting right fiasco.

But what can we do? We're just riding this train from here on out: a yard sale Saturday, Lily's birthday Sunday, the end of the semester next week, Adam's birthday, then we're on our way north. It's sort of incredible that we're doing this and sort of not incredible that we're so tired. So I won't feel bad about lounging around watching TV and going to bed early. Eventually this will all even itself out.

All Things Easter and Otherwise

This week we did so many things.

We hunted eggs and celebrated a little friend's second birthday. We thought we sold our truck, learned the buyer's loan was denied, and immediately got a call from another buyer who had cash. We packed and ruthlessly reduced our wardrobes. I got a new freelance job, had a panic attack, and realized it will all work out in the end.

Adam and I went out for the first time in two months. We had dinner with friends, one of whom gave me four rolls of film. That on top of the seven rolls I had ordered that were delivered a few days before, and I would say that I am set on film for quite some time. The butter was even bumped from its compartment in the fridge because of all that film!

Today I saw the local photo shop is taking old photo equipment for cash. We have a few old cameras kicking around here (including the one that malfunctioned near Lily's birth) and I'm hoping I might get enough cash to buy a few more rolls of film. However, if it's enough to buy one of these, I'd take that over film any day.

Happy Easter! He is risen, indeed!

Friday Happiness (Again)

It's been a surprisingly relaxing week around here. There's been a lot of porch swinging, beer sipping, and long walking around the neighborhood. This morning I sat in a coffee shop and finished reading Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood (not exactly a feel-good book, but it did the trick) and eavesdropped on the barrista talking to the air conditioning repair guy. One was from North Carolina, the other from Maryland, and they were comparing notes about Mobile. It was amusing to me to listen to their likes and dislikes, while I sat nearby with the secret that I, too, am not from Mobile but I'm about to get the heck outta here.

Everyone I tell that we're leaving looks at me incredulously and says some variation of, "I can't believe you're moving somewhere with such cold weather." I shrug my shoulders and say something like, "I can't stand being sweaty," or, "I really miss wearing scarves." And they still don't get it. That's okay. I was born and raised in the cold and, doggone it, I do miss wearing scarves.

I keep trying to think of the things I'll miss about Alabama, things I should savor before they're gone. I'll miss the live oaks and the beach. I'll miss seeing blue skies almost every single day. I'll miss my favorite radio station and this tiny house we've made a home.

The other day, Adam and I sat on the porch swing and I told him that I wonder what I'll miss that I don't expect to miss. What am I taking for granted that I won't have when we move? I don't know. There will be things, I'm sure, and I will be sad about what we're losing when we move. But that comes with the territory, right?

What I do know is that it's Friday. The sun is shining and the beer is cold and I get to spend the weekend with the ones I love. For now, that's all I need to know.