midweek, autumn, nature

I've often written that autumn is hard to find in this southern location.
But I believe I found a bit of it in the arrival of our CSA this past week.

joining in with Lou for her Nature in the Home, Autumn Series.

climbing into July.....

Climbing into July.

The house slowly descends into chaos. 

Cushions piled high, then higher still. 

Boys who long to jump from heights, 

dreaming of parachutes and catching a little wind. 

A mama who gasps a bit too much, but pulls out her camera anyway.

foliophoto with bedsidesign. xo

the quiet::holding onto time

It is quiet here this morning. The boys are sleeping in a smidgen. And I am taking the chance to relish in the atmosphere of it all. The dogs are at my feet. The sun is slowly waking up the world. I hear my husband getting ready for work in the back bedroom, but the boys dream on. I realize that despite all the glory of summer, there have been very few moments for me to just be quiet with myself; holding my soul in a space a part; slowing my thoughts and listening to my breath. I love summer in all its lounging and boyness, but it has been filled to the brim with my children and I hadn't realized until this moment how noisy my head has been with my busy bodied babes and their adventures (and in-fighting grumpiness that occurs when you are getting used to being around each other all the time again).

So far this summer has been interesting. The oldest is slowly pulling back from the day-to-day play of the younger two boys. He is absorbed in his books and his music these days and I sense that the younger two feel him pulling back a bit from childhood as well. He has always been an old soul, mature and caring, so it is not a surprise that he is entering into this phase, even though it makes this mama's heart ache a bit for the boy in him.

The younger two are growing in leaps and bounds as well. The middle is sprouting. And the youngest, lost his first baby tooth last night, just after I took these photos of him in our bougainvillea in the backyard (searching high and low for something red to photograph for Lou over in Littlegreenshed). There have been days where the younger two have fought like crazy, but they have also had days like yesterday, where they find a beautiful happy medium, immersing themselves in creative play and imagined adventures. I am so thankful for each one of my merry men. They have pushed me and pulled me; made me grow as a human in ways I never thought possible.

Yet I am ever so grateful for the moments when I can be quiet, stop for a moment and hold onto time. Taking in the slow breath of life. The slow brewed coffee. Yesterday's memories. Writing for a hushed small bit of time, uninterrupted. These are gifts for a mother's soul as well, just as the busy squishy hurried moments are.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

What ways are you finding the quiet (or are you) these days? Do you find it easier or harder when your children are home all day on holiday? How do you step back and hold onto time amidst the chaos? I would love to know. xxoo

linking with Lou, theme: red at Nature in the Home

midweek messiness :: white wondering

I want nothing more these days than my house to be clean scrubbed white with the scent of fresh lily white roses and the stung smell of lavender and lemon clinging to the sheets.

I wonder why white is the quintessential color of summer for so many of us. After these last few days of impossible messes, I am starting to think that my color of choice for the summer should be a dark muddy gray instead. Something to blend and hide the stains of summer.

Alas, I think nothing will be white again, in this dirtied berried busy buoyed house clinging to unbleached, fast, muddied colored lines.  Perhaps not until the boys are sent off to school in the fall. Perhaps, even then, my hope is futile.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

creatively coloring the summer days with my merry men.
linking with Lou.

xxoo

midweek messy:: field trip and flowers

My obsession with the mighty peony continues, and lingers on. I cannot stop taking photos of the flower and all her glory,  and I see that I am not the only one. Due to an overly exhausting weekend and an unexpected field trip to the Doctor's yesterday for my youngest (eye swollen with a skin infection. ugh) I have not been out gathering these peonies from anyone's yard nor have I been in search of sweet hedgerow as suggested over on littlegreenshed.  These are just from my local market.

midweek messiness :: paths and flowers strewn

Before you can blink your eye, midweek will leave us and the sweet slide to the weekend begins. This weekend is a long holiday weekend here, and an unofficial start of sorts to the joys of summer. There are grills to be turned on, campfires to be made and tents to be set up. Most of this, for us, will be done in our yard.

i am over there

hello friends! i am over here this wednesday day. a poem for kindred's online journal at anchor&plume press. 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

xxoo hope you all are well....safe, warm, & loved, where ever you may be this day. 

midweek messy :: finding flowers & reclaiming one's self

In finding these flowers, laying them out on the table, cutting off their ends and finding the perfect glass jar to put them in, I began to reflect on things I do that are for me, and things I do that are for others. I love gathering flowers on a weekly basis. I feel like it is a small gift Lou at LittleGreenShed has given me. (this week's theme pink). But somedays I need a bit more, something that feeds my soul daily. Somedays I just do. So in these cast out hours, small snippets of time, I think we often are trying to figure out who we are and what we are doing on this small earth. Is there something out there that you have found that nourishes who you are? Is it breathing deeply in bed before sleep? Walking, running in a neighborhood before dawn? Is it pruning your garden, pulling out weeds all by your self in the hot pouring sun? 

midweek messy :: nature gathered

 Gathered from my neighbor and sweet friend's tree, bountiful Meyer lemons. These are a shining "pro" on my list of happy things about living in West Los Angeles.  This weekend, my friend Jennifer taught a class on preserving and canning. As it was ending she gave us a tour of her cabinets where she kept the food she preserves, then she urged us to go harvest some Meyer lemons for ourselves.  Out my friend's back door and upon first glance of her tree, I thought she was mistaken to tell so many of us to take some home. However, as I approached, I saw dappled hints of yellow though the leaves.  Next to the tree I kneeled down and parted the leaves, looking for the yellow fruit. There I saw the magic underbelly of life that was hidden from my very grownup eye. There were oh! so many lemons!  Not unlike a child who finally understands her mother's advice, I then knew why she urged us to take as many as we wished.

This old lemon tree and her heavy ripe lemons, harvest ready, hanging so plentiful down from the branches, atop the rich soil, amongst the humming of bees, were a gathering of nature's art; she pulled me below her branches just as the strong scent of citrus lulls those bees to her flowers. Under there, grasping at lemons, oh how I longed to be young again; to be small, not grown. I would make this shaded small tree my playhouse, my home in the out of the doors.  In the heat and quiet of the afternoon, I would place an old blanket there, and drag my dollies and my old stuffed Paddington bear out from the house, where all would be invited to tea: the dollies, Paddington, the bees and me. Tea time beneath the scrubbed crisp scent of those lemons. We would laze under the tree, spend hours there, out amongst the bees and the white flowers. There I would learn the language of bees, the secrets of their pollen and the honeyed home of their hive.  Never to be stung by a single one, I would watch them as they danced in and out of the flowers and the lemons, feel them humming across my baby blond hair. I would learn to hold them on my hand; and they would listen to me as they listened to their queen. Me, Rebecca, Royal Princess of Meyer Lemons and their Flowers; Heiress to the Kingdom of Bees. The scent of the flowered fruit and slow decay of the tart lemons would stain my skin, and as I became older, the scent would always linger, never allowing itself to be scrubbed out. Oh to be young again, small, not grown, sitting at the foot of nature, blessed by the yellowed gifted fruit of this tree.

So I scooped up as many as I felt right and brought them home, still slightly intoxicated by their scent, their promise, their beauty, their art. I have yet to decide what to do with them. Perhaps something like as beautiful as my friend has done. I want to preserve their beauty a little longer.

 Nature Gathered for my midweek messy.

Nature In The Home with Lou at a LittleGreenShed.
xxoo

on the first day of may :: midweek messiness, perfection and flowers

Perfection is my midweek messy. The house is actually(semi) clean as I spent a large part of yesterday afternoon folding laundry. When the eldest came home I had him clean his room and it inspired me to do a mid-week vacuum as well. The younger two boys are running track this spring so I feel like I have an extra hour to get things done on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons before the daily dance of homework and dinner making.

Oh that perfection though, it messes me up somedays; the desire to be the best, to be perfect at whatever I do. This desire doesn't always surface out from underneath my skin, but I think that the small girl in me, who never seemed to do anything quite right, so wants to be perfect at...something. This leads to quite an awkward outlook on life at times because it hinders my ability to see clearly or at least to have proper perspective on things. Perhaps my perfection is a desire to compete, a deep desire to compete with my Self. However healthy competition may be, I don't think that this internal struggle to be perfect, the lofty pedestal I place things I want to do or make, is healthy; especially because upon failure, I want to abandon ship, leave my wrecked project on a forgotten shore.