happiness is...

++++
WATCHING OUR BOY host a backyard summer bonfire, and the only thing I can hear is green arrow in my head.

lord huron & the coast

++++
LAST MONTH, Michael (my boss, mentor, creative partner and friend) and I spent a few days in Santa Cruz, immersing ourselves in our newest client—a natural foods store with 7 locations in northern California. Visiting as many stores as we could make it to in 3 short days involved lots of driving and music. Michael always has something new for me to listen to and once again found me my new favorite band. Lord Huron.

So. Much. Beauty. It literally made my heart ache. A feeling I can honestly say I've never in my entire life felt about a place. So yeah, if I could bottle up a feeling and sell it to you it would look and sound something like this...



"Die if I must let my bones turn to dust
I'm the Lord of the lake and I don't want to leave
All who sail off the coast ever more
Will remember the tale of the ghost on the shore

I'm goin' away for a long time"

she is my gift

++++

THIS YEAR for CHRISTMAS, my mother in law gave me a box. In this box contained bits and pieces of everything paper that I could ever love. How does someone do that for you? Give you a box full of things you can't just go buy in a store? Give you a box full of collections that likely took hundreds of hours hunting for, sitting around for, sifting through and organizing? Give you a box full of things that will stir a soul to know and show itself? I may never fully comprehend any of this. All I can do is humbly thank the universe for finding her—this woman who thinks enough of me to encourage me and support me in every way a mother should do for her own daughter.

++++

watering globes; the gateway drug to real gardening

+ + + + + +

I'VE RECENTLY DISCOVERED the HAPPINESS and peace of gardening. I never thought I'd be one of those people. I never thought it was something I'd "get" or be good at, or even attempt. It always seemed so foreign to me since it wasn't something I grew up with or around, living in apartments most my life.

I can honestly say it's because of these ridiculously cheap watering globes that I am now knee deep in landscaping my yard and filled with sleepless nights, fantasizing about all the beautiful plantings I want to grow and spaces I want to create with them.

In the end (err beginning), watering globes became the gateway drug to real gardening for me. They took the guesswork out of over/under-watering my plants and helped me understand them. Sounds silly, I know. But by giving me the confidence to keep a few house plants alive, I no longer feel intimidated to try and keep other stuff alive. And why not make it pretty stuff too, right?

-------------------

Sunday, in the 90 degree heat, Ben and I managed to build a berm in our front yard. It was this big ugly hole left over from 2 trees we cut down last summer. I'm looking forward to planting annabelle hydrangeas and a 'Madame Lemoine' lilac bush there. 

Oh, and as you can see by the before pictures, the yard was a jungle when we bought our house 2 years ago. Overgrown and neglected, we decided to clear it all out and start fresh. So here's how she's coming along. And please (dear God, PLEASE) feel free to share your gardening secrets with me!!

*Ignore the ugly green trim I haven't gotten around to painting yet! Painting is hard.

paris

BEN TOOK ME to Paris for my 37th Birthday. It was my first trip outside of the U.S. and now I finally know what all the fuss is about. What an amazing experience to travel outside my own little world with my best friend, helping me fulfill a childhood dream.

Here's the (tiny) visual recap of our trip. You can see all 300+ photos on my Flickr if you like.

the littlest birds

++++

BUT I LOVE YOU so dearly
I love you so fearlessly
I wake you up in the morning so early
Just to tell you
I've got the wandering blues
I've got the wandering blues
And I don't want to leave you
I love you through and through

Well I left my baby on a pretty blue train
And I sang my songs to the cold and the rain
And I had the wandering blues
And I sang those wandering blues
And I'm gonna quit these rambling ways one of these
Days soon, ooh

And I sing, the littlest birds sing the prettiest songs

—Jolie Holland

happy birthday, my sweet boy

++++
TODAY MY SON ARTHUR TURNS 14 YEARS OLD.

But he'll always be my baby boy to me.

++++
The following is a journal entry from sometime in 2005, when Art was just 7.

Friday night was the sock hop at Art's school. It was my first sock hop and the experience was surreal. Children everywhere, screaming, flailing, sweating, running through the darkness, bouncing off one another in quick bursts of disco light like a pin ball machine.

Leaving the school afterwards he told me his throat hurt. So we went to the grocery for ice cream and Tylenol. By 9:30 pm it was bedtime for the boy.

My sister came over for a Sex and the City marathon, one of my favorite guilty pleasures. Well, that and People magazine. Janna says I'm the only person she knows who can simultaneously appreciate AdBuster's and People magazine. Anyways, we finished around 1 am and I crawled into bed with a tiny inferno.

We slept closely. I listened to his sad sleepy moans, watched his chest rise and fall and felt his warm sick breath on my face.

By 2:30 am I got up to use the bathroom. Unable to distinguish between the flushing and his howling (a notable precursor to bedside vomiting), I returned to find the boy puking all over my pretty pink bedroom.

Did I mention he had ice cream before bed?

So, he curled up with a clean blanky and pillow in his usual post puke spot—on the fuzzy rug near the heat vent on the bathroom floor—until 6 am. Intermittently touching his neck, whispering I love you and kissing his forehead, I washed sheets, comforters, the bed skirt and pillow shams. Cleaned the floor and the dresser and disinfected the toilet over and over.

Somehow, in this rhythm, my mind rewound to another lifetime. I remembered wee morning breast feeding's slumped over in an oversized plum armchair. I remembered the humility of answering the door in a t-shirt soaked in two visible streams of breast milk. I remembered trying not to quote Sesame Street among my childless friends too often. And I remembered not quite recognizing myself in the mirror anymore.

I remembered it all. And it made my heart smile like it hadn't in a long, long time—stopping to be reminded of the overwhelming depth of love I have for my child. This boy who made me lucky enough to be his mama.

++++