In the Middle of Winter
Listening to Winter Song, World on Fire and Song For a Winter’s Night.
Hands cupped around mugs of tea for literal warmth.
Finally getting some undershirts for my kids, even if they insist on stripping and never wearing socks.
Days of strange spurts of warmer weather keeping us from the harshness of unending cold.
Eyes always searching for color outside in bits and pieces wherever I can find it.
Slightly longer days and watching the way the light changes and moves inside the house through the day.
Re-visiting are so happy’s lovely warmth posts from last year.
Facebook/blog reading less, actual books in front of my face and reading a lot more.
Catching up on the winter edition of Rhythm of the Home.
If there’s one thing that picking up my camera more and having kids has taught me over the past few years, it’s how to slow down and pay attention to the changing seasons. I know I’m in the minority, but winter amazes me. I love the cold, the quiet, the slower pace. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I’ve already ordered seeds and started spring garden planning and chicken planning and that this art isn’t making me want a warm summer night to take the kids camping.
But, I’m good with winter and more than happy to curl up under a blanket with a mug in one hand and a book in the other for now. I definitely have a few more snowstorms and days of getting coats and hats and mittens on and off left in me for the season.
Around Here
Watching movies on the phone.
Finally getting over sickness.
Cousins in town.
A busy week at work.
Sara Haze on Pandora.
A very chilly trip to the park.
Two too many errands today that stretched little ones past their limits.
Stew for dinner (rosemary skillet chicken last night from here via here last night was incredible. If you make it, add more mushrooms and thank me later!)
Two year old screeching tantrums that are driving us to the very edge.
Nothing got done on the list – not the laundry, not the picking up my bedrooms, not the cleaning the bathroom. We did, however manage to remember to get new toothpaste and new hair ties, so that’s a win.
Ecstatic that a roll of film actually turned out how I wanted (these are all Fuji 400h insanely overexposed for anyone who cares about that stuff.)
From the library: On Writing, Ansel Adams 400 Photographs, Snow Sounds, Brave Irene, The Search for Spring, This Year’s Garden
Links I’ve been Saving: {You can also check some out here. I started a Great Blog Posts Pinterest board to keep track when I find stuff that isn’t in my Google Reader.}
- 30 Things to Stop Doing to Yourself
- Unstyled Life – about your “stuff,” from the perspective of after you’re gone.
- The 4 Minute Marriage Habit
- Getting Rid of Just in Case: 20 Dollars, 20 Minutes
- 12 “Other” Life Resolutions/Habits to Consider
- STAY – Incredible, realistic writing and (the recipe is right up my alley.)
- snuggling on the couch – Love these photos from here phone and the words on changing perspective for a different picture.
- The Food of 2011 - please don’t lick your screen:)
- Also, the spice rack book shelves? On Apartment Therapy Family now as one of the design trends of the year for children – ridiculous! I figured I might include a picture of what’s on the shelves today – it rotates regularly. Go check out the rest of the trends, too!
How’s your week??
Quiet Activities With Sick Kids
I’m going to start this post by telling you that today was Day 4 7 of being home with sick kids. I started this post on Wednesday night and didn’t get back to it until today(Saturday.) When I said on Monday that we were all down for the count, I didn’t realize just how down we’d be. We ventured out once to go to the park with cousins and it was not at all our best idea ever. It took until Friday, a round of fevers and what we thought were fever rashes because of coughing and stuffy noses, an awful sore throat for me and the feeling by Thursday night and Friday morning that I had been hit by a truck to drag myself to the doctor. We thought we were fighting colds, but it turned out to be Strep/Scarlet Fever for the whole lot of us combined with an awful cold full of a crazy cough and stuffy noses. Good times.
It.just.wouldn’t.stop. Still hasn’t entirely, but we’re all feeling better and on the upswing today for a change, but the combo of the cold is just kicking us all in the you-know-what. I finally decided to sneak out today while everyone else was sleeping to type and blog and have some tea and it feels good just to have the energy to want to be out right now.
Days 1-3 were filled with tv. And movies. Specifically, 500,000 episodes of Busytown, followed by a few more with a sprinkling of the PBS Kids lineup(because it’s the only station we have with kid shows, so we supplement with Netflix) – Clifford, Calliou, Arthur and Curious George.
I decided on Day 4 that the day was not going to be filled with zombie kids staring at screens. I couldn’t take it anymore. And they seemed to at least have enough energy to do something other than lay on a couch under a quilt. So, I thought I’d do you all a favor going into more winter and more sickness all around and share some of these not-requiring-much-energy ideas for kids who are home sick, but not completely down and out.
These activities are seriously in the category of simple. Just a warning. Some are no-brainers, but I’m including them for you in case you also have the sickness and don’t want to think. I’m not claiming that this is a Mega-Super-Awesome-Crafty-Super-Blogger-Mom List. At all. Just sharing a few ideas that got us through the days this week and left little to nothing as an aftermath for me to cleanup.
Stuff To Do With Sick Kids Home For Days On End:
-Get outside for 5 minutes of fresh air and sprinkle birdseed or fill bird feeders.
-Take all of the blankets off the beds and hang them outside to air out. Open the windows if it’s nice enough, too, to air out some rooms.
-Wash the heck out of all of the sheets and pillowcases currently on beds. Play parachutes with the sheets before you put them in the wash, please:)
-Listen to audio books – here and here had some great options for free. I’ve also seen/heard really great reviews of Sparkle Stories.
-Fill up the bathroom with steam(I actually got a shower!) and let them draw in the condensation on the windows and mirrors. This took up so much more time than I expected – well worth the wasted water for a day.
-Take an extra long bubble bath or shower and add in some oils like eucalyptus, peppermint or lavender to help them breathe more clearly. (I wish we could do the bath part of this one – we don’t actually have a bathtub, just a shower. It was on our list to head to my parents’ for a bath but we didn’t even feel up to that.)
-Make a blanket fort and snuggle in with a big stack of books.
-Have a tea party. Or, if you’re us, multiple tea parties.
-Grab a stack of books and read away, snuggled in bed(or your fort.) Ask bigger kids to read, too, or non-readers to create stories about the pictures for siblings if your voice/throat can’t handle 15 books in a row.
-Lay on the floor and build with blocks.
-Put out a big sheet and let them scoop beans and rainbow rice into different containers.
-Give them a big stack of magazines and a pair of scissors.
-Get out a big roll of paper or stack of plain paper and lots of crayons, markers and colored pencils. Trace their body and let them decorate it. Draw pictures of each other, your house, anything that keeps them happy and occupied! (I’m not going to lie – I stayed away from paint. Even the cleanup from that just felt like too much.)
-Let bigger kids get a simple meal ready – pour water(easy cleanup if it spills), get some fruit and crackers and pre-sliced cheese onto plates for everyone. Or cereal. Or graham cracker or bread with some peanut butter. Or popsicles.
When it came down to it, we definitely had the tv on a lot (a LOT) more than normal this week. I’m 100% fine with that – please don’t take this post as a way to make you (or me) feel guilty for kids watching tv while we’re all home sick! Just wanted to share a few ideas for doing something else a little easy and quiet while everyone is working on getting better.
Any suggestions to add to the list? I know there will be more sickness going around, so I’d love to share and have more ideas to add to the bag of tricks!
5 Minute Nap
Saturday afternoon. I get home, coming from work and a late lunch date with John.
(Thai – so delicious!)
They run to greet me at the door, noses pressed against the cool glass.
We sit and talk with my mom for a bit.
I feel Mia’s head and the warmth and hear her cough, know she’s getting sick.
Calculate in my head what we have going on the next few days that we can miss since we’ll all be sick.
Time with cousins visitng from across the country – we’re going to have to figure that one out.
She sniffles and coughs again.
Mom leaves.
We all tromp up the stairs and I change – into yoga pants, (what else?)
I give hugs and kisses and ask for 10 quiet minutes to myself to lay down.
They stomp down the stairs.
Guitar strumming.
Something shaking – I figure out that it’s glass beads in the light box bin.
Sirens from a fire engine.
Dishes clank while John is washing.
He yells NO.
I roll over and pull the blankets tighter around my shoulders.
Fighting over a toy.
I stare at the wall, glad for 10 more minutes of not dealing with it all.
Screeching.
Time out threats from john.
Quiet for 15 seconds.
I close my eyes.
Feet stomp up the stairs.
The bathroom door squeaks open, slams shut.
From downstairs, “Miiiiiiiiiiia. Miiiiiiiia, w’are you?”
From in the bathroom, “In the bafroom nick! I need my pribacy!”
Quiet for minute. The bathroom door opens again.
From me, “Mia don’t forget to flush. And your hands!”
“Uh oh, I forgot.”
My feet hit the floor.
It’s futile.
I put on a hoodie and head downstairs.
“Mommy!!!”
Like I’m just getting home again, but I feel ready now.
Even loud and frenzied, sometimes I just need 10 minutes alone to recharge. To listen to them all, removed from the situation. I’ve been trying to nap, or at least quietly rest, much more regularly. I laid in bed during this “nap,” thinking of how much happens in a span of 5 or 10 minutes. How much we take for granted in each of our days – at home, at work, out in the world. It was nice, just to stop and notice – listen to their sounds and appreciate the pace of my days, even just an ordinary day at home. Especially an ordinary day at home – these are the bits I want to remember long after these days are gone.
Sick Day
We’re all down for the count. Aches and fevers and coughs and runny noses and exhaustion with little energy left for even any complaining. Poor little eyes all glazed over and bodies not moving from a single spot for hours at a time. Lots of movies and snuggling under quilts. Grated ginger and lemon and honey tea. Chicken soup is going to be cooking later – after a round of naps for everyone. I’m a bit thankful for it. Not that we all feel awful(obviously,) but for the slowing. Mia has been sick the longest and the past two nights after getting home from work I’ve heard her coughing and coughing and filled the bathroom with hot steam and just sat with her little sleepy body for a bit, looking out at the bright light of the moon. Plus, even though sick, it still means that John stayed home from work for the day and we’re always happy about that. Sickness surely isn’t fun, but these quiet, slow January days do feel good.
Hibachi and Some Other Bits on One Roll of Film
I have a hard time balancing words and pictures. I just talked about it a month ago. It feels like I always have an eternal backup of photos to share and don’t have ton to say in writing, or I have a million words swirling in my head but haven’t picked up a camera. Looking back through a year worth of photos struck a chord for me recently. Someone left a comment asking how I chose the photos I chose and the truth is that I chose them for myself. I just picked the photos I liked the most, that stuck out to me as things I remembered through the year or things I loved. Not too long after choosing them I read this from Kyrie at are so happy:
When I was looking back over my photos over the past year, I realized how many of them were taken purely to be something “bloggable”, and how those photos just don’t mean anything to me now.
It was literally like a punch to the gut, or the kind of hard kick I really, really needed to hear. I want to pick up my camera more, and I have been, but I don’t want to do it for the sake of just taking contrived blog photos. There is a place for that in the specific projects that I want to share, but they’re so few and far between and most of the time they’re Pinterest projects anyway and I just link to the original. I’m not saying that I’m fake. I think(hope) anyone who reads this blog realizes that.
There are so many pictures that I just wind up not sharing because I can’t find the right words to use to share them because I take them as our life happens, then it’s a week or two later and I realize that I haven’t shared and it feels like it’s too late. I’d love to share more of those in bits and pieces. With a thought or two or 10 for the day, but without a common thread tying them all together. I always feel like I’m missing a cohesive common jumping off point to tie it all together. But I think I’m ok with that, because it’s not me. Me is just starting a conversation mid-sentence and always having to backup to explain what the heck I’m talking about. Stream of consciousness is my constant. And, really, this blog is just an account of our life. A recall of a series of event with tiny bits and pieces chosen to share and a million more linking them all together.
I think I’m saying that I want to share more. I’m just trying to figure out how. So thank you for all of the comments and emails and input. I tell myself that I want to reply to every comment, but it doesn’t always happen. But I read them. And love them. And appreciate them more than I can say. So thanks for hanging out while I’ve been sifting through what works and what doesn’t around here. I’m doing it amongst the normal daily stuff, working part-time and actually (saying this out loud feels weird) getting everything sorted out to open up shop on a photography business in the near future. Nothing major, a very limited number of sessions and work while I build, but still – I’m doing it. Fo’ realz. Thanks for hanging out and coming back to this space sometimes and actually caring a bit about what I have to say and share. I like you guys a whole lot:)
{2011} The Year in Photos
All in one breath, I will tell you that I plan to do nothing and everything this year. That in doing the nothing, I will make room for the everything. The space for appreciating the everyday, the jumping in and facing the fears keeping me from living a life in line with my values. On a simple level, staying home more and spending less of that time mindlessly behind a computer screen and more of it present with my children and husband and friends and family. And, always more time behind the lens of my camera.
Happy 2012!
{Christmas}
“It sounds simple: go outside, step into the quiet, if just for a few minutes, and see what rises to the surface. But we can’t do that! It’s almost Christmas! We must do that. It’s almost Christmas. ” -Emily at Chatting at the Sky
It was all there. The ubiquitous family dynamics annoying everyone. Kids fighting over toys and overwhelmed. Bickering as we got ready for people to come over and not-so-kind looks shot like daggers. Stress and energy zap from the endless stream of events and prep. But the best parts -the bits I want to hold closer to me amongst the things that will never change and that I cannot control:
The quiet in the church as I sat alone in the pew saving seats early
The little boy closest to the microphone belting out Silent Night in off-key perfection that had me grinning
The beautiful manger and the altar covered in a tower of poinsettias
My little one’s excitement to wear a fancy dress
The creamiest Blue Cheese and yummy Smoked Gouda and Linzer Torte cookies
Slow present opening that thankfully didn’t feel at all like a shark feeding frenzy
A nap in the afternoon
Knit mittens lined in fleece that my dad picked perfectly for me
A little guy in his new tool belt and pajamas, hammer in hand all day long
Snuggling under the covers with her long after she fell asleep on my way to bed
It was good, but I’m also glad that it’s over – I always am, it’s all just too much.
Moving Slowly
It’s been such a strange week around here. Sickness making the rounds and general strange unsettling happenings in the world around us seem to be keeping things moving at a slower pace and forcing me to keep things in perspective. We’ve done almost nothing holiday-related this week except to have our friends over for a Christmas brunch. We’ve forgotten to open Advent calendars and take paper chain countdown links off of the chain. We haven’t made any cookies that we planned, we haven’t driven around to look at any lights. I’ve played a little too much Words With Friends(Thanks, Alec) and we’ve watched entirely too much tv while sitting on couches with buckets in our laps. Kids have just been off, even when on the mend from sickness, and I’ve felt beaten down at the end of each day.
Do you know that I feeling I’m talking about? The one that makes you want a nap when the kids take a nap? And makes you feel like you’ve literally been in a fight of sorts at the end of the day from all of the push-and-pull with words while the little ones work out their independence using you as a tool? That combined with sickness and someone who works in a nearby store being robbed at gunpoint in the parking lot while we unknowingly stood just down the street talking. My mom’s friend watching her daughter’s house burn to the ground while she was babysitting her grandchildren. A friend on Facebook posted that her friend was shot and killed by her husband because she was leaving him, leaving behind 3 young sons. I told all of these to a friend and she said her brother just saw someone get robbed last week. And my husband told me that a co-worker just had someone break into their house this week.
I’m not usually a doom and gloom kind of girl. I have a degree in Media Studies and, as a result, tend to stay away from news of all sorts. It’s not to stick my head in the sand, but because I know I can’t change any of it and, for me, filling my head with so much awful creates unnecessary fears and defensiveness. This stuff lately, it’s all just so much sometimes.
But at the end of the day? Down time is kind of just what we needed. No plans, no places to be. Time to fold laundry and simple meals of toast and jam and apples and cheese rather than a frantic last minute Christmas scramble. I’m thankful for that. Hopefully we’ll be all rested up and ready to celebrate holidays joyfully and we can put this week behind us. I’m feeling especially thankful. For the food on our table, for family nearby, for all of our safety, for a husband who loves and respects me and our children, for jobs that allow us to make choices for our family based on what we want.
This is certainly not how I thought I’d be leaving this post before the holidays. But, sometimes real life just happens, you know? You have to roll with the punches. I thought a lot about just staying quiet and laying low for a bit, but it’s cathartic to write it all out. We see so much carefully guarded and planned content on blogs, they deserve to keep it real sometimes. And the celebration of Christmas? The promise of a fresh, new year? They all sound like a breath of fresh air right now, as does this post.
Many many good thoughts to you and yours this holiday season. Hope that you enjoy the small things that make life beautiful as you celebrate with your loved ones!
Holiday Rambling
We spent the weekend hunkered down. It was slightly intentional, in the sense that we planned to not plan much for the weekend. But then we woke up to Nick’s bed full of puke on Saturday morning and that officially meant that we were staying put. Naps both days, a few quick trips out for groceries and last minute supplies to get ready for the week, cooking treats, clearing out 90% of the toys and putting them in the basement(they still haven’t noticed) a lunch date on Sunday and a night out with friends for each of us. It went quickly, but we all walked away well-rested.
We spent last week with a bit more going on, but now preschool is done until the new year. Treats are ready. A few last minute bits and present left to get here in the mail(God Bless Amazon.) Our whole downstairs is finally painted(yay!!) Today is for catching up on laundry and cleaning and getting ready for friends to come over tomorrow and family to come over on Christmas Eve. My biggest excitement today: watching The Holiday while I fold laundry and pick up more, clean the bathroom, put on some Dolly Parton Holiday on Pandora, make some stir fry for dinner. Did you know that you can rent movies on Amazon?? This is the second time I’ve rented The Holiday in the past two weeks. It was between that and Love Actually today, but The Holiday was only $0.99 and Love Actually was $2.99.
It all feels surreal. Do you ever feel like you’re just looking in on your own life? This month has been a complete blur, which is funny since we haven’t actually had tons going on. I planned ahead a lot, it has just felt like one quick blur of a holiday month.For now, we’re relaxing and keeping things as low key as possible.
