I’ve been taking more phone pics lately. Blame it on Instagram, call it what you will, but it is really nice to just snap away a bit and not worry about perfection.  I don’t share a ton because, quite frankly, I kind of just forget about them.  I have an Android phone which just doesn’t pack the same punch somehow?  I don’t get too fancy, but if you want to and you’re also an Android user, there are many methods for adding images to Instagram if you want to do that. Plus there are tons of great phone photography tutorials out there – I’ve seen this one and this one most recently.

Do you do phone pics? Do you save them or do anything with them? Does it feel like just one more thing like so much does lately?

There are so many things I want to talk about.  How it feels like we’re moving slowly and that feels good.  How pork chops breaded with corn flake crumbs and baked are amazing.  How I love the Pepperidge Farms whole wheat cinnamon raisin bread toasted with some whipped cream cheese. How both of my kids decided to completely stop napping which means double the messes, none of the recovery time and killed my 2ish hours in the afternoon to be productive or relax(depending on the day) and also happens to be my most common time to sit and blog(hence the lack of post s lately.)  How moving my kids into the bigger of our two bedrooms is revolutionizing my world and theirs. How I’ve been focusing a lot on getting our new little bedrooms to come together now with a teensy budget and a few cheap DIY projects. How I turned on my digital camera and realized that I hadn’t even used it in two weeks. How shooting film lately and barely editing and not staring at a computer screen makes me so happy that I could sing and if you’ve even remotely considered the same, get this book to go along with your journey! How I watched an episode of Downton Abbey accidentally on Saturday night when I should have been going to bed and now I can’t get enough. How little girl braids make me so very happy. How it feels good when everything feels chaotic and I can’t keep up with cleaning my house to just bag up the excess and keep sending it to Salvation Army – I still can’t get over all of the stuff we have, even after we’ve gotten rid of tons and tons in the past months. How I got to visit preschool for the day last week and I cannot believe how much girl dynamics are already apparent, even at 4 years old and a bunch who are all immensely smart and bright and kind.

But I just can’t seem to get my footing , so hang on please, ok? We’ll figure out a new normal soon enough.  I always go back and forth when it feels like this with blogging. Whether to just skip posting and do massive posts once a week or to just pop in a bit with a picture or two here and there and a few bits of words. I don’t think there’s a right or wrong answer, but I do need to figure out and stumble around a bit with getting into a new routine all around.

p.s. Any favorite Etsy stores for wall art? I have a few pieces in mind and I have lots favorited(is that a word?), but while I’m hunting I’d love any suggestions and I promise to share in an upcoming post!

John painted this weekend – it’s almost time for the big switch! Almost 3 years of living in this house and we’re in the home stretch of painting. He finished our (old) bedroom this weekend and the staircase and upstairs hallway will be done this week, marking the completion of John painting basically every interior wall and ceiling in this house. When we moved in, the entire house had been painted top to bottom(i.e., ceilings included) in a flat beige paint. It was workable for sure, we made it three years, and we were thankful that it was neutral when we moved in with 3 weeks until Nick was due and he wound up being born a week after we moved in. But the flat paint + kids combo meant some really dirty walls. Fresh paint feels good.

We’re switching rooms with the kids soon and, since we only have two bedrooms, that meant that this weekend we shoved all of the beds into one room and bunked together to make room for painting.  It literally kept the kids occupied for almost the whole weekend – yet another example of how convinced I am that my kids don’t want or need toys;) We’re moving to the smaller room and putting the kids in the bigger room to make more play space since we don’t really have separate playroom, etc. space.  It’ll be a bit until both rooms are actually done, but I’m excited to share the results!

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.

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??

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!

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.

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.

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:)

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!