shining egg

it's been real

oh, february.  thank you.  i know we started off with a hint of sarcasm, but i really did keep an open mind about you.  and i can tell that you were trying, too - there were those 55 degree days that - however freaky (55 and february don't belong together in the mid-atlantic states, you know) - were a lovely gesture on your part.

there were also those two trips to new york city.  and there was one ginormous craft show.  a morning with cousins, an evening with special friends, there was painting and more painting, an illness that went as quickly as it came, there were card games and many loaves of bread baked, not to mention the sweet potato pound cake.  

you know what, february?  you were pretty fun.  i actually enjoyed you - almost all of you.  i thank you, february, for your kind gestures, for being gentle, and for delivering me right to the threshold of march.  it's been real, february.  i might even look forward to seeing you next time around.

starting monday

alrighty then.  next week is green week around here.  if you want to play along, leave a comment on YESTERDAY'S post (if you haven't already) and i'll publish a list of participants on monday.  i think it's going to be great fun.

have a lovely weekend, friends!

green, anyone?

i've hardly come down from the loveliness of erin's week of yellow.  

but i was thinking of doing a repeat of green week - which, last year, was the first week of march.  the idea being to celebrate the end of the coldest, snowiest part of the year, and together to celebrate the prelude to spring.

it's cold and grey here now.  and part of me wants to wallow in it.  the other part wants to pull the rest of me up by my bootstraps and start looking for life.

so i'm wondering.  would any of you be interested in a week of green right about now?  with yellow still shining in your eyes?  with fresh snow on the ground in so many places?  do you want to find the green?  tell me.  and if there are enough takers, we'll start on monday.  ok?

new york

i recently discovered a fantastic fun (read: double decker) and super cheap way to get to new york city.  and so i've been twice this month, just for the day.  yes, it does involve getting up way (way!) before the crack of dawn, and returning home well after the rest of the family is sleeping.  but it's worth it to me to spend the day walking and seeing and being (and seeing and seeing and seeing) in a city i adore - a city i lived in once upon a time.

so, two day trips.  one day by myself, the other with my mom.  

two museums.  one i saw only bits of, the other i saw almost every bit of.  

 

lots of yummy things to eat.  

walking and walking and walking and walking some more.  

one day was snowy, the other was sunny and bright.  one day i walked on the upper west side, the other day on the lower east side.  both times i was reminded - viscerally so, by sights and by smells - of moments from my childhood, my college years - of other lives, really.

 

a few bits to share.  

*it's the strangest thing - meeting someone you know, but have never met.  on my first visit to new york, i had the loveliest supper with amisha.  it was like sitting with a brand new friend and a dear old friend at exactly the same time.  which, of course, is exactly what it was.

*i knew that purl was going to be small, but i had no idea just how small!  (and i can't wait to go back with time to kill.)

*my mom and i walked past this shop on the lower east side.  it used to be a regular visit on our trips to visit my grandparents when i was small.  each time, on our way out of the city through the lincoln tunnel, my father would pull the car up to the shop, my mother would jump out and run inside and bring back the most delicious potato filled pastries you've ever tasted.  and each time, they'd tell my mother, "you never take a knife to a knish."  (i guess she used to ask them to cut them so we could share them in the car.  we used to have to break them apart instead.)  it's part of the script of my childhood, "you never take a knife to a knish."

*um, have you been here?  if not, you must.  discovered by accident, and at the top of the list of places to visit on my next adventure.  (amisha, let's meet there next time!?)

 

*i had a professor in college who used to tell us to "look up" because that's where the best architectural details can be found.  it's true.  and so i always look up when i'm in new york.  (why don't i look up so much at home, i wonder?)

and now i'm home.  where i found the absolutely sweetest love note on my pillow from my little girl, which made me smile and remember why it's important to go away sometimes - it makes coming home so sweet.  today was a bit of a fog, but i'm hoping that tomorrow will be clear.

week of yellow {day 6}

well, i thought i was finished.  i thought the arrangement was the last of my yellow posts for the week.

but that was before i took my mother's dog for a walk last night.  and there was yellow, calling my name again.

  

and again.

and again.

week of yellow {day 5}

oh my, i have loved yellow week.  in addition to enjoying the yellow i've found all around me this week, the exercise has encouraged me to bring more yellow into my everydays.  i chose the yellow napkin instead of the blue one at breakfast, i bought the golden delicious apples instead of the fujis at the market, and then there were the ripe bananas.  all week long, i smiled each time i spied yellow in my travels.  it was a bright spot, this week of yellow.  

so for this final day, i made an arrangement of all of the yellow bits i gathered from around the house this week.  these are the things i wanted to photograph all week long, but didn't.

if you followed along at echoes last fall, you know how i feel about arrangements.  regardless, you really ought to go see the arrangement heather made today.  it makes my heart sing.  really, her arrangements are like poetry to me.  yellow poetry.  sigh.

happy weekend, friends.  i hope you see lots of yellow wherever you may go.

week of yellow {day 4}*

it's thursday.  we're four days into erin's week of yellow.  three days into the fever - which appears to be gone as of this morning - good news for the girl who already missed the 100th day of school and (hopefully) now won't have to miss her class field trip to see charlotte's web tomorrow.  

it seemed that i saw yellow everywhere i went today - a stunning local shop where they often arrange their wares by color (and where i really think they ought to sell martha's stunning creations), the market where the grapefruit and lemons and golden delicious apples were calling my name, driving down the street where there seemed to be so many yellow taxis - i felt like yellow was following me and cheering me and lifting me all day.  

these are some of the yellows that have been cheering me all week.  (click on the mosaic for credits.)

also, there are a few bits that i wanted to capture from this day.  moments and feelings that i wanted to catch with a net and lock in a box so that i'd be able to remember them one day when i can't remember them anymore.  and even though they're not yellow, these little bits feel bound up in this week of yellow for me.  and i kind of like that.  so here goes.

* l. got dressed this morning in her pink striped tights, red velvet skirt, and purple striped dress.  beyond adorable.  but she traded the purple striped dress for an orange t-shirt before we left on our errands.  oh well.

* she and i spent the morning taking photographs around the house.  i climbed on the chair to photograph the breakfast table, and when i got down, she climbed up and did the same.  she learned how to use the self-timer, too.  i heard her playing photographer in the living room while i was uploading my photos in the kitchen.  my heart went pitter-patter.

* we went to the market together like we used to before she started school.  even though she was running and leaping through the store while pushing the little cart, it was so much fun to have her company.  and when we came home, we sat on her bedroom floor playing with her dollhouse.  i realized then how much i miss our quiet daytimes together - afternoons and weekends are not the same.  and even though i'm glad she's getting big and capable, and i'm enjoying her six year old self so much, i was glad, too, for the peek into the way it used to be.

* today was the 3rd grade play at school.  a play about rubbish.  b. was a soup can, but when i arrived in the auditorium, he came running to me dressed as a houseplant.  somebody was absent so he was playing two parts.  he knew everybody else's lines already.  of course.

* my boy the soup can/house plant stood on the stage in front of the whole elementary school and all of the 3rd grade parents and actually acted.  he didn't just recite lines.  he had stage presence and emotion and intonation and he looked confident and so grown up and he was actually funny and everybody laughed at his funny lines.  i was so proud.  not because he was funny, but because he was confident.  and poised.

* and while i was watching him there, among his classmates, singing and dancing and acting away, i suddenly saw him as this independent being with a whole universe of his own.  as someone who teachers and classmates see as capable and flexible and able to do so many different things.  and he is.  he's not just my little boy anymore.  and i was so proud.

* this afternoon, when we were all at home together after the play and the kids were sharing hershey's kisses on the living room floor, i had the unexplainable and unstoppable need to sew ten little beanbags for l.'s counting project at school.  the note from her teacher said to send ten counters - they suggested tongue depressors or dominoes, but i had to make her mini-beanbags.  i knew the urge to sew something was coming - it's been brewing for a bit, so i'm not entirely surprised.  though it did push dinner back.  

i think that's all of it, then.  except that i ate a whole lot of kale for dinner.  i've been enjoying kale lately - sauteed with onion or garlic and olive oil, with some lemon juice and sea salt thrown in at the end.  but i hadn't made any for a week or so - and then heather reminded me that kale is an excellent "restoring-balance" food.  and i needed some restoring of balance today.  it was good.  so good.

now, that's really all.  

see you back here tomorrow for the final day of yellow week.  i'm sad to see it end so soon.  

*alternately titled, "a mosaic of favorites and a whole lot of sentimental thoughts about my children."

(don't forget to see more yellow here.  and here.  and here, too.)

week of yellow {day 3}*

so much for my long list.  i got a call from the school nurse yesterday, and have been home with a feverish girl ever since.  remarkably, she's in good spirits, but still, it's a bummer.  especially given that today is the 100th day of school, which is a very big deal in kindergarten.  we're making the best of things, though, and have already counted out ten small snacks in ten small bowls so that she'll have 100 little things to eat in a bit - pistachios and raisins and chocolate chips and the like.  and we've determined that 100 is most surely an even number because all of those snacks have partners.  not a lot happening here today besides that.  and snuggling.

*alternately titled, "when life gives you lemons."

week of yellow {day 2}

i didn't think to photograph our pencil jar until i saw erin's pencils yesterday.  

this is the pencil jar in our kitchen, where our office supplies live.  we have a small corner of the kitchen carved out for a desk - this is where bills are paid and homework is done, where pictures are colored and glued and cut and stapled back together, where i sit and type at my computer.  

i'm a tiny bit nutty about this pencil jar.  i like to have one kind of pencil and one kind of pen.  (actually, there are 3 kinds of pens i like to have on hand, but you know what i mean.)  i do not like this jar to be full of the random pens and pencils that come home from various conferences and school give-aways.  the kids have a drawer for their markers and scissors and glue sticks and such, and they keep their "random" pens and pencils in that drawer.  but in this jar, this family jar - we keep these #2 pencils, these pens, and a black sharpie or two.  that's it, except for the scissors and a hole punch.  (the pencil jar in my studio is another matter entirely.)

i'm off now - to chug through the to-do list on my yellow pad of paper, marking things off with my yellow pencil along the way.  it's a long list today, but i'm determined.

(don't forget to find more yellow on this long list.  and in the yellow week flickr pool.)

week of yellow {day 1}

erin is hosting a yellow week.  just the project i need to get me through the middle of this month.  there will be photos here all week, and i might even find something to say along the way.  it's been an awfully long time.

(find more yellow goodness here.)