December

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Everlasting beauty

This is my grandmother Ruth, or Gaca as I have called her all my life. She was probably in her 30's early 40's in this picture. Her beauty to me is timeless. Her hair was always done and her cheeks always flush from working endlessly around a hot stove. Even today, at 83, she still finds it necessary and important to go out of the house with her hair permed and lipstick applied. It doesn't matter if we are just going down the road for a quick bite to eat. There is something nostalgic to me about the older generation, the way they get fancy to go out for a meal. It shows they value the time and the money they are spending and the company that they are choosing to dine with. My generation is casual, maybe excessively so and I find myself longing for simpler times when people really made it an occasion when going out.
I love looking at old photographs. I try to imagine what was happening on that particular day in that person's life. I want to know who took the photo and for what purpose. Photographs are magical to me. They capture an image, a particular moment in time that will never be the exact same again. In photography, there is always more than meets the eye.

For all the Dad's

Happy Father's Day to my dad and my husband! I always remember specific things from my childhood that only remind me of my dad. For example getting remote control cars for Christmas, my mother would never give me one of those and also going out on the boat, super fun! I hope Jude, when he's older, will have these memories of just things that he did with his dad.

Kids will be kids

I look at my son most days and i try to remember what it was like to be a kid. Honestly most of the time it doesn't feel like it was that long ago when i was playing in my kiddie pool...oh wait, that's probably because it wasn't, it was yesterday. Difference is, i was having a drink.. But you get my drift right? i mean to really play.... innocently, enthusiastically, with no preconceived notions about anything. When you become a parent a lot of that seems to disappear. You now have to be the responsible one. Every day I need to feed and cloth my child and hope that he makes it through to see another day. Some days i feel the same as when i was 17 but i know i'm not the same person who drove around in the '85 Nova with a license plate that read "80's Hair". Life has shone it's sun on me and beat it's rain so hard that I barely have had room to come up for air. I don't have control over everything and that's ok. Most of the time it's better to relinquish the control, the freedom to be yourself takes over and ultimately the kid in you can finally come out and play!

Tug of war

"In your mind, nothing and everything is true, where your feet end up, is up to you." 
                 -me

a little something

sometimes i need you
sometimes i need me
all of the time i need love
and that is how
it will always be

Some days

Some days it's just best to enjoy the feeling of being in your own bed. When everything else offers you little comfort, the bed is always waiting and welcoming.

Blue sky, blue eyes

Serving a purpose, or not

Sometimes i don't really know what this blog is about or what purpose it serves. Then i thought, well really who cares what purpose it serves! Why does it even have to have a purpose at all?  I have a tendency to get caught up and think that everything i do in my life is supposed to serve a purpose. Make dinner so your family isn't hungry, vacuum the floor so that the dust and dog hair don't take over my life, read, read and then read some more to my child because all the experts say it's important for brain development, wash my hair, wash my kids hair, his face and hands (repeatedly), wash the dishes, wash the floor (ok, i don't really do that) but seriously, the list could go on and on for pages. I'm sure that this is not new to any of you who are reading this but it does start to get over whelming when everything in your life is supposed to serve a purpose. Sometimes these things become so monotonous that you forget that they do serve a purpose and you just want to throw your hands up in the air after you cleaned up spilt milk for the fiftieth time and run in to the street screaming "where is my Nanny/housekeeper/dogtamer?!" Then you calm down and realize that you have none of these, your children are staring at you and whatever it is that's in the oven is now setting off the smoke alarms.
I just want to do things just to do things every once in a while. I want to wonder around in the gourmet grocery store aisles, contemplating that delicious dinner i would like to be having with just my husband, not racing through trying to grab everything frantically as my child takes his last bite of sucker and is on the verge of a meltdown. Sometimes i just want to wander, but even that seems to get sabotaged by Jude needing new shoes or needing a snack or just my brain forming the endless to do list in my head.
It's hard though, i know, to do whatever you want when you want, especially with small children. You get off  schedule and everyone's life becomes a living hell. Jude doesn't take his nap, watch out, even the dogs will suffer in that scenario. If you don't have children it's hard to contemplate this, i know i sure didn't understand before Jude came along. I found myself thinking, well shouldn't YOUR schedule be more important than your snotty nosed kid? HA! Now i have a snotty nosed kid (a cute one i might add) and i get it. Now i understand that you are at the mercy of your child. So good luck just doing things willy nilly. If you want to just flit about, don't have children. There you are i said it...so that is how i will end. This is not a piece against having children but i suppose if you want to do things that don't serve a purpose, it's way easier without children. That said, kids are pretty good at playing and adults need that too. Because we all know that without play our kids will turn in to dysfunctional uncreative  adults who rely on their parents to make every decision for them and then end up in therapy. So there you have it...another activity with a purpose.

Down the rabbit hole

I haven't been around here much as of late, i have had other happenings that have needed tending to.
I found myself falling, deeper, faster, down a dark hole; the light to the outside world was fading. I should have been ecstatic, a new life was growing inside of me. Then, when i thought that i had hit rock bottom, the rocks fell out from beneath me only to allow me to spiral deeper. This baby girl that was nestled snug inside of me was sick and struggling. Her sickness stole her future and it stole our hopes for another child. She has returned now, to the earth, to the universe, to be at peace and to no longer feel any pain. Our pain will continue for a bit, the lost hope and dreams we had of us having a daughter and Jude having a little sister. Slowly, the light is becoming brighter and the hole is becoming a crevice from which i will drag my fatigued and battered body. I will emerge, i am certain, not quite myself, but a better version because i had Lily and now i am thankful that i have Jude.

"I believe that suffering is part of the narrative, and that nothing really good gets built when everything’s easy. I believe that loss and emptiness and confusion often give way to new fullness and wisdom."  Shauna Niequist, Bittersweet (via thresca) (via A Well Traveled Woman)

Here's hoping......