thirty days :: thirty

ten blocks :: new love :: backpack :: milkshake :: tally card :: birthday book :: jibber jabber :: swinging girls :: politics :: violin :: garden sculptures :: paper cuts :: bumpy tunnel :: non-fiction :: early bedtime :: glassy eye :: first day :: small parade :: big sis :: worn out :: enthusiasm :: sweet dreams :: path home :: yummy schools :: highway wind :: two angels :: balloon glow :: ceramic paint :: seventy-nine :: best friends :: thirty days

I said on the first day of this month that we were going to slow down, shift gears, take on less and enjoy more. And I can say, without hesitation that we did just that. On the surface it doesn't really feel like we slowed down much - we started a new school, with new friends and new commitments, we started new things at church, we began and ended the month with trips and put another 1500 miles on the tab. We made gifts, we gave gifts, and we cooked enough potluck dishes to serve a small army. We've counted another candle on one of the oldest members of our family and added the youngest to the roster. We attended as many local events with as many local friends as we could squeeze in, and we stopped for goodies more than once on the way home from school. We purchased a new instrument, some new lights, lots of new shelves and a family calendar. We donated to a political party and put up campaign signs and made phone calls for a cause we believe in. We celebrated eight years of marriage and ten years of us and continued on projects around this engagement present we call home. We've learned integrity, and non-fiction, and public speaking, and asymmetry and stretched our words - we dream of being person of the week, and holding Mr. Wigglesworth, and playing the violin and cooking lunch. We've been hit in both cars, and rented new cars, and dreamed of giving up cars altogether. We've stayed up too late, awakened too early, watched too many movies, done too much laundry, eaten enough cupcakes, baked enough cupcakes, walked enough miles, had enough rain. But under the surface we did slow down, enough at least to think of something unique or compelling or humorous or mundane about each day. For each of these days we were present. I hope you enjoyed it..

And now, onward, to October!

thirty days :: twenty-nine

red dot sculpture, fall wind

thirty days :: twenty-eight

... and today we had to say goodbye. He's perfect, he's lovely, sleepy and snugly and squishy and soft. She misses him, and she's singing a song to him on the third floor as she winds down from the weekend, the trip and the day and gets ready for the school week ahead. We're glad you're here little one.

thirty days :: twenty-seven

swinging and smiling

thirty days :: twenty-six

Sisterly (and cousin-ly) love

thirty days :: twenty-five

...and he's beautiful.

thirty days :: twenty-four

He's here!

thirty days :: twenty three

Today we've been married for eight years. At 5:15 this morning you said goodbye, and I watched from the window as I do every morning, and you turned to wave as you do every morning. Twenty minutes later the phone rang and you said, voice shaking, I'm okay.

Someone ran a red light as you were cruising through your green light and they hit the end of your truck, three feet past your door, and the tire shredded and the frame twisted and you spun around before you stopped. And then you called, and my heart stopped. You were okay.

I thought about that moment the rest of the day. Last year I called our anniversary "lucky seven". This year was the lucky one. I'm lucky to have you. We're lucky to have you in this house, in this life. Sometimes we tend to think that luck isn't on our side, that the things that we want and we try aren't working out as we hoped. But the three of us sitting together in that restaurant tonight, the two of us curled up on the couch for a late movie, the little one asleep with her book in her hand...we're lucky, so very lucky.

Happy Anniversary. The next one need not be so exciting.

thirty days :: twenty-two

there she is...

thirty days :: twenty-one

It was good to have some time in the studio this weekend. I've got so many projects started that need to be finished. I made headway on all of them, but this was the one I was working on this evening when I remembered that I really should have taken some photos today. Above is where I was and then I started in on the giraffe below.

This guy was tricky because he wants to be tall and skinny but that doesn't work so well on a square canvas and next to my big round elephant. This was the fifth or sixth try. I should have photographed my trash pile on the floor.

Outline cut out, ready for the inner line.

All in a row... or maybe stacked two on two? I haven't decided yet. Still playing with the layout. These are not glued yet - that should be a real treat with all the tiny pieces. I do have the most amazing glue for paper to canvas that does not wrinkle or stretch the paper - no water in it at all. I thought I'd save the gluing for another night when I wasn't so tired.

Papers for a mobile and other treats. They almost look like fabric laid out like this.

Oh - and here's our new lamp in the back room. It can swivel and tilt to provide light at the lounge, or move over to give light at the head of the bed when the lounge is pulled out...

It can swing over if a comfy chair comes into the room some day for reading...

Or position itself over a small computer desk, which is what is coming soon to this little nook.

Get the computer up in this room and I just might never leave...

thirty days :: twenty

Painting, Politics and Professor Plum

What we did this Saturday at our pottery place, in our front yard and with our new game Clue...

thirty days :: nineteen

The kiddo bravely shared her birthday book with the whole school and their parents too, and did a nice little song with some twirly rainbow streamers. A few hours later we were on a blanket watching the balloons inflate in front of us. The sun went down, the sky went pink and then the glowing began in earnest. What a lovely night to sit and enjoy the sights with friends. Happy weekend!

thirty days :: eighteen

Day eighteen was so busy that the camera did not even come out. The kiddo had ecstatic stories about her first class with her very own violin, and she's excited and ready for her first assembly with guests tomorrow. Everyone else in the house just had crazy days at work, and more work that evening stretching across the dining room table and into the night. Day nineteen should be better because tonight is Balloon Glow and a picnic with friends. Thank goodness for weekends.

thirty days :: seventeen

She looks a little more chipper this morning than she has on past mornings. She was still sleeping as I dressed her, but seemed to perk up when I told her that her green and purple cars were waiting for her on our bed.

And it was Wednesday, so we stopped by Veruca on the way home for some ice water and a s'more shake. This was not your average vanilla milkshake with some grahams mixed in...it was actually homemade graham cracker ice cream mixed with the perfect amount of chocolate and some smokey marshmallow. It was superb, when I could get a slurp in edgewise. We both agreed that Wednesdays are our best days.

thirty days :: sixteen

At her new school the kids don't bring special treats on their birthday. (And you rightly ask...is this killing me?!? to which I answer yes, yes it is.) I mean, she came home one day talking about the parts of a lady bug and I was all like "Hey, I have a lady bug cookie cutter, Hey, I just made lady bug cookies...I'll just make some lady bug cookies for all you little lady bug learners." And then I was reminded that there are no special treats. No special treats. No special treats.

Sometimes it takes me a few times to get it through my head.

But I'm really okay with this, I think. That's because what they do instead of the treats taps into my second favorite thing behind making cookies, and that's books. Every other Friday is a school assembly, and every other assembly the parents are invited, and this Friday is that day. And on the second Friday assembly of the month the kids who have birthdays during the month donate a book of their choosing to the school library and they get to put a special bookplate in it and present the book to the entire assembly. August birthdays get in with Septembers, so E's bit is this Friday. I think she's kind of excited. Me? I'm super excited! Books! Kids talking about books! My kid talking about a book! Where's the video camera?

So here's the little sign she made to help her through her introduction to Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey. (She's listed a few good reasons she selected it on the back for reference.) And she added a few photographs of the ducklings from our recent trip to Boston. Brownie points.

And if this shy little bug gets up in front of that big group and tells us a little bit about the book then I'm more than okay with the no treats deal. Much more than okay with it.

...

By the way, two minutes after this photo was taken she was a pile of sobbing five-year-old mush again. It was, after all, two minutes after seven.

thirty days :: fifteen

So, this evening we had our violin pick-up night at school. The kids have had classes for a week now, and they've been sized for their instrument. E was a size 1/10 - so I've been trying to picture what one-tenth of a regular violin would look like. Pretty darn cute is the answer (although it's not really one-tenth the size). Unfortunately hers won't be in til tomorrow or Wednesday, but they don't have class again until Thursday so that's just fine. Since the kids grow and their violin has to grow with them, most just rent the instruments until they are older. We chose to rent a gently used one rather than a brand new one. I'm still trying to imagine her playing one, but I know she's very excited to try.

Filling out the paperwork only took a couple of minutes, so we wandered into her room to see what had changed since this morning. One of her favorite places in the room is the dry erase board underneath the tent - she and a few of the other kids in her room went there immediately and began to set up tally charts. Tally charts seem to be all the rage in kindergarten this week. E's survey question was simple. "Do you like to read?" Kids and parents and siblings were asked and tallied. And when we told her it was time to go, she and another little girl said their next question should be "Are you ready to leave?" And then they would answer that question with a resounding "No!"

Funny she should be so into polling, because just yesterday I decided to do something a bit out of my comfort zone by volunteering to do a little campaign calling. It's a part of this Neighbor to Neighbor program and the set up is pretty neat. For those of you who know me well, I take politics and voting pretty seriously. I've been plugged into this presidential race for a very long time, and I've read and listened and thought about and discussed a lot of these issues with a lot of people that I'm close to. I don't talk about them very often with those that I don't know well. I ramble a bit here and there on this blog, but I try to keep things pretty civil and only get riled up when I feel like someone's taken a cheap shot. For some reason though, this time, it doesn't seem good enough to me. It's not good enough to just make up my own mind and show up on November 4th to cast my ballot. It's too important to not be discussing these issues and voicing these concerns with others. I may have my mind made up, but I've discovered two things as I've started making these calls. The first thing I've discovered is that people are still undecided, are tuned into what is going on, have certain issues that they feel very passionate about, and are looking forward to the upcoming debates. The second thing that I've discovered is that, in general, people are pretty willing to talk about their feelings on the candidates in civil, courteous tones, and are taking their role as a voter very seriously rather than throwing themselves into one preordained camp or the other. We so often see the extremes on both sides, and I find it comforting to know that a lot of people aren't accepting what they hear (or read) at face value, but are instead listening, listening, listening to the whole story. We cannot let ourselves get to the point where we can't discuss who we are voting for and why, and we certainly must not stop listening to others when they open up to us about it. I have some friends, and some family, and some readers who will cast very different votes from mine in this next election. But we owe it to each other to be able to talk to one another about it.

I am supporting Barack Obama for President (not too tough to figure out with the big campaign website link above!) I'll probably talk about it more between now and then, but if you're curious why - then feel free to ask. It's too important not to.

...

E and I talk about a zillion different things on the way to school in the morning and occasionally it's about the election (remember her funny voting story here?) The other day she told me that if she could vote, she'd probably choose the same as me and her dad because she thought we were pretty good at picking things out. I told her that when she was old enough to cast her vote she would be more than able to choose for herself. And then she replied "I think Barack Oklahoma will still be just fine with me!" :)

I think she should steer clear of polling until she gets the name right, and stick to her day job, which this week just happens to be "Tidy the Room Specialist". That is a killer title.

thirty days :: fourteen

After some pretty serious winds and rain this morning courtesy of Ike, the weather is considerably calmer and cooler this evening. It's a good night for the fall pj's, and a bit of non-fiction reading on swimming techniques? Whatever. She's supposed to read all non-fiction this week, and we found the newer, older section of the library a bit daunting. The swimming book seems to be a big hit though.

Tomorrow is violin day, and tomorrow night we'll have our new one. Have a great Monday!

thirty days :: thirteen

scenes from a garden saturday...

... and then an evening run to the library for non-fiction books - her reading assignment for next week