Be always coming home

Please bring strange things.
Please come bringing new things.
Let very old things come into your hands.
Let what you do not know come into your eyes.
Let desert sand harden your feet.
Let the arch of your feet be the mountains.
Let the paths of your fingertips be your maps
And the ways you go be the lines of your palms.

Ursula K. Leguin

+++

for tens of years we have been kicking summer off with an annual family trip to palm springs. it's the place where the whole family - grandparents, parents, siblings, cousins, nieces, nephews come to reunite. warm days and late nights are spent talking, carousing, and catching up. luckily, a lot stays the same. luckily, a lot is always changing. these moments become deep grooves in life. we grew up here, our kids are doing the same. 

please bring strange things, new things. let the very old things come into your hands. 

so many memories are made during the freedom of summer. are there places or traditions you return to year after year? 

be always coming home. xx

four

today you are four.

it's so much for me to take in. i have memorized your face, your expressions, and can hear your sweet voice in my head long after you have gone to sleep. sometimes i watch you and feel as if i am seeing you for the first time. it's a strange feeling, one that is totally unique to you. i don't know what it means, but i do know that i love discovering you over and over again.

you have a deep passionate for the tiny, minuscule, and microscopic things in life. your gaze is often pointed downward, scoping out the overlooked and discarded or to the sky searching for the tiny traces of the moon in the daylight. you love collecting, twirling, and following your own path. 

you are a truly the light of my life.

feeling, away

standing at the edge of summer, we had a lovely long weekend in Mexico. 

hope your weekend was wonderful too. xx

a celebration

this weekend we celebrated olivia. she's turning four. the party was small, easy, and very low key. i didn't go for pinworthy details, complex menu items, or labor intensive decorations, not that i don't choose that route frequently. but sometimes, burgers, a simple craft, homemade cupcakes the kids decorate themselves, and my sanity still intact, perfectly fits the bill.

this week is a busy one. i'm wrapping up a few projects and i'm moving my blog over to wordpress. i've worked in wordpress for years and build client sites there, so it's a lot easier for me to use. i'll let you know when i make the switch. the energy and stress i saved on the party will be used up on the site design this week, i'm sure. 

hope you have a great week ahead!

9/52

"a portrait of my children's artwork, once a week, every week, in 2013."

+++

this week was unlike any other week. 
it's always that way though, right?
nothing is ever the same.
sometimes life seems routine, over and over.
but then something happens and we quickly wake to the knowledge that nothing is ever as it was. moments simply evaporate.

the last shot i posted was one of those moments that now stands still in time. little did i know what would follow. when i came home days later, with the same blankets laying there, her animals, and notebook, it was an odd reminder.

i am not unfamiliar with hospitals. we have logged some hours there for one thing or another over the years. while they are not my favorite place by any means, there is a heightened awareness that comes from being there. it makes you acutely aware of how fragile life is, and in our case, how lucky we are.

tuesday morning, sienna had an appendectomy. she had a fever and terrible stomach ache so we took her to the ER. after many exams of her not tell-tale signs, an MRI and a CT, we found out that she had acute apendicitis. surgery was a few hours following. her appendix had ruptured slightly, but she came through well. we spent the remainder of the week in the hospital and are now home. 

she is laughing again.
my love.

i am so thankful. we are so lucky. this is really nothing. but to our little family, it was something. something that is now in our past and in some small way shapes our future. all moments do that, really. make us. every moment, every snapshot. it means something, and maybe we don't realize what until the moment has passed and we can get perspective to look back and look forward again.

s. a huge stack of cards from her classmates filled with love, well wishes and glitter. 

o. a handmade card for sienna, with help from nana.

a good traveler

has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.
today, you'll find us resting on the floor,
right where we should be.

A Formidable List of Attainments

For some time now, I've been intrigued by homeschooling curriculum. This curiousity began shortly after S started Kindergarten and left the nest of her Reggio preschool behind. I'm very happy with her school, but at the same time feel drawn to the type of environment that Waldorf or homeschooling provides. Since she is in a language immersion school, it is up to us to teach her english at home, which naturally provides some room for homeschooling. It has also contributed to my many late nights researching curriculum.

One of the sites that I was most intrigued by was Ambleside Online. When I saw this Formidable List of Attainments for a Child of Six, I must say I swooned a bit. It is a reprint of a curriculum outline from a Charlotte Mason school in the 1890′s. The full list is at the link above, we have adapted it a bit. We talked about what she wanted to learn while she was six and I made a few suggestions. We kept most of the original items since they were so beautiful, and she added a few of the fun things like learning to do a really good cartwheel, sew more, and sell her artwork.

A Formidable List of Attainments for a Child of Six

• To recite, beautifully, three easy poems.

• To add and subtract numbers up to ten.

• To develop the love of reading. Learn to read to the best of your ability. 

• To know the points of the compass with relation to your own home, where the sun rises and sets, and the way the wind blows.

• To describe the boundaries of your home.

• To describe a lake, river, pond or ocean within easy reach.

• To be able to describe three walks and three views.

• To mount in a scrapbook a dozen common wildflowers and leaves. to name these, describe them in your own words, and say where they found them.

• To know six birds, by song, color and shape.

• To create a piece of handiwork from knitting, cross-stitch and sewing.

• To create a collection of artwork using different mediums. 

• To go through the process of selling something. (art & girl scout cookies)

• To tell three family stories and one about your pet. 

• To use juicy & creative language. Idioms, metaphors, and made-up words that become part of your lexicon.
• To be able to name a handful of common objects and say little sentences in another language.

• To sing one song in another language, and one English song.

• To start & keep a collection.

• To be able to do a good cartwheel, skip on the monkey bars and ride your bike on a trail.

• To tell time.
• To pick a cause that you would like to contribute to and contribute in a way of your choosing.
• To watch the sunrise in nature. 

There are so many things that could go on a list like this. And it's interesting to see what they deemed essential to teach in the 1890's. I love the focus of it and feel it still so relevant today. Many of these things she is learning naturally in the course of life, but some we would need to put effort into. What I loved most about finding this was the inspiration to get into nature, slow down, focus on the beauty of your surroundings and the stories in your life. 

Who knows if we will attempt everything on the list, I would wager we won't. And since I am not going to homeschool, this formidable list will remain kind of a dream list that in moments we pull from to enrich life. I think I will even work on some of the items myself, I love a nature journal! Any gems that you would add? Love to hear! 

christmas

christmas week

+++
cold saltillo mornings
deserted beach walks
candlelight dinners
strings of lights
cozy fires
presents
family
joy.

in the woods

 

 

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. Thoreau.

I remember clearly my first introduction to Thoreau and that one line, that in someways, changed the path of my inner life. It was middle school, Mrs. Sobel. I am the kind of person that ties songs and thoughts to specific roads I am driving on while thinking or listening. The freeway underpass at E street. It will always be that place when I hear that line. I must have been repeating it to myself as I drove a few years later in my 65 mustang. I was studying the transcendentalists. That line, those years earlier, clicked at that moment; burned in. 

+++

A strong longing had been pulling at me to get into nature

to clear my head, 

to breathe. 

There is nothing else that so quickly can nourish my soul, focus my attention, shake out the fog of indecision or restlessness, as being in the quiet and solitude of nature. I ran the idea by D, booked the place, packed the bags and we were off the next morning. 

The girls love being in the mountains. They come alive in a different way. 

So do I. 

It feels essential.