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!

around the house

i've been just hanging around the house a lot lately. i am now well into my second cold in the last few weeks, feeling a bit run down. it's been rainy, windy, with days of gray skies. i could live in this weather forever. 

i stretched a new canvas for the living room. olivia and i are heading to the studio to paint today. there is nothing i love more than the possibilities of a new piece.

my husband's been out of town, and in the midst of a cold and solo parenting, i am hosting a dinner for twelve women tomorrow night. i think i am making this or this. looking forward to setting the table, fixing a meal, and the wonderful night of conversation that will ensue.  

the week feels slow and sometimes being sick feels right. how's your week? what are you up to?

a new perspective

change: taking it all in and giving it back out again, differently. 

everything in my home is constantly in rotation. each week i rotate the puzzles, books and games that are set out for the girls. i shift around artwork, move plants, re-arrange stacks of books, bring in garden clippings, and often swap out rugs. 

why? 

i saw a quote on a domaine that may explain it. 

everyone wants a moment in their house that's breathtaking. they want that in-take of breath- that WHAT IS THAT. it's anything that's peculiar but beautiful. 

i crave the unexpected. i am always looking to see something differently. moving things around helps me see things anew. things become interesting again. i look, i ponder, i engage. it makes me appreciate my home and my things in a different way. 

how about you, how often to you move things around? do you like a shift in perspective? 

hope you have a wonderful weekend. xx

17/52

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

years ago, in the midst of a major restoration on the house, we built this fort under our porch. it's a little space where the girls can go and to play, create, or just get away. it's a place of their own. 

there is something totally freeing about being able to draw on walls or places that are normally off limits, don't you agree? in their fort, anything goes.  

s: a self portrait at my piano recital.

o: a picture of me wearing clothes.

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link love: last week i loved rebuca's portraits of her children, especially the middle one with the fence in the background. the lighting and quality of the photos are just beautiful. 

Are you fully living?

This is a screenshot from a video I shot at the park of Olivia and her best friend. The video is 00:07:37 minutes long and there are three more just like it. In others, the girls twirl up tight on the swings and then spin around in a fit of giggles. They played for over two hours. Most of the time we were the only ones in the park. This sweet moment was 00:05:53 into the film. 

I have watched this video a handful of times now. To be honest, it's pretty meditative and I've been playing it in the background as I work. The girls, their laughter, the creaky sound of the metal swings, their friendship, conversation, and you can almost hear the soft sun shining through. I often wonder how magic happens and how much of the time it doesn't, or it does, but I miss it. What makes some moments come alive, I think about this a lot. I need to. These moments, strung together, are the whole of life. 

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How to live, fully.

• Question life. Questions are catalysts for change. They open up the world, challenge us, make us think and grow. 

• Cause wonder. Create moments of awe. Asking a question causes wonder. So does stargazing or watching kids swing. Try it. 

• Don't answer. Live the questions. Let the answers find you. The asking distills what's important, then the answers rise to the top. Scoop them up.

• Lose your balance. Life is moving, let go and embrace change. Even better, seek it. Nothing makes us feel more alive than a change on the horizon. 

• Stand at the center. At the center of all movement there is stillness. Position yourself there. Chaos is always better from this vantage point. 

• Live in-between. It's called liminality. Let go of your stance, don't get stuck being defined. Open up, embrace not knowing.

• Be patient. Everything ripens in it's own time. Cease the moment, but believe in eternity. 

• Be present. Dive into now. Have a look around.

• Find acceptance. This is really the key to everything in life. To being at peace with yourself, to being present in the moment, you must find this. Dig deep. 

• Practice gratitude. Say thank you, everyday.

Do you have those moments when time melts away and you're perfectly content exactly where you are now? Want to have more of these moments? Me too. Let's figure out how! Share your tips.

Here's to fully living your week. xx

Legacy of Me

Do you think about your legacy? Do you wonder how people perceive you, what they will remember, and what you're leaving behind? This year, my women's group is focused on our personal legacy. We have many different projects planned for documenting our life and creating a memory kit. My paintings, oral stories I tell my children about my life, old pictures of my travels, and my writing are all ways that I currently document, but I've noticed that I rarely step in front of the camera anymore.  

When I look around my house, most of the photos that I hold dear are of my mom and dad when they were younger. I love seeing my parents, as parents, in the years when we had come into their life. Pictures of us together, my family, my history, I value much more than pictures of just me as a child. These pictures place me, I'm part of something larger, a legacy.  

This month, I vowed to be in front of the camera more often. To hand the camera to someone else, to ask the waiter to take a picture, to photograph myself. And I am so happy I did, I love this photo, especially how Sienna is holding me. melt...

Do you get in front of the camera regularly? What about self portraits, do you take them? Are you focused on your legacy? Let's talk.

Enjoy the weekend! xx

how to find me

image by Ali Bosworth

The year's energy has picked up again, do you feel it too? What went from a lazy spring break feel has suddenly refocused into an intense work week and a long list of things to do. I have so many projects going on I'm feeling buried beneath it all. 

After I saw this image, I told my husband that he could find me by chance or appointment. 

I don't think he was amused.

a fresh start

sienna's laugh is different. i feel as if over the last two weeks our life had been suspended. waiting for her to heal, to feel herself, to be recaptured in the pull of our schedule. this weekend we felt normal again. we walked the bay knee deep in mud pools, flew kites, shopped the farmer's market, went out to a lovely dinner, and i even had a whole afternoon to myself. 

events change us, but they also bring a fresh start. 
welcome, monday.

getting lost when you can't

between commitments and crowds
keep getting lost in streets and in the woods,
under stones, in trains.

. . .
that's my plan for the weekend. 
doing anything wonderful?

adapted from bread-poetry by neruda.

the edit

i'm a collector and truthfully a bit of a scavenger. little passes my eye without me needing to inspect it and possible collect it. whether it's a visual inventory of things to examine later in memory, journals of jotted notes, words, intersection names, old driftwood, beach glass, magazines, rugs, chairs, and books, i love to collect. after collecting comes my favorite part, curating. i'm always putting those collections to work. mixing, aligning, displaying and arranging unexpectedly. 

this weekend we wandered the beach. the girls came home with pockets of found objects. this is all part of their daily haul of treasures, as they call them, which come from playgrounds, school, sidewalks, nature, and friends houses. jewels, tiny taped pieces of paper, shells, rocks, wood, flowers, stickers, and stuffed animals, all find their way here. on our last hike, sienna brought home a huge branch. 

the family is quite used to opening the door to a rearranged house. sienna is starting to get the curating portion of the process. what still alludes them both, is the edit. they are attached to every little item they find, so i tend to "edit" when they are not home. i've started to talk to sienna about how to really look at a piece. roll it over in your hand, be discerning, ask yourself what about it speaks to you, and what do you plan to do with it. i had her watch this beautiful short selby film, we talked a little about the story that an object has, where it came from and what it means if it comes into her life. she wanted to watch the beginning of the film again. she loved the big display case and the look of the pieces lined up. she also wanted to know if she could have a zippered leather clutch for collecting her treasures, that way she wouldn't bring home too much. i think sienna's discerning eye is developing just fine. hopefully she doesn't move on to collecting beautiful bags anytime soon. 

by the sea

it seems odd living by the ocean most of my life that there will be periods where i don't see it that often. in the last few years, that's really changed. we spent most of last year renovating our home in mexico. salvaging might actually be more like it. that process, and the comfortable gathering place that it is now, has brought us back to the ocean. being on the water, i realize it's where i am most calm.  

i can think

i can breathe.

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teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.
antoine de saint-exupery

christmas

christmas week

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