Christmas cards out...check!

I just got my christmas cards out...I stayed with it and I am really proud of that part. It's funny because the ones that were the most difficult were the ones that I was the most happy to have sent. Most especially the one to my cousin, with a hand written recipe for Lemon Lush pie enclosed...a recipe found at an amazing little restaurant on the Oregon coast while visiting my dear aunt aggie...a recipe that she was able to get because she had connections and knew the chef...a recipe made even more precious to me after she died quite suddenly in March. Yes, that was a card that needed to go out. I called and told my mom that my cards just went out and she laughed and said, your cards always go out after christmas...it's a tradition! Well, on that note, Merry Christmas (a little late) to each and every one of you. xo

Wish Cookies...

We discovered Nyakers this Christmas. It is an amazing and delightful little cookie. I don't know what I like best, the cookie or the story. This is how it goes...you place the cookie in the palm of your hand, make a wish, and break it. If it breaks into three pieces, you get your wish. It is truly magical. Here are some photos of my charlie and his wish cookie, broken into three....make a wish sweet boy.

I just know it's gonna come true. xo

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

We got an amazing and spectacular tree! It's an "emerald" tree from the pacific northwest (like me) and it is so beautiful. Little one and I are running around the house, me in my jingle bell apron and snowflake hat, and him in his cowboy hat, underpants and cowboy boots, pulling out decorations. It is so amazing to see what comes out of each box...oh, the memories. I already have everything that will light up, lit. We just unpacked our singing frog that sits on the kitchen table singing and ribbeting...what other treasures are in these boxes?

I have become my mother...

So...I finally said it..."If you don't have anything good to say, don't say anything at all..." You know, it took four years to have a moment that it was relevant, and what was really crazy is that I didn't see it coming. It just came out of my mouth so naturally, and I knew that it was exactly what needed to be said.

The Doing

"but the biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make while doing this. I did not live in the moment enough. this is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. there is one picture of the three of them sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages 6, 4 and 1. and I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less."

anna quindlen

Scabs, beautiful scabs

Explaining to my three your old about scabs:

Charlie: What’s a scab mama?

Me: Well, when you get hurt, a scab grows over the boo boo and then stays there and protects the boo boo until it heals.

Charlie: Then what happens?

Me: It falls off because you are healed and you don’t need it to protect you anymore.

Charlie: Oh..that’s right.

You know? Scabs are perfect and they are a lot like life…we are protected in all of the exact right moments (we can see this looking back, not always at the time), and then we are let go to fly when we are all better...

Time passed through her and became a song

Now it is fall...the trees are amazing, my sweet boy turned four a few weeks ago, everything pumpkin is everywhere and time keeps on going. The good news for me is that I am full of inspiration, very joyful, and very close to really embracing this blog of mine....