beautiful women

I received an email from my friend Danielle this morning letting me know it's beautiful women month. And I thought, thank you Universe. I needed a little reminder.

Because there are days, far too many than I would like, where I look in the mirror and feel a longing. It's the same longing as I feel when I look at old photographs of a younger me...the minimal stresses, the small responsibilities.

My body is changing. Wrinkles are creeping in from so many years of laughing.
My hips are bigger from giving birth to my child.
My hair is graying from the stresses of every day life.


But today, today I'm choosing to see wisdom.
I choose to see a beautiful woman who has been carving her own sculpture of this life.
Who has endured deep love and deep pain.
Who has fulfilled dreams, and watched other dreams die.
Who still creates her destiny.
Today I choose to see the deep, rich love in my eyes as a mother.
For now, after going through the elegant and brutal process of birth
I know
there is nothing but beauty seeping out of these eyes as I look at my daughter.
For anything that exudes so much love could be less than beautiful.

To my perfect sweet daughter Eleanor.
One day you will question how you look,
how you feel,
who you are.
This is part of life.
But you must know, and I will remind you as long as I live,
that you are nothing short of perfect.
That are you are simply, and utterly
beautiful.

Random quips for which you'll be none the wiser after reading

Wow I gotta tell you I'm feeling pretty lousy about this whole Bret Michaels brain bleed thing. And this has happened to me before, where I get kind of upset when a celebrity passes who I really shouldn't care about. Last year it was Natasha Richardson. I truly think it's some sort of transferrence from my job as a hospice nurse. But in any case, I really do like Bret Michaels. I mean he's a bad ass rocker and he makes no apologies for his lifestyle. Doesn't seem to pretend to be someone he's not, and I guess I kind of respect him. Plus we've been watching Celebrity Apprentice (my head hangs low as I write this. It's our Sunday night confession) and he's just so darn likeable. Man I hope he pulls through!

I mean, he's kind of dreamy, in a repressed teenage fantasy kind of way

So yesterday we went to Home Depot and just as I seem to do every year, I spent a ton of money on plants. Every year I feel bad about this spenditure but every year I tell myself that it's all about curb appeal and it will pay off down the road. When really I just can't resist so many pretty flowers. So anyway Mike and I take full advantage of Ellie's long nap and get to work on the yard. And what do I do even though I KNOW you're not supposed to do this until Mother's Day weekend? I plant those plants. Most of them anyway. And sure as shit doesn't it SNOW last night. I just watched from the window and chastised myself. At least they were well mulched, and they haven't died..yet. But I guess its' supposed to get pretty cold tonight, too. You know and then be 80 the next day. It's so crazy out here.

Definitely watch The Blind Side if you can. Now that is the kind of movie I like to watch. Inspirational, makes you feel reflective, good message, minimal stress. I just can't stand sitting down to watch a movie and feeling stressed out. This probably makes me the most annoying person to watch movies with, which is why I really don't watch many. Anyway this movie was great. Which leads me to this point:

Jesse James sucks.

So I have a one year old birthday party to plan. What do you do for this sort of a celebration? While Ellie is pre-verbal and really not understanding this occasion, it remains momentous for us, because gosh darnit we have (nearly) made it to a year! And we have a healthy, beautiful child and we still like each other. So we have decided to make it more about us. So yes Ellie will get her token first cake but the adults get beer and get to play on Mike's homemade cornhole game. She'll love looking back to the pictures. Speaking of the little peanut, here's a recent pic...

Have a great day!

A brief pause for some creative cultivation.

Lately I've shyed away from my somewhat faithful practice of blogging that has taken place over the past couple of years. It's because my good old friend Spring came to town (metaphorically, not my actual childhood friend). And when Spring comes some people clean. This year I was overcome with the overwhelming urge to MAKE STUFF. I had to make stuff! But the thing with me, as you may or may not have noticed, is I have a ton of ideas, but the follow through is more difficult to achieve. But nonetheless I have almost painfully prevailed with finished products, and oh so many more unfinished ideas. This endeavor has literally turned our dining room into my own personal art studio (thanks Mike) which even now looks like this. (Oh, yeah, and disregard the big box of Cheerios, aka God's best way to buy yourself another 5 minutes of baby distraction).




So thanks to a random selection of books that just happen to be at my local library as I scoured the shelfs for some creative ideas, I've decided to try my hand at printing. Which makes up for much of the mess. So far the only things not remotely embarrasing are these: some batik prints and some onesies for Ellie and her buds.



And in between those I made this


and these Vanilla Soakers:

Creativity rules. Seriously. Now I need to manifest some sort of an art studio so I can spread out all my crap for real, not lugging out the old art bins in order to entertain a whim. OMG that would be divine. Not only the spreading of the stuff, but the getting out of the house to do things for ME. Now that I work nights that just doesn't really happen much. Not that I'm complaining, but you know, everyone could use a retreat.

Okay Universe, I've been a good girl. Hook me up!

Changing with the seasons.

Why do I do this myself? I'm sitting in the living room having put the munchkin down for a nap and I'm so joyously drinking my warmed up coffee and geeking out on facebook, but the
monitor, oh the freaking monitor! Sitting right next to my head while I listen to Ellie cry in her crib, inflicting some wierd sort of physical response that I liken to a type of ptsd. Sure, sure I could turn it off. But here's where the demon/angel comes into play, because to turn off this torture device of sound I could very well by missing something, like say, Ellie trying to fling herself out of her crib or get a limb stuck in the bars.

I know why moms change when the baby comes. Why they can go from relatively down to earth people to absolute stress cases.

It's because you love your baby. You love your baby so very much that you can't imagine even for a moment that something bad would happen to your baby. That for something bad to happen to your baby you would surely curl up and die from grief, it is that intense. And so really when baby comes it's almost as though your lifeline exists not just in you anymore, but in this little teeny tiny person that is mischevious and curious and into everything. Yes, it is very intense.

I've said it before but I have a deep and profound respect for all mothers everywhere that let their children get into cars with their friends. And get their licenses.

Anyway, babies become toddlers. Toddlers become kids. And they just get sturdier and sturdier. Thank freaking God. Because when I look back to how I felt those first few months, well let's just say my hair is miraculously not completely gray. Anyway, the point of that rant is that Ellie is getting sturdy, and when we start our day together we can really do a whole lot now, just her and I, like go hiking, or out to eat, or shopping. In other words, live a semi normal life again!!! Woot woot!!

Man I love this freedom! And I love that it is spring! I love my freshly deep cleaned house. I love the warmth in the air. I love the creative energy that seems to be swirling all over the place!

Here are some other things that I am currently loving:
Pandora. Station of the week is Patti Griffin. (love her!)
The library. Did you know you can check out like a million books at once and they're cool with that?
Veggie patties, best baby dinner ever.
Satsuma essential oil. Just ran out, must buy more!
Knitting.
Working nights. Yes I actually do love it. Especially when I have no visits and get to sleep in my bed all night and get paid for it.
My ergo wrap
Sitting outside on the picnic table with the family for dinner.
Neighbors working outside.
New little plant buds sticking their heads out in the world.

Changing of the seasons is always so cool. It's like a new lease on your days.

Happy Birthday Hunter Hansen.

My cuz just had a baby, very sweetly named Hunter from our mothers' side of the family.
Anyway this baby isn't Hunter. This is my little stinker Ellie.
But these are Hunter's new soaker pants which I just made. Modeled by Ellie, who in all actuality is probably stretching them out, but I didn't have any newborn models to use. Anyway, soakers are cool! They are meant to "soak up" the spillage from cloth diapers. Pretty, huh? I got this pattern from my new Vintage Baby Knits book.



Ok you can't even see the soaker in the picture. But I just love that little face!!

Happy Birthday, Hunter! Congratulations mama Lindsey!

Happy Easter