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Growing up with three sisters was pretty great.  There were always socks in someone else's drawer when there were none in your own.  If you hated all your clothes, you just walked to the next nearest closet and picked something out.  And if your sister got mad, you reminded her that if she didn't share, neither would you.  Same thing with shoes, bikes, makeup, hairspray...

 

If you started too get full of yourself, you always had someone who would help you deflate.  But if you were having a rough day, they would help make it even rougher.  Kidding. 

 

I was only four, but I remember when my babiest sister came home from the hospital.  We pulled blankets around the floor of her crib to be near her while she slept.  And we had to be very quiet until she woke up.  So we quietly jiggled the crib, hoping she would wake up and we could hold her.  Our real live baby.

 

Today is her birthday. 

 

She's 31. 

 

We're all old ladies now. 

 

Time for burgundy hair and big jewelry.

now, with 20% more sass

painting, painting, painting.
 

 

kitchen studio

One day I won't make meals in my studio. 

 

WWI fighters

 

 

 

no chickens

 

We like to pack up our crew after baths and jammies and drive out into the country.  We look for things like deer and hawks and fox and coyotes. 

And land.

And houses.

With sturdy old barns to convert into a workshop and studio.

It's fun to dream about 'one day.'  Sometimes I imagine that we'll drive by the perfect place, on the edge of a hill, partially surrounded by a grove of trees with a river running through it...and that Santa from Miracle on 34th street will be standing out in front and he'll toss us the keys.  It'll have a golden retriever puppy and some barn cats.  Maybe a little horse.  An old slow kind little horse.  Also a woolly sheep.  And a goat that likes to stand on top of things.  But no chickens. 

dining room walls

If they were full before, they're bursting now.

 

 

 

 Getting ready for a show.

for the Rev. and Mrs.

Peter and Gwendolynne

:: for Annie ::
 

 

it is swell with my soul

I started the new year with lofty goals of losing weight and being more intentional.  Which are the exact same goals I have set for myself every year since 1997.  Maybe there was an Oprah show about it back then. 

I don't know if it's taken me this long to finally get comfortable in my own skin?  I feel like I'm finally at a place where I'm content.  I don't live up to my own imagined standards of perfection, but it's okay.  My kids are all great in spite of me.  My house will never be featured in a magazine.  I would never want the people I went to art school with to critique my stuff, and I don't ever want to wear a swimsuit in front of anyone but the other moms at the kiddie pool.  And I'm okay with all that.

When people that I haven't seen in a few years ask what I've been up to and I say, "Oh, you know, the same sort of thing as before."  That's okay.  Because life this way is pretty swell. 

 

the first snow fall

It started snowing today. 

It grows my heart to see my children excited by snowfall.  And even more so how thrilled they are to watch their littlest brother enthralled...he doesn't remember this from last year. 

I sewed some curtains this morning.

I conditioned the table.

I've been painting.  This is what my dining room looks like when I've been painting.  I have nowhere else to store the finished works, nor the works in progress.  So, until these make their way to completion and then to their next destination, we eat in a motel-art shrine.

On the docket for the day?  Finish up three of the above. 

And then some Christmas decorating.

It's a shame that we got rid of the artificial tree.

 

eight

My boy turned eight today. 

When he was born I felt a mix of overwhelming love and complete panic.  I grew up with sisters.  I had a daughter.  I understood girls.  And girl stuff.  Boy stuff?  A mystery.

But, oh the love a mother has for her son.  I would hold him and look into his beautiful blue eyes and wonder what kind of man he would one day become.  What would he be like?  What would he think about?  What would he do?

His first Christmas I heard a song about Mary and her baby Jesus and I wept with an understanding that I hadn't known before. 

This boy...

...this boy that on the day he learned to crawl, he crawled all the way to the top of the stairs.  Baby gates!  And when he learned to pull to a stand, he pulled to a stand on top of the sofa...



...I had turned my back for two seconds (which is the beginning of almost all the stories of his babyhood) and the above is what I found.  *It should be noted that the camera was RIGHT THERE, and I knew I needed evidence of this moment for posterity.  **Also, I removed him right afterwards. 

He has always been so curious.  He is so smart.  Like, this kid could be a rocket scientist.  Except for the fact that he's going to fly Blue Angels.

And the cliche about boys being so different from girls?  Is one of the truest.  Different - but not in a bad way.  In the most wonderful way. 

 

s is for sarah

four years ago

This little fellow was born. 

He is so delightful.

love abounds

And this is my prayer:
 that your love may abound
more and more
in the knowledge and depth of insight,
so that you may be able
 to discern what is best
and may be pure and blameless
 until the day of Christ  

 

Philippians 1:9-10

 

 

 

 

thirty-six

One time I was fifteen years old and this super hot guy asked me to go with him to the movies.

I said, "I'm sorry,  I can't date until I'm sixteen."


:)

(that's not what I said...once a liar...)

He turns thirty-six today. 

He's pretty great.

I'm pretty lucky.

seventeen

If at first you don't succeed, don't try skydiving

sixteen

Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?

Pearl and Stanley

I tried to resist posing these two like a couple of old love birds...




He prefers reading the paper, and she likes to garden.

 

fifteen

When she told me I was average, she was just being mean.

fourteen

Did you know that William Tell and his family were avid bowlers? Yes, it's true. But, unfortunately, all the bowling league records were destroyed in a fire, so we will never know for whom the Tells bowled.