Sunday looked a little like this. There was so much more, but the morning started out slow and easy.

Goodnight, and good wishes for the week ahead. Thanks for reading.
tt

Right outside our front door stands a Japanese maple tree. I can see its branches from where I sit now, without craning my neck. When I sit out front, it makes a canopy that ends a few feet from where the steps to the house begin.


From both of these spots-my desk and the front steps, and also from certain vantage points in the kitchen-I can see and hear what is going on in the park. What this means is that I can be out there just a few seconds after I hear Anna crying, or the kids quarrelling, or if there's trouble between the neighborhood dogs, or the UPS truck comes barrelling down the road.

They are out there, all ages mixed up together. Playing (now) in the leaves, and giving the little ones red wagon rides, and hopping back and forth across the creek, and the big kids texting each other (from a distance of twenty feet. please, someone explain this to me, someday), and all of them running back and forth from park to house to house.

The thing is, I just can't go sit out in the park every day, even on a stellar fall day like today. I wish I could. I wish I were the person who could walk away from the kitchen, the laundry, the computer. But I get very antsy, if things aren't all in place by a certain hour.

You know that hour. When it all falls apart. And, if on top of everyone being hungry and dirty and just a little bit sketchy about how much homework needs doing, I still don't have dinner going and things in place, we're poised for disaster.

Because when all is said and done, and the kids are fed, clean, and finished with the day, I do not want my work to begin.

I want our night to start.

So, it's a hard choice, on these days when light is fleeting, but nights are chill and dark, to sacrifice time outside early, for calm and peace later.

But, I'll tell you, when we're sitting on that couch, feet to feet and finally at rest, I'll be ok with how things went, this afternoon.

More tomorrow. Thanks for reading.

tt

Friday Happiness::
.Apple cake and bread to bake today. And knowing that at this moment, a friend is making roasted acorn squash soup for our dinner tonight.

.The Avett Brothers on the radio this morning. "Ah, Brooklyn, Brooklyn, take me in."
I especially like the words "tell the ones that need to know"; doesn't that conjure up the people in your life that you love?

.Measuring everyone's height, grown-ups, too, in pencil, on our kitchen wall.

.The beautiful photos, at this joy+ride, from our neck of the woods.
When we were young, my brothers and I used to take picnics to the cemetery, and swim in the river that winds along its edges. I realize that sounds strange and morbid, now. But it didn't seem strange at all, then. It's actually one of my clearest and fondest memories.

.Way too much on our plate this weekend, but all of it promises to be fun. If you're local, come join us for the opening reception for Public Bookstore on Saturday.

Enjoy the weekend. Thanks for reading.
tt

I'm not a summer person. I will say, that over the last few years, Tim has shown me how to enjoy summer a bit more than I ever did.

But really, this is my time.


I get a profound but simple pleasure from donning sweater and scarf. I am awed when surrounded by crisp air and nature's breathtaking last gasp before winter. I love being outside in the fall more than at any other time of year.


And yet, left to my own devices, I suspect that I might always choose to stay inside. I love the coziness, the hunkering down, the comforting routine, of being voluntarily housebound. And the colder weather gives me an excuse to stay in. Hygge.


To stay in and bake something. Cook something. Something involved and time-consuming.

To light candles, earlier and earlier.

To consider couch sitting a night's activity.

To drink hot cider, and red wine, and hot chocolate, and pots of tea. Not all at the same time, necessarily.

To pick a project. Those empty photo albums. Those three scarves, unfinished on the needles.

To put on some of the old records, now that we can sit and listen for a while.

To get under the covers to read.

To shut the door, and be together. I like when we drive by houses at night, and see a light glowing through the windows. Maybe getting a peek at someone moving around inside.

I love that we are inside our own little house, lights glowing, and us all living within these comforting walls.

Life dictates that I will have to leave the house. I know this all too well. I will take that walk. I will go cheer on the kids. I will meet friends and get provisions, and drive everyone where ever they need to go.


But after that, you know where to find me.

More tomorrow. Thanks for reading.
tt

Another grey day, and I'm finding that suits me well. It's not that I'm gloomy-grey, but rather, a soft, muted, soothing grey. Grey doesn't insist. Grey doesn't shout for you to come and play. Grey beckons you outside, to notice her.

I walked out back this morning, and found some beauty out there, in the grey. Blue skies and red leaves call you to look up and notice them. Looking down, I was surprised at how much is going on in our retreating garden.

Yesterday was grey, too. It was a nice gentle day that just went along. No surprises but some very nice moments. Talking to friends. Kids collecting leaves in the park. Some progress made inside, getting ready to retreat into the house more and more in the weeks to come.

For dinner, we made beef barley soup out of Callie's leftover brisket + gravy. With a simple salad, goat cheese, and some really good bread, I think it was pretty much the perfect fall meal.

Now, I'm just waiting for lunch to roll around, so I can heat up some soup, and maybe take a bowl out back. Our days for eating outside are numbered.

This feels like a Monday, but I know it's not.

Enjoy your day. Thanks for reading.
tt

Yesterday, I was grumpy. Today, I'm bashful.

When Sheri asked me to do a home tour at cafemom a little while ago, I was tickled pink. How fun! I get to talk about my house? I spend a ridiculous amount of time devoting myself to putting those candles and pictures in just the right spot, and collecting mason jars and tablecloths like they're going out of style, and moving the furniture around so often that I confuse the cat...and now someone wants to ask me questions about it?! Where do I sign?

Well, it's posted today, and all of a sudden I'm bashful and self conscious. So please, go check it out, here. But be kind.

And, if you have ever actually been in my house, and are wondering where all the dirty socks and wineglasses and laundry baskets and bookbags are, just pipe down. Or I'm coming over to your house, and I'm bringing my camera.

More tomorrow. Thanks for reading.
tt

Sunday night::"and all was quiet and peaceful in the country."*

So much to think and tell about from our day, today.

But for now, I just wanted to stop in here and say goodnight.

We had our first fire of the season, out back, when we came home from the city tonight. It was a long, good day, although there were many tears.

I actually have decided that tears are good. It means you are feeling something intensely, good or bad. Imagine the opposite. I'll take the tears over that.

The last tears of the night were Anna's, shed as we read *The Little House * to her for the first time. I think that those are beautiful tears.

More tomorrow. Thanks for reading.
tt

Where these hydrangeas came from.

We're home, and I am feeling quiet, but wanted to stop in here and say hello.

::

I grew up in this town, in a house built in 1969 that, until we sold it five years ago, never was home to another family but mine.

This house, on a little half-acre, was surrounded by woods and fields full of tall grasses, and lilacs, and apple trees, and pricker-bushes, and hydrangeas, and bittersweet vines tangled all the way up the limbs of tall, tall trees.

One day, a few years ago, all of that land was sold, and someone came in and chopped down many of the trees, and paved over much of the field, and built very,very big houses.

For a while Tim and I lived in a small cottage on the edge of this property, and I would still walk over and cut branches of pretty things all year long to put in our house. I felt that I grew up in those fields and those woods, and that it was my right. I'm sure it was wrong, but still, that's what I did.

After a while, all of the flowering bushes and trees disappeared. Bulldozed over, or died off, or, maybe, were moved.

Today driving through that place for the first time in a while, I spotted a hydrangea tree all pink and healthy, and pulled over in a space where someone had moved the boulders that line the road. I trudged right through the un-mowed grass left in one of the few un-built up lots, and cut off some branches for home.

I'm sure it was wrong, but still, that's what I did.

More tomorrow. Thanks for reading.
tt

Drive-bys

We have spent so much time in the car this month. This month. I mean, really...we've been driving for weeks.

Usually, we do our fair share of driving. One of our favorite things to do is set out with a car picnic and no set itinerary...maybe a direction to head in, or one thing that we have in mind to see or do (or more likely...eat). But we drive and drive and look at houses and towns and people-and it's inspiring and exciting. That may sound ridiculous, but it's true. We get all excited about what we're seeing, and have some of our best conversations and most productive brain-storming sessions when we're just aimlessly driving around looking at eye-candy.

I don't usually drive. We're very 1950's in our Sunday drive roles: Tim drives. It's his thing. He even washes the car before we go out on a long drive. Although don't tell him I told you that. He might be a bit proud to admit it. Sort of like I wouldn't want him going and blabbing that I clean the house up a little extra, if I think people might be dropping in for a visit.

Anyway.

This summer I've done way too much driving, without him. I don't like it. Besides the fact that I always get dangerously sleepy the minute I get into a moving vehicle, I just don't like it.

I like to sit back, put my feet up, daydream to the soundtrack of our day, playing on the radio. Hand over some snacks, maybe reach over and rub the driver's shoulders a bit. Reach back and hold the arch of a little foot, to soothe a four-year-old into complacency (wish me luck...).

I like to be a passenger for once. I feel like I'm always the one driving the train at home, so to speak.

On our drives, I'm just a passenger.

::

These are some photos I took yesterday from the passenger seat. I like them a lot. Brief little glimpses.

More tomorrow. Thanks for reading.
tt

Pink

If we should all have a room of one's own, around here that is the impossible dream.

The least we can do is carve out a little space for ourselves: a desk, a favorite chair, the top bunk, a spot on the porch.
For the littlest one, for whom nothing is ever hers first, everything is hand-me down, a little space of her own seemed the least she deserved.

In an awesome shop in Red Hook, Tivoli Mercantile, there was a little table-desk, covered with Cath Kidston oilcloth, and meant for the owner's daughter, to keep her busy while her mom worked the shop. Anna went right to it.

So I got to thinking that we could do something similar at home for her. An old Ikea table (from my first apartment in the city! Practically vintage...), some Marimekko coated fabric I got tired of seeing on the kitchen table, and the perfect pink paint which Tim mixed up under careful supervision by Anna: in an hour or so, she had some room of her own.

Now the only problem is: I suppose they'll all want one. I'll see what I can do.

More tomorrow. Thanks for reading.
tt

Inside, for a change.

We're spending so much time out of doors right now that inside seems still, and calm. Like a refuge.

Until the girls come in like a stampede of horses.

I'm finding I appreciate the quiet of my house when it is just me and the little one, more than ever.

I love that the windows are always open, and there are fresh flowers in jars and glasses and vases all over the house. Every day. Even just a few sprigs of thyme. Or one Black Eyed Susan. Sage mixed in with hydrangeas and two stalks of lavender.

I love that lunch can be anything from some leftover cucumbers to a little bit of cheese and bread and tomatoes. Dinner can be something quick once the sun has gone down. I'm finding myself very unmotivated to do the full on meals I normally would immerse myself in preparing. Now, I don't want to take the time.

I want to sit and enjoy what stillness and quiet I can find.

More tomorrow. Thanks for reading.

tt

Wheels

It's Anna's turn to learn how to ride.

Tim has a thing for bikes, in general. He's out right now taking a spin on one of the (many) old bikes that he's picked up curbside, brought home, and refurbished.

Years ago, seven or eight years ago, he found a bright red bike with sixteen inch wheels and a banana seat. Perfect for teaching girls to ride.

I think all five big girls were taught on that bike, and now it's Anna's turn. She's a whole year younger than I can remember any of them starting on a "big girls bike", but like everything else in her world, she's seen her sisters do it, and she's not going to wait any longer.

So, Tim took her out to get a set of training wheels, put them on, and she's off.

She teeters a little, and needs more help than she willingly accepts. For now.

We've done this enough to know that she'll be riding on her own before long.

More tomorrow. Thanks for reading.
tt

What I'm thinking about these days.

My girls are home, and things fall pretty much right back to where they were in an instant.
Lindsey is homeschooling Anna, in between locking her out of her room.
Callie looks just a little bit taller, and seems just a little bit older, in the homestretch to thirteen.
Today is Tim's birthday, so we hung the banner at breakfast, made pancakes, and sent him on his way to a meeting, while we plan some surprises.

::

I'm struggling with something, and I think maybe some of you can relate. I feel comfortable with and proud of the homelife we're making here for these kids: a little bit slower than some, maybe; no-tv, good homecooked food, lots of free-time, not so many electronics and plastic and commercial entertainment. Some of these choices are born out of economic necessity, but honestly, we would keep making most of the same ones, even if we won the lottery.

But, I find that I spend so much time on the busy-work of creating that home, that perhaps I end up missing a key element. What's the difference if I'm making their dinner from scratch, if I'm too tied up to sit down on the floor with them and draw? What's the difference if I've made
a pretty, little, cozy house for us to live in, but I'm always after them about making a mess? And as much as our world (all of us parents' world) is child-centered (a term I don't like, but you know what I mean...), I still really need a line to be drawn between parenting-time and parent-time. Balancing their need to be nurtured and cared for, with our need for time to be ourselves and by ourselves, is one of the trickiest feats I've met yet. And then the flip-side to that is: how do you let them go enough to give yourself a break, and still keep them safe and feeling secure?

Anyway, I've just been thinking about things lately, because we live such a strange existence here, in blended-family land, in the summer. Sometimes we have long stretches with just one child, with lots of night-time a deux. Then we're a family of five for a while, then six, then eight. It forces and/or enables me to examine how things work, or don't work, with a fresh pair of eyes, again and again.

I don't really have a point, but I do have a keyboard. So there it is. I'd love to hear what you all think, if you feel this way about things, and how you manage it all.

More tomorrow. Thanks for reading.
tt

ps::I love to hear from you, but if I haven't ever gotten back to you before, please leave me your e-mail address with your comment. Blogger makes it hard to just hit the "reply" button and send an e-mail. Thanks!

It's raining again, and we're a tad bored.

So, hey! Let's jump over each other!

This almost never happens when just grown-ups are hanging out together.

Sadly.

And if you're wondering why all of my photos are starting to look familiar?

It's because it's been raining off and on (mostly on) for weeks, and Anna wears the same thing every day.

More tomorrow. Thanks for reading.
tt

How things are.

Today is the last full day of school for the girls. And I'm happy and anxious, both.

Truth is, things have gotten much easier as they've gotten older, but I'm still left with some residual panic and dread about having all of them here, with nothing to do. And then, them finding something to do. Something that usually involves a lot of mess and noise and chaos.

I think I suffer from post-traumatic stress from when they were all little, and things would get really out of control. It's better, now. On so many levels. But still.

So, Anna and I are waiting by the door for them. Sitting on the steps, listening to the creek and the birds, and watching it rain now and then. Moving back up into the doorway until it stops sprinkling. Having one last quiet snack before nap. Before the sistahs get home.

Our routine is about to be upended. And that's ok. I'm looking forward to it, in many ways. I find that usually the anticipation is so much more difficult than the reality. The doing. The actual living of it.

::

And some random links:

Abby's beautiful photographs, and her blog.

Which led me to this place: Heaven. I'm definitely making Tim drive us up there in the next couple of weeks. I must go to this place. Must.

It reminds me of The Artisan Cafe, in Trumansburg, NY outside of Ithaca, where Tim and Anna and I had lunch last summer, before the crushing discovery that the Ithaca Farmers Market was no longer open on Thursdays.

Speaking of Ithaca, and beautiful blogs, and beautiful photos, (and just plain beautiful, by the way), Leya of Curious Bird was a big help in getting me excited to try camping again this summer. And for that seemingly impossible feat, Tim says thank you.

I'm honored and thrilled to be a guest over at echoes. I'm very shy about my contribution today however, as it is my first ever attempt at a painting. But I was encouraged and inspired by Emily, and so I gave it a try. Be kind.

And lastly, if anyone knows some voodoo to make the sun come out, please step in any time now.
More tomorrow. Thanks for reading.
tt