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

Little celebrations

Yesterday was the first day in two weeks that I dropped off a happy four-year-old, and I ran walked away from her school at last without feeling some sense of regret.
I drove myself up to the farm market at Stone Barns, and bought some eggplants and eggs and sweet potatoes. Then I sat, alone, and ate the most sublime piece of bacon and corn quiche (with a whole wheat crust-really amazing).

As I ate, I flipped through the pages of a new book which had arrived in my mailbox as I was pulling out of my drive-way.
I think that anyone who is familiar with Stephanie and Maria's work will recognize the degree to which I admire and emulate their sensibilities. There is an aura of calmness, stillness, and beauty in everything they show us, that I need and wish to find around me in my own life.

Needless to say I enjoyed my lunch, and the book, very much. It felt like a little celebration of Anna's gentle separation that afternoon, of the gradual but near complete transition into a new school year and my favorite season, and of having arrived, perhaps, at a new place of my own.

And then I went home and did some laundry.

::

My friend Jen has a new show opening tomorrow, one that I know she's been looking forward to ,and which will be an inspired collaboration of two very talented artists. And this just makes me happy!

::

I hope you all find a little something to celebrate today. Thanks for reading.
tt

It's too easy.

If you get to go to lunch in a place as beautiful, and pure, and perfect as Chase's Daily, and you happen to have been lucky enough to bring with you a proper camera, and you walk into the back room and see all the glorious bounty grown in a place called Freedom...
Well, it's too easy.

Here are the photos. But I really can't take credit. I give all the credit to the Chase family.

And to Tim, for being the most patient man in the world. Not only back then on that day that we went and spent two weeks grocery money on a proper camera. But also for today, when he held a box of leftover thin-crust eggplant pizza in one hand, and a highly spirited four-year-old girl in the other, while I fell in love with some cabbages.

And just in case you are all tired of the lovely pictures of Anna sniffing flowers and what not, here's the darling now, in Chase's Daily.


More tomorrow. Thanks for reading.
tt

Me, mom:: 14

Callie is still away, so all I have to share today are a few of my pictures from this morning.

And a few that have taken my breath away, lately:
This, from The Blue Hour;
this, from At Upper Pond;
and this, from House on Hill Road.

More tomorrow. Thanks for reading.
tt

Monday Morning

I'm truly overwhelmed by all the things that have to be done.

Have to be done before the end of the school year, before the end of the month, the end of the week.

The end of today.

And,

we keep breaking glass around here.

A brand-new wine glass, broken while I was washing it before putting it away in the cabinet, straight out of the tissue paper from the store. A jelly jar, slipped out of twelve-year-old hands. The glass pot from the coffee-maker we rarely use. Shards of glass mysteriously produced while framing my new photographic print from Heather. A glass bottle full of water, frozen from a too-cold setting, and burst all over the fridge.

It's starting to get to me. Broken glass is an immediate priority, no matter what time of day or night, or what else you are doing. Everything stops, the broom comes out, the vacuum roars, everything must be inspected, and you are still finding little slivers in unlikely places, days later.

You tip-toe around and wear shoes in the house.

It's getting to me.

Don't worry. I'll be ok.

On the bright side of things, the sun is peeking out and Anna is building a fort in the livingroom, and there are only six full days of school left.

And you should see the new photo in my kitchen. Makes me happy every time I walk in there. Wearing shoes.

More tomorrow. Thanks for reading.

tt

In which she finally stops talking, and just shows pictures from a good day

More tomorrow. Thanks for reading.
tt

Photo project::Horizon line

While walking at the sculpture gardens on Sunday, Tim began to see a pattern emerge, and started shooting.
Horizon lines, everywhere. Check out the whole project (in progress), here.

More tomorrow. Thanks for reading.

tt

Friday Happiness + a gratutious self-portrait

I can not get enough of::

Anna's learning the alphabet: I've seen this all before, and yet am always in awe of a human learning something so big, so naturally. I've been trying to learn French and am an idiot. I'm sure Anna could speak several languages by now, if she just had parents who were capable.

Wraps: I am so trying not to gorge myself on bagels and brioche and homemade bread. My most dear friend brought me lunch last weekend at the gallery, and a lightbulb popped on: yes! flatbread, protein, greens! Right on.

The Library: when I'm done checking out movies and novels and cookbooks and kids books, and they hand me the "receipt", I get so embarrassed because with.out.fail. I reach for a pen to sign. Oh, right. Free. Honor system. Got it.

Online photo inspiration: I'm a novice who can not get enough of Flikr, This Joy+Ride, and a million other daily shots of visual adrenaline. I know I am not there, but they show me where I want to go.

Writing real letters: My girls spend hours a week writing to my parents, sequestered for the winter in Florida. Typed letters, hand written letters, pictures drawn, love notes scratched on bits and pieces of paper. For kids raised with computers, they have not lost the art of correspondence. Now, if their mother could just get to the post office...

This weekend: not much planned. Exactly the sort of weekend I like best.

Enjoy your weekend, too. Thanks for reading.

tt

ps: that's me with my new haircut. Hence the self-exposure. Bonjour.

Reading material

The stack of things waiting to be read is growing. The girls and I stopped into The Village Bookstore on Saturday to put out new gallery cards, and, as usual, did not leave empty handed. It is such a fine book shop. To go in there is like visiting with your kindest, most well read relatives.

On my reading list:

1) The book that I'm supposed to have read by Wednesday for book club, although I'm sure we will barely move past election coverage long enough to discuss the book, so that may buy me extra time. I'm really interested in this book but the last few weeks have not been so good for me, reading-wise.

2) The vintage copy of Franny & Zooey that my brother gave me this summer. (I've skimmed through and re-read a few sections, but want to go back and do it right.)

3) The new Julia Glass book, just out and had to be bought in hardcover, because I couldn't wait. Although, that said, I also don't want to start it, because then I will read it, and it will be over, and I will have to wait until she writes another one. I love her writing that much.

4) This new cookbook by Barbara Scott-Goodman which is so cozy, warm and beautiful it makes me look forward to the transition from fall to winter.

I am also in love with the new online issue of This Joy + Ride, for the inspiration and the mesmerizing photographs. I look at all four issues as a meditation on stillness and beauty. It makes me long to take better photographs, so I could capture even a slight sense of the perfection I see in nature.

Hoping to find a little stillness and beauty today. Thanks for reading.

tt