collections
October 31, 2008 | Filed Under lists | 3 Comments
slightly aged photo as we’re still installing and whatnot on this computer…. you may have seen it on flickr….
sweet
babies in pajamas
hidden stash of m&ms
finishing books and looking for new
avril loretti’s moustaches (i’ve been longing for moustachiod dinner napkins for some time now)
weather that permits
leaving the house
staying home
stacks of packages for the post
anticipation of greatness
boys at play
perfect homemade pizza dough
gigantic bags of fantasticness from the by-the-pound goodwill
new hoodies for boys
sour
taking nearly a week to catch up on the always growing piles of dishes. and laundry.
fishing things from lola’s mouth. lots of things.
dry hands (horrible, this)
accidentally falling asleep with the baby and waking up, still in jeans, belt, lights blazing, at three a.m.
running out of coffee and forgetting that i did
the anticipating of grocery shopping
up, running
October 29, 2008 | Filed Under familial, royal buffet | 4 Comments
ernie has fixed my computer. i can barely see the screen, though, because as i’ve had nearly a week without sitting at my desk the surface of the desk is covered in things. all kinds of things. i don’t even know where to begin. i am very bad about keeping my desk tidy, but i don’t know that it’s ever been this terrible. i’m actually almost surprised that ernie even attempted to find the computer underneath the mess, that he didn’t ask me if i would please clean the thing off before he set to work. i spent a sorry twenty mintues searching my desk and the surrounding area for a hole punch that i found in its place. yes, i am that much of a slob.
i’ve been spending a lot of time making these wreaths this week. i love the idea of them being hung in places across the country, over the ocean, fluttering on the doors of other houses. yay!
“we had a great day today!” henry said at dinner. and so we did. ernie hung swings in the pecan trees over the weekend. the boys have a disc swing that swings high and wide, feet into the tops of an evergreen, hands over heads gripping the rope, feet in the air, hair in the air, smiles and shrieks, the kind of glory that comes to your stomach on the downward swoop and again on the sudden rise. lola’s swing is more subdued, swings in a boomerang direction, the branch, the physics of it (?) making for a lopsided swing that she doesn’t notice or care about. swings hung for the dreary winter, this is how it is done, take note.
aw, snap! only three hours left!
October 23, 2008 | Filed Under inspired | Leave a Comment
i’ve been hoping to sneak away to this far corner attic computer all day and tell everyone about the latest t-shirt from chris that’s only for sale for a mere twenty four hours. it’s only nine dollars! buy one! buy two! i can’t wait to wear mine and if you order one you, too, will be able to say that you cannot wait to wear yours. do it! three hours, a few minutes, GO!
ailment
October 20, 2008 | Filed Under ordinary | Leave a Comment
my computer is refusing to visit with me these days and ernie is looking into the problem. it’s probably for the best since i have so many royal orders to make and wrap and send. so the blog may be fairly quiet and will have no pictures of mine until the computer is fixed. she’s an old girl, you know. it’s time.
meanwhile, when i do get a chance to post, i’m going to leave a few hel-looks favorites here. johanna, this is her. proof that one can look fantastic with found articles of clothing, no?
think the minuet in G
October 15, 2008 | Filed Under inspired, ordinary, royal buffet | 4 Comments
magnolia leaves are gold on the sidewalk today, only a few, shining and golden-brown. we took a few home, the traffic scary and fast to the right, the leaves in the grass to the left.
ernie was gone to new york this weekend, four days, long, longer. he went to an opera, other places that give a little thrill, brothers with him. as much as i don’t want to wish away the childhoods of my children that are yet babes, i do feel a little bit of envy somewhere in my heart. one day.
royal buffet is getting lots of love these days. hooray! thank you so much for all of your kind words, for supporting the shop, and for the well-wishing. i am always surprised and inspired by royal adoration of any kind. thank you.
i just added this lady & gentleman mobile to the shop. i made one for my mother-in-law for her birthday last week and must make more!
year the first
October 10, 2008 | Filed Under ordinary | 7 Comments
we celebrated lola and the one year anniversary of her birth yesterday. my darling husband did not fall asleep at 9:30 (?!) as i did, so he has updated his blog with party festivities and the like.
the year, fast. remember when she was born? in some ways we do not remember life before her, but mostly we have watched her days blow by and cannot believe we are here, at a year, crawling, laughing, glowing, making the day brighter.
my grandma used to tell me that when i left the house, for school or wherever, that everything was different, sad, that it was “like a light had gone out in the house.” i feel this way about lola, although she never leaves the house without me, as yet, that she is like a light that moves across the room, the glitter in her eyes sparking a fire wherever she is.
happy birthday, lovely girl. we enjoy you more than words could ever tell. thank you for this wonderful first year of yours. we wish for you eyes that see beauty, hands that work kindness, and for God’s mercy and love to be real to you.
keeping the doctor away
October 3, 2008 | Filed Under familial | 6 Comments
we went on an adventure to north carolina yesterday. the plan was for the orchard but it’s right there, neighbors with carl himself, so we had to stop and say hello, didn’t we? i bought so many apples that i am seriously unsure of what i’m going to do with them. no one in the house likes cooked fruit but yours truly, and lola, of course, (is it because we’re girl and have a natural inclination towards desserts?), and i just can’t justify eating whole apple crisps and pies by myself, can i?
we did experience a terrible tragedy: i left jude’s wonderful appliqued jacket on the mountaintop. when i called, the girl i talked to did not speak english as well as one would like when one is explaining the whereabouts of a beloved jacket lost on a mountain among the vinegar smell of the fallen apples. i would go myself to look, but the orchard is well nigh an hour away by car, which i do not have today, so we have to try to go and look tomorrow, if we want to look at all, which i do, but am not so sure everyone else wants to do. i hate it that i develop an attachment to things, certain things, like that vintage golden eyeglass case that i dropped and lost at a movie theater, the blue glass ball that i dropped on the floor and watched as it shattered in the sunlight. but, i do find myself attached to thing on occasion and this jacket is one of those things. sadness.
there is a buckeye tree at the sandburg home, the boys filling their pockets, me filling the bowl for the table at home. jude’s jacket pockets were full of luck, as they say you have when you have a buckeye down inside. a lucky jacket, lost. even sadder.
more sandburg sky photos can be seen here.
update: the jacket is found! thanks much to julie who trekked up to the orchard and picked it up for us while she was there! hooray!
fame, fortune
October 1, 2008 | Filed Under royal buffet | 1 Comment
the sun, the winking gleam of her, glory in the morning, dressed for the day in that old yellow thing she’s worn for years, for every morning since the first morning, she tosses wings and feathers of light through the windows, the doors, across the grass, the mums on the front steps, the spiderweb between the house and the fence. as much as i love the velvet night, i love the morning more. not too long ago we drove ernie to work, back when he needed driving to work, and the boys would shout for us to give attention to the streaks of leftover sunrise. “it’s God’s Glory!” they would say, “it’s beautiful,” we would say. the earth, full of it.
annie and i are famous now, photographed (although we’re ever-so-sad at the gargantuan-ness of our motherly figures) and talked about in this month’s greenville skirt. thanks, laura! it’s a little alarming to turn pages and see ourselves there. i can only hope (and, of course, work!) that royal buffet will be able to get all of the royal goodness made for the december show (a little promotion i wrote for that here…). panic has not yet set in. soon enough.