fly by night
December 31, 2008 | Filed Under ordinary | 3 Comments
cheers for the end of this year, the hopes for the next. this year i did very few of the things on my list, not like other list makers who actually do the things they plan to do. but it was a good year, a very good year, full of good things and good people that make my life the beautiful thing that it tends to be.
happy new year to you and yours. thanks so much for coming around to this little place as often as you do.
january
february
march
april
may
june
july
august
september
october
november
december
an out-of-space convertible too, light blue
December 29, 2008 | Filed Under ordinary | 2 Comments
people all around, no place to run, to jump. we step on the porch to breathe in the rain, the slush, the winter post christmas. the boys grow wild, we need a winter walk, boots, mud, the mist of sky to drink for an hour, two, the afternoon.
for the first time in a long time, three years? we were all in the same house. ten grand kids, two wee babes in arms, all small and tireless. my brothers, me, our parents. the people we’ve loved and married. my dad is proud, my mother is cooking a lot. we try not to fall asleep with the kids at nine but we often fail.
board games, the loud guffaw of clayton coming up through the floor, the walls of the house. air mattresses all around, people at your elbows, the noise flows, the coffee flows, the sky rains instead of snows. we are laughing and eating too many cookies, the glitter on the tree blinks its galaxy in the corner, it’s lazy and sleepy and good.
more fabulous photos by my husband can be seen here.
open windows
December 20, 2008 | Filed Under extraordinary | 1 Comment
tonight, December, you are more like a summer night, the cool kind, balmy and blue, the sky smoke and chrysanthemums beyond the cityscape horizon. December the Middle, you are more like your distant brothers, the brother the End of May, the brother the First of June, you are more like these, brothers with golden hair, bare feet, laughter of water, green eyes that wink and twinkle. yes, today, tonight you are more like these, the sound of a cicada almost chirruping all around, over in the tree, under in the grass, than you are like December.
and there she is, Christmas, dressed in her ruby velvet with tights and ruffly underpinnings, her hair curled and anticipating, her eyes glitter and dance because she always kisses those she finds under the mistletoe. Christmas, a few more days and you will twirl across the floor and the day will be suspended and long, sleepy and laughing and full of jelly, cherries, that wreath encircling.
December, we ran in the dead leaves of you today, we dug in the soft earth of you today, we watched the bluest of blue skies of you today, the sweet wind in gusts and swirls around us today, a gift.
hansel & hansel (he’s so hot now)
December 18, 2008 | Filed Under familial | Leave a Comment
hooray for a few more days of insanity that will fling us boots first into vacation slow motion mode!
the last few orders for christmas are nearly ready to launch, the house smells like a cookie, a giant sugary cookie, the boys are high on candy from frequent nibbling on their not-gingerbread houses (about which i’m trying not to be too witchy about, it’s hard, though, very hard, especially when i’m running on coffee and cookies myself, sleep deprived, glue and paper shreds stuck to the bottoms of my forearms). i’m thinking in colors of christmas, golden and snow, the blur of large family hubub to come. the christmas tree makes me happy, simply, especially the weird way the ornaments are hung and rehung in clumps and random solitude. jude’s rudolph, henry’s goateed santa, the nest of wired gold garland jude globbed together and hung on a low branch under lights, the animals annie made, the one legged, still smiling santa, ornaments with ernie’s name that are dated “1986″ and “1990″, handmade gifts from his mother so we wouldn’t be ornamentless our first christmas, the wondrous tree stand josh made for us (though it was intended for the show but ended up being too small, sorry josh, you know i really am).
it’s warm outside today, yesterday. jude in short sleeves, the earth under the swing sprouting something green. i hope for snow after we drive, hoping for the blue glitter of it, boys with soggy mittens and red noses making angels, balls, people. it’s been a long time since i’ve been in the snow, and when i was my feet were cold and i complained.
kiss the checkout girls goodbye
December 12, 2008 | Filed Under royal buffet | 1 Comment
just a little reminder that today is the last day to place orders at royal buffet before i take a much needed month long holiday!
especially green and yellow
December 11, 2008 | Filed Under ordinary | 1 Comment
rosa, who finds it easy to sew, does a great thing with patterns, no? if only my living room patterns had the same outcome…
good
christmas villages
christmas secrets
loud purrs from the cat
when there’s nothing on tv
kelly green corderoy
noel deshano, now on facebook
awesome ways to wrap things up
phrases like “the cat’s pajamas”
searching in the rain for that address gotten on craigslist
the yard, a puddle
marc johns and his moustaches (brilliant in every way!) and these eyepatches! wondrous in every way!
drawings of monsters with scratchy red markers
brain waves
dreams about snow
not so good
getting out from under the covers to sit on a cold chair and work
the need to clean the fridge and that jello smell that drifts out (they should make self cleaning refrigerators, really, now)
sick kids
crackers in the bed
long drives with no ipod
sipping ernie’s sweetened coffee by accident
grocery stores on rainy days (the stench, the mud streaks on the floors at the entrance, hot)
that baby talk voice that six year old boys love to use all the day long
meet Royal
December 9, 2008 | Filed Under ordinary | 6 Comments
because sickness abounded ernie stayed home with the kids for the opening of the show so he didn’t get any pics of the royal fans adoring our paper goods. instead, he went by the afternoon of and took some pics for us. hooray! more detailed photos and more of the same gloriousness can be seen here. remember, the show will still be up this weekend and the next, so if you didn’t get a chance to come to the opening, there’s still time.
jude is feeling better, tearing up the house and then stopping to sit and look at the christmas tree. he fell asleep in the living room last night, wadded up in a blanket, hypnotized by the slightly frantic flicker of the lights. we made a tree yesterday, henry and i, stuck it in the awesome tree stand that josh made for me, while jude watched us from the chair, still feeling tired and weary. after the ornaments were hung the tree started to bend forward, so i think i need to start over without little helpers. lola does not pull the tree down, she points at it and makes noises that sound adoring. when jude was a one year old he touched the tree once and never did again because it was the prickliest tree that ever burst through the ground, the snow. i decorated with gloves that year. when henry was one we didn’t have a tree. i picked branches from the back trees when the landlord was not home and ran into the house with them in a hurry. he probably wouldn’t have cared, but i hate asking those kinds of things. i hate asking things in general, like “how much is this?” at a yard sale. i don’t know why i feel this way.
it’s rainy and dismal here today. i want to send the boys outside for a good run through the yard but they will complain about the cold and the wet and the muddy mess may not be worth the fifteen minutes of quiet within, ruckus without. if i go out with them they will stay longer. they only want my company for things like that, it seems. it must be because i can swing them high and fast.
seeing a shadow touch a shadow’s hand
December 4, 2008 | Filed Under familial, royal buffet | 3 Comments
okay, so my days have been short and full and my poor little blog is sad to be forgotten so. i think about writing when i’m eating whipped cream on toaster waffles or pulling warm socks from the dryer and putting my feet down into them, little wonderful things that remind me to write.
we’ve been busy making things for the show, hanging the show, obsessing about the show, and this kind of thing. in the midst of that i’ve had a mountain (beautiful mountain, austrian hills-are-alive kind of mountain) of royal orders to make and wrap and ship. then came a quick trip to the farm for thanksgiving and a most wretched (MOST!) bout of the flu that literally made me cry and whimper to myself for a few dark hours in the night. lola is nearly done with it, jude, too. henry and ernie have yet to whimper and have been doing all of the things a sick and very busy mama has just stopped doing. well, maybe not all of the things, but the important ones. i came home tonight to ernie hosting a weird noise contest in the living room. this, i love. i also love that jude, after being sick and parked in front of the tv for too long said, “i’m tired of watching tv, i’m a dummy!” it’s good to know that we have taught him something useful and good.
the show opens tomorrow at art & light on pendleton street in greenville. yay! the first fridays bash starts at 5, so be there under the festoons to admire our moose taxidermy and other very delicious holiday fare, or be sad that you didn’t come, the choice is yours. directions can be had here.