lemonades
June 30, 2010 | Filed Under ordinary | 1 Comment
it’s color week at poppytalk. i missed the first two days, so they’re here together: pink and yellow. when i miss things like this, miss starting at the very beginning, i have a bad habit of just throwing out the whole project. i think it goes along with only being able to turn a new leaf on a monday. is it pride? am i too proud to admit that i failed at something, so i just don’t even admit that i started to do it in the first place? proud and lazy, hand in hand, a thing too sad for pink and yellow lemonade photographs.
polka dot bed
June 29, 2010 | Filed Under ordinary | Leave a Comment
lola has new sheets to go on her new bed. it’s summer so the fans blow swirling hard around her when she’s sleeping on her sheets. when she’s jumping on her sheets her hair flies in golden streamers around her head. when she’s reading on the sheets her books and dolls are in a mess all around her. she calls them her “polka dot bed” and she’s proud and happy. a simple thing to love.
homely
June 28, 2010 | Filed Under lists, ordinary | 3 Comments
several weeks ago i signed up for the pin it forward project sfgirlbybay started on her blog. a few days later i went to my mom’s house for a long visit and started pinning things as i sipped coffee at the feet of her giant computer.
i love having the little pin it button in my bookmarks bar. it’s faster than saving things to random design folders on my computer, and i like it that when pinning things you can remember where you found the photo in the first place. pinterest, i highly recommend it, especially as a great filing system for ideas.
the first pin it forward is on the theme of what home means to me. since i’m a list maker, i’m writing mine as a list. and i’m also only posting my own photos here. but the other contributors today are spinning theirs as they like. you can check them out for yourself : artyowza, pretty and yummy, fringe, good good, shutterbean, that wondrous time, approprie, 3cf, and type a girl are the other pinners today.
you can see my twenty seven pins on home here. you can see my entire paltry collection of pins here. you can request an invitation to participate in pinterest here or ask me for an invite. i’ve got nine left after all.
home, to me
people i love the most
dog i love the most
creative messes
coffee all day
lived-in bed
food
an always-in-use kitchen
fiestaware in many colors
always looking for somebody’s shoes
always looking for my glasses
Jesus and faith
art by friends
garlands and mobiles under construction
music and music making
books everywhere
thrifted or inherited things that are old
kids in costume
windows
trees
cameras of all kinds
games, all sorts
lakes that hold our moons
June 27, 2010 | Filed Under ordinary | 5 Comments
summer, hot on my shoulders, the backs of my knees. in the morning i think i should get into the garden early, pull out weeds, send water in puddles at the roots. but it is never earlier than the sun, never early enough, always hotter than i think it will be. lola digs little holes with the trowel. the boys use the wheelbarrow for everything that it’s not meant to be used. the garden is a dusty place and i feel a little tug of sadness when i go into it. we had such plans, you and me, and look at us now.
june, the bride of summer, sweeping across the grass white and new, july and august beside her, flowers in circles in their hair. i’m a little sad when she swings away for the year.
in the summer we take off the heavy blankets, the heavy clothes. the wading pool is always full. in the shade we imagine the air curling around us in a coil of cool and then disappearing behind the heat of the day. the air conditioner bellows and blows and every june i thank the inventor of it and wonder about the people before electric cold, the sandaled feet of disciples under sun and dust, the girls in the prairie with golden faces looking to the sky, men and boys in fields, factories, women giving birth under the merciless faceless sun, thousands of meals cooked in and over fire for thousands of mouths to eat. we, the people of today, fat and white and weak, but cold, cold when we don’t want to be hot. a hundred years and more tucked away for the invention of cold.
but once a year
June 26, 2010 | Filed Under lists | 2 Comments
this is a pic from a birthday party i went to this week. more pics, including delicious food pics, here.
*birthday possibilities* (in a little less than one month)
an sx-70, maybe the tidy and compact kind, and packs of the pricey film so that i’m ready and raring to go
books on this list (many little wishes)
horse hook or boot hook for hanging something or other
saltwater sandals in that original deep ocean navy blue
*birthday sureties*
a long date with ernie and indian food that i didn’t make
red velvet cupcakes
handmade cards
bike tires pumped and ready to spin
lonesome
June 25, 2010 | Filed Under ordinary | 3 Comments
i took this pic in illinois (as if that flat field didn’t give it away). we were at b’s drive-in after a long fling with my favorite childhood park. i had a huge ice cream. it was completely gigantic and there was caramel on it and it made me a little sick. while we were there this man came out of the jingling door and got into his truck by himself and ate his ice cream. i don’t think i’ve ever gone to an ice cream store and gotten ice cream by myself to walk away by myself and eat by myself. maybe i’m not old enough to do that yet. or maybe i’m just co-dependant when it comes to eating gigantic ice creams. remember the summer ernie and i got ice cream every night from hannam’s dairy dream? maybe not every night. most nights. it got to a point where i didn’t even have to send him to get it anymore, he would just get in the car and drive over and the tan summer girls with ponytails and white shorts would give him the goods.
you + me forever
June 24, 2010 | Filed Under inspired, ordinary | 3 Comments
old playground equipment, i just love the stuff. it reminds me of being free and having long hair and being made fun of for always being dirty in the summer. it’s not plastic, it’s wood and metal and you can get burns and splinters. the walls on the slides aren’t high. the swings are hung with chains that make your hands smell like oiled metal. this is a barrel that you stand in with your friends and walk in the same direction together and scream for awhile as you whirl the thing about. kids carve bad words and love promises in the planks of it. it was a shady place to sit in a U while you caught your breath and let the sunny place on the top of your head cool off for a minute until you ran off again.
i started a flickr set of my own to remember these things but i also found this old playground furniture pool. what a great elephant slide!
one slow hot summer
June 23, 2010 | Filed Under extraordinary, inspired | 2 Comments
white butterflies, small and fast, in the garden, on the lantana in the front. jude tries to catch them with a shout and a pinching finger like ernie does but hasn’t gotten any yet. we can pin them like butterflies and beetles in a museum, he says and i see the hallway walls lined with white butterflies, ceiling to floor, their wings unfolded forever under the glass.
later in the day, after the early dinner, after we’ve decided that it looks like rain so we’d better eat inside instead of across the grass and under the trees, after my hands smell of limes and the kids drink chocolate milk, after these it does rain, the sky is black and lola runs into the house for the thunder. the dog comes in, they all come in and pull the wet grass from their legs. rain, thunder, a puddle in the grass, water in streams like mercy from the sky.
a pendulum
June 22, 2010 | Filed Under lists, ordinary | 2 Comments
things you could be doing
watching this good short film, a moment is (via hulaseventy). you could watch it a couple of times and then you could have ice cream, or make ice cream.
pinning stuff on pinterest. it’s a good little scrapbook of amazements on there.
spend a dollar on saving up some memories (via enhabiten). my mind is a little blown by this. what a supreme idea.
read the reverend’s blog. i’ve told you to do this before, will i need to say it again? it’s thoughtful and real and not a long and exhausting and preachy thing.
look at these pics of the impossibly cool people in the world and feel a little bad about how uncool you yourself really are.
if you’re the tattoo getting kind, maybe get some of these little tattoos.
also:
make lemonade with real lemons.
find someone with a swimming pool and take them cookies so that you can float the afternoon away.
cook some thai food and eat it for two days.
find some swings and swing high.
go to the bookstore and read all of those overpriced kids picture books to the kids until they can’t take it anymore. get coffee after the not taking it anymore part.
use sparklers for any old reason, any old reason at all.
bbs
June 21, 2010 | Filed Under familial, ordinary | 1 Comment
i’m not a big party goer. we have kids, we party with them, or we tuck their little heads in bed and have little parties of two. if you don’t have kids you’ll understand this if you ever do have kids. it could be that we aren’t all that interesting when at parties, that we are now tired and dull and probably a little nerdy. but i also think that the kidless people don’t always know what to do with kids, that their houses are usually not prepared for the energy and obliviousness of kids, so after you have kids (in addition to becoming tired and dull and nerdy) you may gradually stop getting invited to parties until all of your friends become tired, dull nerds and also have energetic and oblivious kids of their own. it’s understandable and i’ve not shed any tears over it, so an influx of party invitations are not necessary, just so you know.
we recently went to a party for an old friend. we took the kids. there were cowboy costumes and bb guns, why not? we had a big time and ate chocolate cake. the kids came home and convinced ernie to give them bb guns for their birthdays. every day since the party they ask if the bb guns will come in mail. we haven’t ordered them yet and they still ask. soon. i am a little anxious (possibly a side effect of my dull nerdiness) about having them as there was a little incident involving cory getting shot in the chest (!) by an oblivious kid of mine that i didn’t hear about until the next day. but ernie says it will be fine, it will be great, that i will see, that going to a party with the kids even though we rarely go to parties isn’t going to lead to any shooting out of eyes or the shooting of neighborly cats and squirrels.
