It begins

So here I am, on the last night of NaBloPoMo, having made it to the end, and I want to thank you all for being here with me! It makes it much easier when readers are so supportive!

Tonight we are cuddled down on a cold evening, cozy with favorite tunes on the stereo, awaiting the first day of the advent calendar. This year, I feel prepared and at peace, because we have all the supplies purchased and on hand, ready to go for each day. I'm thankful for that! We've done a lot of cleaning and sorting through things over the last week, so I don't feel like I'm decorating a messy house. And I am dreaming about some new decorating ideas ... I love the possibilities.

I am looking forward to a peaceful, hopeful, blessed advent. And I'm wishing you the same!

(And though NaBloPoMo for me has ended, I still plan to be here most days, having started a habit!)

Being present this advent

I stayed home from church today with a vomity baby. As I was giving her the first of several baths, and she played quite happily in the warm water, I wondered to myself when it is that we seem to outgrow our ability to live in the moment? It seems like it's something that most adults struggle with, but young children don't struggle with it at all. My baby felt crummy, she'd just vomited in her bed and her hair, but she was happy in that moment in the bath.

I've been conscious of this for a long time -- I started working with mindfulness more than four years ago now -- but I wonder if I've gotten any better. My mind wanders -- sometimes in a "good" way, a way that I approve of, that doesn't distract me from the moment (but still wandering), and sometimes in such an "aggressive" way that I am completely removed from the present. I just wonder. When does this shift occur?

Anyway, I'm working this advent on being more fully present (because I can always improve -- the exercise never seems to get dull). Today we began a little bit of decorating. In a beautiful family moment, the strains of the song "Peace on Earth (Silent Night)" (it was that version, but I love the original, too) came on at the very moment my husband lifted the lid on the box with our nativity stable in it. Elisabeth and James were crowded around, and it already seemed like the perfect moment, and then James said, so excitedly, "The thankstivity!" That has to be one of my favorite advent moments, ever.

And I have a PDF to share with you of what we're doing this year with our advent calendar! You can find it here. This will hopefully help to see how it can be broken down into something simple, rather than getting overwhelmed by all the different options of things to do and give (you can see my previous extensive list here). I'm sure you may have questions for me when you look it over, and please ask in the comments! I'll respond there, too, so that everyone can see the answers. (Quickly, on day 20 it says "make fanky", and I'm sure you'll wonder what "fanky" is. It's a fried cookie from my mother-in-law's Czech heritage, almost exactly like Polish chrusciki.)

I hope that seeing the way I plan our activities is helpful to you, and gives you some ideas about where to start when planning your own family's seasonal observance. Remember to keep it simple -- in the end, you and your children will be much happier that way. Have fun!

The list is being made (finally)

A peek at our advent calendar list. I finally got around to making up the list today. Fortunately, we have very little to actually purchase for it, so it doesn't really matter too much that I'm late.

I was thinking, after I have it typed up (because I so have to make it "official", of course), I would make it into a PDF for you so you could get an idea of how I organize it and the kinds of things we actually do (given the overwhelming nature of my long, long list of ideas). Would that be helpful?

Happy, cozy, and stuffed

The food was delicious. My pie was just as I had hoped. There was a new game to be played. Christmas lights twinkled merrily on our way home. All is as it should be.

(And now I am going to collapse into bed along with the rest of my family. Night-night!)

Sisters, secret santa, and cheese extraordinaire

My sister has an across-the-street neighbor who seems to get a delivery from UPS about every day. A few months ago, I was at her house, observing this phenomenon, and we were both wishing that we had more UPS visits. I came up with the idea of sending one another occasional surprise "presents" to be delivered. We've been doing it ever since.

We have some rules: You can't spill the beans, or even hint, that something is on its way. You can't ask, or even hint, for something specific to be sent to you. We don't have a dollar limit, though we never spend very much -- the point is the surprise of a delivery, afterall. (We both have Amazon Prime, so shipping is mostly free. I know, I know, "the man" and everything. But that's how it is, sometimes.)

We call it "secret santa". Even though it's not strictly a "secret santa" exchange -- afterall, we both know, when something arrives, who sent it. And it has no timeline. But it is a way to brighten the day of a sister.

Today I received a secret santa package. It was the most fantastic form of secret santa surprise: a blend of 80's fabulousness, nostalgia, and, well....

Harry Belafonte.

I remember the day my mom picked up three cassette tapes in this Hallmark Christmas music series at the Hallmark store in the local shopping mall (which has long since vanished in the way of many shopping malls -- first with empty halls, then slipping into disrepair, its decrepit remains finally demolished in the last decade, slipping into memory).

Those three cassettes were the soundtrack of our family's Christmas preparation and celebration. We decorated on the Sunday before Christmas every year. It was my job to hang a display of all the Christmas cards received, using that chewing-gum poster tack, around the wooden archway in our 1916 Craftsman bungalow, while the banisters and window frames were decked with (real) evergreen garland, and our funny, tiny (artificial) Christmas tree was decorated.

Today as I slipped this CD in and sat back to knit while my children danced like crazy to Mary's Little Boy Child, We'll Sing You a Christmastime, and Jennifer Warnes's quirky rendition of God Rest Ye Merry Gentelmen, I floated off on the best kind of nostalgia.

Thank you, secret santa.

xoxox

Thinking ahead

mini stockings, knit about 4 years ago!

I hardly feel ready for Advent and Christmas. My mind is still on those Martinmas sweaters! But today I was looking through the December issue of Martha and thinking ahead a bit to what I hope this December will look like in our home. I'd like to create (and maybe buy, too) some new, special decorations. (We haven't gotten any new decorations, besides ornaments, since before having kids. Yikes.) I'd like to try some new-to-us baking and cooking projects. I'd like to find some new holiday tunes (suggestions? we have tons, but it's all kind of old -- we need to freshen it up!). I'd like to keep the house in order so that we can spontaneously invite friends over for drinks or crafting or play. I also liked this idea and may try to incorporate something like it into our celebration.

With those thoughts in mind, I'm beginning to look ahead to the basic outline of our December days, and how our Advent traditions can be used to foster the kind of season I hope to create for my family. I try to parent and live intentionally, and I think the way we choose to celebrate can be a very concrete place to work with this intention. This time of year is, for me, a good time to take stock in the choices I make on a daily and seasonal basis, and the gifts that I hope to give my children, beyond what they'll find in their stockings on Christmas morning.

Our Advent calendar tradition was born out of this desire, to spread out the season, to keep things from becoming overwhelming, overstimulating, and overdone. I have links today to point you in the direction of my Advent posts (still my most frequently searched posts, for better or worse!).

As I said last year, I hope that you all receive these posts in the spirit that I offered them -- as a help for simplifying the holiday season by drawing it out. By not allowing it to get out of control with doing and buying too much, but paring it down to the essentials, the things that make this time of year really special for you and your family. Please don't take my suggestions as yet another thing to pile onto an already overfull month. The last thing I would want is for you to be burdoned with guilt about needing to add a complicated new tradition to your life. But if it helps you to have some structure, and gives your family a joyful way to celebrate, then I hope my suggestions are helpful to you.

So, for your searching convenience, here are the links!

Celebrating Advent :: Part 1 Ideas for the Advent calendar -- what and why.

Celebrating Advent :: Part 2 Huge compilation of ideas for what to put into the Advent calendar.

{I'd love to hear your suggestions for celebrating Advent, making the season special to your family, and also please share the links to favorite decorations and tunes!}

On this Martinmas

On this Martinmas, I'm wishing you blessings and light, and that a spark of the spirit of generosity, and fortitude as we face these cold months ahead, will be kindled in all of your hearts.

xo,
Grace

Trick-or-treat!

Thank you for your sweet comments about our wild cat costumes! They were fun to make and much more fun to wear, I think!

Today, I have two more Halloween sewing projects to share with you. I have made each of my children's trick-or-treat bags, and this year I made one for Fiona and one for my little niece, as well.

Fiona's -- so perfect with the happy little kitties! I love the fact that the jack o' lanterns are sitting on steps with leaves falling, too.

My niece's -- my sister chose this fabric from my stash (blue is my sister's favorite color)

The ghosts have little sparkles on them!

The bags measure about 10" wide by 11" high (not inlcuding the straps). (They are all the same size -- I don't know why James's, in the center, looks so much smaller in this picture.) When I made Elisabeth's (on the left), she was 18 months old and it was an easy size bag for her to carry. The added benefit was that it didn't hold too much candy (at least, that's what I thought). However, I've since discovered that these bags actually hold a deceptively large amount of candy and I wouldn't want anything bigger than these at all! (They might hold up to three pounds or so -- luckily we've never filled them up beyond about halfway, but also believe me that we have more candy in this house right now than any of us know what to do with!)

I have quite an array of Halloween fabric because I usually pick up a half-yard when I see some I like -- I always figure that there will be more trick-or-treat bags to make, if not for my own kids, then for someone. It was nice that I had everything on hand to make the two bags this year, because I ended up whipping them up at the last minute. (Hmm. No surprises there, I guess.)

Anyway, these are a quick little project, but sometimes quick projects are the best kind, don't you think?

Wild cats

So, I realized this week that I have made 16 Halloween costumes in the 8 1/2 years I've been a mother. I can rattle them off in chronological order for anyone who's interested. (I'm fairly impressed with this feat.)

True to form, Elisabeth decided what she was going to be (a cheetah -- don't let those pointy ears deceive you into thinking she's a leopard -- that was purely my oversight in following the pattern rather than looking at an actual picture of a cheetah -- which led to some very real disappointment, but I was impressed by the maturity and positive attitude my very high-intensity daughter showed despite this tragedy), and her siblings obliged her theme concept. (Well, Fiona didn't have any input into the decision.) I guess someday, someone will decide that they don't want to do the whole matchy-matchy thing, but for now we're really enjoying it. (My siblings and I did theme costumes several times and those are the years that stand out the most in terms of costumes. So, it's worth it, I think.)

So, to go with Elisabeth the Cheetah were James the Nice Lion and Fiona the little Tiger. Oh, they had so much fun rolling around in the leaves in their costumes. We have some new neighbors up the street, and when we trick-or-treated at their house, they commented on how joyful it was to see our three wild cats rolling around and frolicking out front.

Fiona was especially excited about her costume in a way neither of my other two were at one-and-a-half. Her costume was ready last, so she had already seen Elisabeth and James playing around in theirs for a day or two. When I finally tried it on her, I wasn't sure what she would think of it. But she was so excited, and so obviously aware of the purpose of a costume. She immediately started prancing around. It was so cute! She was a lot of fun trick-or-treating, too. She was so excited to point at all the other costumes we saw, skipping along in a funny little way. She had a great time, which was such fun for everyone.

The cheetah and lion costumes were made using McCall's 6106 (also labeled MP373 or 8953), although I used the yarn mane shown on the pattern for Fiona's costume, which was Simplicity 3594. (For the tiger, I made the lion costume, view C, but omitted the mane and added pointed ears instead of rounded.) For the lion and tiger, I used fleece as the main fabric, and for the cheetah, I used a light-weight faux fur. I saw some cheetah-print fleece a week or two after I bought the fur, and I do kind of wish I'd used it instead (it's a softer, warmer costume, and easier to sew), but the fur worked out just fine.

Like so many crafters, a lot of my sewing skills were learned and then polished on Halloween costumes. In fact, I used to only sew once a year. But many of our costumes have been made from commercial patterns, and I have to say that I find that to be a good way to learn how to sew -- even the easier ones use skills like undersewing and stay-stitching. I think I'm a better sewer because I've used a lot of commercial patterns than I would be if I had only used more casual ones (not that there is anything wrong with the patterns and tutorials online!).

Another thing I realized when making these three costumes this week was how much I love sewing garments. They are like a puzzle, so fascinating to assemble and see come together. I need to remember how much I love this, and do more of it! There is a satisfaction for me in garment sewing that just doesn't seem to be there in other kinds of sewing, but I often forget that.

I think I'm going to set a little (hopefully attainable) sewing goal for myself in the new year, to sew more garments. I do well with some structure, but I don't want to create a lot of deadlines, either. Anyway, it's something to mull over during the next two (hectic) months.

In the meantime, I'll just smile as these cat costumes are pulled out day after day for lots of play. It makes me so happy.

PS: You can go over to My Sewing Circle to read more of my comments about the patterns. And don't be shy about leaving comments! It is so motivating for me to get through every single day of NaBloPoMo if you are all joining in the conversation! (Plus, I know that lots of you are stopping by -- please say hi!)

Pumpkins!

{Elisabeth's design and work}

{Also by Elisabeth}

It should come as no surprise, really, that I would be sentimental about something little like carving pumpkins. And I am.

Pumpkin carving was a favorite ritual of my family's growing up. My parents did a beautiful job of celebrating holidays in a very child-oriented way, and we all took great delight in decorating. There were a couple of years missed during college, but by the time I graduated, I was married, and I took a job as a bank teller (my degree was in music performance!) while my husband went back to school. It was at this job that I met my friend Rebecca, and we formed a work friendship. That fall, there was a mandatory pumpkin carving contest at our branch, and she and I collaborated on the pumpkins for the teller team. I remember ordering my Martha by Mail pumpkin carving kit with glee (it has served us so well every year since then), and we had a dinner of pasta, bread, and salad -- a tradition firmly set now.

That was ten years ago, and the beginning of what has been a never-missed tradition -- and a friendship that has been one of the most important in my life. So even though carving pumpkins is a small thing, a thing that most people do at some point and in some way each year, for me, it marks the beginning of this friendship. (I wrote about this last year, too. But with it being our 10-year anniversary, well, I just wanted to share more thoughts on it this year.)

This year, we started much earlier in the day than usual (we try to do it as close to Halloween as possible, so it's normally a week night), and James joined in the fun for the first time. He was so exuberant and so prepared! He dove right in with scraping his pumpkin, drawing its face (he knew just what he wanted), and even handling the chunky, child-sized serrated pumpkin knife on his own. I was across the kitchen preparing dinner, and before I knew it, he had finished carving his own pumpkin. What a joy! Here are more pictures of his process:

Tomorrow I'll be back with costumes! And I've decided to do NaBloPoMo again this year, so you'll be hearing a lot from me in this space once again!

July 4, a tale in photos

{a dinner of fried chicken -- secret ingredient: baking powder!, corn & radish salad, potato & herb salad, watermelon, soda in bottles, beer, my grandmother's cherry pie, and my best scratch brownies}

 

{rain, rain, rain!} 

{sparkling} 

{in the driveway after dark}

Not pictured: over-excited children taking breaks in the afternoon, best friends, laughs, municipal firework show in the rain.

There may be nothing better than celebrating our fortune, gratitude, and ... summer. Hoping that those of you who celebrated this weekend were as blessed as we were.

(Tomorrow the cast comes off and then we'll be camping for a few days!)

A Little Celebrating

We have a tradition in our family of celebrating Midsummer Night. Tradition holds that if you prepare a party for the fairies on this night, they will leave a small gift in return. (I've written about this one other time.)

Elisabeth and James happily prepared a tea party, complete with tiny pieces of cake (left over from Father's Day the day before) and fruit.

They awoke early the next morning to find the tea party devoured, a ring of rose petals in its place, and some small gifts, all covered with a smattering of fairy dust (superfine glitter is great for this!)

What fun it is to see their excitement as we celebrate these treasured traditions. And what a nice respite these things are in the chaos of our current situation! (Less than two weeks to go....)

PS: The book is Mudpies and Other Recipes by Marjorie Winslow, and I've had it set aside for almost 8 years, waiting for a time when Elisabeth would be a fluent reader and be able to use the book on her own. I never felt like my reading it with her was quite right.

Mother's Day, and a sewing challenge

tulips from our yard -- these were for my kids' grandmothers, but let's pretend they're for you!

Hoping that all you fantastic mamas out there had a fantastic, beautiful day yesterday; that your family loved you even more than usual; that your burden was light, if just for one day.

I'm a very fortunate mama. I was awakened (bright and early, as always on a Sunday morning ... we leave for church by 8:15) with kisses and cards and gifts and a breakfast of bacon and eggs. After a perfect day, including Mexican food and margaritas, new sunglasses, and a nap, we paid visits to the two grandmothers, and I finished the day with some fantasy yarn shopping, tea, and a movie on the couch. Such a sweet, sweet day.

In other "news"....

I'm going to try to participate in Meg's Kids' Clothes Week Challenge this week. I need to get back into the sewing groove, and I've had a few projects sitting around in semi-finished states for a while now. I don't know how well it's going to go because Fiona is in a stage right now where sewing is a challenging activity. She wants to be held all the time, is transitioning out of two naps (making her one nap somewhat all over the place), and gets into anything within reach when awake. Of course, my sewing room is not babyproofed. Anyway, I really want to participate, so I'm going to try, but I'm not going to beat myself up if it doesn't work out.

The challenge begins today. I don't think I'll get to anything until tonight because I have students all afternoon, but I'm hoping to complete a few almost-done projects before moving on to some new things later in the week. Maybe you'll join me?

Birthday party goodness

{Thanks so much for all your sympathy about my photos. We haven't had the chance to try retrieving anything from the memory card yet, but I'm not holding out too much hope. It's a really devastating thing to have happen, but I'm at least glad that it was only 6 months worth of photos and not more.}

Last weekend we celebrated Elisabeth's 8th birthday with a party for her friends.

This was the first time we'd held a birthday party "away from home", so to speak. I took the five girls to a paint-your-own pottery studio. It was a lot of fun! The added bonus was that I didn't have to plan any activities or do any clean up. :)

Afterward, we came back to the house for cupcakes & ice cream, presents, and some outdoor play before the girls' parents came to pick them up. This was really the funnest and most relaxing (from my perspective) party we've hosted. It was great!

homemade goodie bags

This year, because we'd painted pottery which the girls will get to keep, the contents were just the marigolds to plant, and chocolate-covered sunflower seeds. Simple, but plenty, I think.

flowers on the table, from our gardens

place setting -- it seems that all we have to drink out of anymore are jars, but they are pretty!

I love to host a fun party, and this one was really successful, which was very gratifying.

Something sacred

This weekend, in addition to her eighth birthday, we celebrated another milestone in Elisabeth's life: her First Holy Communion. It was an exciting, sacred day; one that we had been preparing for in a fairly active way since the beginning of the school year.

I don't really have a lot to say about it here, because it's obviously part of our family's personal religious tradition, other than the fact that it was so moving to see our daughter having grown into a very reverent young lady. Otherwise, I'm mostly sharing it in this space because it was beautiful and a detail of our lives that I don't want to forget.

We had her hair up in rag curls the night before. (Thanks to my friend Meghan for teaching us how earlier in the week! I love you, M!)

Most of the girls wore flowers in their hair.

Our church is so pretty.

The children each made banners, which will remain in the church throughout the Easter season. They were a collaboration between the children and a professional artist in our church, who transferred the children's designs and concepts to fabric and other media, and quilted, appliqued, and put them together beautifully. This one is Elisabeth's. I wish I had more pictures so you could see how amazing they all looked hanging together!

Elisabeth's dress was from Strasburg Children. It was a long search for us, because we wanted something cotton and fairly simple. I found a coupon on Retail Me Not, which was helpful! Her necklace had been a baptism gift eight years ago from her Godmother.

What a joyful thing it is to be welcomed to the Lord's table! We've all been so excited all week.

PS: If a first communion is coming up in your future, we really enjoyed reading the book Today I Made My First Communion by Dianne Ahern. It contains all the information, but it's a storybook format, so it keeps it all interesting, and has a section in the back for recording the details of your child's first communion day.

Eight years old!

Today my oldest child turned eight. Eight! I know it's hard to really comprehend this when you hear someone say it -- it's hard for me to "get" it when other mothers say this about their children -- but she really was just a newborn. I still remember her tiny baby self. And, oh! The delicious toddler that she was! She filled my heart with joy every single day.... Except for the times when I wanted to rip my hair out in frustration, looking at this intense little person who was demanding that I step up and be a better mother, a better person, my best self. She still demands this of me every day. And I'm so grateful for it.

I've already written about my feelings of grief about her growing up. Two years ago, at six, she was still very much in that "early childhood" place. Not so today. Today she is a big girl who can cook, sew a straight seam, and make hilarious sarcastic comments.

My pride and frustration in her both continue to overwhelm me at times. But mostly pride. This girl is beautiful, gracious, reverent, funny, compassionate, determined, thoughtful, innocent, intelligent, and, frankly, the most amazing person I know. Eight years ago, I fell in love with her in a way I never expected. And today, I love her so much more.

Happy, happy day, lovely Elisabeth.

Four years old!

Today we have a four-year-old boy in our house. I can hardly believe it! It seems both much less than four years and yet such a long time since that snowy morning of his birth, just a day after my blessingway.

I've loved getting to know my son, and the person he's becoming, even more this past year as he's developed into such a magical, sweet little kid. He's in the most challenging stage of my three right now, but I'm looking forward to what four will bring. Certainly new challenges, but new delights, just as certainly.

So much love to my big boy this day.

One year old!

Right now, I'm listening to a one-year-old girl squeal with delight as her siblings push her around in a wagon. It's hard for me to believe it's been a year since that magical morning of her birth. But here we are, a year later. I need to remember not to wish these days with my little ones away. They go too fast anyway!

This morning we enjoyed our usual birthday rituals.

Fiona was really excited about the birthday ring.

But not as excited about the crown. Despite patiently wearing hats just about every day of her life, it proved to be too much to ask. ;)

Today, we'll celebrate our littlest one all day. We'll eat her favorite foods (this week, she really likes broccoli and bananas), make her a cake (the applesauce cake from this favorite cookbook, but adapted -- with Kyrie's guidance -- to be wheat-free since we think Fiona may have reacted to wheat a few weeks ago), and open some gifts (mostly handmade, so there will be some sharing here next week!).

Happy birthday, my silly, sweet, snuggly one. I love you with all my heart.

February 2

Today was the festival of Candlemas. Because we were out of town all of last week, preparing for it pretty much slipped my mind, so we just had a candlelit dinner and bedtime. Sometime later in the week, we'll make candles, too. Candlemas has never become a huge celebration in our family, but I really like the suggestions for its celebration in Mrs. Sharp's Traditions, I love to listen to this every Candlemas (it was written to be played at Candlemas). There are always small ways to mark the passing seasons, even when they are not big, fancy celebrations.

Really, I spent most of today in a quivery, trembling state, anticipating the first episode of the final season of Lost tonight. I was not disappointed -- I'm a real Lostie. It's the only television program I watch, actually. Usually our television only comes on once a week (for Lost); we've actually discussed finally removing the television from our home once the show ends. So, now you know a little detail about me that you might not have before!

2009, a retrospective {part 1}

I hope you all are not tired of 2009 wrap-ups. I know I'm a bit late, but bear with me -- I've been so very sick for so long, it's making me feel really behind. Anyway, I have had a 2009 retrospective on the creating end of things in mind for a while now, but I still want to photograph a last couple of things, so I thought I would start with the life part. And of course there's some overlap.

January

Quiet days at home. Knitting the bunting. Visits with friends. Cooking, freezing, nesting. Sewing. Contractions. Waiting.

February

More contractions. More waiting. More knitting. Elisabeth's first sleepover (away). My blessingway. My birthday. Fiona Catherine. Bliss.

March

Holed up, insulated, babymooning. James turns three. Huge snowstorm. Snuggling on the couch with the baby and lots of wool while the others are out in it. Seedlings.

April

Stepping, ever so tentatively, out of the fog. Elisabeth turns seven. Seedlings (still). Fiona's baptism. My husband decides to finish his doctorate afterall. Dozens of tulips!

May

Going a-Maying. Enjoying our yard and gardens. Struggling to find a rhythm. Re-reading some of my favorite books. Elisabeth learns to ride a two-wheeler.

June

Peonies! Swimming lessons every morning. Fiona rolls over. Remembering to slow down. Roses.

July

Still at the pool every morning, knitting in tow. A rainy 4th of July. Camping. Sewing. Second grade workshop. Catharsis.

August

10 years! Fiona sits up. Stress. Exhaustion. Computer break (oh-so-good!). My sister's baby shower. Sewing.

September

Holding on to the last bits of summer. habit. Return to homeschooling. Apple orchard (twice), and apple pies. Classes for both children. My new niece.

October

Our belated Michaelmas celebration. Eurythmy. Knitting. Lots of snow. Hot cocoa many days. New high chair cushions, and Fiona's first solid foods. Marathon costume sewing. Jack-o-lanterns. Halloween. My favorite month.

November

NaBloPoMo. Church linens. Elisabeth's first sleepover (at home). Simplicity Parenting. Martinmas. Sweaters. Book reviews. Thinking ahead to advent and Christmas. Giving thanks. Making dolls.

December

My shop. habit (december). King Winter. Helen's baptism. Fun with family. My husband's graduation. Sickness (lots and lots of sickness). Small miracles. Late Christmas cards. Last-minute gift making. Stillness; peace; silence. The richness of tradition. Joy. 

Right now

Awed by the connections we all have: the way my life looks very much like yours, and yours like mine -- we're all in this thing, aren't we?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Happy new year, friends. May 2010 (which I refuse to pronounce "twenty-ten", by the way) be your best yet.

My next post will be the creating retrospective. And I'd still like to share a few things that we did in December, in between all the sickness. And then it will be new material for the new year, I promise.

xo