homebody

It took me years to accept that I was a homebody. I thought that I needed to be a go-go-see-visit person to be fulfilled. That may be the truth for some but the truth for me is that home is what fills me up when I'm empty, home is what soothes me when I'm stressed, home is where I feel the most happy. I am a traveler and a lover of visiting my friends and family but at the end of all the trips, long or short, I am always so very pleased to come home.

Home to me is a cozy couch where I used to practice my violin that I now sit on to knit. Home to me is a basket full of borrowed library books in the living room and bookshelves full of owned books in the office. Home to me is yellow walls in the kitchen and yellow walls in the dinning room. Home to me is light (oh the light here, I'll miss it so when we leave) streaming through the windows. Home to me is wood floors gifted to me by my husband, no gift can be sweeter--or dustier. Home to me is filled with the things I treasure: coffee mugs, antlers, antiques, and brass birds. Home to me, of course, is not just the walls around and the stuff within it's the feeling of peace and security and the husband who makes here home with me.

At the end of a work day or a weekend away 

there is no greater feeling than opening the front door, 

setting down my bags, and sinking into home, sweet home.

All in a Winter's Day

Coffee.

It's the first thing of every day but it's especially important in the cold winter mornings. That first hot sip warms you from the inside, all the way down to the curled, cold toes in your slippers. Then it's time to layer up. A base layer of fleece, followed by cashmere, and rubber rain boots to navigate the melting snow. A hat, a scarf, and two gloves are the final touch to prepare for a morning outside in February.

Today we went to the farm where we took our wedding portraits. It is a very different place today than it was on that warm September morning. We're hoping to see lambs but there aren't any now. We see the sheep though, cozy in their natural wool sweaters. They are shy of us, heavily bundled strangers, so we stare at them from across the yard. We walk through the trees, down the white and brown slush-snow paths, and look for the green accents. The green of the Virginia woods that never goes away--not even in winter. 

Cold toes drive us home. Home to delayer, first the hat, scarf, and gloves then the now wet rain boots. Leave on the fleece and the cashmere, even inside it is necessary to layer. He brews a fresh pot of coffee while I heat the leftover soup. The warm mugs thaw out frozen fingers and the soup satisfies our growling stomachs. Then it's time for a sit in front of the wood stove. Curled up on the couch with a pile of dogs and a bit of knitting through the afternoon.

All in a winter's day.

little moments | winter light

the sun is up now when I leave for work | chasing shadows on the living room wall | curling lower into the cozy couch with the sun setting | seeing decorations light up as the sun moves across my living room | finding rainbows on the floors and walls from the crystal hanging over the window | loving the longer days and the lovely winter sun

today

When I was a girl I wanted to marry a Prince, because what little girl raised with Disney doesn't? I was a very lucky girl because when I grew up I got to marry my very own Prince Charming. He doesn't ride a white horse and he has never slain a dragon but he is a Prince just the same. 

He is the kind of Prince who makes the coffee in the morning and cooks dinner at night. He is the kind of Prince who greets you at the door with a hug at the end of the day. He is the kind of Prince who believes in you when you don't and reminds you of your success when you forget. He is the kind of Prince who studies for every test as if it were a final and joins study groups even though he's never gotten less than an A. He is the kind of Prince who helps his friends and loves his wife and does what's right even when it's hard. He is the kind of Prince who is turning 27 today.

Happy Birthday, darling.

the wild and the woods

 

Last October (was it really that long ago?), we ran away into the woods for four days of living wild. We set up camp in a living room of tall trees, completely alone except for the noises of animals at night. It rained the entire weekend so we spent a lot of our days sitting under a tarp in front of the travel stove drinking coffee and reading side-by-side. At night we sat by the fire and cooked dinner in a pot, the same pot each night. We toasted marshmellows and drank wine in the dark talking about how good it felt to be there. There in the woods with animal noises in the background, the smell of fire and trees and damp, the amazing colors of fall all around us, and the joy of no technology beeping and whirring to distract us.

When the rain stopped, or slowed, we went out to explore the park we were camped in. We hiked around the mountain that was so quiet it felt like we were the only people on it. We went to the lake and K fished while I read, sat, and daydreamed of a future that included way more of this. The lake was gray and covered in fog, which just makes every experience more mysterious and magical. When you're sitting at the edge of a lake covered in fog making wishes about the future it is possible to believe that they will come true. Because fog over a lake makes any sort of magic seem possible. 

It is right about this time of year, every year, when I start to get antsy to get back out into the wild and the wood and the green and the noisy-quiet that is nature. It is time to start planning the camping trips of spring and the hikes of the end of winter. It is time to get back out in the place where we feel most ourselves. And in the meantime, there is always photos to stare at and wood dreams to dream.

little moments | a sunny Sunday

 

a working breakfast with K | a walk in the sun | an afternoon with my mother and grandmother | the first stitches knit outdoors | dinner with family prepared by chefdad | knitting and listening to K and my parents talk | watching my handsome pup nap | sitting in silence, side by side on the couch, with K before bed

learning to fail

 I remember drawing as a child in after school care. There were a group of us sitting in the little seats at a little round table and we were all drawing an underwater scene; fishes, algae, and blue waters. I remember looking at my drawing and looking at my friend's drawing and noticing the difference. Hers was good, mine wasn't. That is the first time I realized I was failing at something. More accurately, it was the first time I realized I wasn't good at art. Somewhere in the years between then and now I internalized the idea that I wasn't crafty or artistic. Sure I could take photos--but when it came to making something with my own two hands I knew (knew deep inside) that I would fail at it. 

Then I fell in love with the idea of knitting, sewing, quilting, making. I had to make a change inside and learn to ignore an internal truth about myself--that I would fail. Or I had to learn to live with the idea of failure and not be afraid of it. So slowly, very slowly, I have learned to become comfortable with failing. As I knit my sweater I make mistakes and I learn what I can do differently next time. And it's all right. I cast on a pair of socks too loose and have to frog them time and time again. And it's all right. I pick up a paint brush and learn again just how hard it is for me to translate ideas to watercolors. And it's all right. It is all right.

I may never excel at anything of these crafts I attempt. But I will try. I will fail. I will learn. I will make. 

And it's all right.

welcome, February

 

Right now, I am...

listening to the wind howl outside my apartment, shaking my windows like an uninvited guest trying to get in

drinking a pinot grigio because if I close my eyes I can pretend it's summer

admiring the many scenes on my dining room table: drying dishes, breakfast for two, the remains of card nights with friends, cooling cookies or bread. This table has so many faces.

dreaming of all the possible paths our lives could take 

cozying up in my living room under one of many blankets

wishing  K were home with me now instead of in class

celebrating a mild winter and the sunny blue skies that came out this afternoon

knitting a sweater for me and a blanket for our next home

welcoming February with an olive branch, lets be friends this year.