I Got Somebody at Home

Is it wrong to have a crush on your home? I sure hope not because I'm crushing hard on our little yellow house. I've always been a homebody but more than ever all I want to do is curl up in my living room and stare at the little corners that are "set". I could do without the corners still filled with boxes but, all in good time. Since both Kenneth and I are homebodies it's important for me that  our home is comfy and fun and full of things we love.

We're slowly gathering the pieces we need to finish unpacking. We found the perfect hutch for our fancy dishes and a coffee table for the living room. We have plans to build a second bookshelf (boy do I miss the built ins from the apartment) and that will help since the majority of the boxes left are books. Kenneth built a huge spice rack since we had three boxes of spices (who the heck are we?). All these practical things are coming together.

In the meantime, I've thrifted 11 pillows in the last month and a half to try and find the perfect pillows for our crazy couch. We've settled on the above for now (and by "we" I mean Katie and I since Kenneth could give a hoot about pillows and, in fact, throws them on the floor whenever he sits on the couch). There are also 7 blankets/throws in the living room in various baskets or draped over chairs. I guess you could say my ideal home is comfy and cozy. Also yellow, I live in a yellow house with a yellow hutch and a yellow couch and two yellow chairs with a yellow and white striped blanket under which I take naps. Comfy, cozy, and yellow. 

sunrise on the front porch

I wanted to watch the sunrise so we woke up at 6:15 for a 6:30 sunrise. We pressed play on the coffee maker and grabbed our slippers and glasses, poured our mugs and stepped outside. The sun was up but it was still low so the light slipped through the trees and the neighborhood was still. The birds chirped quietly as they slowly began the search for breakfast. 

Side by side on the turquoise bench, sipping cups of coffee in the morning light. A little bit of conversation and a lot of companionable silence. We don't always need to talk when we're together. Sometimes just being together is enough communication. Sometimes all you need to say "I love you" is a cup of coffee at 6:30 in the morning on your day off. 

Our love has evolved in the six and a half years we've known each other and at each stage we've looked around and declared that it has never been better. Right now is so different from when we met at 19 and 20 and while I wouldn't trade those wild years; I also wouldn't go back there. I wouldn't choose vodka at 2 AM in the gazebo over coffee on the front porch at 7AM. But I'm glad we were there. I'm glad we share those memories. 

So much of our love is these shared years together; our history, one that we're still writing. So much of our love is looking to the future; setting goals and dreaming. And still, so much of our love is right now; side by side, sipping coffee on the front porch. When we look back at this time in the yellow house I hope it is with the same fondness as we now look back on our time in university with. I also hope that we look back with the confidence that the present is still the best its been.

What Makes a Grown Up?

This photo has very little to do with the post except that dressing up to take photos in a field isn't very adult. Or is it?

My brain has been swirling the last week or so trying to figure out why I don't feel like a grown up and what, in the future, could possibly cause me to finally believe in my own adultness. I'm tempted to start a poll of all the adults I know to find out what made them feel like an adult.

At 26, I'm old enough to vote, drink, smoke, and rent a car. I'm nearly two years married with a joint bank account. I'm four years into a career in which I'm expected to make business decisions and lead a staff of 10-30 people (who all listen to me, for some reason). I've signed a lease, bought a car, filed taxes, and registered for my own health insurance. I've voted in elections and traveled to several continents. I've moved away from home, made new friends (and kept the old), and learned to write thank you notes. I have had ice cream for dinner and leftover pie for breakfast. All good adult things.

I admit that nearly every day I make adult decisions and conduct myself in the manner of an adult but half the time I'm thinking to myself "is this at all convincing? how are people believing me? did she really just call me ma'am?" If I had to give you the age I feel it's much closer to 19 than to 26.

When do the adult-y feelings kick in? Is it after having kids? Is it after buying your first home? Does it kick in after five years of working full time? 10? Do you feel like an adult once all your towels match and you've picked out wallpaper? Is it different for every person? Does everyone just pretend to be an adult until one day they wake up and believe it about themselves?

At this point I'm betting that last one. As it goes, fake it until you make it!

At Home, Here

Y'all, I swear I just swept the porch.

I spend many mornings on the front porch with a cup of coffee and a book. Sometimes I sit engrossed in the story but many morning the book sits, open and ignored, on my lap. Instead I am engrossed in my new home. I hear the birds calling to each other ('pretty bird, pretty bird' and "ratchhharatchhha'). I watch my neighbors drive by and the squirrels scamper through my yard and into someone else's. If I sit out in the evening with a glass of wine I am witness to kids playing games that I'm sure if I got close enough would remind me of the ones I played 15 or so years ago.

We're happy here in the yellow rental house under the pines. We're happy in our jobs, him at the lab and me in yet another store. I've spent the past few days trying to figure out why we're happy (because, of course, it is not enough to be happy without analyzing--what is wrong with me?). We're in a new state so far from everyone we know and love. So far from our comforts and the familiar and yet we're happy. Yesterday afternoon, walking through the USC campus, dripping in sweat in the 100 degree heat, I figured it out. We're happy because we're moving forward.

Life in Arlington for the past few years was about treading water: finish school, keep my job, don't commit further than two years because then we're outta here, baby. We were making moves to get to where we wanted to be but most of those moves were stationary. Now here we are in a brand new city actually in the future we talked about for so long! We are out of school and employed in our field of choice. We're making decisions for now and next year and the year after that. For so long we were warming up at the starting line and this move down here was like the gun firing and oh boy, we're off!

Now watch us fly. 

focused on the now

Life right now is in a holding pattern. We are waiting for news but for now there is no more we can do to prepare. Every day feels like a breath inhaled and every night we go to sleep without exhaling--waiting for a phone call that will change our lives. It is hard for me to live without control or plans going farther than the week ahead. I set dates months in advance and plan adventures for half a year away but right now our yearly calendar is blank. Every month is just a giant question mark asking "where will we be?"

To weather the unknown I have been spending a lot of my time focusing on our current home. Hanging picture frames on the walls keeps me happy and feeling a little more in control. The anticipation of moving away from my first home as a grown up, my first home as a wife, our first home as a family is emotionally challenging but also highly motivating! I have framed more photos and nailed more nails in the last two months than the four years prior. I am in a rush to "finish" this home because I can actually feel time running out. If I don't hang the family gallery wall in the hallway now it will never happen! So I did, last night, and it is just as I imagined. 

It feels important to me to make this the home I always wanted it to be before I leave. I am not really sure why. Although, in discussions with my best friend she reminds me that I need it to look like I always dreamed so I can photograph it in all its glory and have those photographs to look back on forever. Which makes perfect sense (it is so good to have friends who know you so well). In the meantime, the framing and the decorating gives me a project to focus on now so I don't spend all my time focused on a future that is out of my control.

spring equinox

Every year we get together to celebrate the first day of Spring. It is a wonderful tradition that I am hoping to continue for a long, long time. It is lovely to have a friend to celebrate the changing of the seasons with. It is lovely to say good-bye to Winter and hello to Spring (even if it snowed today). For our fourth annual equinox celebration and we went to the Natural History Museum and spent the morning exploring human origins. Lunch was shared sandwiches in the Sculpture Garden pavilion followed by a stroll through the Art Gallery. It may have been sleeting and snowing outside but inside it was toasty warm and filled with beauty to look at. Look back: year one, year two, year three.

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.