(1. Farm fresh eggs, every morning. 2. Solo cutie tea party. 3. My new tea love - tastes like weeding the garden in July. 4. Tulips - pretending spring is here already! 5. Alan's 30th birthday gift on friday - I made him a calendar with a different herb for each month.)

Pictures have been totally random and disconnected. I know. My vision and intentions for this space are always changing, always growing with me. I don't fully remember my thoughts when I initially decided to start this venture, but I do remember at some point during the first year feeling like the blog controlled me rather than the other way around, and at that point I gave myself permission to always let it be whatever I needed it to be at any given time. I come here to preserve memories, to keep myself creative and to share ideas, and to connect and find community. I've been doing this for some 2.5 years or so now! I hope this place has matured with me and continues to reflect me as I grow and settle into my own self. The last several days and weeks have found me doing a lot of verbal (and maybe embarassingly angsty) processing with Alan about my life, usually while I pace around the kitchen and do a decent amount of dramatic hand-gesturing. I jokingly call it a quarter-life crisis, it's really a stirring in my gut, a longing for. . .? I'm not sure? To understand where I fit, what I'm good at, what I want to accomplish? Maybe I'm just restless! Alan says this happens to me every February. I don't remember, but he might be right. Perhaps I just need some fresh air. Or perhaps every February it just gets so absolutely dead and quiet that I'm forced to process my life just a little bit more, in a two month chunk every year. Anyways, as I was waxing on about these things Alan gently reminded me that I'm a mother, and sometimes that is enough. It was a good reminder that I certainly needed. I am not a mother only, but neither am I "only" a mother. In the midst of finding myself thinking, I have no legacy! What will it be? I am reminded that my children are just that. I have other passions, other goals, and perhaps I will be remembered for other things as well, but I refuse to accept that voice that says that the work of being a mother is somehow "less than", or that children are not a worthy legacy. I'm not the first to say this, but since I still struggle with feeling it, perhaps it needed repeating.

So that is where my mind has been, in this deepest, darkest end of winter, and I am finding beauty in snapshots, which is being reflected here. I can hardly believe that in 4 months time this space will be bursting forth with verdant garden pictures, and surely my heart and mind will bend into summer and this space will be just what I need and will reflect that, too.

I'm sorry that I've been kind of MIA. We've been having the most beautiful snow-storms and cold weather here, and while you'd think that being mostly holed up in the house would mean lots of productivity blog-wise, its really resulted in some other thing I don't totally understand but might be akin to cabin fever (though not really, since I'm not necessarily itching to get out.) I think maybe its just the excitement of a period of time that feels different and therefore its hard to stay on track with normal life routines. I just want to play in the snow and drink hot tea, is all!

Indy has been loving this snow. I bundle her up and send her outside every chance I get, and she comes back inside with boogers frozen on her chin. Ahh, to be a kid again. That smell of melting snow on her scarf and winter air in her hair brings so many memories rushing back.

Anyways, things seem to be settling back to normal on all fronts, and I'll be back in this space more regularly again. Enjoy that cold weather folks!

(Ooh and I forgot to add, I knit Indy another Vintage Pixie Cap, which I've knit for her before, but this time I knit it tighter and with a worsted weight yarn - Stonehedge Fiber Mill's Shepherd's Wool in Lakeshore, a much better fit and nice and warm, especially when layered over a little jersey hat!)