Lately I am stumbling across all sorts of old drawing, like this band of fierce pirate pigs that I drew to go on a t-shirt for a friend's son. He was so small that he does not even remember at all. It reminds me how extremely important it is for me to create, whether it be illustration, photography or carpentry. Of course I still feel that writing is my calling, but being the opposite of tangible, it is hard to stay on it. It is time to get my studio back to create beauty every day!

morning sun meeting the night

The moment when the sun is coming up, illuminating a tiny part of the garden, while the rest remains in the blue stillness of night, waiting for sun's kiss.

snow spiral

Just love how the melting snow highlighted the spiral pattern of our bonfire patio.

rose hip

My elementary school had a lot of rose hip bushes on its vast campus. In the fall the boys harvested these round treasures in orange and red, not to make wonderful rose hip jam, but to open them up and put their insides down the backs of girls. A very itchy memory, but kind of fun and maybe a perk of growing up in the greenest city of Europe.

house guest

Meet our house guest. He lives with us during every October. He is a great example for all of us, always sporting a big, happy grin despite the fact that he literally has two left feet (overworked Chinese factory worker?). I give him a new name and story every day. I think today I will call him Frederik.

14 years ago

in Pasadena, California, Johanna was born on Columbus Day & Canadian Thanksgiving. She was only a few hours old and I already knew she was going to be a singer.

 She very happily bounced off to school in her Sally Sparrow outfit (Doctor Who, Season 3, episonde 11: Blink) and I cannot believe I actually found something that specific. Johanna means 'gift of god' and even though I am an agnostic, I do agree that she is a blessing! Happy Birthday my little muffin :)

hot air balloon

Nothing cooler than having dinner interrupted by the familiar and deep, rumbling whoosh of a hot air balloon. We all ran out - barefooted children and mom just with socks - and the whole neighborhood was out on the street, staring at the majestic balloon and listening to the whoosh. The only thing better would be to be driving it :)

clouds

My imagination got caught in the soft layer of clouds above. Maybe I needed to take a time out and stand by the window, lifting my eyes to the sky or maybe it was the intangible beauty in the vast sky that plain and simple drew me in.

unexpected wow at Goodwill

Sometimes we see something so fantastic and unexpected, we cannot stop looking at it. That happened to me today at the Goodwill store. This is just a part of a big display in one corner of the store, everything done with so much attention to detail and care. I expect to see something like this in a big budget magazine, but not at a Goodwill store. Can you say amazing?

... and yes, this does have a little bit of a resemblance to my kitchen, after all, I do call it potions laboratory. I absolutely plan to be there when it goes on sale, mostly for those old editions of Dickens and Shakespeare and maybe some owls for the Soph.

Sunshine

The day started out dark, it is that time of year already. Then the sun broke through and it was glorious. When the clouds rolled in and turned the end of the day rainy and gloomy, I noticed that I still felt the glorious sunshine, because it resides inside me. Have you ever noticed that flowers look so much brighter and more radiant on a gray day? That is how I felt in the drizzle of dusk.

transitions

I consider the threshold between September and October the real transition between summer and fall, maybe it just takes about a week to grasp the change.

The photo (I encourage you to click on it to see it bigger, the little hairs on the green are amazing) is of my last sunflower, the others all succumbed to the heavy rains between dry spells. This flower symbolizes a big transition for me. I think life is life a series of books and filled with different chapters. Sometimes we get to the end of one and the last chapter is when everything has come more or less to a certain point and it transitions you out of this book and prepares for the next. Of course the next book often starts with a chapter that eases one back into the next part of the story. These transitional chapters are just like transitions in our life, it is just hard to see where exactly one book ends and the next starts, one only knows they are in the middle of the transition.

Last October marked the beginning of many transitions in my life regarding health and the end of a my marriage. I don't know yet where I am transitioning to, because I don't know the next book yet. But I am sure it will be a good one. In uncertainty we can also find promise, hope and chance.

Either way, it seems that this is a good time to return to my exercise of looking for the beauty of being in the nooks and crannies of life and blog about it to share with you all.

one hundred years

Today is the anniversary of Juliette Gordon Low's founding of the Girl Scouts of America. To commemorate that special day, Girl Scouts all across the country gathered yesterday at the same time to stand in a promise circle and recite the girl scout promise & law and to sing. Imagine what a wonderful world we would live in if we would all adhere to the Girl Scout Law:

I will do my best to be
honest and fair,
friendly and helpful,
considerate and caring,
courageous and strong, and
responsible for what I say and do,
and to
respect myself and others,
respect authority,
use resources wisely,
make the world a better place, and
be a sister to every Girl Scout.

father and daughter

Seeing a new dad and his daughter enjoying each other is something very special and heartwarming to see.

rehearsal

It is magical and beautiful when it all comes together and sounds great at the first rehearsal of chorus and orchestra combined. I am definitely looking forward to our concert next week!

doodle

Sophie's unfinished work for the doodle for google contest with a hypothetical trip to Pompeii (prior to earthquake and volcano eruption). After having been to the exhibit at the MOS and concluding that with the Dr. Who Pompeii episode, it has been on her mind lately and she also wants to learn Latin now. I just love it that she is so interested in the same things I was hooked on at that age.

silly

extremely silly, in a fun way,  would be a very good description for what is going on here a lot, especially when we are playing games like Bananagrams. My odd sense of humor rubbed off onto the girls*, who I like to call project two & three, while I like them to call me Lord Mama, Robot - first generation. I am trying to make them believe that they are robots of the second generation and that I wind them up every night. They are not going for it though - go figure ;)

2012

2012 so far has not been a great year for many, many people I know and if the Mayans had it right, this is our last year. I don't believe the world is ending this year, even if it feels like my own little world has ended in a way. But imagine for a moment it is the last year, it can be for any of us, right? There is no guarantee for life. If this would be your last year, what would you do? Are there things that you are always pushing into the future, even though you really want to do them? We are always waiting for things to be right and for the right moment to come. The truth is, that might never be the case and if we make it to one day be old and wise and looking back, what will be the most important things? Which moments will stand out? Let's make 2012 the year to look at our dreams and examine our priorities, who is with me?

I took this photo New Year's Eve right after midnight. It took a lot of sparklers and many photos until we got it right and we had a blast. 

ranunculus asiaticus

These are really filled buttercups - as difficult as that is to believe - and they bring beauty and color to our soul, which is yearning for spring and sunshine and waiting for nature to reawaken. I am ecstatic every time* I see them at Trader Joe's and have to bring some home.


* Well yes, when you are reading this you might imagine my house overflowing with vases of ranunculus since shopping at Trader Joe's happens rather frequently. So no, I don't buy them every time really, usually just once or twice, hyperbole just puts such a needed emphasis into the sentence ;)

Snow

Wow, snow - almost forgot what it looked like (no, not really), but it was a surprise none the less to start March with so much fluff. With a new month upon us in this still relatively new year, it occurred to me that there are new beginnings all the time. The first year of this blog has really changed my outlook and made me more positive in my thoughts and evaluations. Then my life has been changing so much that it took all my energy to stay afloat, but I want to embrace my new beginnings and reading my own words on the side of this blog, it became obvious to me that I - again - need to go out of my way to document those little moments of the beauty of being. I can remind myself that life is beautiful and that it is wonderful to be alive, even if we are dealt a really lousy hand when we were already down. Life is not fair, but there is beauty all around those bad bits!