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.