anticipation of giggles

Thank you Abbey, whenever you are around, your cute giggles and happy laughter makes for such an infectious excitement, I love it. Knowing that you will be here later and fill our house with your laughter, is just wonderful.

serendipity

Sophie is totally into Greek mythology and wanted to be Athena for Halloween. She is so thrilled about the costume that I made and is proud that we did all the research and made it as authentic as possible (except for the golden Keens - a kind of homage to Sophia Coppola's Marie Antoinette). Athena is the goddess of intellectual wisdom and of crafts and technology, which is a perfect fit for Sophie, since her name is Greek and means wisdom and she loves arts, crafts and technology. Athena's sign is the owl and Sophie is crazy about owls. And to top it off, Athena is the goddess of weapons (though prefers peaceful resolutions and diplomacy as first course of action) and our little 10 year old wants to take some sword fighting classes. Is this serendipity or not?

Just one thing, John did not swallow me while I was pregnant and Sophie did not jump out from his head when his son split his head open to help with the headaches... gotta love Greek mythology, it is just completely absurd.

season's end

Thank you tomatoes for a really great season. You are beautiful, delicious and nutritious and we all enjoyed eating fresh tomatoes every single day. See you next summer!

funny face

Greymalkin, your funny little face always makes everybody smile!

clementine sticker

As I was passing the boxes of clementines in the market, out of the corner of my eyes I spotted this tiny little sticker on one of them. This is the exact sticker all the good clementines had when I was a child, I had to get the box! It is interesting, clementines are heralding the advent of advent for me ...

ravenswood & vosges

Oh, what a fantastic combination. A typical Ravenswood - not whimpy at all - Zinfandel from San Joaquin County in California together with a Vosges Barcelona chocolate. The complex, but well balanced wine combined with the hickory smoked almonds - sea salt - deep milk chocolate, it is melt-in-your-mouth perfection!

misty monday morning

Dear Lake Quinsigamond, usually we sit here on the deck having a picnic, playing cards and dipping our feet in the cooling water. Today I got to enjoy a very different side of this spot, so peaceful and quiet on a misty Monday morning.

child of eden

Thank you Johanna for taking your part in the musical Children of Eden so seriously. You did not miss a minute of rehearsals, got us all addicted to the music and gave a great performance - I love you monkey-cat!

sign

This totally made me laugh out loud. I took it for a surf board and thought it would be hilarious if people would walk around Framingham with surf boards. Just now does it occur to me, that this might be a bit small for the waves and too big to be a skate board. So maybe a snow board? If I look at this longer, I might have some more ideas, like a giant squash, a life guard floatie thingie, a UFO with really tiny aliens or maybe actually this guy is hoolahooping? Who cares - it's funny!

harman kardon

Thank you Harman Kardon computer speakers, because I love it when form meets function.

fall

Thank you fall for making the otherwise pesky driving around actually enjoyable and even exciting during your time. No better time than fall in my life.

the seed of promise

The garden is going to sleep and offering a different kind of beauty. Thank you echinacea for the promise of another summer filled with purple flowers.

hazelnut coffee

Thank you hazelnut coffee for tasting like my first fall in New England 20 years ago. And thank you Panera Bread for just handing me a mug, so I can do my own perfect blend of a bit of hazelnut, mostly decaf and just the right amount of 2% milk and go for a refill and another refill. It's a small, but nice thing to have a coffee that recalls memories, it is a big and very nice thing to have it at lunch with a friend.

Westborough Mill Pond

Thank you Westborough mill pond, driving buy or getting out and walking along the dam has been a joy since ever we moved here. You are a great place in any weather and any season and even though you are not a person, I do feel like you are an old, trusty friend.

confused rose

Thank you confused rose for stubbornly and strangely showing up in October. What a beautiful and delightful radiance you exhibit, just sitting there between everything else turning black and brown and brittle.

fast lane

Thank you fast lane for being exactly what you say you are. Even though you are not quite exciting as you were 10 years ago - when we got to pass all those cars in line at the regular toll and got to do our fast lane happy dance - you still provide fluid toll motions.

sky

The earth beneath my soles and the sky above my soul, connected by a bridge of thoughts. Thank you sky for your grandiose depth and movement.

perspective

A friend amidst things going wrong wrote the other day: "I am lucky to be alive, I am lucky to be allowed to experience these things, I am grateful for being allowed to experience anything at all". What a great perspective of life. It is hard to see that when we really feel like screaming 'shit', but if ever, most necessary in those moments. What better place to gain that perspective than a cemetary. And while I feel like I am in deep water, drifting out to see and no amount of swimming will make sense, I remind myself that we are alive and we can deal with it!

Thank you Nikola for what you wrote!

Euonymus Alatus

Thank you Euonymus Alatys a.k.a. Burning Bush for your magnificent blood red leaves. When the sun hits you just right, you look like you are on fire and if it is a gray day, you defy it with you color! You are a bright moment in my all too often occurring run to Trader Joe's, taking my weaving shortcut through the ugliness of parking lots behind what was formerly known as Spag's.

twelve years in a flash

The last twelve years went by in a flash. Thank you Johanna for your entertaining exuberance, your extreme coolness and cool extremes. Life with you is never boring, predictable or uneventful.

the blue hour

Neither day nor night, you exist in the inbetween, in a space and time that belongs to both and neither. Thank you for transitioning us ever so gently.

Vermont foliage roadtrip

Thank you fall for the beautiful colors, thank you Vermont for your lovely landscape and trees, thank you 10-10-10 to have the most perfect weather, thank you Ivan for taking me on this roadtrip, thank you Volvo for making such a nice convertible car, thank you Canon for smart cameras --- thank you, thank you, thank you beautiful day.

Click here for some of the pictures.

unexpected fall color

Thank you clover like flowers for bringing the unexpected into the color scheme of fall. Don't we all instantly think of orange, yellow and reddish tones, when we think about fall? I think purple is the perfect match for orange - which is why I like to mix those colors in my wardrobe lately.

digital harmony

This just really made me laugh out loud - brought to you by the geeky family. It's a strange kind of togetherness, united - yet separate. Thank heaven this is not how we usually spend the day.

P.S. What you don't see, is me and my macbook :)

the sweet and the savory

Thank you apple pie and Roaring 40's blue cheese - you are such a heavenly combination, you are meant to be together, you are perfect for as long as you last, which is no longer than a fleeting moment of culinary bliss.

mother - daughter lunch

Thank you Johanna for a lovely and fun mother - daughter lunch in Concord on a rainy day. I should have been home writing and you should have been back in school, but sometimes there are days were we shift the priorities slightly and just enjoy the moment!

just can't get enough

Thank you wonderful autumn leaves, I just can't get enough. Your bright colors that shine so vibrant and intense are unmatched. The intensity of your glow excites me every day, year after year. No picture can do you justice and hardly any memory be fair. The colors of fire all around us, burning the last warm days of sunshine into a blaze of wonder. Thanks.

fruit with a sense of humor

Thank you crazy apples with no name from the strange tree in the back of our house, you are very funny looking. Seriously, this apple tree is mocking me. I made it clear that it would have to bear some fruit or it will have to be turned into fire wood. So it went and gave me seven very funny looking apples. So I will stay its sentence and give it another year ;) These weird shaped organic apples were superbly delicious though, that sure teaches us something! I had many beautiful and perfect looking apples and they were nothing special at all. So there is quite a message in all this, isn't there?

...yes, apples yet again, I can't help it, it is fall in New England.

little architectural surprise

Our plans, as usual, were churned and turned and changed around and I got rewarded with this little surprise. The Notre Dame Academy in Worcester, it looks like a little European Country Estate or a royal hunting joint from times gone by. I love little surprises like that and it will be wonderful to see it at peak foliage time.

soaking up the autumn sun

It is a very nice thing to spend a moment soaking up the autumn sun with a good friend, looking at the contrasting colors of some fiery and some still bright green maple leafs against the clear cerulean sky. Summer, as always, ends in a blaze of glory.

downpour at the apple orchard

Thanks to my seafaring blood and having been brought up with hanseatic hardiness, going apple picking in the pouring rain was just fine. It was so wonderful to have a serene and lonely orchard, an unstressed orchard manager, a friend and her puddle jumping toddler as company and a bag of Roxbury Russets and Rhode Island Greenings as a result. For what its worth, if you can get your hand on some Swiss Ovolmaltine chocolate, it is divine when paired with the RI Greening.