Lilly, Sweet Lilly

Six years ago today my heart grew ten times its size. 

We flew half way across the world. 

We saw the Great Wall of China. 

The Forbidden City. 

Tiananmen Square. 

Then we boarded a plane from Beijing to Nanchang.

We were told by our guide Dennis to get settled in our hotel room and freshen up and then return to the lobby. The lobby filled up one by one with families who were filled to overflowing with joy and anticipation at what was about to happen. We piled on a big bus, rode a half hour thru a city we had never seen, packed ourselves onto an elevator like sardines and then entered the holiest of rooms.

The room where our daughter sat on the lap of one of her 'aunties'. 

The room where we would become parents for the fourth time. 

The room that changed the shape of my heart. 

We watched one by one as other families names were called out. 

We watched their joyous tears. 

Then we heard our own names. 

And then.......

they placed the sweetest baby in our arms. 

Our baby. 

I am so grateful for all the mysterious things, both big and small, that conspired to bring us to that exact moment.

 Lilly has graced us with her wisdom, her charm, 

her contagious joy and infectious laugh. 

She is a gift beyond measure. 

I will never, ever forget that day. 

Lilly....my sweet, sweet girl....

you are the bees knees 

the cats meow 

the frosting on the cake 

the glitter

the gold 

Thank you for calling on my heart precious girl.  

I love you.  

Even the Hard Stuff.

I loved how the light was shining into the bathroom 

on this late fall afternoon.

 Our home is a work in progress. 

I guess that's how most people feel about their home.

 However, it is possible that I have an extreme case 

of 'work in progress'. 

We started building our house in 2006.

 We moved in in 2010. 

Do the math.

Yes, four years from the day we broke ground 

until the day we moved in.

And you know how people say don't ever move into an unfinished house because you will never finish it? 

Yeah, that's true. 

Not funny, but true.

 There are many days I am just so incredibly 

grateful that I can overlook it. 

Embrace it even.

  Then there are the other days.

The days where I want to feel grateful but I don't.

Days where I feel ashamed that I still want more 

when I obviously have so much. 

I feel frustrated that none of my windows have trim around them. I feel so totally over my makeshift kitchen and my concrete floors. I allow myself a few hours to just feel it all. To feel that this was not the way I imagined things would be when we were in the dream of building our house. I didn't want the house for the sake of a big pretty house to impress people....I wanted the house for the life that would happen inside those walls. The memories that we would make as a family. The Christmas trees, the birthday parties, the all day in pajamas, movie marathon quiet days. All the days that happen in the ordinary life of a family...games of Uno, pots of soup, long hot baths, reading late into the night, big ugly cries filled with disappointment and the pain of loss or betrayal, heart to heart conversations with loved ones. I have loved houses all of my life, especially older homes. I love to think of the stories embedded in those walls. The joy and the pain, the laughter and heartache. The house bears witness to all of it and holds the space for us to grow and unfold day after day, year after year.

So my frustration is that this life I was envisioning was somehow not quite happening. I wanted to fully live my days with my family, not always be in construction mode. I wanted the house to be the container for all of our adventures. Instead it sometimes seemed that the house took more than it gave. It took so much time, so much money and robbed us of peace of mind more days than I care to admit. The truth is that it is harder 

to live in an unfinished house. 

Harder to clean. 

Harder to organize. 

Closets with no shelves.

Bathrooms with no showers.

 Kitchens with no dishwasher and no cupboards. 

Blah, blah, blah.

On these days I will swing from one extreme to another. First I will think of people that seem better off than me, people who built houses after me but moved in before me.

 People who have trim and flooring.

Yes, it's true I envy people with trim. 

Then I will think of those with so much less...those who aren't sure how to feed their family or those that don't know where they will sleep from night to night. 

Then I remember that ALL comparison injures.

When I am done with all of that I get a grip and start thinking of what I am grateful for.

I may not totally FEEL the gratitude in that moment but I start making a mental checklist and I know that every soul has a journey and things that are challenging. Assignments I guess you could call them. These are the places that we grow in. We all know that we don't grow when everything is rosy and easy.

I really do believe in saying thank you for everything.

EVERYTHING.

Yup, even the sucky stuff. Even the hard stuff.

I sometimes remember to actually say thank you out loud in the middle of something that seems to super suck. 

Somewhere I know something is growing. 

Something is changing.

 I am getting stronger. 

More vulnerable 

(I am finally accepting that vulnerability IS strength)

(Why is that so hard to accept???)

More authentic. 

More me. 

I heard once that if everyone threw their troubles into a pile you would run back to grab your own.

Think about it. 

Don't be so quick to hate your problems 

or want to wish them away. 

Accept them. 

Let them in. 

Make room for them.

They are working inside of you and clearing the way for something else. How do we know that our deepest struggles aren't 

clearing the path for our greatest joys? 

We really don't know, so lets just say thank you.

For everything.

Scenes from a Sunday Afternoon

A jar of marbles just says joy. I love to think of the days when children actually played with marbles as a favorite toy. 

I can go a long way with gratitude. And Mother Mary.

Being surrounded by trees helps too.

a little tea? some tomatoes? fairy soap?

my favorite salad of all time

putting the plants to bed for winter

I really do eat healthy like this. 

Sometimes. 

No, really…I do.

Ignore the messy part and the iPad charger. 

Focus instead on the beauty.

Advice not only for the above photo but also for life.

How is your Sunday shaping up?

Twinkle Lights

Looking through my photos tonight and remembering this extra sweet summer night.

My friend Kai invited Lilly and I over for dinner. Her son Sawyer is just a few months older than Lilly and they play so well together. Kai made a great dinner and we enjoyed a glass of wine (or two) and ate our meal next to the fire outside. 

It was simple but it was magical. 

It had all the perfect elements:

the laughter of children

warm temperatures

lightening bugs

wine

delicious food

a fire to sit around

great conversation

and of course……

twinkle lights.

Never, ever, ever forget the twinkle lights.

Hidden Treasure

These pictures are from a walk we went on in early September. One of those days where suddenly it's not summer anymore and you know you better get some more outside time before it's REALLY not summer. It always happens so you think I would be prepared but I am never ready to let summer go. It doesn't last long enough where we live in upstate New York and there is so much fun to be had when the days are warm and long. Whether we are picking berries, wading in the creek, watching the fireworks, going to outdoor concerts or just lounging on our wonderful front porch we are always so content during summer. A return to my own childhood for at least a few weeks.

 I LOVE summer. I want it to last forever.

And then…..it's subtle, it catches you off guard but it can't be missed. The light changes, the air changes. It still looks like summer but the earth has made her turn while you were sitting around the campfire eating roasted marshmallows. Make no mistake it is time to get out the socks, the pants, the boots, the scarves, the crockpot, the extra blankets. 

Goodbye flip-flops. 

Goodbye front porch. 

Goodbye wading in the creek. 

Why do you have to leave the party when I was just getting started???? 

So it was on this very day that I woke up and I could feel that shift in the light and the air and a depression starts to hang around me like a rain cloud. I eventually will embrace pots of soup and heavy sweaters and movie night and turning on the heat but when that first unmistakable sign of the changing seasons shows up I am not ready and…..

 I am not embracing it.

 At all. 

Not even a little bit.

We decided to go for a walk to a place we had driven by a hundred times or more and always wondered about but never took the time to stop. It is a nature preserve full of walking paths and fields and woods and flowing creeks. We played in the water a little bit, took a nice hike and then we decided to follow a second path to a different spot in the creek and Lilly and I rounded the bottom of a steep hill and walked straight to the water. We must have played there for a good five minutes until Scott said 'turn around'…..and this heart wall was behind us. Ahhhhhh…….Amazing. Breathtaking. A beautiful pause to just stand there and take it in with our hearts and our eyes. Who started this? How long had it been here? Lilly and I always find hearts in stones, shapes on the ground, shells and other places in nature so we immediately went searching for a heart to add to this altar in the woods.

I love that people took the time to make this offering. I love to think of how many people had the same surprise moment that the three of us had that sweet day. I like the feeling of being part of something, of being connected to strangers who care about art and beauty and love. I like to think of our hearts that we placed that day as our thank you to the summer of 2013. Thank you for family reunions, for friends that lingered on my porch with either coffee or cocktails, lots of picnics and playgrounds, a camping trip to the beach, outdoor concerts and Beatrix Potter plays in the garden, wading in the creek, picking blueberries, watching summer storms roll in from the comfort of our covered porch, making pizza over an open fire with my beloveds, for new friends and old….thank you. I'm going to miss you but I know it's time for you to go and I can't make you stay. 

I will meet you on my porch May 1. 

Be there.