new pics on flic...

we're in the midst of painting here at the homestead so everything is in disarray. four of our rooms are getting fresh coats over the next day or so, thanks to our super-speedy and precise painter friend Caleb. i like seeing the change...i keep walking from room to room and examining the first coats of Italian Straw, Sea Sand, and a soothing ocean blue for the bathroom.

...but it does require taking everything off the walls and finding creative places to stack our possessions, so no time to post much tonight.

as i gave jeremy a second tour of the rooms so he could see Italian Straw by lamplight, he observed that the reason i need this new paint is because we are in a new season of life, and i need to express that creatively. and if i can't express it creatively (in our home, in some way) i get frustrated. he is very insightful.

i also added a few new photos of eli (and his sweet cousin jake) taken on our trip to California in june, as well as some charming little close-ups of eli that our friend dave snapped for us.

...more to come when the painting's done.

(p.s. drinking my very first yoo-hoo, brought home by J. it's not half-bad. he's onto his third...)

tiny miracles

out in the garden yesterday, a variety of bees were hard at work. they bounced among the purple blooms, seemingly methodical in their task. feeling brave since i knew they were distracted, i crept close to examine them through my camera lens. my favorites were the large bumble bees with their paper-thin wings, bulbous black heads, and thick, fuzzy golden bodies. some were small babies the size of house-flies, each one created for a purpose they were just beginning to learn as they danced along the sage brush.


we received a letter this week from some friends who are dear to us, sharing the news that the wife has become a surrogate for a couple they know who lost a child during pregnancy and are unable to carry another. though our friend is nearing fifty and has two young sons, she has entered into the wild adventure of pregnancy for the sake of another family. i can hardly imagine.

as i read the letter, i held tightly to my own son, who sat on my knee munching on a frog rattle and drooling happily. not a day goes by that i don’t think about the wonder of life that he is, and how grateful i am for his existence.

the paragraph that brought tears to both jeremy and i [separately] was this:

“After a son was born to the aged Abraham and Sarah, Sarah said, ‘God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.’ Such laughter acknowledges what we believe to be true—that God is the Lord of wildly absurd grace and love, who is full of surprises beyond our imagining.”

we have come to see this as truth in our lives, appropriately through the guidance and counsel of this very couple. they were the ones who nudged jeremy to propose to me, supported us after my father’s death, and celebrated the news of our pregnancy with us… each of those experiences bringing tiny but important miracles of their own.

eat, laugh, wipe peas off your nose

It's almost time for bed but I just wanted to drop in for a minute. We had a fun evening with our friends Justin and Amy McRoberts who are in town from California, and Kirk and Alli Dahlgren who live here but who we too rarely get to see. It has been so long since we've had a little dinner party of sorts (Jeremy cooked some amazing burgers using hickory chips on his new grill) that we didn't want the evening to end. Even Sam the dog looked a bit depressed to see everyone go. Lately we've been so focused within the four walls of our house: Jeremy working away to provide for the family, and me tending to Eli, keeping the house clean, and the cabinets full. It's only on nights like this when we come up for air that we are reminded of how much we need time with friends, and how thankful we are to have so many good ones.

It's replenishing to our souls to have our home filled with lively conversation and sincere laughter, and the exchange of ideas from different points of view. Because we both enjoy each other's company so well, I easily forget how much Jeremy and I really do need other musicians, photographers, artists, writers, collectors, planters, and cooks to share life with us. Thankfully our community is full of people much more interesting than ourselves who we can learn from and be challenged by. I hope this post will serve as a reminder to myself that I should pick up the phone more often and invite friends over for some conversation and a good meal.

Speaking of meals, I found a little time today to add a few new photos of Eli to the Flickr site. He's just over 5 months old now, and the face of a little boy is beginning to emerge where I once saw a baby's features. And he eats food. Sweet potatoes and mushy green peas and rice cereal, and he loves it all. He grabs eagerly at the rubber-tipped spoon with both fists, shoving it toward his mouth faster than I can feed him. I always wondered how babies manage to get food all over their faces (and everywhere else) when eating. It always seemed to me that a mouth (albeit a baby mouth) was a big enough target that more of it should be able to land there. Well, now I know the answer...


...And now I'm off to sleep.

New Roof.

The leaves on the maple tree are blowing around on their branches. I can see them from the kitchen window where I have a good view of the backyard. It's an early morning for me. Jeremy has been gone for an hour already. With a thermos of coffee in hand and sleep in his eyes, he drove to Ashland City to go fishing with his friend Scott.

Eli is back in his crib for a morning nap after waking briefly to gnaw on my bathrobe and greet the day. It's not often that the house is this quiet. Only early morning ever seems this quiet to me. I can hear the faint, steady hum of the refrigerator a foot away, and the click of my fingers against the letters as I type, but the rest of the house sleeps on.

We are thinking about moving sometime soon...probably next summer. Not away from Nashville, just to a house with a bit more room. Jeremy would like some land so we're keeping an eye open for that. There is still a big part of me that loves our neighborhood and would be sad to leave it, especially as I watch it continue to grow and because so many of our friends live here. We'll see what happens. Regardless of where we end up, I know we're both going to miss this house a lot.

The old carved too-shallow fireplaces are never used but they are beautiful to look at and give the house a sense of warmth, even without being lit. Our kitchen is small, but just enough space for a table for two where we often sit to have breakfast, lunch, and midnight snacks. We've spent time renovating the bathroom, reworking the plumbing and nailing bead-board to the walls. And our second bedroom has gone through many metamorphoses in four short years...it began as my office, then became a guest room, next Jeremy's music space (aka The Map Room), and now it belongs to Eli. And then, of course, there's been a lot of decorating. And redecorating. And redecorating again. As my friend Charla and I often commiserate (much to our husbands' perplexity) it's easy to become obsessed with creating new throw pillows. (I have a trunk stuffed full of them.)

So we'll miss this house. It will always be the first place we lived as a married couple, and the place where we brought our newborn son home from the hospital.

I'm not sure why I'm being so nostalgic about it now. We're not planning to move for awhile. Maybe it's something about the morning and how quiet it is; quiet enough for me to sit still for a moment and remember where I live.