three.

Today is our three-year wedding anniversary. we got married on a beautiful fall-weather day at St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church and had our reception in the chapel of an old convent. One thing I remember well about the evening is how quickly it went by. Too quickly.

Life has a way of doing that I guess, and it's amazing to realize that it's been five years since Jeremy and I first spent time together over a few cups of coffee and a Patagonia catalog to distract us from our nervousness. He always tells people that we "met at a coffee shop" as if he picked me up along with a packet of Splenda and a stir-stick or something.

We'd actually met briefly when I reviewed his first CD for an online magazine. A few years later, he contacted me about shooting some photographs for his next CD and we began emailing to discuss ideas. Not long after, I saw him at an event where he was performing and afterward, he beckoned me from across the room...[swoon.] We agreed to meet the following week for more "photography discussion." Together in a wooden booth at Fido, we realized our mutual affection for coffee and I took notes about his songs and tried to seem professional even though I was pretty instantly smitten. [Do people still use the word smitten?]

And that's how we actually met. Yes, in a coffee shop, sort of. A few days later we had a lunch date at The Cooker (may it rest in peace) and now here we are five wonderful years down the road, almost to the day.

We still love to drink coffee. Jeremy still gets Patagonia catalogs in the mail too, and whenever it arrives in a stack of bills bearing both our names, I instantly think back to that day of walking into Fido and seeing him sitting there flipping through the pages.

listening to the rain

A little stuffed toy called a "sleep sheep" is attached with a strip of velcro to Eli's crib. It plays four different sounds, including the rhythmic pounding of mother's heartbeat and the eerie echo of a whale. My favorite though, and I assume Eli's by now, is the second button: falling rain. It's soft, steady, and extremely calming. Before each nap or bedtime, I sit rocking Eli in a stuffed brown chair in the corner of his darkened room letting the pulsating rain lull us both. Eli has the most beautiful profile and the longest eyelashes, both which seem magically illuminated to me in the dark.

We chose Eli's name for a few reasons. It means ascended in Hebrew. That's not why we chose it though. Some of our dearest friends have a son named Elijah. They call him Eli and he is one of our favorite little kids in the world. He has a sweetness and a curiosity similar to our Eli, so it seems even more fitting in retrospect. Jeremy suggested the name Eli over lunch on the day of the ultrasound that revealed we were expecting a boy. I was excited immediately because it's a name I have loved for years. We decided to think on it and consult our list of boy names so as not to make such an important decision too hastily.


In the weeks that followed, whenever leaning close to my stomach to talk to the baby, Jeremy continued to call him Eli. One morning I finally said, "We should decide on his name. We can't keep calling him Eli if we're going to end up naming him something else." Prior to this, we'd been referring to the baby as either "the bean" or "little monkey." Neither of those were in the running to end up on the birth certificate though.

One of our favorite artists, Rich Mullins, had a song called "Eli's Song." We pulled it up on iTunes that morning and both became teary as we listened to the words and imagined "grace from the tiny hands" of the son wiggling around in my womb. Before the end of the first chorus, we knew Eli was the perfect name.


September 19th marks the tenth anniversary of Rich Mullins' death in a car accident. Like other significant and tragic events, both Jeremy and I still remember where we were when we heard the news. I was at the Houston Galleria, shopping with my friend Derek, when his brother called to tell him. I remember the stunned look on his face and how he barely said anything for a long time after he hung up the phone. Rich's music, and the simple, selfless way he lived his life inspired so many people we know. His music definitely had a profound effect on Jeremy and the kind of artist he aspired to be early in his career. To honor Rich's memory, Jeremy will be playing a tribute concert here in Nashville next week with some other musician friends.

Nowadays we have many nicknames for Eli. Jeremy calls him Mr. Chips [don't quite know where that came from.] We both call him Pip--or Pippin--a lot. Occasionally we mistake him for the dog and call him Sam (only occasionally.) But no matter what we call him day to day, Eli will always be the name we gave to him, one we find as beautiful as the song that etched it into being.

Eli's Song

O Eli
There's a sanctity in your innocence
A certain beauty and no uncertain strength
That brings me to the faith
I don't know if I
If I am climbing to or falling in
But it comes like grace from your tiny hands
When I hold you in mine
And I pray that the eyes
Of your heart
Shine bright
With the hope to which you're called
And may you know with all the saints
The height, the depth, the width, and the length
Of the love of God

O Eli
There's a joy in your sweet abandon
Like the cowgirl ballerina
Leaves that ride
The wild and holy bucking wind that the sky
Sent through you to blow away these walls I've built
That leave me free to be a child
And I pray that the eyes
Of your heart
Shine bright
With the hope to which you're called
And may you know with all the saints
The height, the depth, the width, and the length
Of the love of God

O Eli
There's a joy in your sweet abandon
Like the cowgirl ballerina
Leaves that ride
The wild and holy bucking wind that the sky...

overalls

eli has learned to sit up on his own. we are proud.

contents of...

it rained on sunday, as well as a bit yesterday and this morning. good soaking rains that made me want to stand underneath. i spent the morning celebrating the good gray day, observing the shadowed corners of our house through my camera. tonight we stepped out and the air was cool like California. at last the heat has left us, hopefully for good.

today i:

-made breakfast.
-used my new tube of Tom's of Maine natural Peppermint toothpaste.
-snapped gray photographs.
-struggled to pull my hair into a tiny pony-tail.
-watched eli pull himself up on shaky legs...several times.
-took a two o'clock nap with the soft down comforter pulled over my feet.
-filled CD orders.
-looked out the windows at the wet ground.
-had a family outing to wal-mart to buy three new toys [a plastic red piano, a baby cell phone, and a spinning top with jumping balls inside]and a little golden book [The Fox & The Hound] for eli.
-watered my pink chrysanthemum.
-sang the baby to sleep.
-split warm chocolate cookies with jeremy.

good gray day.

found.

flax pouch.

bits of trim.

sea & stone.

lost feather.

aged coneflower [i.]


aged coneflower [ii.]


aged coneflower [iii.]


aged coneflower [iv.]

vintage buttons.

sea.

handful of buttons.

lost feather [with thread.]

twine.

grain.

jasmine tea.

button study.

plums [sketches.]

inspirations for today.

from a page on texture

my photo: old ledger

from a page on herbs

today's reading from Spurgeon's Morning & Evening

daily inspiration

my photo: french mail stub. chianti label. torn paper.

my photo: embroidered pillow case from normandy with letter "c"

from a page: simple chair

shrimpypoos

Any creative bone in my body came from my mother. from my father, i inherited a goofy sense of humor that only emerges when i feel very comfortable with someone (usually Jeremy), my deep appreciation of music despite a lack of musical talent, and a tendency toward being overly-analytical.

perhaps more useful to my daily life, however, are the gifts of imagination and artistry my mother fostered in me from a young age. I can't begin to count the nights i drift off to sleep with ideas for five new projects colliding in my head as they eagerly await morning.

my mom has pursued many creative endeavors of her own through the years, and most recently has launched a line of handmade plush toys called Shrimpypoos.

while together in San Diego this summer, my mom, sister and i were standing in the kitchen preparing dinner. My sister was de-veining shrimp as we discussed a possible name for the new collection of creatures we were encouraging my mom to sell. I think it was my sister who jokingly suggested, "You could call them shrimp poop." We laughed at the time, but I guess it kind of stuck. If SpongeBob can catch on, why not a Shrimpypoo? It kind of fits too because my mom lives in Houston and loves the gulf coast beaches.


Shrimpypoos are soft and squeezable and one-of-a-kind. [Eli has a blue one named Pookie and he loves it.] Each one has a unique story behind it too, as well as imaginative characteristics that bring it to life. [Izzy is my current favorite.]

Shrimpypoos are available at shrimpypoos.etsy.com.

a new look.

i decided this was a good day to give my blog a little face-lift. it's been two years or so since i began this online journal of sorts, and i am actually surprised it has taken me this long to change the appearance of things. but i figure this is the week: new haircut, new clothes for the blog. and i must say, i'm quite happy with the cleaner look of "a net for catching days." yes, it was time to simplify.

[note: i have never had a face-lift or any sort of plastic surgery...so the closest i could come was this photograph of my sister and me trying out some homemade facial masks a few years ago.]

to dos for september

-recover old velvet chair with plain nubby linen

-ready the sofa throw pillows for fall (new jackets)

-sort Eli's clothes

-cook with rosemary from the garden pot

-make paper collage (still haven't started)

-find a Yoga class at the Y

-print photos to frame

-birthday gift for lisa

-one last batch of homemade ice cream

self-portraits

[i got my hair cut last week. short-ish. Eli is in a grabby phase and his favorite activity lately is to grab a handful of hair in his remarkably strong clutches and pull with all his little might. when my hair was longer, it was an easy target, so i decided to take the plunge and chop it off. at least temporarily.]