far from ireland...

if you ever hear me second guess our decision to leave our former house with its view of the nashville skyline for the greener pastures of small town kingston springs, just remind me of what it's like here in the fall. oh my goodness. this might be the case in all of nashville really, probably all of tennessee, but i guess i didn't notice the beauty of autumn to this extent until i saw it from my current front porch. the field across the street is breathtaking, especially when the sunlight hits the trees a certain way.

i set out the pumpkins we got last weekend at the farm. a cold front has moved in so i didn't last very long on the swing, even with a coffee cup to warm my hands and two layers of sweater.


surprisingly, the time has moved fairly quickly since jeremy has been in ireland, so i haven't felt inclined to write like i thought i would. i've been missing him, but also happily distracted by my adventures with eli and a few quiet moments in between.

the week has included a marathon of asian eating for myself, as well as substantial amounts of chocolate. i may have mentioned that whenever my asian-food-disliking husband travels, i tend to consume some version of curry or stir-fry for nearly every dinner meal. most of them i prepare myself, but on friday night i fetched some take-out noodles from Pei Wei (and a thick bar of dark chocolate from whole foods), and headed to the cerveny's house to stay for the night. i owed them an evening of babysitting after j's & my recent date to City House before he left for his trip. (by the way, i highly recommend City House in Germantown for dinner...amazing authentic, rustic italian cuisine served in a sleek but intimate warehouse atmosphere. we had the best time.) after emmy & eli were asleep, i settled myself down under a wool throw in the cerveny's cozy new family room to read.

in the morning, charla, eli, and i headed out for breakfast and to explore east nashville for awhile. it's fun to see all the growth of our old neighborhood. new coffee shops, children's bookstore, a deli with a community garden out back. i miss many things about living there, but some i don't, so it was good to arrive back at home again that afternoon.

after dinner, i finished a painting. my inspiration came from a mural at anthropologie, but i ended up with a completely different design. i prefer it when inspiration leads me to create something original, rather than merely an adaptation of something i've already seen.


i decided to accessorize the painting with a frame i'd been saving for my studio upstairs; the living room needed it more. lately, i've been feeling like our living room looks way too pottery barn, so i've been searching for ways to inject some creativity and imperfection into the space. it's still a work in progress, of course.


i also hung a paper cutting i've been working on...it's layered with japanese rice paper and is just a free-flowing abstract design.


as for other adventures with eli (who now has a cold), we have visited the monkey's treehouse, eaten cookies, gone to the library, and purchased a few special toys to remind him of daddy: a child's keyboard and a toy power drill. [his two favorite things to do with jeremy are make music and work on the house. whenever anyone new enters our home, eli immediately rushes to some bit of trim around a doorway and pats it proudly to show what he and his dad did together. it's the sweetest thing.] i also let him pick out a wooden treasure box to paint, though we still need to take a walk in search of treasures to put inside.


meanwhile, jeremy has been having the time of his life in ireland and has been invited to come back again next year (with us!) he said it's beautiful and green and reminds him of Pennsylvania + sheep.

here in tennessee, we have our own little patches of leaf-covered green. i'll be happy for him to return to us tomorrow. we saved him some chocolate.