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.]

There is Work to Be Done.

Today’s list: (and what became of it)

Finish second cup of Dancing Goats coffee [in preparation for work.] done
Make bed. done
Late breakfast. Early lunch. done
Plant seeds in tiny painted pots for the window ledge. pots still empty
Wash sofa slipcovers. still dirty
Tomorrow’s grocery list...find recipes. almost done
Cat box. um, always last priority...can wait till tomorrow
Feed Eli oatmeal and pears. peaches. done
Buy: baby vitamins, organic 1% milk, something chocolate. milk and chocolate bar = done
Begin paper collage project. tomorrow
Write thank-you notes. tomorrow
Make chicken tacos Go to Baja Burrito for dinner. done
Squash Carrots and peas for Eli. ate them all
Read “If You Give a Pig a Pancake” "When the Moon Smiled" as bedtime story. done
Doze. soon...

heatwave.

it is scorching. suffocatingly hot. the kind of hot that sucks every ounce of energy straight from your body and leaves you feeling like a dusty tumbleweed. we just cannot seem to get a break from the hundred degree temperatures.

i have never wished so earnestly for rain. our garden is brittle. leaves once green are now crumbly and brown and our willow tree is drooping from exhaustion. we're staying relatively cool [inside] with the help of a few box fans to supplement the air conditioning, but yesterday i actually put on a bathing suit and hopped into the bathtub with Eli for an afternoon swim. he loved splashing around and watching the rubber duckies float by. i got the feeling even they were thankful for a plunge.

oh, if only we could all get away with wearing nothing but a diaper, how much more bearable August would be.

but since i can't, a few things that are helping me make it through the days:

-drive-thru iced coffees and french music on the car stereo

-afternoon naps under handkerchief sheets

-a chicken curry recipe cooled with coconut milk

-homemade strawberry ice cream and opening the freezer to get another scoop


-bare feet on kitchen tile

-rocking Eli on a soft chair in a darkened nursery (blinds closed, curtains drawn) and concentrating on his tiny breaths as he drifts off to sleep

-letting wet hair air-dry

-early evening family drives around town. [for no reason.]

-Shiner Hefeweizen in a frosty mug with a slice of lemon (i'm not really a beer drinker, but lately an after-dinner brew with Jeremy is pretty tasty)

-a clawfoot tub, a few plastic toys, several gallons of lukewarm water, and one happy baby with droplets on his eyelashes

cookie monster.

Learning to crawl.

today, so far, is feeling a lot less like a saturday than i'd hoped. we did sleep in till 9:30 which i guess is saturdayish, but then there are always tasks to be done. lately, i find myself looking forward to weekends even more than i did when i was "working" full time. the craving for family-time and a break from routine has intensified now that we have eli, and jeremy is tied to his computer weekdays from eight to six.

this morning, jeremy is cleaning the garage, and i paused from simultaneously writing a grocery list, emptying the dishwasher, and brewing iced tea to sit down and compose a blog while eli naps. the forks reminded me that it's been too many days since i've written.

eli has his first two bottom teeth emerging, and has begun scoot-creep-crawling, which i find both exciting and worrisome. now he is at eye (and hand) level with the dog, cat, my not always clean kitchen floor, and a variety of cords, water dishes, and various other hazards soon to be baby-proofed. i will admit that it is very nice to be able to put him down now, to let him scootch across the floor on his belly, feet tromping the tiles in a mermaid-like motion to get where he wants to go. this buys me a little more time to prepare dinner or fold a load of laundry while he's captivated by the toy-buffet of colorful plastic spoons and lids within his reach.

last night i dreamt that jeremy and i went to Europe, twice. we packed, flew across the seas to look at ruins and cathedrals, then came home, re-packed, and flew to Europe again. the second time, eli was with us. awake now, i can see that my quest for adventure and creative inspiration has been redefined. this side of pregnancy, adventure looks a bit more like chasing a curious six month old as he scuttles across the house. it means finding mystery through his perspective, as i squeeze the upright shampoo bottle during his bath and watch his eyes widen at the tiny bubbles that float into the air.

i completed a painting last week (after eli's bedtime) using many shades of intersecting blues and greens. honestly, i hadn't thought much about any meaning behind it until jeremy noticed that the design seems much less simple than paintings i've done in the past. usually i paint a singular object: dog, tree, olive. i'm not sure if his interpretation is what i subconsciously intended, but i can agree that life has become a good bit more multi-focused. definitely less simple. still, we are navigating our way through it happily and steadily, scooting along on our stomachs to get where we want to go.

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.

family saturday

we began the afternoon with a visit to the aforementioned new hot dog stand just a hop and a skip away. fashioned from a repainted VW bus, the stand sits perched between a local art gallery and a house filled with antiques for sale. we gobbled our dogs in the car with a bag of chips to share and a stack of napkins on the console. other eaters (mostly in twos) squatted on oilcloth blankets on the lawn munching their hot dog of choice. mine was minus the relish.

next it was off to Bates, our favorite nursery, to replenish our garden. while jeremy headed out in search of herbs, i cranked the a/c and jumped in the back seat to feed eli. studying the faint purple and blue road map of veins along his forehead, i found myself once again amazed that those veins were intricately formed in my womb over a matter of only months. the concept of a human life's creation, and how evident it is that only God could construct such a detailed miracle, continue to be revealed before my eyes.

we located jeremy across the nursery asking advice from a woman in a large sun hat and gardening gloves who was working in the blazing heat. eli donned his own hat, but even with that and the canopy of his stroller it was still much too scorching, so i quickly pointed my selections out for jeremy to grab and headed for some shade. eli smiled with both relief and curiosity as i held him in the air and let a refreshing watery mist blowing from a fan dot his face and legs with tiny droplets. fine wisps of baby hair (once black but growing blonder by the week) blew in the breeze and his pink cheeks felt both sticky and cool as i kissed him.


the back of our subaru was soon loaded down with a large antique-rose-hued coneflower, two blueberry bushes, a couple of small cacti, and a fragrant chamomile plant (my picks), along with some lemon verbena, apple mint, and delicate thread-like clumps of ornamental grass called pony tails, plus a bag of bone meal, and a single terracotta pot for them all to fight over.






a quick dash into the farmer's market on the way home yielded two ears of sweet corn, a large handful of tomatoes on the vine, a lemon, and scallions for a batch of fresh farmstand salsa to revive us after our afternoon in the sun.


the end.

recent favorites:

~raw almond butter & savannah bee tupelo honey on bread

~linen

~eli's belly laughs

~french music

~rosemary and russian sage clippings

~hammocks

~cheesy polenta

~orange blossom soy votive from french general

~rex goliath "free range" pinot noir

~crest pro health toothpaste

~demitasse spoons

~feist's song "brandy alexander"

~the kone

~shades of white

~jute

~summer naps

~burt's bees apricot baby oil on 5 month old feet

~our neighborhood's new hot dog stand, "I Dream of Weenie," which i have yet to try, but am optimistic it will become a favorite.

west coast. (and what these days are made of...)

i am beginning to think i should change the name of my blog to tales from mommyville or a net for catching soggy diapers. lately i'm finding i either have no time to post or else nothing in my brain but the mystery of another missing baby sock: things that are probably only captivating to myself, my mom, and my mother-in-law, if even that.

but i suppose this blog is meant to be about my days, whatever they may hold and however they may evolve throughout my life (or as long as this blog exists.) looking back, my posts used to be filled with somewhat creative observations on the world around me and my latest painting projects. nowadays, all i seem to do is laundry. not that i am complaining. there is something both sweet and gratifying (though monotonous at times) about folding all those tiny shirts and pants and pjs. when i try, i associate them with the tiny body that belongs inside them and suddenly the chore has meaning. being honest though, i do find it puzzling that one little person can go through so many outfits in a week. especially since we seldom leave the house.

vacation number two was equally as relaxing as the first. well, it wasn't entirely restful actually, because i spent some of the time putting together my mom's 60th birthday party and that left little time for lounging. but it was more than worth it for the smile on her face, and definitely an enjoyable trip. jeremy and i took advantage of free and eager babysitters and drove twenty miles down the coast to La Jolla where we'd located the closest Peets Coffee & Tea. we stocked up on beans and i had the best iced latte of my life. jeremy schmoozed the barista and scored a free hat. our vacation also included a visit to the amazing outlet mall nearby (where i purchased these cute cherries glasses from Crate & Barrel.) we also watched strange chirping squirrels on the rocky beach, had a delicious breakfast at The Daily News Cafe and took the baby swimming again.

eli was a great little socialite, eager to sit in a variety of laps while i assembled pasta salad, sipped fruity sangria, and scotch-taped photos of my mother's childhood around the room. just as i had imagined during our trip to South Carolina that eli found comfort in the three other men (uncles) resembling his daddy, i thought the room full of olive complexions and big brown eyes belonging to my sister, aunts and cousins (and their kids) might have made him feel at home in California.


jeremy did his best to "wave the baby flag" on our plane trip home, hoping we could keep a whole row for ourselves, but the flight was full. fortunately, a mother of triplets who was traveling solo had empathy and took the window seat---better than the many possible alternatives.


being that it was father's day when we arrived back in Nashville, we went out for really yummy pizza and gave jeremy some gifts. eli provided even more smiles than usual, probably because deep inside he knew it was a day for dads, and because it was good to be home again after so much time away.

east coast.

we just returned from a vacation with Jeremy's family in South Carolina. the trip meant a lot of firsts for 4 month old Eli, and so in turn, a lot of firsts for us as we watched each new experience unfold for him.

it was his first time to ride through a tunnel, cross a state line, and sleep in a hotel bed (with his own mini travel bed floating like a raft atop Hampton Inn sheets). after 10 hours in a carseat, he finally got his first glimpse at the ocean and was lulled to sleep by the waves as i rocked him on the deck outside our rental house. next came his first big swim in the pool, slathered from head to toe with baby sunscreen. his first swing in a hammock was followed by a second and a third. and it was his first time to dance on the beach in the arms of his grandmother before we headed back home to Tennessee.


next week we fly to the opposite coast to celebrate my mom's birthday with my side of the family, and i'm sure we'll enjoy many more firsts through eli's eyes. following his first airplane trip, he'll have a first look at his cousin jake, a first sniff of my mom's gourmet cooking, and his first brush with that cool, salty california breeze that has beckoned me back again and again, ever since my own childhood.

A bigger baby...

I went to visit my friend Amy in the hospital this week after she gave birth to her son Braxton. Holding that teensy baby in my arms, I couldn't believe Eli was ever that small. Before I was a parent, I would hear people talk about how fast their children grow up, and I always thought they meant it in a figurative way...kind of like saying that time flies, even though it actually just ticks along at the same rate for everybody. Now I see that it's really true...Eli is changing SO quickly right before my eyes. One day he is smiling. The next day it turns to a laugh. Lately he's been learning to make growling noises which confuses the dog who is already scared of him.

I guess I thought Eli would remain in that bundled up and cradled infant stage for a lot longer, but it seemed to pass in a matter of weeks, and now he sits up (with help) and rolls over (by himself) and glimpses of a distinct personality are beginning to emerge.

Today I finally found a few moments, while he's napping in his swing in front of me, to post some new photos to the Flickr page. We're starting to get outside a bit more these days. Eli loves his big polka-dotted play mat given to him by his Aunt Laura. We find the only shady spot, under a big tree on the farthest edge of the yard, to lie down and listen to the birds for awhile.

Now Eli is waking up. He just pulled his green blanket up over his face and is chewing on the tag and peering up at me. So we're off and running again...

RCVRIE. [*UPDATED]

[*Update]
Recovery is now available for Pre-Order via Jeremy's website...and when you pre-order, you'll be able to download the complete album and hear it right this minute! Also check out the fun "Making of Recovery" video.



Jeremy's new album, Recovery, is releasing on May 22nd. We are both very excited about this project. It's been a long time in the making---many pots of coffee and toiling away into the nighttime hours to get it just right, but at last it's finally finished.

I am so proud of Jeremy's accomplishment, especially considering that he not only wrote the songs, but also arranged the amazing orchestral parts woven throughout the album. He has always had an incredible knack for melody that comes so naturally.

I could be wrong, but I tend to think of most of the artists we know as natural poets: they sit down with a notebook and scribble out great lyrical lines with relative ease. And then the melodies come as slightly more of an afterthought. Important, yes, but intended more as the backdrop against which to showcase their eloquence.

With Jeremy, the path is reversed. He almost constantly hears music in his head. New melodies swirl around as often as his daily thoughts of what to eat for lunch. There's entire symphonies in all genres happening up there in his brain, and I often catch him pausing and staring at the ground in a temporary daze that lets me know he's creating. Lyrics come later, and are reached for with much more effort and diligence. But they always come.

In the end, this record is about uncovering. Pain & beauty. The past, the future. And most importantly, the truth.

En route to the golf course near Shelby Park in our neighborhood where I thought maybe we could find a nice patch of open space to take some photos for the album art, we passed a house that I had seen once while walking with a friend, and I knew it would be the perfect spot to capture both the beautiful and broken concepts of this record. One tree in the frame was brittle, still recovering from winter, while the other had welcomed new growth and was flourishing and green. The house was falling down, yet looking closely, we could see promise of what it might become, rebuilt from the pieces that remained.