pops and a peek

elisha has discovered the beauty of a prize.  put your head under during swim class?  popsicle.  muster all your strength to try the potty?  popsicle.

and asher is just plain in love with them. 

and for those of you curious, here is one of the “finished” rooms in the house. please note the fireplace that is reminiscent of castle grayskull.  not really sure what the owner was going for there, but i’m sure we’ll be thanking him on those cold winter nights.  that or the grayskull-ness will just be emphasized with the flames burning bright and high and i’ll be creeped out even more.  and even though it is a bit small for you to see, our painting by a friend in miami helps temper the oddness.  

someday soon a rug or two will find its way in here.  and perhaps some curtains. wouldn’t you know that our rug bought less than a year ago was too big for this room.  sad.

i’m not sure the last time that i lived in a house with white walls, but i’m kind of enjoying it.  that or just the thought of painting and all that goes with it exhausts me and makes me think white is beautiful.

food

a swipe of chalkboard paint on a food jar so you can actually know what you put in it?  brilliant.  kudos to world market.

omar and i have been mourning the loss of our favorite miami french bakery. today i think we found a pretty good stand-in.  paris bakery impressed the whole family and the baguette was worth the drive.

check out this nyt article on The Illogic of Farm Subsidies, and Other Agricultural Truths.  after a few months of very little grocery shopping, i’ve been thrust back into the world of supermarkets and consumer decision making.  truthfully, not really glamorous stuff, but more and more it feels like i am picking up packages and products that are plastered with politicized slogans and language that can often seem misleading.  sumner’s insight into buying organic, local food, biofuels, and subsidized farming is well worth the read.

five years, two kids, lots of unpacked boxes later

anniversary eve :: celebratory anniversary flowers and a night at the movies to see the new harry potter.

anniversary night :: dinner out at rhythm cafe.  two date nights out in a row, you say?  i’m not too ashamed to admit that i can’t handle dinner and a movie in one night these days.  i want to enjoy dinner and not feel rushed.  and i’m not the biggest fan of going to a movie that starts after 9.  and i haven’t even hit 30…

anniversary poem :: the country of marriage by wendell berry

III
Sometimes our life reminds me
of a forest in which there is a graceful clearing
and in that opening a house,
an orchard and garden,
comfortable shades, and flowers
red and yellow in the sun, a pattern
made in the light for the light to return to.
The forest is mostly dark, its ways
to be made anew day after day, the dark
richer than the light and more blessed,
provided we stay brave
enough to keep on going in. 

V
Our bond is no little economy based on the exchange
of my love and work for yours, so much for so much
of an expendable fund. We don’t know what its limits are—
that puts it in the dark. We are more together
than we know, how else could we keep on discovering
we are more together than we thought?
You are the known way leading always to the unknown,
and you are the known place to which the unknown is always
leading me back. More blessed in you than I know,
I possess nothing worthy to give you, nothing
not belittled by my saying that I possess it.
Even an hour of love is a moral predicament, a blessing
a man may be hard up to be worthy of. He can only
accept it, as a plant accepts from all the bounty of the light
enough to live, and then accepts the dark,
passing unencumbered back to the earth, as I
have fallen time and again from the great strength
of my desire, helpless, into your arms.

 

three days on

meals have been eaten without boxes piled high around us.

elisha has said to me numerous times, “mama, i like your new house.”

asher has circled through the hall and kitchen looking quite frustrated and lost. figuring he was looking for his room i asked him, “asher, where are you going?” he replies, “where my toys?!”  i led him to his room and all was well.

pictures have been put on walls and curtains hung (!).

the pool has been neglected as it is stinking hot and omar and i are not sure how to clean it.  no worries – my dad and all his pool knowledge arrive in a couple of hours.

i have had my first boca raton (just south of us) shopping experience.  i kept thinking i was going to run into jerry seinfeld’s parents.  

i have had to face the reality that omar does indeed have to go to work each morning.  once again, i am outnumbered during the day.  hopefully we’ll hit our groove sooner than later.

seen, heard, eaten

seen::
unfortunately, not much.  traveling south on i-95 in florida is perhaps most depressing because you know the only way out (that doesn’t take twice the time) is right back on the same road.  maybe that’s why people spend their whole lives in south florida – dislike of i-95?

heard::
lots of music – elisha’s song of the moment is sufjan stevens’ holy, holy, holy, and we’re actually quite impressed with how much of it he can sing.  fuzzy npr stations that come and go across state lines.  podcasts – when elisha hears the opening music to our podcasts of the splendid table, he usually cries out, “no! no! no!”  so we thought he just tuned it all out.  but then a caller asks about donut recipes and guess who starts pleading for donuts?  a little while later elisha thought he heard a caller say “elisha” when in reality the caller said, “luscious olives.”  but there was no convincing him.

eaten::
i always have big plans for making fun and moderately healthy road food.  didn’t happen.  but on this trip we got to meet up with my brother and sister-in-law and her family for the best vietnamese food made by her mom.  so good.  and it made our cracker barrel dinner later that day just that much more pitiful. 

moving on…again

photo courtesy of my dad

today marks the last full day of our 2009 north carolina extended vacation. tomorrow we head back to florida.  i reminded elisha that we were leaving tomorrow to move to lake worth and he looked quite confused.  but after living somewhere for two and a half months the kiddo probably thought this was now our home.  though even if i asked him at this moment where we live he’d still say, “miami.”  poor confused kid.

our week has been full of great times with friends, good food, boat riding, beach going – all good vacation stuff.

we’ve loved our time here but are ready to head back…i think.

i got a bit overwhelmed imagining all of the boxes in our storage unit being unpacked.  but then i thought of our coffee mugs (which i love) and that seemed to make it all ok.

drops

night

i like how in the summer months time gets away from us and on nights like tonight we don’t eat dinner until later because we’ve been outside playing.  

probably because it is still light outside, the boys usually stay up for at least 45 minutes to an hour after we say goodnight, and they play and sing and talk.  omar and i know we could put them in separate rooms and let them get to sleep earlier but then they would be buddy-less.

winter, spring, summer :: every night for the past three seasons we have sung we three kings before we say good night.  actually, we’ve sung that song multiple times a day.  every.  day.

i have big ideas percolating in my head about strings of globe lights over our new patio so we can eat our fall and winter dinners outdoors.

to the mountains

last week we took a little drive to check out the rest of the state, celebrate my grandma’s 80th birthday, sleep in a creaky inn with yummy breakfasts, play in creeks, find inchworms, see an old roommate and her very cool garden and just enjoy being on non-flat terrain.  our poor transmission protested such adventures, though, and decided it wanted to live its last days in the mountains. but being so excited about a new job made even that seem like less of a big deal…i think…