Tickle Me Color

I'm grateful for color and for being able to see it. Do you realize that Birch is colorblind? Oooph. Rough stuff, says me. I love color. Bright, bold, faded, subtle, mixed, matching, muted, contrasting color!

Color Swatch Knob from Anthropologie

Whistle While I Work

I'm grateful for a clean, bright, and colorful home. (Mostly because it's decidedly not clean today.)

For Thursday, November 11th

I'm grateful for days that are so busy you don't have any time to write a blog!

Birch had Veteran's Day off, so we took full advantage:

1. Date night sans baby the night before at Vino Locale in downtown Palo Alto. We were going to go ice skating, too, but left too late and the rink was only going to be open for another half hour. Oh, well. Next time. By the way, Birch has NEVER ice skated. Crazy, right?
2. Beach trip Thursday morning with Miriam and two-thirds of her crew (Sofie and Kegel, no Ben) and Liana (longtime friend from high school visiting from NOLA) and the crazy lab Illapa. 
3. Quick dive home to drop off Olive and change clothes, then...
4. ... Up to the city for a gallery show at the Public Barber Salon with Cindy Loughridge, Seth Restaino, Dottie L. Guy, Jeremy Brooks, Pei Ketron, Patrick Power, Chris Connolly, and Allen Passalaqua. Remember me wishing for another show about a week ago? Yeah, crazy timely timing, right? Awesome. The photos will be up until January 2nd, so go check 'em out. They're for sale! Oh, and you can get a hair cut, too. I'm sure Birch would like me to add that he's grateful for the salt baked crab he had last night at Kim Tranh just down the block from the salon. With baby in tow it made for quite an interesting restaurant experience and though Birch's breath was downright nasty afterward, he was in heaven throughout (oh, and they gave him this nifty finger bath bowl that magically made his hands not smell like garlic, green onions, and crab. He thought it was perhaps tea with lemon?).

The Talkies

I'm grateful for girl talk. You know, intimate conversation seriously drenched in idle gossip. Every once in a while, I think every girl needs a few hours of serious gossip time. I got mine today over cheesecake (and later over ramen). Have you had yours this month?

Is For Lovers.

I'm grateful for the state of Virginia. I moved there in 2006 for school and lived there for only two years, but I loved it more than I ever thought I would and definitely more than I'd be able to express in one measly blog entry.

I moved there at a critical point in my emotional life. I needed a break from what had been and moving across the country seemed like the right medicine. I've said it before and I'll say it again, moving is never a bad idea. The people I met there changed my life dramatically and still influence me to this day, despite having not seen a single one of them since I moved back to California to be married. The people and the places. Oh, the places! Little did I know how green the world could be. Summer was deep green, Autumn was yellow and orange and red, Winter was icy white, and Spring was redbuds. I went for walks and hikes every day. I took my camera every where I went. Friends came and went from my house. I fed them, stayed up late with them, watched movies with them, laughed with them, chased them, and cried with them. Wait. Chased them? Yep, chased them. I sorted out the mess that was my life while I was in Virginia. I became at ease with myself and confident in my convictions and my loves. I knew who I was. Virginia changed me into me.

How perfect that Birch should meet me not the countless times we've figured we could have met each other, but while I was living in Virginia. The land of my internal peace. Birch and I lived in Santa Cruz at the same time, he worked with a friend of mine for years before meeting me, I used to work about fifteen blocks from his family home, and we grew up only twenty minutes from each other. We met when I was living three thousand miles away and was the happiest I'd ever been up to that point.

I not only love the people that surrounded me during that time. I have a deep and abiding respect for them. They are themselves without apology and full of love and generosity of spirit that I have striven to emulate. I keep in contact with some of them and wonder what has become of the rest, but with all I smile whenever I think of them.

Birch and I have given serious thought to moving back there if, when it comes down to it, we cannot afford land here in California. What an absolutely beautiful place it is. The rolling hills of the Shenandoah Valley, the crisp in winter and warm in summer rivers that swerve through pastures and cut through rock. And the trees! Oh, the trees that are constantly changing on you. So much so that you can never quite decide when they are at their loveliest. I miss the seasons there. The real, true seasons with rain, humidity, deep cold, snow, icy roads, autumn splendor everywhere!

I love who I was there. I must admit that I change according to environment and I was a slightly different me than the me I am now. I was courageous and bold... independent. Someday I will find my way back to that place within myself, but for now I must refer to it as: Virginia.

I Heart You

I'm grateful for secret messages hidden for me throughout the day.

Go Ahead. Inspire Me.

It was hard to think of something to write about today. NOT because I couldn't think of anything I was grateful for, but because I wanted to write about something that was particularly inspiring to me each day, and today I just wasn't feeling inspired. So...

I'm grateful for inspiration. It's not reliable. It's not consistent. It's fleeting. It floats around without a care in the world and seems to have absolutely no regard for what I actually need to get done that day, but when it hits, it really hits, and if I don't act on it then I regret it for the rest of the day and in some special cases, the rest of the week. Perhaps it's writing up a story, designing a playhouse, sketching, or sewing a new stuffed animal or a pair of pants. It could be that sudden, unquenchable need to fill a vase with a bouquet of flowers handpicked by yours truly. It could be to jump into my boots and scatter seeds into the rainy garden. It could be to finally take down the twinkle lights that went out last month (after six years of near-daily use).
Vacuuming, baking a cheesecake, calling a friend, walking to the park, roasting squash, sweeping the front step, emailing Birch "I love you," cleaning the fish tank, clipping back the plants, scrubbing and drying the dishes, mopping the floor, organizing Keats' toys, taking out the trash, reading old journal entries, writing another poem, doing the laundry, applying makeup.

I'm grateful that I feel it. I'm grateful that I recognize it. I'm grateful when I act on it.