Remembering

Today was a dark day. No it's ok, I'm really just referring to the weather. I had the lights on in my big-windowed rooms at 1 o'clock in the afternoon. But I must say, a dark day doesn't help the mood, especially if you're tipping in that direction anyway, and a little sadness whirled around the house with the wind and crept in the cracks.

On the edge

I remember watching a tree at the end of my mum's road at this time last year. Its leaves were turning red and starting to fall, and the thought arrived in my head, "that tree will be green again." I get a little nervous about winter. I don't like cold, I don't like rain, I don't like wind. I have a funny thing about wanting to know that my favourite people are tucked up safe and warm with me when the weather is stormy, and it is so hard now when they are far away or nowhere at all. While I'm happy to work on looking at the positive things, there's a heaviness and oppression about winter that doesn't do much for my state of mind and is hard to shake.

Dreaming

I've been working very hard on living lately.

Having discovered what it is like to live in the deepest and blackest of holes, I'm pretty keen to keep as far away from it as I can. It seems to me that the best solution is to climb as far out as possible, to find instead the dizzying heights and cool breezes of the mountain tops. When you're prone to falling, you have to work hard on your climbing.

Good for me

Many months ago I mentioned to Reuben that I would love to have a go at painting again. I had done art right through school and have barely picked up a paintbrush since, if at all. I suppose it came to mind when I was considering what I could do around home, for myself, when I have a bit of spare time and don't want to find myself in front of a screen. Something creative with a beginning and an end.

Love language

Here's a banquet of beauty that has been brought to my door by people over the last couple of months who want to tell me they love me in the rough times. I like photographing flowers almost as much as I like having them on my table, and think a few waifs and strays in small vases are always worth looking after.

This is life

I played the game and won the other day.

We were recently at a delightful park just up the road from our house, and, gazing at the stream in early summer, I decided we needed to do something with that stream. Get in there and get the most out of it. Out of life. So on a sunny new year day, happily joined by friends, we went paddling.

Christmas Day 2014

I am pleased to report, and you lovely lot will be pleased to hear, that we had a very good Christmas Day. As the cliche goes, the kids really did make it wonderful. We were a fairly small family, but that never dampens the kids' party spirit. We had a few hiccups along the way, and always a big gap at our table.

A change is as good as a holiday

I've been getting a bit bored with dinner lately. You know the balance of trying to keep everyone in the family happy. Finding what you all like, finding healthy meals, a good range of food, all that sort of thing. I miss cooking for someone who eats with enthusiasm (well, some nights they do) and smiles in appreciation down the table. So I decided recently it's time to shake things up a little.

Foraging

I quite like this flower foraging idea. The kids and I are walking home through some playing grounds on the way home from school these days - well - back to the car via a long route. It feels good to just take some time and let them race across the grass and clamber up the banks.

Today they found all kinds of flowers to pick for me, some growing wildly and others escaping over fences from neighbouring properties. The days have been hard this last week and I'm trying to look for some bright spots along the way - these are definitely one of them.

Down the road

I see the world, the physical, natural world, a little differently these days. I am both more and less fond of it. I think more is winning out. There is an intensity, a clarity, and an understanding of the passing of time that I had only briefly glimpsed before.

Eggs in (Italian) tomatoes

I was waxing lyrical to a friend recently about the food in Italy and how fantastic it tasted. Everything. Even the tinned tomatoes. He suggested in his devil's advocate kind of a way that perhaps, given Italy's reputation, you couldn't help but think the food tasted good. No, I said, it really did.

A rainy Saturday and sweet pastry pies

Gosh I don't know what came over me. Well, OK, maybe I do. I've been eating extra carefully lately, and have started missing baking - the soothing activity of baking at least as much as the eating. So on a quiet and wet Saturday afternoon, when I couldn't not bake anymore, I decided to do something I haven't done for a while, and bake something I haven't baked before. If you follow me.

Why

A friend has asked me if I would like to be the next in a line of bloggers who are writing posts about why they write. It's a topic that I often consider, and have briefly tried to explain before, and so I was very keen. There was a list of questions, which I'm afraid I have taken very little notice of, but essentially, here is my answer. Much of it is also based on my writing on my other blog, Griefprint:

34/52

  A portrait of my children every week for a year.

Discipline is freedom

It's a strange phenomenon, but I suspect it is fairly common and I suffer from it dreadfully. It really needs a name. It's the inability to adjust when you are hurtled from long phases of intensive parenting in to a period of (supposedly) blissful quiet. Many of us get it, and I know I am lucky to; it might be a few hours in the morning while the kids are at kindy, daytime naps or short evenings when the kids are asleep and you are not quite, an afternoon alone thanks to the grandparents, a quiet weekend day when Dad takes over, or many long days when the kids start school. Whatever it is, you are shot out like a cannonball from one world in to the other.

33/52

 A portrait of my children every week for a year.

32/52

 A portrait of my children every week for a year.

31/52

    A portrait of my children every week for a year.

Shelving it

 For years now I have been totally obsessed with The Design Sponge's Sneak Peeks - a place where you can check out the interiors of some gorgeous homes that generally belong to arty/crafty/designer-y people. They're always lovely and outrageously tidy, but they're real and full of personality and often second hand bits and pieces, which I love.

Be encouraged, friend. Parent.

Hey lovely Mammas. What a heartfelt reaction there was to the lovely article I linked to on my facebook page called "It gets easier" by Emily at Jones Design Company. Gosh we all need some encouragement don't we? It can be hard having small children, and it is hard not to get stuck in the trenches. Isn't it lovely when someone pops over the top and tells you the view is pretty good up there?