Right now...

I am loving...

Having flowers from our garden on our table.

When Carys says, "Let's paint a family mural!", in the morning, and we do.

Heading to the beach every chance we get (twice this week!).

This cute art caddy that I found here, it organizes the kid's art supplies perfectly.

Being able to spend a huge part of my birthday yesterday in the studio, thank you Frank!

Having a few paintings just waiting for some finishing touches....oh yes, I really love that!

Island Beneath the Sea: a giveaway

Island Beneath the Sea: A Novel

Having been a huge longtime fan of author Isabel Allende, this book had been at the top of my reading list since it came out. I was finally able to read it on our recent road trip and within the first few pages I was completely drawn in. I literally read it cover to cover in 3 days (Thanks to all those hours in the car with the kids listening to books on tape!). It was one of those books where I just had to keep reading, even into the night, to see what would happen and when it ended I still wished that there were another 50 pages to really find out what the characters did after wards!


Tomorrow is my birthday, and in the spirit of celebration I am giving away my copy of Island Beneath the Sea. All you need to do to enter is answer one simple question: Which of my prints is your favorite? I'd love to know. Go to my shop to chose and leave the answer in your comment.
I'll close the comments and choose a winner at random on Friday morning.
 *****
*Congratulations to Valentina, she was selected by the random number generator as the book winner*
Thanks so much to everyone that entered!!

Meant to be

Yesterday I spent the afternoon with a dear long-time friend of mine, who gave birth to her second child on Tuesday. I was her doula and a few days before we had just had our prenatal visit, in which we discussed her plans for the birth. She had a home birth for her first baby and this one as well was a planned home birth. On Tuesday, two weeks before her estimated due date she woke in the night in labor, and things progressed so quickly that the midwife and I both missed the birth! That is the first time as a doula that this has happened to me, and at first I was devastated to have missed it. I was so looking forward to supporting my good friend as she labored and birthed. Once Frank talked me down and I thought about it, and spoke with my friend, the more it became clear to me that it all happened in the perfect way for them. It all happened how it was meant to be. They were able to share the moment together, just the three of them. What an amazing, exhilarating, experience for my friend, her husband and their new little girl to share. Her husband caught the baby, placed their new perfect and healthy little girl on my friend's chest and they waited for the midwife, and everything really was just as it was meant to be.

A tale of Midsummer night

We gathered together at Prospect Park on Midsummer Night to celebrate the summer solstice, at the spot on the hill where we have gathered before with our Waldorf Playgroup. The spot where even on the hottest days the breezes blow, and hot it was. Blankets were spread on the grass.

Food was shared and enchanting stories were told....

Then the little ones were crowned...

and headed off on an adventure in the park.

Quiet moments were shared collecting sticks and leaves...

and so, we passed a lovely evening celebrating Midsummer night with friends.

The enchantment was felt until the evening took a turn when Jasper came running over yelling that he, "got a wood chip up his nose". The night ended with a trip to the emergency room where after a few hours the doctor was able to remove what turned out to be a huge fly that had flown way inside Jasper nostril when he was running in the woods. Crazy! Definitely one for the family story books, and I'm so thankful that everything ended happily.

Exploring our deck

We have come to my favorite time of year, when all of my favorite plants are blooming, the days are looong and my birthday is just around the corner. These are the days when I like to have coffee in the cool of the morning on our deck, while enjoying the bird song and small changes that have happened in the night. We found this just this morning...

And our sweet smelling lillies opened up the other day!

Our deck is really my favorite thing that we added in the renovation of our house. Here is what the back of our house looked like when we bought it...

Through a friend we found a very eccentric man who specializes in building decks in Brooklyn in the summer, and wintering in Costa Rica. He talked with us about our vision for the deck and then built this...

Our dream deck, right off of our kitchen, where we took out a window and added a large glass door so that we can walk right out. Most of the plants that I have out there are like old friends now after 5 years of growth, this year the daylillies that I have outside of the door grew taller than I am, and our cat Pepper spends most his time lounging luxuriantly somewhere on the deck.

There are places for both adults and kids to hang out, and always a toy or two laying about.

Seeds that we planted indoors in tiny pots back in March are now plants thick with flowers.

I am very much an adventurous and experimental gardener, so along with my perennials that live on the deck all year round, we have flowers and tropical plants that I like to grow and bring inside for the winter. We also grow grape tomatoes, strawberries, basil and rosemary.

More than anything the deck is my gardening playground, a place for us to get a little messy and unwind. We have been lucky that this year so far the Mosquitoes who can sometimes swarm the backyard in summer have not been bad yet. So we've had more carefree time out there.

Taking in the sun.

Our Nature Table

We are a family of outdoor collectors. There are little spots all over our home where we keep our collections, bits and pieces of things that we pick up when we are outside. But, there is one special spot where we like to celebrate the seasons in our house and this is on our Nature Table.
This became one of our traditions when Jasper's started his Waldorf playgroup when he was 3, it is one of the many elements of the Waldorf classroom that I embraced in our home. The children love it!
Our nature table is on a shelf in our kitchen. Throughout the seasons we all bring home things to celebrate and display.
Here it is yesterday at the end of the spring season, just before we took down our springtime decorations to make way for our summertime things...

There are little friends who live on the Nature Table during certain seasons, like these bunnies that I needle felted last year for Carys's Easter basket.

At the start of each new season we pull out the box with that season's decorations. So, yesterday on the first day of summer we decorated with our summertime things. Dolphins, turtles, ladybugs and flower petals all came out in abundance.

Our summertime nature table usually celebrates our frequent trips to the ocean, along with lots of special rocks...

The real magic for me lies in placing things that the kids have made, like this mouse that Jasper made at his playgroup, so that they seem as if they are about to scamper into their own little environment.

Summertime!

Happy First Day of summer!! 

We are taking our time getting back into the rhythm of life after our trip.

Enjoying time with friends, and making a point to continue to spend as much time out doors as we did when we were away. Which meant that our weekend included a little of this...

Nothing like toes in the sand and the sea!

Highlights

We are back! Well, we've actually been home for two days now, and I am feeling myself very slow to dip my feet back into the flow of things. I found that this break was much needed, even more so than I thought, because when we left and were finally in the car driving away I felt myself slowing down so much more than I had realized. Do you ever feel like you didn't even know how much you were doing until you stopped doing it for a bit? Well, that's what it seemed to me, so I really benefited from the time to be slow and reflective without any pressure to "do" while we were away.
All that said, we actually "did" so much during our 2 weeks. There were times where we felt that maybe we were crazy to attempt 14 days on the road with two small children, but we really had so much fun. Some of the highlights for me were little times that stood out in which I felt myself totally in the moment, like roasting marshmallows over the fire while camping....

Riding out to dinner in our brother-in-law's old Saab convertible with the sea and harbor of Charleston spread out around us...

Holding a new baby cousin for the first time....

Relaxing at the beach and learning to make drip sand castles...

All these things, along with going to the farmer's market, exploring and visiting local playgrounds, really were the trip's highlights.

We are so glad to be home in our own beds after all of the traveling, but I know that my mind is taking a while to get back. I still feel far away, catching up with family, hearing old stories, enjoying the sun on my face.

And now for a little visual inspiration....Have you checked out the new Lovely Cluster's summer 2010 catalog? Pop on over right now for some yummy eye candy, all of their selections feel so pretty and feminine. One of my paintings is featured in the Multi-colored spread along with some other gorgeous things, its hard not to feel like I want each one!