I painted my room pink.
After years of debating, I did it, and I couldn’t be happier with the end result. It’s a pale, light pink, but the paint color is called lavender moon, so it has a subtle lavender undertone which makes it super soft 🌙
looking cute in one of the outfits I finished this year (although 90% of the time lately I’ve just been in comfy shorts and an oversize t-shirt because I’ve been workiiiiiiing)
Years ago Mom got tired of the maintenance of the front gardens, and so she dug them all up, dumped the contents into the brush on the edge of the yard, and filled the gardens up with pea stones and a couple carefully-placed azalea bushes and bird baths.
We didn’t give much thought to what we dumped, aside from Riley Mae being rather morose over the loss of the annually-blooming mini daffodils. But lo and behold, I think each and every bulb and plant that got tossed aside successfully rooted and sprung back to life in the brush.
Each year the bulbs continued to spread along the edge of the yard: snowdrops, crocuses, grape hyacinth, a couple different kinds of large daffodils, and, of course, the beloved mini daffodils.
baby crocuses drinking up the spring showers
Sharing good news scares me.
Well, not only “good news,” but like…things that I’m excited about it.
Doesn’t it always seem like as soon as you do, the things that you were just gushing over start to fall apart…? Or is that just me??
Like recently when I sent out Christmas cards and hard-launched my love for a sweet giant rabbit, only to have to hand her over to a foster home after Christmas…?
braving the 15-degree morning to enjoy the world covered in ice
For much of last week I was down sick, but honestly, I wasn’t even upset about it.
Morally I couldn’t take any more time off of work on my own (since I’d just gotten back to work after my little Christmas vacation), but being passed out with a beautiful sweaty fever for a few days forced me to take some real rest time. Which I really needed. Mentally and physically, I just hadn’t been spending enough quiet time with myself, and I had really been starting to miss it. If I’m being honest, I feel like I’ve been in go-mode since October, and although a lot of positive things have happened since then, I just haven’t had the time to simply allow myself to calm down. Or even process everything that’s happened.
So cue the 12-hours of sleep every night, lazy days, and wasting time while rotting — unshowered — on the couch with a weird feverish rash all over my body (Mom said it was nothing to worry about).
come to the beach, chill by the sea / see how your heavy life looks from the coastline ☀
The last time we drove down to the coastline was May 14th, and life was going incredibly well. We were all happy, busy, inspired, and thriving. And then June came around (no comment), July absolutely sucked, August was hell, and the beginning of September was super stressful and highly disappointing.
Before yesterday, the thought of taking a day trip down felt more like an exhausting chore than any kind of fun adventure. But now (dare I say the words, lest I jinx it?), it seems like life might actually be beginning to calm down and become a little more centered again.
(knock on wood)
And we finally made it back to our second home.
was she stalking the seagulls, or were the seagulls stalking her?
The other day I was sittin’ with Mom and Riley Mae and we were all watchin’ frogs sunnin’ in the sun. We watched as a little guy swam up to a rock, slowly streeetched, climbed up, and settled down into the damp mossy algae like a loafing cat.
“You know what I don’t believe?” I asked rhetorically. “I don’t believe that frogs actually eat. I mean, have you ever seen one eat? No, you haven’t.” Two minutes later this same little cozy frog launched forward and caught two bugs.
It was almost as cool as the time we saw a lil crayfish 3 seconds after Mom said “but we never see crayfish” and 1 second before Dad texted her “are you looking for crayfish?”
What are the odds??
This week I’ve been focusing on the simple task of being happy.
And by simple, you know I mean arduous.
Okay listen, I haven’t lost it completely…the foundation that I so carefully constructed during the last 6 months is still there…underneath some rubble. A serious lack of blue skies, a desk that is sticky from the constant humidity, and some unexpected happenings that have happened have caused a few recent earthquakes. Or maybe some natural, beneficial forest fires.
(it’s yet to be determined)
Before 2021 the ocean seemed very far away to me.
Although it’s only just over an hour’s drive from home, my family and I rarely made our way down to it. The days and nights spent by the crashing waves of Charlestown beach were mostly during our one week of summer camping every year. We would spend all day in our hot campsite at Burlingame, just counting down the minutes until it was time to gather our towels and put on our swimsuits.
It was a salty, sandy, windswept occasion, and oh, how we’d soak up those evenings. Driving back to the campground in our damp suits, and rinsing off in the steaming-hot, coin-fed shower stall before we went to sit around a campfire…it’s a warm fuzzy memory that will forever be sitting comfortably in the back of my mind.
2004, click on the photos to enlarge them
art by jordan rae 