paintedpinkmountains

I'm very inconsistent, yet I'm a creature of habit and thrive on routine. I love being spontaneous but again, with the routine. I love the smell of fresh lilacs and think they bloom for a much too short period of time. I've love to mow the lawn, even though I have to use a riding mower due to having nearly 8 acres of lawn to mow and it really makes me cringe to think of the addition to my carbon footprint....especially when added to the fact that I drive an SUV, but it's a 12 year old SUV and I justify it not only by the fact that I need 4wd, but that it's also 12 years old and I plan on not sending it to the scrapyard til it's absolutely on it's last leg. I digress, back to the mowing......I find it relaxing and it's one task in my life that actually can be finished, if only for a couple days til it needs done again. I usually don't care about capitalizing the first letter in a sentence, yet I'm a bit crazy about being grammatically correct an...

My poor little neglected blog. I'm so sorry I've not been paying attention to you lately. It's been busy, to say the least. I think mostly, though, I've been doing more actual living in the moment and less contemplating. So haven't really felt much like writing. Today, though, I am so thankful for this beautiful weather. It was an absolutely lovely weekend. Much sun, many snuggles under the sun with my little ones, and even a little color to my pasty, pale, covered under the cold of winter skin. It feels great to have my toes out, even if I haven't yet had the time to paint them.

Really, seriously tired of this weather. The snow is beautiful, but I've had enough already. Little more than one month til spring is here. And it can't come soon enough. I need flowers blooming, birds singing and warm air.

went out at lunch today and shot some photos, for fun. it was a beautiful day, if a little bitter, the sun was shining and it just felt really good to be outside.

A recent post by Dancing Mermaid http://dancingmermaid.com/blog/2010/01/12/what-brings-you-simple-joy/ begs me to post today. To answer her question, "What small things bring you so much joy?" I'll make a list :) 1. watching the sun rise during my morning commute 2. when my boys walk up to me out of nowhere, throw their arms around me and say "I Love You, Mommy!" 3. a warm bowl of Amy's Organic Chunky Tomato Bisque 4. having great friends at work to help me escape when it gets stressful 5. meeting with a potential wedding client who tells me that she really wanted to meet with me because she likes my style. 6. standing outside my house at night in the complete quiet looking up at the stars. 7. fresh flowers 8. an empty laundry basket (which doesn't happen often) 9. an empty sink (which happens even less often than the laundry) 10. the color blue 11. listening to Hank Williams Sr. and remembering my dad playing his guitar and how he used to sing along. 1...

Clean slate, fresh start! A chance to make resolutions and feel good about moving forward. But also a chance to beat myself up about things that don't "stick". Setting unrealistic goals with strict guidelines is just setting myself up for failure. So, my word for the year being "acceptance", I'm going to go further than originally planned with this. Not only am I going to accept the things that have occurred in 2009 and find a way to move on from the grief and sadness in them, I'm going to also add "acceptance of myself" to this list. Sure there are things I want to change but rather than trying to ignore them & hope they go away I'm going to accept these things and look them in the eye and make friends with them. I'm going to say "oh, hello there procrastination, I see you're visiting again". Then I'm going to say "could you come back later? I really don't have time to indulge you right now". ...

Christmas Eve at my mom's house. I enjoyed capturing some of her decorations amongst the chaos of four children scrambling to open all their gifts. Lego's, Bionicle's and Play-Doh, Oh My!