it began as one of those days…
i woke up too early.
devoured a bowl of generic fruit loops.
made a cup of coffee.
gasped when i realized i had a glucose tolerance test in two hours…
…that required fasting.
called my nurse.
called the lab.
decided to go and wait.
ran completely late picking up my friend.
ignored the bright orange carpet cleaning flyer someone had put under my windshield wiper a day earlier and drove through its obnoxious flapping.
ignored the empty gas light.
ignored the fact that this day was all too like last tuesday…when i left my atm card in the machine after a deposit until it didn’t give it back…and then repeated this exact move several days later with the temporary card i had just received to replace the old one.

…but then about three miles in, i took my irritation and stress…and laughed. because flapping orange flyers are really kind of funny. and i know from experience that my jeep can soar on empty fumes for oh, say twenty more miles or so.

so i let it go…
and it became a very good day indeed.

…ending in a real-life baylee story.
that went something like…
…two little blondies went to the beach…where the cool breeze kissed the shell-peppered tide. and they shoveled deep holes into the sand and smiled while their mamas watched the pink sun sink behind heavy clouds.

…and they all lived happily ever after.
yes, a very good day indeed.

three photo shoots today…and a dinner with friends tonight.
it is cool. the windows are open. the sun has just risen its splenor over our front palm trees…and i am loving november.

perhaps the more frequent posts suggest we have more time available around here which, may i squalsh such rumors now. while that is hardly the case, i am finding our home more alive and jiving quite well with all there is to do. and, whether it is the spell woven by the enchantment of november, the anticipation of so many beautiful things in the near future, or the bewitching breeze that has finally landed in southern florida and awakened the stagnant air that had been sitting far too long in our home…i am feeling completely inspired lately. and with that comes this sensual stimulation for the beauty of little things that hibernates from time to time.

i feel like a kid. i want to color and skip and wear tie dye. i want to make hot chocolate and cram it with more marshmallows than my sugar allowance can tolerate. i want to wear daisies in my hair and ditch my heels for worn converse sneakers…with beaded safety pins. i want to embroider bff bracelets and hand them out at recess. and then i want to end it all with a party at the roller rink where i shall strap on those awesome brown skates with the big orange wheels and the ugly laces, and i will skate this belly around the disco-lit rink, holding hands with my friends before we meet up at red leather booths in the roller cafe for soft pretzels and frozen cokes.

yes, that’s how i feel.

and in that state of mind, we are enjoying…

*trading our overly-priced organic baby soap for one night of ‘fun’ bath.
and by fun bath i mean this cool pink bath foam that has triethanolamine in it. and i have no idea what triethanolamine is.

*wearing my wedding day perfume. on a monday. when i’m home all day. for no good reason other than it smells like july first, 2007. and that, my friends…was a happy day.

*red shoes. because red shoes are always fabulous. top that with ballerina ribbons that criss-cross up your ankle and you just took your fabulous and upped the ante.

*the woods behind our house. they’re different than the up-north woods that are thick and layered and dark. i miss those woods, but i’ve also come to love this other kind of woods…open and sunny and revealing of all the stuff that goes on back there…we’ve got a backstage pass to nature, and the sounds we hear always remind us of that.



i’ve been loving them more and more and appreciating the solace they give to a morning cup of coffee or an afternoon of throwing in a couple rows to little bean’s blanket…

*baby touchdowns.
it’s when we balance this little frog on the summit of my belly…and our little kicker punts hard enough to knock it off. lainey thinks it’s very, very funny.

*willybear.

which i was read when i was very little…and i remember it well. my mom found an old, tattered copy at a goodwill a couple years ago, scooped it up and sent it to us. it’s now lainey’s favorite book, and she brings the jacket-less little book to us and says, ‘read wiwy-bee-oh’ a few times a day.

*lazy mornings.

..when we sneak off to make coffee and then retreat back to the covers so we can lie amid pillows of fluffy down long enough to smell the coffee scent that slowly wafts into the bedroom while we lounge, our bodies all warm and intertwreathed. this morning, she designated our bed as her stage and went about performing a silly show for our morning entertainment.

…ending, of course, in an encore of her sweetness.

…and that black background in that last pic, believe it or not, is simply the contrast from the way the light hit her against our dark headboard.

and that, my friends, is what we are enjoying…right here, right now.

that…and nina simone.
~k