girls and a lemonade stand

This was the latest in sidewalk sales out front of the old birthing center, my girl and her sweet best friend.
Quite the lovely sight, these two girls on a 85 degree day, enjoying each other and the momentary responsibility of retail life.

Pool-side manner...

My children? Manners...? Well... (They are relatively polite...but crazy? Yes. We've got crazy here.)

findings.

so, links. Just because there are awesome things out there.

nikki.

ruche.

berries.
samosas...
ice cream!   Oh my!

ferments.

lesson

pink ninjas.

Image Lust

This past Friday the wires finally began streaming around our house, which is very exciting. We began this whole project unsure if we really wanted electricity IN the house, simply because we were wanting to be as low cost as possible. Not only that, but we had this sweet idealistic (hippy) view that wouldn't it be nice and peaceful to have a home without the constant hum of the appliances.
After that wore off, we realized that it would be hard. Both my sweetie and I have lived with out electricity for a time, and we decided together that perhaps life with children and as adults (not idealistic kids in their twenties...) we wanted it. And this is the very same way that we decided we wanted plumbing. Even if it is not hooked up the day we move in, we want a toilet a possibility and the concept of someday having our washing machine useable a possibility. The mere thought of driving to the laundry mat and shelling out a lifetime's worth of quarters was simply more then either of us could stand. We've both been there. And now...building our home...  We both definitely have the desire to tread as softly on this earth as possible, but in the ever-changing world we live in, we decided that hippies though we may be seen as, we still want our running water and electricity. Eventually.

With the electrical wires coming in, with outlets and all, we also put a good number of walls up. Our house is really starting to look like something somebody might live in! It is easier now to go in and imagine the life we will soon be living over there...
And with that, I start daydreaming...

I have the sweet job of searching for images that really make me drool. Not only that, but I get to go to the flea markets and search for knobs for cupboards and other things that would be in my "dream house." I have never really had a space like this before, and it's fun to think that no matter what crazy things I think up, they are a possibility. An amazing thing. I suppose it is what every home builder/home owner gets to dream up, but all my life I have never lived in something that is truely my own. All through my late teens and twenties I have lived in apartments, barns, cabins; all that belonged to other people and I couldn't dream to my Libra heart's content. And so here we are...finally... It's like breathing a big huge sigh of relief. It's like graduating college. Or maybe not. I think it might be a more  real step to being an adult. (Wait, really? huh?) I graduated from college and  strangely didn't feel any older then when I was 18.

drawer pulls.

LOVE these....

sigh...

Doesn't that look just like me???

Night time nursing

Not very often, but once in a while, the baby keeps me up all night long. Usually it has to do with warmth, teeth, or if I am close enough to her in our king size bed. (She likes me to sleep close enough so that she can grab hold of my face first thing in the morning...pulling on my eyelids and my nose, IF I happen to sleep later then she does. Which is a rare event.) The nights I hardly ever sleep much are the nights she nurses all night long. We swap sides repeatedly  and she fusses and wiggles and grunts and groans.

The most brilliant discovery we have had in terms of this is the simple fact that most nights she kicks off all her blankets and is just plain cold. Travis remembered one night that she has this brilliant little sleep sack, that goes over her shoulders and zips up the front...so I dug through all the new born stuff I had packed away and found it. The one we have is made of this incredibly soft Egyptian organic cotten. It's just plain wonderful. I almost wish I had one...
So, in any case, the nights she is wearing it we both sleep. Mostly. It's incredible.

But then you have nights like last night. And I start reading things about night weaning at three am when I am awake, and decidely for the day because somebody else has needed my body all night long and if I stay tucked in between my wiggly girls I will likely not sleep a wink.  So it becomes the kind of day where I drink too much decaf coffee (my substitute for the real thing- because then I really wouldn't sleep a wink...) and fantasize about espresso and gelato all day long.