Sometimes Mondays.

...bring a change of scenery.

for the record, my mom (riding shotgun 😉) took this photo

the view from our living room

Her friend Martha should be here any minute ... we decided not to wait!

Cheers!

Hello Monday.

yay for 10 minutes of pilates!

I hit the ground running (well, walking fast) this morning - with just a list in my head (choosing to spend that hour last night when I could've been making lists and getting organized knitting on the endless kidsilk haze and listening to a book) - and after 5-1/2 hours, I'm feeling good enough about where I am to take a few minutes to check in here.

It's going to be a busy week - I'm leaving as soon as I post this to spend the rest of the day with a friend visiting from Oregon (and woohoo - our dinner plans include seeing Katie and the boys!) My aunt arrives from Florida in the morning and my cousin joins us on Thursday. Hopefully there will also be time to share at least a few photos here.

Hope your week is off to a productive start, too!

Balancing the Light.

tulips on my kitchen counter

These past few days have been such a roller coaster of emotions. In addition to the lows I'm sure y'all are familiar with, my neighbor (who has an aggressive upper renal cancer) was ambulanced back to the emergency room Saturday morning. Thankfully he's now stable, but we have no idea when he'll be coming back home. My little neighborhood rallied around a text-message prayer chain Saturday evening ... a high for sure.

Sara made it safely to Washington Friday evening and had the lifetime experience of marching there on Saturday. Thanks to Instagram (my only social media outlet other than this blog), I participated vicariously in marches country and world-wide: Port Townsend, Portland, Sacramento, San Jose, Minneapolis, Madison, Ann Arbor, Lansing, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Boston, Hartford, Washington, Nashville, London and Paris. To everyone who marched, thank you for participating - and sharing your stories!

And yesterday - for only the second time in the club's history - the Atlanta Falcons won the NFC Championship. ...and they looked pretty darned good doing it. We've got a smidgen of hope they might actually win the Super Bowl (which would be a first).

...all of which to say - I really had no idea what to blog about today. Until I read yesterday's newsletter from Holstee and these words practically jumped off the screen:

All of this is the way I "compose" my life, if you will. The way I balance the dark and the light -- because life most certainly has a healthy mixture of both.
~Lea Ciceraro (emphasis mine)

This week I'm going to try my hardest to balance the dark with the light - and to share a few rays of light here.

I bought this bouquet of orange tulips for bookclub (I hosted Thursday evening). There's just something about orange tulips that makes me smile.  And I especially love them when they're fully open, almost spent. How about an informal tulip poll - what color's your favorite and are you a fan of the fully open blooms?

(and also, happy Monday.)

Hello Monday.

My weekend looked a lot like this

which was wonderful (Saturday afternoon, my mom, sister and I met for lunch at a great new place downtown that specializes in football food and fun).

And then I stayed up way past my bedtime last night ... to finally finish rewatching season one of Gilmore Girls (21?!?!!! episodes - my how TV has changed...). yeah, there's no way I'm going to finish rewatching the entire seven seasons before Friday. at this point, I'm simply gonna skip to season seven and hope for the best.

And I set the knitting aside around episode 19 ... realizing there's really no way I'm going to finish No Tails for "Thanksgiving" either.

Dark early this morning, things still felt a little "no way". (yep, lists of lists :-)

But now, twelve hours later, I've made progress on those lists (except for radicchio, pearl onions and endive, which I know Charlie will love to get tomorrow at Whole Foods) and I even got to spend a little time with Sam.

Monday, you're definitely looking better!

Hoping your week didn't get off to a "no way" start - but if it did, hope it's looking better now!

Scenes from My Monday.

...and whew!

It was a day full of my favorite things - cooking (vegetable enchiladas), a morning walk to the lake, coffee (twice!), helping a student through her very first steek (!!! it went great!), a little crafting, my two favorite boys and - of course - a blog post.

My day has not - so far anyway - included pulling together the to-do list and shopping lists for my mom's upcoming visit and the multitude of gatherings we have planned. Thinking that last cup of coffee - the one that Charlie helped me make - is gonna come in handy!

Hope your week got off to a good and productive start!

Hello Monday!

Marc is in Korea this week - he left yesterday morning and won't be home until Sunday night. This is his first trip to Asia since early January; I hope a week out of the office cheers him up. The house seems oddly silent and empty without him. I guess we are both out of the habit of international travel.

But a week on my own (in the comfort of home) is certainly appealing. I have knitting projects to finish (Portis is nearly done) and start (I'm going to cast on the little baby hats today and thanks to AsKatKnits, I snagged yarn for Sigla - on major sale at Craftsy - and should be ready to cast on as soon as it arrives), plans to meet up with friends and watch (finally!!) the last season of Mad Men, a much-needed hair appointment ... and not much else.

Unless the baby decides to come early.

What's on your list this week?

Bumblebees.

We screened this short video during church last week. It won "Best Film" in the 2015 Disability Film Challenge. Atlanta native Jenna Knell directed the film featuring her brother Vance, who is a student at the Lionheart School (which originally began at our church over 15 years ago).

Bumblebees from Jenna Kanell on Vimeo.

Vance and his mother Gillian attended the service. Gillian shared afterwards that she is "still walking around with a smile on my face and in my heart."

Wishing the same - and a wonderful week!

Hello, Monday!

...hello one of my favorite days of the week - because you're all mine!

I was up with my alarm. Coffee, email, Instagram (love all the ♥ on yesterday's Charlie photo), planner, devotion, journal...and by 6:35 I was out the door for a four-mile run/walk with Lauren. Then a quick yoga stretch routine, a short walk with Holly (it was starting to rain), housekeeping, laundry, a shower...

...and a nearly two-hour FaceTime call with my friend Diane. While we chatted about all sorts of things, I finished square #11 and made a good start on square #12.

I'm headed to Florida Thursday to spend the weekend with my folks (my mom's birthday is Sunday - yay for in-person celebrations!) and I'd planned to take the afghan, but I think I'll have the knitting done - or nearly done - before I go. Since sewing up 16 squares is not a travel project...I'm going to treat myself to three skeins of the new-to-the-shop Woolfolk FÅR and knit Pure. Not that I needed any (more) justification to abandon all my recently organized stash, but next week's newsletter is about the Woolfolk yarn and I think we need a beautiful FO to showcase the yarn. #amiright?

Which means I'm going to finish up here and head to the shop. Nothing like the promise of a new project to get me moving. And nothing like a rainy Monday to make an afternoon at my LYS sound like heaven.

Hope you've got something lovely in store this week, too!

hello monday.

my desk at about 7am this morning

...hello to only four more days before the girls are home.
...hello to finally having my december journal caught up!
...hello to a holiday lunch today with my disciple class.
...hello to continuing a years-long maggiano's tradition on thursday with janel and lisa.
...hello to having sara's gift over half done, and to katie's over three quarters.
...hello to holiday postcards ready to mail!
...hello to a long to-do list, and to feeling like it's actually do-able.
...hello to feeling the magic of the season.