Sunday, September 25, 2016

Christmas is Coming...Eventually

hi from the french riviera
Hi. I've been away for awhile. Sorry about that.

As I write this, it is just past midnight, and September 26th has officially begun. This means that we have under three months until it is Christmas! I mean, I am still sweating when I walk briskly outdoors, but still! If there's one thing I can't stand, it's feeling rushed while stores are full of other shoppers. Thus I have completed the bulk of my Christmas gift shopping already. Really it's mostly Z and E we need to buy for, so I shouldn't be patting myself on the back too vigorously, especially since the grandparents will receive three photo books this year since I've gotten two years behind on the annual photo book plan. This is really why I need to shop in advance - it is too easy to get behind and find that months, then entire years, have slipped by.

And those years do in deed slip by. At the end of July we marked two years in London, and while we feel very much at home here now, it also doesn't seem like it's been that long. I'll blink and it will be five years, ten years, twenty. At least, I hope we can stay that long. We will certainly try.

I am going to try to get back to writing more frequently. Lately the time between posts has been slipping by not because I don't want to write, but because I have been feeling like posts need some sort of point or central theme, and this would require more effort than I'm willing or able to give. But I can write little bits of things from time to time. The posts may be disjointed and rambly, but I would like to get back into the habit of having a little journal of sorts where I share things that matter to me at the time, and there's no way to have that if I don't write.

When I first started blogging, I wrote mostly for my own pleasure, and that is what I intend to return to. Please feel free to stick around if you enjoy it, and to stop following along if you don't, just like in the old days. There will be no sponsored posts or reviews of products I've received for free. Remember those old days? They were really nice. At least, I thought so.

xoxo
Mary

Monday, May 9, 2016

When the Time is Right

ballet, first thing in the morning

Has it really been more than a month since I last posted? I guess it has. This photo is more than a month old, too, but that bag of clothes that needs to be sent to the charity shop is still sitting there. The thing that no one tells you about slow living is that the time still goes by awfully quickly. There have been a lot of things that didn't get done within the time frame I thought they would, because living slow means we do things, well, slowly. And that has proved to be a good thing for us.

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Choose Love

choose love, always

This morning when I first woke up, neither of my children was awake yet, and so I tiptoed downstairs and made my coffee, then settled back into bed next to E, who had taken up her usual guest space in the big bed in the middle of the night. As I scrolled through Instagram, I saw mention of heartbreak over the morning's news, but no indication of what that news was. I opened up the BBC website and saw it. Brussels. Terror. My heart caught in my throat.

Thursday, March 17, 2016

Leaving the Dishes Overnight and Other Supposed Housekeeping Sins

our cat prefers an unmade bed
Our cat prefers an unmade bed. It's snugglier.

After I turned forty and as we rounded the corner into the new year, I started thinking a lot about prioritizing what is important and really holding firm in my confidence in my choices. One thing that I have been struggling to accept about myself for pretty much my entire adulthood is that overall, I am not a high energy, go-get-'em kind of person. I like things slow and quiet. I don't have an inner drive to be busy or to accomplish a great many things. In the story of the tortoise and the hare, I am the tortoise. In the end, you remember, the tortoise wins the race. But we live in a culture that celebrates the hares, and that is reinforced in many ways.

Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Someday I'll Be a Waiting Expert, But Not Today

lumiere festival flying fish

I am in a life lull, and I am not enjoying it. I am trying to. I got permission from the landlord to rip up the laundry room carpet, which is growing mold, and replace it with some fresh vinyl tile, and that is a bright spot. I have hated that carpet since day one, but I think you know how serious it is when somone refers to ripping up moldy carpet as "a bright spot." I am feeling restless.

I want a job, not to replace the one I already have, which I hope to continue to do for as long as my family needs me to do it, but rather a job that I can do in addition to the current one. This needs to be a job that pays money, because the current one does not. I know mothers get paid in love or something like that, but love doesn't buy plane tickets, and we need some.