Things to Do - Take It All In

I'm writing this post on Sunday evening, while forecasters warn of impending snow, possibly 8 inches by morning. Businesses have sent emails notifying us of the Monday shut down, while the Arlington school system continues to monitor the situation. Part of me wants to yell, "NO MORE!" But the other part feels that winter seems a silly (and tiresome) thing to complain about. One can only sound like a broken record for so long before feeling the need to move on.

Friday night an old neighbor came to town and, along with another friend, we talked and drank wine until 3 in the morning. At first it seemed sad that we never took the time to have such wonderful conversations before, when we lived within a few houses of each other. Yet it also made the world seem like such a small place, where friends can leave and come back. As much as people complain about facebook, I find comfort in the fact that nobody is ever too far away anymore.

I spent most of Saturday tired and hung over, somewhat amazed that my kids are old enough to fend for themselves on such days - making their own lunches and breakfasts, coming up with craft projects, playing wii - while I camped out on the couch. Then Saturday night a friend and I attended Josh Ritter's acoustic show at the Lincoln Theater. Gregory Isakov opened and it felt surreal to watch two of my favorite artists on the same stage on the same night. The music was so vivid that it seemed like a play or a theater performance, immersive. I came home to our party room full of drunk neighborhood poker players, who all looked glazy-eyed and happy to be there.

Then Sunday I attended a day long National Geographic Workshop on Storytelling Photography, somewhat in awe as I listened to two world-renowned female photographers describe their process and experiences.

So, even with the impending snow, life is full right now and oddly amazing in its ordinariness. I've been thinking about success a lot lately, how such a seemingly simple concept becomes complex by middle age - when you look at your failures, your lost chances, and hold them up against the landscape of the life you've constructed. And, at least for now, the definition seems somewhat obvious - having friends over for dinner and a bottle of wine - good food on the plate, conversations that linger into odd hours, kids staying up way past bedtime. Surely everyone has their own definition, but, for now, I'm comfortable that this is mine.

Things to Do - Grateful List (January 2014)

ARTS
* Reading Revenge: Eleven Dark Tales by Yoko Ogawa
* Listening to Slow Club's Paradise
* Watching The Way, Way Back
* Lorde's Pure Heroine (album) and Zedd's Stay the Night (song)
* Watching Frozen (finally)
* T's month long obsession with Curious George (thank you Arlington library system for making sure we could read them all)
* Reading The One and Only Ivan with the kids at night
* Reading Danial Alarcon's The Provincials (in The Best American Short Stories 2013)
* Reading Jhumpa Lahiri's The Lowland

FOOD
* Homemade apple cake
* California barley bowls (via 101 Recipes)
* Venison tacos
* Farro casserole with leeks (via 101 Recipes)

STUFF
* The 7 minute workout app and Belly Fat workout app

PLACES
* The zoo with T and his friends
* Sledding at Thomas Jefferson middle school on a 15 degree snow day

VACATIONS
* Great Wolf Lodge's Howlin' Tornado
* Riding Great Wolf Lodge's tube slides (over and over again) with T

ETC
* Neighborhood happy hour on our third snow day of the year (January 3)
* A huge house purge (esp. in the girls' room)
* A fantastic birthday weekend - Dan's brother & sister-in-law watched the kids so we could go to SpaWorld and Zatinya
* A great birthday - sleeping in (Dan walked the kids to school), lightroom all day, and family dinner at Silver Diner
* A new template for the blog and CCBlog Design's help with the fine tuning
* Both the girls had sleepovers on the same night and T had a fantastic babysitter (thus, a night out for us)
* An afternoon at Rachel's house, easiest playdate ever, plus great conversation
* F setting up her own "beauty potion salon" in our kitchen
* The blow up bed slide
* T and T making T's table into a fishing pond after I first suggested they make it into a cave ("it was an awful cave, mom, I'm not sure what you were thinking. but it's the perfect place to go fishing.")
* T's fortune cookie - "you are not a person to be ignored"
* Watson's visit - Thursday night Dominion and Saturday night 7 Wonders (til 3 in the morning)
* T to Coco - "Don't forget we're ninjas, okay? (1) Dog attack. (2) Find the enemy. Wait, are you sleeping. (3) NO SLEEPING!. Find the bad guys. Wait, are you sleeping again?"

THE KIDS' LISTS:

F- snow days, a nice house to live in and food to eat, Great Wolf Lodge, that we have everything we need and even a little more than we need, books, books about science, my cousins, sleepovers, that everything is so great, my family

P - school, my teacher, my cousins, my whole family, gymnastics, Great Wolf Lodge, sleeping over at my cousins' house, sledding, sleepovers, my dogs, popsicle parties [at school], my friends

T - Coco, a nice house to live in and food to eat, sleeping over at my cousins' house, Natalia, sleep

Things to Do - My Newest Obsession - The Waterlogue App

I may be late to the party on this one, but in the last few weeks I've become obsessed (as in OBSESSED) with the iphone waterlogue app, which makes instagram seem so yesterday. The app turns iphotos into miniature watercolor paintings. And, just like instagram, the app comes with various filters for different types of effects (not surprisingly, my favorite is "bold" with it's bright technicolor renderings).

But my favorite part of the app is watching the paintings "develop" on the screen, sort of 2014's version of the Polaroid - first the photo is reduced to a sketch and then slowly colors appear throughout the white. Fascinating to watch.

What's your lately app obsession? Any suggestions?



I keep trying to take pics of brightly colored things, like bookshelves in our home and beauty projects at the hair salon.

Things to Make - Life Size Self-Portraits, Round II

A few years ago, the girls and I rolled out butcher paper and traced their full-body profiles, in order to make life-size self-portraits (click here to see the results). A few weeks ago, on yet another snow day, P and her best-friend, L, asked if we could try the project again. And, as a parent, it was a really fun way to see how their art has changed over the years.

As with last time, the hardest part is tracing everyone, esp. the long hair. When I traced too close to the girls' actual bodies, they couldn't stop laughing, so I had to do my best. Other than that the project went really well - the girls' spent a good hour or so creating their likenesses (and they even helped each other). And now I have new "art" for the walls.



T skipped out on the art project and "journaled" instead.



Finished!

Things to Do - Cherish This Day & Random Links

Last Thursday we awoke to a neighborhood covered in inches and inches of winter white, school was canceled (of course) so we settled in for a day of laziness. Unfortunately, the skies were overcast and falling snow alternated with rain every few hours. F & T dressed for the arctic and played outside for awhile, while P and I stayed snuggled on the couch, somewhat disenchanted by so so many snow days this winter (I think we're at 7 now). Eventually friends came over - helping to create pirate ships, forts, and magical lands.



On Friday, the sun returned (in all of it's glaring brightness) and the huge piles of snow everywhere reminded me of exploded bars of ivory soap. I thought for sure school would resume, but they canceled again (and I spent all morning stating how "where I grew up, in Chicago, kids actually attended school. even when it snowed a little."). So we explored, F carrying a huge snow ball everywhere she walked.



By Friday evening, all three kids had fully embraced the snow. T shoveled and shoveled (often taking snow out of the piles constructed by Dan and returning it all to the sidewalk, oh well "help" is such a tricky word when you have children) and P climbed and climbed. A good day. Though by Monday, I was over it all (the kids had a 5 day weekend, 6 days for T) and ready for school (and routine) to resume.

Now click on over to Cherish This Day to see what everyone else has photographing.

RANDOM LINKS:

* 27 Brilliant Print Ads. These are funny. Trust me.

* Samm Blake. She's just so so good.

* Awesome thrift store outfits for $20, oh Kelly Hampton, how you continue to impress me.

* The favorite books of all 44 US Presidents. Best. List. Ever.

* I want one of these.

* A vomit-free Valentine's playlist.