five gratefuls:

am grateful for:

the crisp fall air that stayed all day. it's here.

the GIANT salmon caught this morning. on my plate this evening. 

the naive confidence of a four year old painter. creating perfection.

country songs. lately.

+++

and ryan gosling. ridiculously good looking.

you?

found + familiar

i am finally feeling the fog of pregnancy-and-birthing-and-growing-babies lift with the change of the seasons. am tossing around thoughts of weaning my little nursling bundle. 

+++

it's been nearly four years. four years since i've had myself to myself.  

+++

with the lift of the haze comes the surge of creative energy. i feel like doing and making. which is so strange because only a few months ago i'd sworn off nearly everything creative and made plans to pack it all away. 

explain that to me someone? 

+++

i am anxious to see what i'll do next. i feel the excitement in my thumping heart. the get-busy in my hands. have explored through old boxes of me piled in the garage to see how i've channeled this energy in years before. 

i found:

mixed tapes. 

collages. 

poetry. 

paintings. 

books. 

love letters. 

things i'd forgotten i'd known how to do.

+++

think i still can? think i still can. 

i'm going to need some good music to do it with. 

we started our get creative today. lucas has wishing and hoping that i would give him a spare hour or two to get out this printer's kit. we found it at a used toy store downtown. it's the same kit my brother and i had when we were the kids. the same yellow rubber stamps. the same bottle of blue ink. 

+++

isn't it the strangest thing when your brain recognizes something so familiar. 

we made a comic strip. ROgERS SPY MYSTERY - with a little g on purpose. because little g's just look so awesome! lucas has the gift of creating. an eye for the good stuff.  just like me. and my brother jeffrey. and my cath-mom. and my grandpa dan. it excites him and calms him all at the same time.  we spent the entire afternoon with our printer's kit. until we were nearly up to our elbows in blue ink. and maybe even a little on the tip of gavi's nose, too. gavin loved counting the letter stamps. lining them up and then reminding us over and over again, that those is NOT green ones! 

i miss the mess. andrey said to me the other day. 

your fabrics and projects all over the place. 

your music turned up loud. 

you lost in something you love. 

+++

this week:

i love when i have a calendar full of the best things to look forward to. 

makes for a much happier monday morning. and i'm about to fill up yours, too...

+++

this tuesday you'll find me out on the columbia river soaking in the sweet sounds of the beautiful sarah sample and her guitar. marilyn is doing her very best to bring good music to the tri-cities and this show is sure to send me home happy and anxious for the next. i'm leaving the babes home with andrey and a pizza, so that i can enjoy the evening. i'll be out under the sliver of moon, singin' born to fly. wanna come? let's go together. get your ticket here. hurry!

and thank you to my dear friend, marilyn for trusting my art/heart. the time spent designing this poster for the show was a much needed creative purge. i loved it.

i'm going to make gavi a quilt.

for his own space. 

this dandee post and that quilt got stuck in my brains 

and i've got a pinterest board full of inspiration.

...that's as far as i've gotten. 

kristin has her colors picked, but no plan.

+++

solution: girl's night. my house. with experts on hand. 

this thursday. please come! 

email me if you need directions.

+++

happy monday, friends!

love, lin

cathy's song.

we're coming up on a year. i felt it in the moon tonight. a year since my cathy-mom pulled her li'l red coupe into my drive. here to welcome my li'l red charlie fox. while here... she planned to walk across the bridge that connects this town to the next. her camera in hand. she was going to catch a beauty shot of that harvest moon. and she did. 
+++
i'm not sure what she thought about as she walked. i'm not sure what mr. moon told her that night. what i do know is that he bathed her in a light. the same light that would guide my boy to me only a few nights later. the same brave light that she would sleep under during african nights in weeks to follow. the same light that would carry her briana away only a few months after that. and the same light that would wrap her up every night since.
+++
am missing my mother.
+++
while visiting larson house this summer, i found myself in her office, among her things one afternoon while she was out. it is one of my most favorite places on the entire planet. charlie rolled around on her bright red rug while i was soaking her in. overwhelmed at how thoughtfully found and carefully placed every little thing was. i saw her. i saw pieces of everyone she loves among her things. i grabbed my camera and i couldn't stop.

+++

i wondered if you could say the same about me. would you find meaning and love among my things? if you visited my space would you find warmth and comfort in the evidence left behind by me?

there is something so sacred about being in someone else's space when they aren't there. i felt lucky in my connection to her. that this beautiful heart of a woman was my mother.

when briana died i wondered about her things. her purse. her keys. her pillow. her tea mugs. they were just things. things she couldn't take with her. things she'd left behind. but i couldn't move passed them. those were the thoughts that would wake up with me in the middle of the night. those first nights. 

those same thoughts consumed me while i snapped away with my camera in my mom's office that afternoon. i wanted to catch things exactly as my mother had left them. so i could go back and see them the way that she sees them.

+++

i snapped this photo a few days later while coming down from upstairs. music playing. lamp light on. majestic-dog tucked under foot. 

am wishing she was tucked in her room over here tonight. 

just like last year. 

am wishing to wake up to her tomorrow morn.

+++

in my ears: kathy's song. simon + garfunkel. covered by eva cassidy.

a little tom petty in my ears today.

this is exactly how i'd imagined/hoped that back-to-school would be. lucas safely tucked into his classroom down the street and the little boys tucked quietly in their beds for afternoon naps. 

+++

tom petty free fallin'
in my speakers.
it's peaceful and perfect. 

free time. for me. 

+++

i'm thinking i'll dip some apple slices in peanut butter while i catch the premier of the rachel zoe project, again. 

+++

but first! happy news!

finally. finally! this girl has got herself an iPhone.
and i'm in love. 

in love with instagram. 

i knew i would be. 

my profile: (lovely_lindsay)

what's yours?

in love with flipping through pinterest while waiting in the kinder pick-up line. you can follow my pin boards here, too.

and especially in love with designing my own wallpaper for this pretty little gadget of mine. click on that image pattern up there to get one for yourself, too. happy, right?

+++

do you know of any other apps i need? any iPhone tips?

off to watch my show. cross you fingers that i've got at least another hour of naps to enjoy. 

love, lin

grow happy:

happy birthday, lady.

keep a watch out on the front steps for the mail truck.

we'll be celebrating you waaaaay over here, 

with a box of old fashioned cake donuts + a jug of milk.

+++

love, linny