Carpe Minutum!

Am feeling a little more in control of my life again at the moment which I realize is probably a passing fancy here, on the brink of The Holidays...but hey! Today I took the kids to their first theatrical production and left the baby for the first time...(He did great, my friend Nutmeg rocks!) and feeling thus emboldened...I decided to paint a little. There are such ugly risers on our stairs...potentially pretty but so scuffed and chipped and splotched with various colors that they are pretty uninspiring. Have been itching to paint them a nice gloss white for ages and ages. Why not now?!? Since dinner is in the crockpot, the kids are asleep and I don't have to dash out again for the afternoon doctor's appointment for another half an hour...I'm all over it. Ha! Feels so good!

Am trying to become an expert at carpe diem and even more realistically in my life carpe minutum...seize the minute. My life is a woven thatch of moments right now and so there are not often whole days but there are always moments. Must read more books and less reflexive facebook checking, must clean one little spot, sort one little box, lay out an outfit for one child and spend less time standing there wondering what I was doing, wishing I had more energy or lying in bed hitting snooze. There is a place in life for letting go and relaxing your mind and your frenetic To Do List but there's also a lot to be said for doing little things here and there to make your life more peaceful and happy and productive. Am ever inspired to do better with what I have....better than most people say I have any right to expect I can be. Thus we achieve...by trying.

Trimming My Sails

English: Paintbrush Português: Trincha (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The radiator, segueing from old dingy white to glossy new white.

The sun is shining, the tomatoes are pouring in, the weather is finally cool enough to stand and the mosquitoes are thicker than thieves in our yard. My speckled legs bear testament. Urgh. So...I'm painting indoors for respite.

Before Trim

After Trim!

 The trim in the boy's bath is finally getting a glossy coat of white and I'm humming away. Coming along, isn't it? I'm so excited about the whole project. I think this room may really end up looking miles better. I adore the cool aqua blue on the walls and shiny white trim always makes me feel better. Have a peek!

The baby has learned to stay asleep for a reasonable amount of time and little jobs like this don't require any taping or hauling out of drop cloths. I could do picky detail work like this all day long. I love being down on my hands and knees with a bitty brush, trying to be sure to go right up to the very edge. What does that mean about me? Something important I'm sure.

Poetry Friday: A Hedge Poem

Happy Poetry Friday everyone! Today I'm writing about a task I'm mostly not really doing these days but more fantasizing about. Our hedge desperately needs a good buzz and I am normally the woman for the job but at the moment the thought of expending all that energy is ultra-daunting and so it stands there in rabid neglect getting hairier by the hour. At least I can write about how it feels to trim it all up nicely, right?

Sometime soon I will take a good hack at it. Although "soon" may not actually come until about July. Boo! I am seriously considering a landscaping company taking a one-off drive-by at my house just to whack it into shape once before spring ends and I go crazy looking at it.

Clipping The Hedge

The vibrant hedge needs haircuts
Just as well as my crop of sons.
It has to be kept within bounds,
Snipping off the clouds of wagging
Shoots that hang down over its face
It will lose itself altogether if allowed
Bulging inappropriately in
Front of the whole neighborhood.
I grind the big shears a pass or two
Warming up the jaws before bites.
With my head on the side I chop
First, the few, high snips to level out
The leafy green table-top above.
Then I advance with my weapon
A cheek pressed against the wall
My sword arm deftly slicing off
The extra limbs and stray parts
As the flanks appear again, decently
A rain of tender stems and leaf bits
Sifts foot-ward leaving a bright,
Lush runner down the driveway.
Sticky green juice edges the blade lips
As they snip hungrily along the wall.
Sometimes I reach a hand up
To feather the cut edges of the hedge
As though it were my husband's hair
Knocking loose the bits of snipped green
Tenderly, brushing it off a brow or a cheek.
As a final touch I must squint down
The line of the shorn wall, my nose nestled
In the bright smell of chloryphyll
Sighting out any stray, missed bit
And when I finally have it perfect
Inhale the bright scent and run an arm
Down the fluttering length of green on my
Way to the garage for my favorite rake.


 Our Poetry Friday host this week is TeacherDance. Click your way over and have another helping or two of poetry to send you off into the weekend.

Until Monday, Friends....until Monday....

Baby's First Haircut

 Just because I'm a slightly detail-obsessed mommy, I deemed the slightly mullet-esque style my youngest was sporting reason enough to whip out the scissors and give him his first trim. His brothers were both slightly different ages, Ru slightly older (his hair grew so, so slowly...he might have even been two before he had his first trim) and Dee was younger since he never really had a true "bald period." As usual, Nib is right in the middle between them.

 You can see his hair isn't "long" at all it's just a little uneven, growing a little longer and thicker at the back which makes him slightly dated and a little chunkier. I care about these silly little details...and visible earwax....but, yeah. We won't talk about that.

I always keep the boys hair shorter during the summer months anyhow, it just feels right to me, not to mention cooler. And I almost always trim their hair myself, scissors and a little comb and my two hands, which might make me slightly more obsessive about the whole department. Maybe I somehow feel like it reflects on me more or that I should keep tighter tabs on the length of their hair since I do it all myself...I dunno. I'm sure there's some interesting psychology there but I don't think I can unravel it all just now.

The point is, although I may have trouble keeping my house neat, I can be a little obsessive, it's just conveniently mind-bending like that.

 So, now he looks like this. Bing! All neat and trim. Which make me smile...and the bits that got snipped were just little tiny locks, but long enough to tuck in a tiny wax paper envelope for his baby book. So, there you have it. He's a real boy!

A Hair Raising Tale: My Long Hair Goal

Me, with braid waves, 2007

The only really good hair shot I have of 2008

A light blow-dry job...mostly straightened...2009

Very early 2010....natural waves.

Sometimes its the simple things that make my day. Sunday I asked A to trim my hair. I'd been trying to grow it out with my goal being lush, even and hip length. Well, after a long period of accidentally skipping having it trimmed: lots of busy craziness, wild schedules, pregnancy and then birth, house shopping, lots of travel, moving....etc. There was just not a lot of hair trimming going on. I kept the boys trimmed and just kept putting mine up and planning to do it later.

Then I noticed that my hair, albeit a bit neglectfully, had reached my goal length and was indeed down to my hips. I still had in mind to trim it up nicely so that it looked more full and healthy, then I was all unsure. So, I waffled for a couple of months about whether to leave it and hope it grew in thicker and nicer looking eventually or trim it off where it was healthy and lush.

EEK!!! My at my most unhealthy (and yet longest) look in years...a couple of months ago.

I waited and I tried to love it just because it was longer, but I couldn't do it. And so, A finally weilded the scissors for me and gave it the old snip snip. And now...I can't stop touching it! It feels so silky and healthy and full.

I will still be working on growing it out, but this time I'll try to not ignore those maintence trims I need to keep it even and healthy looking. I love ultra-long, but I have to have it look healthy or I start to feel really shabby and won't wear my hair down. As soon as I'm wearing my hair up everyday, I know its time to give it a little more attention.

If you're interested in caring for your hair more carefully or maybe even growing it out yourself, you should check out one of my favorite sites on the subject: The Long Hair Loom, chock full of long haired ladies who are loaded with tips for healthy hair care. Have you ever oiled your hair? Slept on a satin pillowcase? Pitched your bobbypins? Braided your hair at night? They can tell you all about those healthy hair tidbits and more. I've learned a lot and hope to power on and eventually get to my thick, full even hip length goal.