Being Aunted Into Calm

 It was a slow day today, full of laundry on laundry, slow sifting through the camping boxes, ferreting out the sand and stray dirty socks and dead batteries and putting everything slowly back where it ought to be, neatly folded and washed. It feels incredibly good to just keep the washing machine on a continuous hum and spend all day with my arms buried deep in warm, fresh clothes. Everyone is shifting sizes again so there is more than just a massive amount of dirties to catch up with, there's all kinds of hand-me-down business that needs doing too. I've been back and forth to the storage boxes for each size in the garage and I am also accumulating a box for my sister, Foxy that will go sailing off to Michigan to the littler cousins.

 My aunt and I shared a Face Time chat this morning after breakfast over hot tea for me and coffee for her. What a beautiful thing it is to have technology and also those who love us deeply. I took her on a little mini-tour of the rose garden outside my front door and told her all about the angst of being a wuss camper. She was her usual bubbly self and listened to all the things that tie me up in knots and smiled effusively and told me that it was of no eternal account. And the strange thing about it is that being loved, and listened too meant that her dismissal lifted the tangled net off my shoulders. By the time I hung up I was laughing more and freer, able to shift the guilt and weight of my To Do List and my personal division. Isn't it great what perspective, wisdom and a little well placed love can do?God bless the aunties of the world....

There isn't a lot left to this week and I am almost through with the nesting back into our life. Next I must sit down and begin madly planning things for the school year. Our schedule is a writhing mass, waiting to be addressed but for now, the Schedule Beast can quietly growl. I have had tea and aunting and I on my way to the garden for a ripe fig from our tree with my man....we shall step gently over the two tents that are still spread out, airing in the backyard, between the tipped over tricycle and the two hockey sticks and upended lawn furniture.

Saffron Robe Unpacking

Moving is so much hard work y'all! Whew.

I am a tired lady. The boxes are taking over my life. I hide in the book I got from the library sometimes, in my phone sometimes, and out in the car on a drive sometimes....because seriously....

Where did all this stuff come from? There is no end to it. I want to cull everything down to four wooden bowls and a saffron robe. We'll share the robe. No need for excess.

These are all my husband's socks....that spot on the right in the drawer is where is socks are meant to go. 

Argh...on the upside, tonight the nine year old made dinner because I was stressed and drowning in boxes in the hallway and his chicken wings and jicama was delicious and hilarious and so helpful. I also managed to make the boys bedroom completely livable today, including a trip to Home Depot for plywood (45 minute wait to get the pieces cut to size! Patience lesson + assertiveness lesson!) I also signed up the older two for piano lessons, scheduled a piano tuner and didn't do any laundry at all. I did however successfully get paint matched for our kitchen cupboards so that I can spot treat as needed in the future and cover the spots where I took the hinges and doors off of one section. (open shelving! Yay!)

See!?! Took the upper doors off! So pretty!

I know that I will manage to spend time with kids in a fun way again soon. I know that I will feel like it is a home again and not a junk heap soon. I know that the chi will return to normal flow soon. I know I will work out in the garden again soon. I know that I will actually walk through the garage again soon. I know that I will someday feel like I can breathe at night and lay down my head with genuine relief soon. Its soooo hard to go to sleep when the house is finally quiet and just "relax" and get some rest when I see every box behind my eyelids! Argh!

In other news, Ru is cooking well and reading well. We have somehow slippingly drifted over into the land of chapter book reading and obsession with returning to the library asap and never getting enough story. So lovely to see it really happen. So much leap of faith breath-holding in parenting and homeschooling. You want to believe that you're kids are of course amazing and brainy and footsy and success material but you also feel so utterly responsible for the whole outcome and all the ingredients and the process and and and..... Its hard to do all you can and let go optimistically. Its so easy for me to trust that "all I can" is a reasonable contribution and that I am not forgetting something or screwing up in some obvious way. I worry about their flaws and weak spots and annoying little ways....although I hope I don't show them too much of that. I do try to make sure that they know I am in their corner always and that they can make it. I'm just their mom and I do worry! These little successes taste like extra rope, a little margin, some safety net of possible "fine-ness" in the ways of the world. Tangibility feels meaty and full of heft.

We had rain this week! I am believing that the drought is going to be over. That this is part of the cycle of nature, just like the wildfires and throw us humans all into panic. I am believing that the hibiscus we planted will live and that the little sprouts that are coming up the front flower bed and something cool and that the 40th year of my husband's life (tomorrow everyone!!!!) will hold wonderful things for him.

I love you babe. I'm going to try sleeping, even though you're snoring.

Craving Pretty

A mysterious cache of pearly marbles left amongst the foundation stones along the west wall of our house

I'm totally to the part of the move where I am so sick of sorting out boxes that I really feel like, "Does anybody mind if we just burn what's left?" But of course I would be married to the type who minds intensely. There is no throwing anything away unless there's a really good reason. *sigh* (and other small ways we balance each other out)

So, since there's no torching technique escape available I find myself daydreaming about pretty instead. I crave prettifying at the moment. I want so badly to make beauty instead of trying to find a spot for the spices and sorting through the kids clothes for what should actually go in their drawers again or flying madly through the packing paper in a million boxes trying to figure what in blazes happened to the knife rack. (which we found last night by the way! Hooray!) I want to paint and hang curtains and arrange vases of flowers, and set up displays on the built-in next to the fireplace and hang art on the walls.

For the moment, I'm trying to make myself unpack at least one box a day and satisfying my artists itch with little bits of pretty. And its working...slowly the boxes are disappearing (none left in the dining room!) and little spots of beauty are showing up too. Here's a tour of the latest little pretty bits.

Isn't this little end table/ magazine bin/ lamp combo cute? I love it. Totally found it on clearance for 25 bucks.

Stained glass sun-catcher in the playroom window.

Ficus tree in the office.

A china cabinet! All set up with pretty things! I look at it about 38 times a day for reassurance.

And then....ya'll....my aunt sent me a totally spectacular care package and included hoards of pretty things. I'll share a few of them. (I have really great aunts)

Look. The most stunning salt and pepper shakers ever...who came with a little china trough for their feed, or your butter....whichever you wanna supply.

A handmade sign...to remind me which way to go for a swim. Its a replica of the one at the family cabin on the shores of Lake Michigan.

And these amazing hand-blown glass napkin rings. The little starburst is a hollow tube for water so that each napkin can be encircled by a little vase with little flowers tucked into each one. Is that incredible? I sense a dinner party in my future.

So great. I feel more pretty in the wind. 

(for instance, wait until you see me hand the lace curtains that were in the same box!)