tiny joys for the week of 6-12 of July

This week, we moved slower as it got easier for me to not constantly pick up my phone looking for a distraction on IG or the internet as a whole. I have a 12 day streak on Duo Lingo for Italian (Greek will be next) and the boys are just over 30 days until it’s back to school. The weather has been mild and we have had more rainy days than I think I have ever experienced in my 20+ years in Texas (my first summer here was very rainy and my fresh from California self couldn’t understand rain in summer). There has been a downshift. While popsicles for breakfast or on our morning walk is still going strong, there is a call for routines and consistency that we had abandoned so easily back at the end of May.
Maybe it’s me back on my love of romanticizing life, but it feels like on these windy afternoons when the rain pours down, she’s nourishing some long forgotten seeds. What will grow from them, only time will tell and for now, we linger and dance in the liminal space of it all.

Texas Floods

First of all, we weren’t near the rivers that flooded.
But staying by a river during heavy (HEAVY) rains probably wasn’t what we needed fourth of july weekend. It rained. A lot.
They preferred to play video games and stay indoors.
They ventured out a little too. To the little downtown district.
To walk the neighborhood.
To the monthly market that happened to be going on while we were there.
Nothing was very busy, but there were a few people out too.
I asked him if he would want to live in a little town like this one.
”Yea, it’s quiet. And maybe there wouldn’t be so much non-sense.”
We walk by a few houses. “But maybe not.”
There isn’t much more to say.
The flags hung everywhere have a droopy defeated look to them.
It’s sad, but also, there is so, SO much rain.
(If you’d like to donate, here is a good place to give.)

Sweet Treat

Maybe it’s the anime, maybe it’s a fascination with another culture, but we go to the Japanese bakery and pick up donuts. Matcha, lemon, Viet coffee, and Snickerdoodle. The day before we went to the grocery store and picked out some Japanese sodas as well as some new foods to try.

We talk about what it would feel like to go to Japan. How it would be beautiful and strange. We take the donuts to a friend’s house and they are devoured. All but Bear’s who ordered with enthusiasm, but doesn’t eat his Snickerdoodle cute faced treat. I appreciate that he ordered something, even if he didn’t eat it.
There are so many things he turns down, not wanting to expand his delights.
A sweet treat, even if he didn’t try it— this time.

Bad until you get good!

I have to laugh at how bad I am at this.
I took sewing for two years in high school.
I spent a summer in LA trying out fashion school.
I wanted to design clothes until I wanted to go to massage school.
I borrowed her sewing machine, thinking that I could in fact do this, and by this I mean, make my own clothes. Mostly because what I want isn’t available to me or if it is, it is way out of my price range.

My attempt is laughable.
In hindsight, I can see all the errors. As is always the case, right dear reader. I should have read the manual about the basics of how to start on the machine.
E6 error popped up way too many times, it is utterly embarrassing!
It wasn’t until I made a new bobbin that I saw that I actually threaded the wrong on the top. Ridiculous!
3.5 hours later, I get the shorts nearly done, but when I go to measure the elastic for the waistband, I see the error. I am not a size small.
I should have measured myself first.
And instead, I have the cutest shorts (with pockets, I might add).
They just don’t fit me.

WOW

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go back to sleep or gather myself and get up for the zoom. Bear woke and asked if I would be next to him, so I started coffee then collected what I needed: my laptop, corded headphones, notebook, sketch book, pens etc.
I enter late, we breathe.
We brain dump.
There are soft little snores, warm sips of coffee, the morning light not quite reaching me where I sat. The prompts, as always, light me up.
They stoke the creative embers that lie in wait over this long summer month.
The last prompt though hit hard. I couldn’t read it out loud with Bear curled up so sweetly, but I sent a bit into the chat box and B read it for me.
It is strange to hear my own words/thoughts out of someone else’s mouth AND it felt like such a privilege to have her read it for me. Here is a little bit (with zero context of the instigating verbiage) of what I wrote and all of what I shared

Wow, these boys are growing into young men so quickly and I wonder, more often than I care to admit, that time has moved too fast once again. As if my prayers for the rushing through the hard parts have swept away the good ones. And still… wow, these boys have such humor and grace at times, along with a fire and intensity, I as their mom, only having this feminine experience, cannot understand. There are so many moments, I want to capture, but my memory is like a butterfly net and somehow, the memories are glimmer of joy and sadness.
Wow, I’m so lucky to have little hands that like to hold mine and bigger ones, ones that mimic my own, that reach for me to hug and inquire, although anxiously, if everything is ok. Wow, this life is all at once too fast and too slow.
Wow is all I hope for when the day comes that I close my eyes for the last time.
Wow I have lived and I have loved.

Five Invitations:

1. My friend Jess told me she was re-reading “Think and Grow Rich” with some of her local friends. Probably about a year and a half ago, she found a copy of the book at the thrift and sent it to me. It’s the OG manifestation book and it has aged mostly pretty well. Have you read it? What is a classic read that you have or haven’t finished? What is stopping you from picking it up or putting it on audio?

2. In a world that feels like it can be flooded with too much bad news, what has you saying “wow?” What fills you with awe and wonder? In what ways can you share the WOW with those you love?

3. What is stopping you? An invitation really to pause and ask yourself, what is stopping you? And if you are asking yourself “from what?” The maybe you are one who is taking care to live life that isn’t just checking off your bucket list, but hopefully you are one who is feeling as if life really is your oyster.

4. What have you done lately that is new or something, well how do I say this? Something you are just really bad at? Did you get down on yourself or just laugh it off (I admit, I got very frustrated and then laughed my ass off at how silly I had been!)? If you haven’t done anything you are bad at, maybe you should give it a try?

5. Sweet treats! Have one this week for me, because why not! An Italian ice or an ice cream… maybe you make a little stone fruit cobbler. Go old school with a little cool whip or fresh whipped cream. Send me photos!

I hope my loves, that you are feeling these dog days of summer as something to cherish and enjoy. I know we will be embracing these last few weeks as our most feral and wild summer loving selves. I hope to have some good photos for you. Speaking of pics!!! Here are a few from my last roll of film that I was waiting for from last week, I love the grainy old school feel:

canon ae, 35mm, 90's film