my mother-in-law has quite a green thumb. years ago she transplanted some of her ginger into a sunny spot in our yard. they have multiplied (good thing they are a very hearty plant) and the first bloom is something i look forward to as soon as the weather turns warm. the stalks grow to about 5 feet or so, unfortunately, not too many see this height as they grow in emma's favorite spot for hunting lizards, and therefore are often bent in half. this day, in fact, one pal was sunning himself on the leaf nearest the bloom, safely hidden from her view. they smell wonderful...sometimes the first blooming will catch me off guard until the evening i walk into the garage and that undeniable fragrance lets me know they have arrived. makes the summers feel so tropical...

using an old photo-me sad to be leaving nyc in march-cause we booked a quickie (sandwiched between busy days!) trip today! just a couple of nights in the city (2 nights in nyc is better than many nights just about anywhere else...)on my birthday. going to do some grandbaby shopping with our oldest son and his wife, this will be their first trip to there. my hubby booked us in a hotel directly between the 2 destinations i mentioned by name; bloomingdale's and fao schwartz, 2 blocks from each in opposite directions, how great is he? good times...

random happenings...got some much needed rain today. been several weeks since we had any. a young but large and unknown pup slipped out of his home during the storm, decided my pups were cute and set up temporary residence here-found a phone number, left a message, heard from the owners hours later, they were out of town, so loaded up "thibbadeaux" in my rav 4 and took him to his brothers and sisters, aka owner's pre-teen kids...

thinking a lot about anthropologie again...

making some of my homemade journals for goodies for some pals. good to be creative...

excited about a couple of days in nyc...

random and good...

just a thought tonight...

watched a family of birds this afternoon outside our bedroom window put on quite a show. two babies, as big as their momma, sitting outside the nest, obviously not enjoying their first flying lesson, hopping about the tree branches with their mouths open, while their mom flittered from tree to tree, hoping to set a good example. i wondered, do we look like this? appear grown on the outside, feathers full-sized but with our mouths opened wide hoping for another handout?

long days lead to not feeling particularly creative, and this gets me back to why i challenged myself to two weeks of fluffy blogging. it keeps my creativity on ready, lurking just below the surface as well as helping me to see my life a little more lovely-like even when it doesn't feel like it...

so...my iphone takes great photos. to me, the best part is that it's always available. i don't have to plan a photo, i just reach in my pocket and snap. goes back to the randomness of my life, too. i get to see something perhaps overlooked as mundane as beautiful because i've captured a moment.

and, cmon, doesn't get much more mundane than the chore of dishes...thus, the need for a photo of one of my ongoing collections, beautiful dishtowels! how can one think it drudgery to reach into this drawer and grab one of these lovelies to dry a dish or wipe our hands? i began this collection a while ago, mostly with vintage dishcloths. i think my first was an old vera one with hilariously bright 70s colors. however, upon discovery of anthropologie, my cloths from this lovely of lovely stores (and the website, anthropologie.com if you don't have one near you, as in my case, the nearest store is about 4 hours away...) have overtaken my drawer. actually, it's a bit hard to close. i buy them for gifts as well; one is on a ship on it's way to samoa, some are at my mother-in-law's house. i encourage people to use them, they are useful pretties. suppose it's time to begin paring the dishcloth drawer down. but i guarantee that my anthropologie towels are staying put...

these happen to be from our trip to new york, but i actually have quite an extensive collection of shopping bags.

i've collected them for years. some i might keep just temporarily but others will stay with me for awhile. some of my favorite bags right now are from mackenzie-childs and anthropologie. but i have some sentimentals from shops in south america. i think i've always been a bit of a collector. i remember once while traveling with my family as a kid, my very wise mother talked me into collecting squares of toilet tissue from various bathrooms along the way...or keeping my dad's souvenir swizzle sticks from flights he had taken. right now i've slowed down the acquiring just a bit, but not without at least once a month, while frequenting my favorite estate sale at a local antique store, adding a perfect piece of china to my collection of mismatched china. or really unusual bracelets. and old children's books, particularly really lovely reading textbooks. maybe really great kate spade bags. my rule is now that i must be able to incorporate my new find into an already existing collection. unless perhaps it's a piece of bunnykins baby dishes, which i think would look really lovely in a brand new stack in my kitchen...

technically, this is a thursday post since i am still up and working on my thursday. it's the end of a busy and rewarding day, yes, doing things completely uncomfortable! i think i wouldn't want it any other way...i am so thankful for every minute, don't want to waste a bit.

finished my activity by wrapping up a "new baby" basket, complete with the crunchy plastic bags that i've grown so fond of. had to post a photo because it begged to be photographed.

as i doze off to a peaceful night's slumber, visions of pink shall be dancing in my head. along with thoughts of this random life i lead...

lovely thoughts...i am in the middle of probably one of the busiest times in my life. i turn 49 this july and life has taken on some surprising faces. i'm not a "5 year plan" type. i know some things, some destinations but the inbetween sometimes catches me a little off guard, like being so busy at this time in my life. this blog, in the way i view it, keeps me creative. it uses the "ahhhh" side of my brain, that's the comfortable side to me. it's just not the side of the brain that i'm using so much right now. that's the uncomfortable yet surprisingly lovely thought...who knew what a renewed sense of purpose could have done for this 48 year old?

so, this picture, like this blog, reminds me of the lovely in my random life... this was taken on a recent visit to NYC (my first visit!) as my husband and i celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary one year late... the entire trip was pretty much made up of trips to various stores. in this photo, i'm mapping out our trip to Mackenzie-Childs or Century 21 or some other completely wonderful location. i'm wearing a necklace i bought from an artist in fairhope, alabama. on the ballerina is the word "dance". i'm not a dancer but i fancy vintage ballerina ephemera. it was chilly. we were standing in battery park. in one of the greatest cities in the world. me with one of my favorite people in the world, my husband, larry, who is also one of my favorite shopping companions as he is very strong and can hold lots of shopping bags and works very hard on being patient with me as my life and destinations get more random, kind of like this post...

this is a photo of me at about the age of 3. what you can't see is my huge grandfather holding me next to one of my favorite people in the world, Ma, my dad's mother who died right after my oldest son was born. i'm holding an apple that i've taken a few bites out of and there is a hideous light fixture hanging from the ceiling. pictures like this evoke bits and pieces of memories. maybe one day i'll post the whole photograph, but right now, i like this one. larry, my husband has saved this one as "baby bunny" and i like that, too. i like being someone's baby. this picture reminds me that i'm lots of wonderful people's baby. and i like that, too...

so, day 2 of my (at least) 14-day blog challenge to myself...been thinking of my adult children...

when the oldest, caleb, left to attend college 6 hours away in tennessee, i felt such an emptiness. every visit there or when he came home, i would cry for hours, missing him being around. this is when i got my black lab, emma. yes, she was my "i need to be needed", and she did turn out to be a good decision, but wasn't a substitute. when our youngest, jordan, (this is a photo of him at yankee stadium on a recent trip with his dad) left two years later, i literally stayed in bed for three days. all i every wanted to be was a mom and now, although i was still "mom", the job description had changed and no one had asked me if it was okay...

when i look back on those days, i realize i was feeling sorry for myself, which actually is a dangerous thing to do. i don't know exactly what moment the light dawned, but i do know it was Purpose. my life has been redefined and it continues to be, that's the uncomfortable part i spoke of in yesterday's post, yet, surprisingly enough, also the wonderful part.

hopefully, others will watch me and my random life and find hope in theirs...

so, if blogging is seeing your life through different eyes, which i recently read, i have decided to just go with it...people often ask me, "what do you do with your days?" and, often, i can't really say except that i stay busy. i like being busy. perhaps that's why i like "projects" so much. walking into a store with a specific purpose. watching a movie and getting inspiration for an upcoming party. listening to a song on the radio and having an idea sparked for a conference. at any rate, this photo, which i snapped with my iphone-some of my favorite pictures have been taken this way-was as i prepared to attend a youth group's "girl's nite". making up these bags was a last minute idea and in fact i had most of the materials for them already, just random goodies. so, a trip to a couple of stores, a heart shaped drinking straw, some candy love beads that i found for 39 cents a piece, and i created "chick goody bags". as i was wrapping them, the colors and shiny plastic bags (right now i like the crunchy ones!) screamed for a photo...

seems, i think, this is my life. good, bad, ugly. i'm enjoying each minute and thankful for the little random things...

so in this frame of mind, at a particularly busy period in my life that is filled with the wonderfully uncomfortable tasks i currently find on my plate, i've challenged myself to drink in the wonder of creativity each day and to document it. yikes. there, i've said it. i'm committing myself to blogging each day. right now, i say each day for two weeks. maybe it's for you, dear reader. more than likely, there is a bigger lesson in this that's just for me as is very often the case and i realize this more and more as i grow older.

so, goodnight, see you tomorrow...