Creating beauty from chaos

Every night this week, I've been turning this...


into these...


Giving order to confusion.

M.F.E.O.

It is official. Mr. Kent and I are made for each other. Remember his idea of a perfect dinner?

Well, here is my deliciously balanced breakfast from this morning:

Yes, we love our veggies and fruits. We eat lentils and beans and greens. But deep down, deep down, we are united in honoring our family motto:

Eat Dessert!

And so we do.

Connecting with home

I've spent more than ten years in the big city, away from my family and many dear friends. I totally dig living in NYC, but lately I've longed for my loved ones back home. Seeing them, catching up with them, hugging them and laughing with them earlier this month filled me up to overflowing! I felt so strengthened and reassured in my current path. Knowing they love me made me feel full of joy.

Want to meet some of the people I love?

My beautiful mom, who roots for me always, even when following my dreams takes me far, far away, and hermanacita, who makes me laugh, laugh, laugh....

My crawfish (even though spell-check insists it's crayfish) cooking Papa-Bear....(oh I need to post about our crawfish boil! What fun it was!!!)....

The Four A's (re-nicknamed the A-team on this trip) who were my constant high school confidantes, cheerleaders and conspirators....

My best college friend, who gives the most awesome hugs....

Sisters and mothers and in-laws....

A New York friend who is out West for college. She is delightfully smart, extremely funny and great company....


My grandpa, who is so deeply devoted to my grandma, even through her Alzheimers, and my grandma who I still love talking with....

My other grandma, who inspired me to start quilting and taught me how to bake a good loaf of bread...

A (2nd?) cousin (once removed?) who is my age and used to be a favorite playmate and pen pal. So fun to get back in touch....

And Hhhh-era, who has the most fabulous wit and had the gall to move to a place where you are worried about snakes and scorpions instead of subway rats and yappy dogs...

(Ok, this pic of us is several years old, but I was silly and didn't take a picture of us together this trip!)

And still, there are so many more people I wish I'd been able to see! (You could come to Women's Conference next year, you know! :) I guess it just gives me lunch dates and cousin barbeque's to look forward to this summer! I'm so grateful I'm connected to these people! They love me and pray for me...I can feel it!

Who fills you with joy and makes you feel loved?

Book-o-phile...

Friday, a delicious thrill swept over me as I chose a few books from the Spanish institute's library. It surprised me, the anticipation of biblio-pleasure. My love affair with books has fizzled a bit over the past few years. Over time, my long-time passion shifted to frustration at their high-maintenance demands.

High-maintenance demands, you ask? Books? Well, yes. They took too much! Too much space...hubby's and my combined libraries spilled, no poured, off of one tiny bookshelf in our newlywed apartment. Too much time...subway reading time was replaced by subway fiber and fabric time. Too much money...spontaneous book buying dried up as every purchase was scrutinized through the lens of a budget.

But then I started to miss them. I longed for their loyal companionship: always available, ready to entertain, willing to comfort, completely honest, surprisingly vulnerable. I wanted to open up a book again and move right in, taking up house in a different time and place. I remembered the good times we'd shared, when books connected with me, making me laugh out loud or start crying unexpectedly on the subway. I missed how a book could occupy me, expand my view and crack my own heart open until both my outside and inside worlds had shifted. I missed my love.

So, we're trying it again. With the help of a wall of salvaged book shelves, a book club and a library card, books and I are seeing if we can't make it work after all. They are creeping back in and claiming their rightful place in my life: on my subway ride, in the doctors office, late at night, on the airplane. Last week, in the quiet library, I fell in love all over again. I tingled with the sense of endless possibility between the covers of that little level two reader...would it entertain, intrigue, touch, comfort, inspire, challenge, inform, tease, delight or satisfy? I was going to take it home and find out. The foundation of a life-long love affair. I think we're going to make it.

Magic Slippers

This morning, I tiptoed into the lives of two little girls and discovered the delights of reading stories about the ballet and a child's love of the night sky, creating celestial hair decorations in a Crayola studio and dancing 'round a playground where hippos wander free.

On the way back to my "regular" life of part-time office job, I found this in my shoe:

the tail of a shooting star. I smiled and took it out...paused...and put it right back in.

After all, how often do you get to wear magic slippers to work?

Nothing is sacred...

I came in while hubby was setting the table....

Laughing, I fetched my camera.

"You going to put that on your blog?

(nod)

"Is nothing sacred?"

Nope. Sorry hon. Not even the intimate relationship between man and his cookie...

Things I'm grateful for today...

Photos that bring humanity to divinity....

Piña coladas...

Wearing this beautiful scarf from a friend....

Buying ribbon today at the guild meeting to make a headband...

How handsome hubby looks right after a haircut (especially when I don't whack off big chunks over his ears)...

And, of course, eating more of Jessica's cookies!

Home at last...

Trying to catch up on sleep...

Wearing this new addition again....and being asked if I am going for the hippie look...
(um, no)

Cleaning up and getting organized....

Listening to my "Cooking in Dad's Kitchen" playlist (lots of John Denver and Heart) after having cooked in his outdoor "kitchen" on Saturday...

Baking these cookies....

Looking forward to sewing some and knitting some...

Trying to figure out why in the world our prescription program includes four different companies and what each one of them does....

Mostly being grateful to be home....