i am moving... again.

i started a new blog based around cooking and my adventures in learning not to ruin everything i touch when it comes to food!

you can find me here at Mix This Get That

:) In case anyone reads this and is curious!

Monday morning

Monday morning, originally uploaded by SparrowEmily.

a weekend of exploring. future homes, towns, schools. sleeping at our parents' houses. waking up to the geese and tons of fog. sometimes it really is that simple.

Tonight was the first night you could really feel it~ the little chill in the air. I was sick, so I curled the red blanket around my shoulders and read some homework on the veranda as the sun set. It even smelled a bit like fall.

not much time going on here today, but i need to say something, don't i?

going for no caps too~ just kinda feeling it today....

school started yesterday. i have spent the last week being self-righteous to people who got completely freak~out stressed at the start of the semester. i thought "i am so into school. i never get stressed at the start of it, i get excited. it must be that they aren't really cut out for school." (i should note this self~righteousness is a common theme lately... and let's just say that book I was talking about explains it all--- shame and perfectionism lead to judgement and expectations and people fall short {i fall short} and then i get more self-righteous and judgmental. so attractive, isn't it?) ANYWAY, guess who was that girl getting all freaked out on the first day of school yesterday? this girl! i have an independent study assignment carrying over from the summer on a book i read three months ago (and have since read at least a dozen books) that has me off the deep end. i have an english course that makes no sense to me, reading a book that makes no sense to me, with classmates that make no sense to me. i have a statistics class that in itself isn't stressful, but it is full of first and second year students. this means a lot of going over things i already know and reviewing things i already understand.

today i start my syntax, semantics, and style course which is supposed to be my fun one. wish me luck!

it is official: school has swallowed my life already.

I have been sitting, processing, dealing a lot lately with my issues of competition, possession, shame, and perfection. I am not quite ready to write about any of it in detail as I just started processing it all, but I am seeing more and more that somewhere along the line I was taught or learned that I had to be the best, I had to stand out, I had to be perfect. I don't remember ever being fed this idea, in fact, my parents raised me with nothing but unconditional love and support. I am digging back to try to see where this may have been planted to no avail. I am however, more clearly seeing the way it plays out in my life today. I can more clearly see the pain it causes not only for myself for but other people as well. I know I am not alone in these beliefs, but it is so rare that anyone ever discusses it that I can't help but feel a little alone in the feelings. I am seeing people that are learning to stand up and say "you are expecting too much from me" or "that is more than I can feasibly do right now." I am seeking them out and I am finding a bit of comfort there.

Really the whole point of all this was to say that my friend Andrea has gotten me so into this book, I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn't) and it is INCREDIBLE.

Fall

Just a quick note to share this post over at curious bird....

I am so into fall. SO INTO IT. Kyle and I generally think October is the best month (it is Kyle's FAVORITE month as he so often reminds me). I think if you could have a power season, ours would be fall. There is such an energy to it all. The calming down of summer frenzy heat and build up to winter hibernation. The smell might be the best part~ the ciders, pumpkin, apple, spicy smells. OH, and the cooking... did I mention that my favorite things to cook are pumpkin? Pumpkin soup, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin cake, pumpkin bread.... Apple too~ Jewish apple cake, apple pie, apple crisp. It is so exciting to think about. The start of school gives me this feeling too. Unlike most people, the general overwhelm of starting school again doesn't get to me. I get excited and have such trouble keeping still with all the energy of preparing the semester. I plan for papers and projects and let autumn cover me whole- when I can come home from class, bake a little, curl up with a big cozy blanket and do homework. It is all too much~ too exciting.

Mondo Beyondo

As I mentioned in my last post, I am taking an online course from my dear, amazing, beautiful friend Andrea called MONDO BEYONDO. So of course, one of the first assignments was to create our own mondo beyondo lists. Rather than explain it here, you can read about what this list is on Andrea's blog here.
So, here it is.... my list, in no particular order:
- go to Paris
- live in Italy
- be happily, healthily married
-build my own home
-have a career i love in education reform
-teach!
-live in Hawaii
-learn to surf... well.
-live by the sea
-create something that moves people
-travel the world studying education policy and find a system that works for everyone!
-PhD
-let go of jealousy
-learn to REALLY cook
-be a fearless mother
-have an open, healthy relationship with Kati (my sister)
-speak French (more than I do)
-take responsibility for myself, dont always put it on others
-work in display at Anthropologie
-learn to chop firewood, mow the lawn, self-sufficiency things
-be more kind in answering my phone
-control my shopping
-stop judging
-know flower names
-know birds/ bird calls
-TRIBE... a real true one!
-have my own studio
-have a library in my house with a sliding ladder
-make dresses
-be kind and giving but give to myself FIRST
-share myself fully, genuinely, openly
-write a book (did i really write that? yep. i did!)
-show my art/photography
-live/work space (work from home with travel)
-be able to travel (ie: without getting sick or freaking out)
-financial freedom
-beach house!
-house on European coast (preferably on the Mediterranean)
-compassion for others
-fresh cut flowers at all times
-dog
-learn letterpress printing
-write/work for a magazine
-vermont, for a time...
-learn to ski/snowboard
-know more history
-my blue bathroom
-learn to really garden
-create a real HOME~



so that's it right now. i didn't number because that is overwhelming. and a lot of these things are more "to-do-before-i-die" things. some are more mondo beyondo than others, but all of them are true and rich....
:)

Good morning world! I just spent nearly a half hour typing a blog entry that I tossed out. And another fifteen writing a second that I scratched. It was real, genuine, true, messy.... Perhaps too much so. I am struggling deciding how personal to get on here. People are actually starting to read it and I don't want to create drama. I don't want to write things that certain people will see and I find myself censoring to the extreme just in case. I am feeling my way through and learning what is enough and what is too much. I will get there eventually.

For today though, I want to say that the sun came up beautifully on the side of the building in front of it. I am getting ready to go write my mondo beydondo list for andrea's online course. I am going to make some tea and really let it go. I am needing to spill a bit.
I wish the same for you~ a litlte bit of honest spilling.... It is so necessary sometimes.

So far...

So far this morning, I: baked a peach blueberry cobbler, made a sign to embarass Christy when we pick her up at the airport, ate a delicious breakfast (mixed berry yogurt with blueberries and strawberries and a whole wheat waffle with peanut butter), straightened the apartment, and cleaned the kitchen. And it is only 8:30!

It's mornings like this that I love.

Fruits of my Farmer's Markey labor

Just a quick little note about my amazingly fruitful (no pun intended) trip to the farmer's market. First on the list: CSA pick-up.... I got amazingly yummy looking tomatoes, three different kinds of summer squash (yuuuummm), radishes, and four big plump potatoes for baked potatoes on mom and dad's birthday lunch this Saturday. This makes the menu for their visit: steamed shrimp- big fat ones caked in Old Bay, grilled squash (see CSA pickup above!) and yummy yummy baked potatoes. I had initially decided to make a nectarine plum buckle for their birthday "cake" but come to find out nectarines are already out of season and my local farm won't be having any plums this season. So I decided to use the same Martha Stewart recipe but substitute peaches and blackberries. Hopefully it will work well but we will see. Needless to say, my trip to the farmer's market also yielded super juicy peaches and amazing blackberries. Finally, I treated myself to a pre-made bundle of flowers and an Emmy-made bunch of zinnias that I have spread throughout the apartment. OH and I almost forgot, on the way out Kyle picked out an amazing strawberry nectarine jam.

Overall, I have to say.... this basically made my day. The fact that Kyle came with me was just an added bonus!

Just a quick moment to post some shots of the light last night. It comes into my dining room at just the right angle at just the right time and it lights up the entire apartment. I always dreamed of a light-filled home and it might not be exactly how I wanted, but here I am with a home filled with gorgeous setting sun kind of light.

Starting again...

So here I am, starting again. I don't want to write a long explanation of why I can't seem to blog on a regular basis or why I am trying another go at it. I want to create a space to do as I please when I please. I hope to be able to post regularly. I hope to post an image from my day, whether it is a breakfast shot, an out and about shot, or an evening light capturing image. I hope to post the little bits that inspire me or touch me. I hope to be able to be full, rich, honest, genuine, enough in this space.

Perfect Perfectionist

mmmm... so I have been putting off this blog for a while and even worse, I have been putting off being my real self here. I have so many fears of judgment and rejection when I think about writing my truth in such a public medium. I really am such a private person with most of the world that it feels against my nature to broadcast who I am, where I am, what I am feeling, or even just what I am really thinking about. I think I'm just going to start out slowly. I am way too scared to just jump in with both feet, so today's post will be a start...

Where I am today is really all about perfectionism. My whole life I have been a perfectionist. I am very much a member of the "if I can't do it well from the start why do it at all" club. As far back as I can remember I just wanted to succeed. It was never enough to just do well- I always had to be the best, the prettiest, the smartest. At some point a few years ago I let go of most of the competitive part of my personality. I think more than anything I just lost the energy it takes to maintain that attitude and lifestyle. I lost the energy to do as much work as it took to get an A plus in every class. I lost the energy to always be up on the news, fashion, whatever the topic so that I could know the most about it and beat everyone else. I thought these things would make me perfect, and in turn accepted. When I lost the energy to keep up with all of the perfectionist behaviors, I saw that I was still accepted when I wasn't the best, the smartest, the most up to date on information. In fact, people seemed to like me better when I could say "I don't know" and when I stopped trying to correct their mistakes.
Lately something has trigger in my life and I find myself back into those old patterns. I find myself relying so strongly on grades and knowledge to define who I am. I am back to correcting people and needing to prove that I know more than others and I HATE IT! I know that the solution is truly accepting that I am enough as I am, with my mistakes and flaws and imperfections... I know that the solution is to let love and acceptance into my life... I know the way out of these behaviors, but I can't seem to stop. Perfectionism, much like shame, is something that has never served me well, yet I continue to return to these perfectionist behaviors. I know I am not alone... I know I am not the only perfectionist and that is why I share.
:) I send to you today visions of beauty and acceptance no matter what you do or who you are.

Been A While..

Yup. It HAS been a while! I am not really sure how anyone manages to blog while in school let alone while working or rearing children! Sheesh! I sure can't manage it. So here I am, almost done with the semester, to try again...
We are planning to move in December and I have been obsessively searching for decorative ideas, furniture inspiration, and generally beautiful homes. Here are some of my favorites:


1. my teeny tiny kitchen, 2. kitchen, 3. Untitled, 4. My Kitchen

Also, in case you haven't seen it, Kelly Rae Roberts has an AMAZING home. She has a bunch of house tours up, but I think the best views are in her flickr set.