this weekend + giveaway winner announced!

happy friday, friends! i'm so excited for these next two days. they mean late night movie runs, coffee with friends, and (my favorite), sleeping in on cool, clean cotton sheets. we're supposed to have a block party on saturday night, but with the tropical storm looming, this does not appear to be a likely endeavor. but we shall see! either way, i'm excited to rest up, and spend some time with these beautiful people:

p.s. the shabby apple giveaway winner is miss jessie! congrats, dear!

around these parts

 

 

 

1. on the way to study scripture by the lake. pablo had just woken up, so excuse his bedhead.
2.  springtime, everyone loves you already. you can stop showing off now. 
3. hotel room in the middle of the afternoon, in the middle of nowhere, north carolina. getting ready to see a community play that ended up blowing us away.
4. one of many pit stops on the way home this weekend. cliffs of the neuse state park. a playground in the fifties, it sits empty in these cool spring months. perfect for frolicking and wasting time.

i love weekends, and getaways. and weekend getaways. life is moving slow these days, and that's good by me.

a weekend wish

it's supposed to be overcast this weekend in our little corner of carolina. we've got plans to spread compost dirt in the garden, attend a wedding for some sweet friends, and crash the local greek church spaghetti dinner on sunday.

hope your weekend is beautiful and blessed. i hope you get to help someone, catch a sunrise, and laugh terribly hard over the next two days. for those little moments are what makes the week ahead bearable. those little nuggets of escape--parentheses on a string of weekday mornings, coffees, meetings and deadlines--those make it worth it, after all.

10,000 new pets

 

 

 

 

this was a love affair that started two years ago, at the davidson county fair. armed with boiled peanuts and the notion that there was nowhere more magical to be on a friday night than with dirt on our shoes and a country song wafting through the denim short-clad crowd.

the local honeybee association had an exhibit. set up between the homemade pot holders and the wedding cake decorating contest, the latter of which was behind a glass cabinet, fruit flies trapped behind the pane.

we saw the queen bee, proudly marked with a crimson dot. a scarlet letter of a different sort, i suppose. we saw the not-so-ironically named female worker bees, and the drones. and the delicate, back-and-forth dance of intelligence they all did, working together more harmoniously than most adults with fully developed brains and college degrees tend to do.

and we stewed about it for years. thought about the possibility of setting up a hive of our own behind the little cottage, beside the blueberry bush where they could forage all day for nectar, traveling to the bespeckled shrub the same way we did every time we grilled out. we let two summers go by. we tended a garden. nanno passed away. we moved into his home and tore up the carpet to reveal the glorious hardwoods. i graduated and we put down pine needles.

then last friday, we finally installed a hive of our own. ten thousand new pets buzz about in the yard. and we're learning. robert situated the queen between the frames, pressing her between the wood for support, failing to create a platform made of nails as we learned in the documentary we watched one night as the snow fell. we fretted about her for a week until it was finally time to check on the hive yesterday and she was safe and sound, released from her candy cage and fluttering about near the honeycomb.

last night, at an hour more attuned to morning, we were beginning to drag ourselves to bed, when we remembered the storm about to barrel through. robert wanted to go strap down the hive to make sure it didn't fall down from the promised winds.

i sat on my knees in my nightgown, pressed against our headboard as i peered out our back bedroom window, watching as he finagled a flashlight with one hand and a tie with another, safeguarding the girls against mama nature.

we protect the things we love, and the people too. no matter how long it takes us to find and realize each other.

golden hour

there is a sliver of time before sunset known as the golden hour. when the sun pours across windows and through tree branches. when i walk to the mailbox in my flip flops and feel the small gravel stones against my feet. there is a breath at this hour unlike any other. a release of the day, a sending off of upsets and stresses and disappointments. at the old cottage, my favorite place to soak in this special half hour was sitting on the countertop, my calves resting against the cupboards. but here in this new place, its on the driveway. watching as robert and pablo pull up in the truck and both come falling into my arms.

the day can wear. oh, it can wear a girl down. but all it takes are moments like this, pieced together through a lifetime, to build us back again.

the thing is.

the thing is you deserve to be out west. where the juniper bushes die in the winter and shed their hardened branches across the road. where you can open the brewery. or the honeybee farm. or the bread bakery. where the highway stretches out like a welcome mat across state lines and mountains jut up and out into the ocean, where they crumble to jagged black. that little restaurant on the coast where we ate that oyster stew on the park bench while the november wind ripped through our jackets? yes, right there. i can see you there. or maybe up in oregon, haystack rock dwarfing you by the pacific. or down in california, short-order cooking in that rooftop restaurant where we watched, behind sunglasses, as that odd man behind us rubbed his biscuit butter on his arms. places like those, wide open as the sunset sky, are the only places big enough for this soaring, beautiful spirit of yours. but i am heart-deep happy that you chose our bed instead. wrapped up in tightly pulled flannel sheets with my sleeping legs sprawled over onto your side and pablo's paw in your face. this crowded, tiny space in the back bedroom of my grandfather's house with light glaring in through the cracked wooden door from the hallway lamp that my mama can't turn off. thank you, thank you, thank you.for all the things you know and i can't say. we'll take this town that moves real slow and turn it on its head. we'll make big dreams out of the small things, you and i.

marriage and partnership: or grab your own towel

welcome to week 2 in our marriage series! this week's topic is "marriage and partnership." be sure to check out gina and morgan's blogs today for their thoughts, and do share yours!

when i first started my blog, i went away for a long weekend and asked my sweet friend dacia to guest post for me. she wrote about five things she's learned about living together with  your loved one. one thing she said stuck with me for its simple, honest truth: grab your own towel. she wrote:

How many of us have jumped in the shower only to realize we’re out of soap, shampoo, or have no clean towel waiting for us on the hook next to the shower curtain? How many of us then shout out across the house (still in the shower) to our significant other for these things we forgot? 

i thought about that sentiment this morning when preparing for my post about marriage and partnerships. because i find myself falling into that rut so incredibly often. for me, it takes the form of socks. i'll be in bed, toasty and warm, and robert will be right beside me under the covers, and i will innocently ask him to get out of the cocoon, place his own feet on the cold hardwoods and walk to the dresser to get me socks. or when i'm on the sofa, watching nasvhille, and i ask him to bring me some chestnuts (my new obsession). and bless his heart, the boy never complains. and i can probably count on one hand the number of times he's asked the same request of me.

but being partners means doing these things for our spouse. rising before the sun because the dog is pawing at the covers in that way that you both know means he needs to go out. making supper over the stove even though the day has been long and you need the night to be short and quick so the whole thing can be done with. bringing him a glass of water in bed. running my bathwater.

but it's when these things are expected and sought after without consideration that the partnership begins to weaken, and when the surprise of a sweet deed begins to carry less of its beautiful weight. because yes, being partners means carrying the person, sometimes. picking them up and physically, spiritually and emotionally trudging through the murk and gorgeousness of life together. but it also means knowing when, for the health of the relationship, to let him down to walk by himself. not in front of you or behind you, but right smack-dab next to you, for as long as you both shall live.

on marriage and friendship

 hey guys! i'm teaming with gina from contemplating beauty and morgan from mama loves papa for another marriage series! this week's topic; marriage and friendship.
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 only a true friend would do this with me. bless his heart.

 
the first time i spoke to robert face-to-face was on our first date. he was wearing a buttercup yellow polo and had just washed his dad's car. his hair was combed to the side and my entire family was waiting in the den for him to come pulling into the driveway. he shook my dad's hand and my mama jokingly grilled him on a scandalous story she'd heard. something about his rolling a house. and putting a lawn mower on a roof. and driving the slowest and easiest-to-recognize getaway vehicle possible: a volkswagen vanagon.

i didn't know him at all. didn't know how he liked his steak, or what he did after school. didn't know that he had a brother and that his father was a pastor. i didn't know that he had an affinity for instrumental piano music and was a highly decorated boy scout.

but i learned those things. i learned all of them over the course of our dinner date. and i've kept learning.

sometimes (quite often, actually), i turn to robert and say, "i think it would have been cool if we were friends first. like, just hanging out together, then one day, you looked at me and saw the woman you'd been searching for." instead, it was full-blown romance, from day one. case in point: all his friends call him rob, or robbie, but i absolutely can't. not for the life of me.

but right up there with romance and kisses and butterflies and stars, there is a rock-solid friendship between us now. because there has to be. you have to actually like the person you're married to, as crazy as that might sound. because love is truly magical and life-changing, but there's something to be said about just laughing with him. sitting in a room watching the bachelor on a monday night, not even really speaking, but just being truly, completely comfortable in the weight of a dark room together. saturday lunch dates. secret handshakes.

so yes, we didn't start out as friends, but it's been a heck of a journey learning this man, and finding that after all, our souls are the same, and that's a constant truth. one that was born the day we were. and every stumbling block, heartbreak, rude boy, ridiculous girl, and question we ever had led him to my doorstep on august 30, 2003. and BFF was just a natural progression from there:)

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what are your thoughts on relationships and friendships? any tips? do share! 

a saturday morning thought

there was a time this weekend when robert and i were driving in town on saturday morning. it was too early to be up (robert is the only person who could convince me of the delicious, soul-strengthening power of sleeping in on saturday morning. that pocket of perfect nothingness), but there we were. cruising down main street with the early birds, meeting my parents and sister for breakfast.

and i had a sort of early memory. a happy sort of sadness that comes with the realization that life is so fast. that one day, this family will look incredibly different and that's neither a necessarily bad or good thing, but an honest one. it reminded me of a time, riding in the back of my parents' van, that i looked up at the people sitting in the rows before me and thought to myself, remember this. remember your sister in middle school and your brother with the shaggy hair and skateboard. remember your mom and dad as laughing and young and pretty. and remember yourself as happy, in the backseat with your book.

we've added some people to the van in recent years, and lost one incredible man. and leaving them that morning, driving back home to get  back into the covers, i realized that the journey is really the best part. and there will be changing faces, and spaces. and shifts and swaps. and big gigantic leaps out of the car. but there will be forward motion, and that's the beautiful part about it.

wal-marts and mondays

 

 via

when snow falls on a small town, suddenly you go from having very little to do to absolutely nothing. shops and schools close. people get in pajamas and stay that way all weekend, huddled in kitchens and on sofas. they have real conversations and finally watch those movies on their lists.

but we had to get out this weekend. had to feel the weight of the truck on the road. had to slip into a corner booth and listen to live music and eat sloppy barbecue. and when that was over, we played our favorite game. we call this game, "people watching at wal-mart." with milkshakes in hand and the lights off, we park a good enough distance away and make up storylines about the characters that walk in and out of that glorious, extremely well-lit mecca of retail. because at wal-mart, people are at their most ordinary, and i love that. no pretense. no makeup. no heels. just running in to grab some cereal. or a firearm. or a grill. or maybe a t-shirt.

and last night was similar. just an ordinary monday. with a walk to mom and dad's. with desert before supper. with a dark room filled with the bachelor and dallas, and a fire.

but i love these times. an entire life is built on ordinary mondays and ordinary people. moments of familiarity that slowly, over the course of months and years and decades, shape us into humans capable of feeling and reaching and loving and even dreaming.

a weekend in

 

 

it was hard to leave the house this morning, with the sunrise spilling in across the bed and pablo's eyes not yet open to the day. it reminded me of how we spent this weekend, the three of us huddled under covers while it snowed and sleeted and rained outside, eventually giving way to sun bright and warm enough to walk in.

this was a long weekend of coffee, movies, reading and talking. of stretching and moving and then sitting for inordinately long periods of time on the couch. and for the first time in a while i remembered what relaxing felt like. the tangible weight of Nothing To Do. where the days pass and you change from one form of lounge pants and a t-shirt to another, then into pajamas when the day gets dark enough to warrant such delicious comfort.

we talked about our garden, and our honeybees. about the beach in february and the newport folk festival in july. we planned and schemed our future a little bit on monday. there are  big decisions coming up soon. but for now, for this little pocket of a weekend, we were two kids in the country, a mile or two from the high school halls where we met, cocooning under a homemade afghan and existing on little but egg sandwiches and kit-kats. oh but what a sweet time this is.

out of hiding: a request for out west

hi friends! these last few weeks (um...months...) of the year have been quite the doozy, but with graduation just around the corner, i can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel! i've come out from blogging hibernation to request a slight favor. remember last year, when we headed up the new england coast? remember how you gave me awesome tips and ideas? if it weren't for lovely readers, we wouldn't have known about the rutger's university grease trucks, or cook's lobster house, or a myriad of other little adventures we found ourselves enjoying.

in a little bit, we're headed out west. for a little end-of-the-year-let's-celebrate-no-more-school-EVER-or-at-least-for-now-and-hey!-it's-almost-christmas road trip.

we'll be in phoenix, scottsdale, sedona, the grand canyon, monument valley, zion national park, and las vegas. any tips, ideas or fun little side stops, please comment below! of course, i've made a travel  binder complete with sheet protectors for each activity i've planned so far, but there's always room for a little more fun:)

thank you! and see you in 2013. i promise to be more consistent...i hope.

in the meantime, we are slowly settling into our new digs. pablo has quickly found his resting spot:)

i and love and you

life is a day-by-day thing. and i like going day-by-day with you.

these words were spoken to me around midnight on monday. in a living room lit only by a lamp with handles shaped like elephant noses. and i swear, they were more beautiful and comforting than the string of noun-verb-noun that has become i-love-you. that overused little phrase. those tiny words that at the beginning of our courtship held such overwhelming weight. he first spoke them to me on my parent's driveway under the florescent flood light.

now, we whisper this sacred sentiment across the bed before falling asleep. it's the conclusion of every text, phone call and lunch date. and it still holds as much meaning and truth as it did when we said it that steaming august afternoon at the alter.

but sometimes, hearing it in a different way is just as special. i like spending time with you. i actually like you. for every long, silent car ride home after a misspeak, every grocery store tiff, misunderstanding and spat, there are actually things i truly, deeply enjoy about being in your presence.

and i like living out this joyous, terrible, hard and perfect life with you. day in, and day out. let's do this forever, shall we?

you say tomato, i say supper

 

 

 

 

 

 



i wasn't kidding when i said we've been eating tomato sandwiches every evening here lately.

last night, after a long walk, where the ground was cool and the clouds hung as shade,

i noticed our garden needed to be picked.

also, we were a bit hungry.

so we took our supper outside, eating them right off the vine.

the winds and heavy storms that have pestered the carolinas have caused our little stakes to lean

the garden needs to be weeded,

and the squash has seen better days.

but last night, lying on our backs looking up at the pin oaks,

i was thankful for this little 10x10 square of dirt and seeds

for simple suppers and old quilts

a happy life do make.

in the country, where the prayers grow like weeds along the road

it was a sunday in october when we set off on the ferry. a short jaunt from long island to connecticut across a sea of blue glass, seamless save for a few boats that cut through the currents. it was cold and you were wearing your members only jacket, my goosebumped arms tucked into it too. i told myself in that moment, remember this as a time you were happy. my mind literally formed that exact phrase.

i reminded myself the same thing that afternoon in charlotte. when we snuck off from the walking trail to explore the vacant playground. the slides and the merry-go-round and empty field. there are some times when i am so cognizant, so fully aware, of the desire to remember something, to store it up and preserve it, that it almost breaks my heart.

such a moment happened this morning. in the laundry room out the back of the house, with the late dawn sunshine pouring in through the glass door and old blinds. pablo lying in the exact place it chose to dance across the worn carpet. you came in wearing your blue collar and pants stained with dirt and something about the way the light hit your forehead made me drop the shirt i was folding and drink in the room.

remember this as a time you were happy.

i waved goodbye to you on the brick porch and went back to finish getting ready. it was then i found your note on my laptop. i went outside to check on our garden at 1. a.m., you wrote. let's build a farm one day.

i'll follow you. down the driveway. the road. the country. as we build our life with these happy mornings. remembering all the way.

a plentiful harvest

 

 

we wanted to leave the vegetables as long as we could. tucked sweetly in the shades of the giant squash leaves, and the cucumber trellises that sprawl across the lawn. but at the urging of our grandparents, who told us they would get pithy and hard to eat if we let them grow past their capacity, we went back to the garden this weekend, our shoes wet with june twilight, and snipped off the first harvest.

we're saving a majority of the bounty to grill this weekend. with a little olive oil and some flank steak. but as soon as we got into the kitchen, we couldn't resist the urge to peel and cut in half one of the cucumbers and devour it over the sink. i'll always remember that night. weighing them on my grandpa's old scale and arranging them in pretty piles on the counter.

for some reason, i thought the cucumber would taste weird. like socks. or cardboard. i just couldn't, for the life of me, believe we could create real food. but as the sweet water ran down our chins, and the tiny room filled with the scent (and i immediately recalled my middle school obsession with bath and body works' cucmber melon shower gel), i realized we did it. from dirt and mulch and a few tiny seedlings came up from the earth true-to-life produce. oh, summer of 2012. you have redeemed yourself. and proven yourself a flightly little thing. 

i'm not sleepy and there is no place i'm going to

there were plans for a $1 movie last night. at the old theater downtown where stale popcorn litters the aisles and the seats are threadbare. plans to sink deep into them and watch a mediocre movie with my head against robert's shoulder in the dark.

there were plans to cook cabbage for the next day, to wash and sort all the laundry, and start packing for our trip to the coast tomorrow.

but there was only a sliver of sunlight left when i got home from work. and some sweet friends had brought by tacos and cheerwine. and my pup was freshly groomed and in need of a good slow dance. and robert was still in his blue collar.

so we made a picnic beside the garden. and watched the sun set behind the cucumber plants. and i played mr. tambourine man until night fell on the yard.

and that was it. that was our night. there is still laundry to do and plans to make and deadlines to meet.

but in the jingle jangle morning, we awoke happy. so really, all is well.

if this were 03 and we were sixteen

if this were 03 and we were sixteen, i would look with anticipation to july and august. those balmy months spent without worry or school or stress or timelines. i would propose that we hop in the back of that old pickup with a box of chinese food and galllon of sweet tea. drive deep into the back fields where the wheat is knee high.

i would say, let's just drive. to your mama's or mine. to the gas station for slushies. to the golf course where you can break your third fishing rod in the weeds and tangles of the grown-up pond. i would sleep late and wake up with my hand still on the phone where we hung up only hours before.

if this were 03 and we were sixteen, i would look at you. you with your floppy hair and crooked smile. your ambition and wit. i would breathe you in and capture for good the feel of the fraying cloth seats in your volkswagon van. remember, i would tell myself. remember when the sun was setting and he was resting against the car beside you, his legs over yours, leaning back sipping on limeade.

i would bottle those times, because they were special and sacred and seasonal.

but this is twenty twelve and we are in another summer. we are older and different, but if it's possible, more in love. your hands are stronger from years of turning wrenches and tightening bolts. my hair is longer and i've noticed my knees are popping more than usual and it takes longer to stretch to touch my toes.

we've grown, you and i. oh, 03 was magnificant. it was the year of not too much, except that our little lives intersected and were forever changed. and they are still changing. ebbing and flowing and waning and growing.

even if the most romantic thing i can do for you sometimes, like last night when everything just felt like Too Much, is just bring you water in bed. know i do it with as much romance and ardor as when i leaned against you that night in the pickup and told you, "i get you." or that time at the alter i said, "i do."

i still get you, my dear. and i still do.

to build a garden, part one

 

we needed to stake our claim on the ground. to mix the dirt between our fingers and remind ourselves from where we came. the urge to plant a garden hit us only a week ago, on a walk down a little path near our house. we passed the bridge over the old creek and it just hit me: the need to grow something.

in the few days that followed, we shoveled, tilled, mixed and planted. our knees were black with compost and our gloves sweaty. we planted way too many vegetables, and too close together. we've yet to come up with a good watering schedule. we're keeping away critters with tin pans tied to a stick. we are novices, in the simplest sense. rising early and going out in the dark with a flashlight to check on them.

and even if none of them produces, i'll remember this may. this season of change. this laboring with my love. and even when grass grows back over that little 10 by 10 square, i'll look at it and know. that things and people die. but sometimes they grow too. and it's the cycle of  both that keeps us pushing on.

eight years ago

i knew him before facebook.

before the north american blackout. bush's second term. the last season of friends. love actually.

before janet had a wardrobe malfunction, martha went to prison, and ken won millions on jeopardy.

we sang along to stacy's mom and watched mystic river on the couch with my parents.

eight years have passed since that summer. that late august romance. that last first date. eight years of up-all-nights, throw my phone against the wall because i-miss-you-and-high-school-is-hard-without-you -and-why-do-i-hear-girls-in-the-background-are-there-girls-in-your-dorm? eight years of dates in cafeterias, in dining halls, in our kitchen. of bible reading and home brewing. of early morning greetings and front porch goodbyes.

we've climbed a waterfall together in jamaica, and fallen into bed at nine on a wednesday night. i've seen this man cry and i've seen a laugh rise from his gut so deep it cut off his breath. i've seen him on one knee. in a tux and blue collar.

and eight years ago today, i saw him on my doorstep. with a borrowed car and pressed shirt. and three years ago, i saw him at the alter.

and i declare, for all its hardships and trials, being in love is something more than spectacular. worth saving. keeping. remembering.

and on those nights when it seems like the darkness has won, worth calling him back for.

happy anniversary to the boy who always picked up.