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making change


last night was so nice. i roasted a whole chicken with fresh herbs from the garden, sauteed fennel & yellow squash from the farmers’ market & mashed some new potatoes with fresh cream & rosemary. i also made a blueberry-peach bundt cake for dessert. delicious.



we cleaned up the dishes early, played a game of scrabble & spent the evening reading. luke sewed a patch on the knee of his work pants & i soon fell asleep snuggled close.

our evenings together have become precious, a highlight of my day. with this, i want to savor every moment so i am making change, setting a few boundaries. i plan to be unplugged from my laptop during the weekend. no email, no flickr, no blog. i also want to do this when luke is home from work in the evenings. i hope this change in our daily rhythm will make for open communication & real freedom on our days off.

i am both excited & honestly, a little nervous. do you set boundaries for internet/television time? if not, i hope this serves as a bit of inspiration for you!

happy friday & i’ll see you back here on monday.

love,
natalie

ps. a little shop update {here}!

adding it all up


i have found that once i begin to actually open up, good things happen. after writing to you all about my hard week, i instantly felt some relief. thanks so much listening. a few friends called me, too. there’s nothing better than a little woman-to-woman therapy.

so today, after so much love from you people, i actually got some stuff done around the roost! i hung some pictures on the wall, swept all of the floors & (gasp!) made our bed.


i worked in the garden, too. the rain clouds came in this afternoon & cooled it down a bit. i trained the cucumbers & butternut squash to their trellises & did some weeding.



i also stopped by the thrift & found these beauties. a bag of antique forks for 25 cents (i think i’ve never loved silverware so much!) & a hand stitched quilt for 2 bucks! i’m pretty sure i made a fool of myself right there in salvation army when i found that quilt just sitting there in a pile.

hey, it’s those little moments in life that really add up to the goodness of it all.

any goodness happening to you right now?

love,
natalie

happenings



this past week was hard. to be totally honest, i haven’t felt such lows since moving here. the house was (& still is) a disaster & i couldn’t come up with one ounce of motivation to do much of anything. it is a tough reminder when you realize you are only human & really need a community to live life fully. once you move away from that community, life downright sucks sometimes. also, having a bright red kitchen & dining room doesn’t help much either. so i painted with my mom & brother. & it was just what i needed to bring me back. that green really speaks to me.



luke & i also made a trip to his family’s home for the goodness of comfort from such a hard week. we made a date of it, too, & had breakfast at brick house kitchen & a late morning of purchasing fresh foods from the farmer’s market. fennel & bowls of heirloom tomatoes- so good.


we had such good conversations with luke’s mom. just the right amount of clarity to keep you going even in the junk of life.


we headed back & spent sunday at our home-in-the-making. the garden is beginning to feel just right.


basil soaking up every bit of the summer heat


& our first sighting of tomatoes.

of course, things still aren’t peachy & every single day i am reminded of the process of living, but these little meltdowns are reminding me that i am growing & learning. just knowing that is reassuring.

love,
natalie