Category: Life in Photos
LIFE IN PHOTOS :: Trying to Get Out of Vacation Mode
It’s too quiet. This is a phrase I’ve rarely uttered in the past 2.5 years, but today, in the still of the afternoon heat with Aveline asleep to the hum of the fan, and the house strangely Lauren-less, I find myself whispering, “It’s too quiet.”
My second cuppa gone, I try writing a to-do list, but it’s hard to get back into working mode after so much time off. A whole month in Minnesota — and week here with my best friend — definitely spoiled me.
What do you do to get back into the groove after time off?
LIFE IN PHOTOS :: Summer Shadows
We’re in Minnesota right now, and I’m thoroughly enjoying this (entirely unintentional) break from blogging. I’m still carrying my iPod everywhere, though, so you can follow me on Instagram if you’d like to keep up with some of our summer vacation moments.
Hope you’re all enjoying a terrific July!
INSPIRATION :: Unexpected
LIFE IN PHOTOS :: My Miniature Flying Companion
Aveline and I are packing this morning, for a little jaunt a couple (thousand) miles over to cooler weather for a bit. This means I write lists and try to collect what I need to pack, and she follows me around immediately removing said items from bags while asking for (even more) kefir and shrieking happily, “Baby help! Baby help with pieces!”
Not a whole lot gets done this way.
This won’t be the first time she’s flown — she’s taken close to a half-dozen trips already — but it will be the first time she has her own ticket and own carry-on. If you happen to be in the airport on Friday, she’ll be the only kid under three feet tall to have a entire twin-size fleece Mario blanket in tow. (My “purse” will be overflowing with snacks and coloring books.)
Oh, and we’ll be traveling with Mr. Fox, too.
As it just so happens, this fox is on newsstands right now. Well, not Mr. Fox himself, but a tale of his adventures as The Flying Fox, Aveline’s traveling companion. He ends up in a stranger’s lap, and witnesses a pair of airline headphones reduced to rubble courtesy of a rogue beverage cart. (You can read more in Babiekins Magazine, Print Issue 2.)
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to tend to a toddler eruption of tears over a small issue in which a plastic figure of Mario is lodged headfirst in the Tinker Toys container.
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Little Style :: Aveline is wearing a Naartjie hoodie.
LIFE IN PHOTOS :: Tangled
Now that is some downright serious bedhead.
Spelling out hope in all kinds of ways
We wake up slowly this morning, the hum of the air conditioner and the dehumidifier a constant reminder of the tropical climate. They are the new silent, the steady noise which blends into the background and becomes a part of these walls and this life.
Outside, the landscapers’ lawn mowers rattle across the sidewalks and through the landscaping mulch, sending a spray of pebbles and bark across the bottom third of the front door. I cringe a little, thinking of the helpless, newly-transplanted moss rose and marigolds in terracotta pots on the front stoop. The new pinwheel, whirring happily to the blast of mower exhaust, doesn’t mind. It just spins and blends the colors into a sphere anyway.
Aveline wants to see it all, and settles in by the second-story window to watch. It’s a Monday-morning routine, at least when the rain stays away long enough for the landscapers to trim and edge and cut and sweep.
Maybe later, we’ll spread out a towel on the narrow strip of sidewalk in front of the door, and sit side-by-side in the sun to “make ABCs” on the concrete, until our fingers and knees are covered in dusty blue and pink and yellow.
She wants to “make ABCs” with her pens and crayons and chalk, this one, not houses or trees or little boys and girls. She flips book pages and pretends to read, and screeches “TWO A’s!” whenever she spots a word which has, indeed, two letter A’s. She can’t pronounce her own name, but she can make a letter “T” from pretzel sticks, and she turns her felt number 2 upside-down to “make Z”.
I don’t know where she gets these crazy ideas. I know how it feels to love letters, though.
I love letters. I love the words you can make from them. I love that 26 characters can be scrambled and pushed into thousands and thousands of different orders to spell out love, or fear, or hope, or happiness.
May she grow up to spell out lots and lots and lots of hope.
LIFE IN PHOTOS :: Of Parrots and Pulgas
The sign should have been the first clue.
I mean, would have you continued into the parking lot once you saw a turtle like that? (The right side of the sign had an identical turtle, but in mirror image. Equally creepy.)
It only took a couple of seconds to realize “900 booths” was a complete farce. Maybe they forgot the decimal point between the 9 and the first 0?
You can’t see it in the picture, but there’s a caption above the turtles that says, “A REAL Flea Market.” I am not sure what that even means, except perhaps this market houses fleas on a regular basis.
This morning, long before I saw the creepy turtle (wait, is that a flea?), back when I read about this place on the internet, I expected antiques and vegetables and woven bags. In my head, I had visions of my beloved California Denio’s. Instead, I saw washers and dryers, fish oil capsules and nail polish, chickens, and slightly illegal looking parrots. And no mariachi music.
The distinct lack of tubas and accordions made me sad.
But there was a redeeming factor! Aveline finally got the windmill she’s been wanting. She calls it a wind-bum, though.
Choosing a wind-bum is serious business.
Oh, we bought a coconut too.
Despite the sign’s optimistic “¡FRÍO!“, it turned out to be a coco calor, not a coco frío.
Oh well.
At least we got a wind-bum!
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