Dear January sun

Dear January sun, please come again soon.

Weaving

He looked at YouTube videos of weaving to help her set up her loom for a scarf (the instructions in the box were all in German). Then, after our ski outing, when we came back home, the whole place smelled of warm croissants (he had put them in a very low oven before we left). And yesterday, he helped me backup my computer files (it took hours...how can someone so organized as I am in real life have such a messy files system?) Could he be any more awesome?

Ski outing

Last week, we discovered the perfect spot for cross-country skiing right by our house.  (It's free and there is nobody there, even on Saturdays!! Shhh!). The temperature was finally decent enough to go skiing today and, as the girls had been asking to go skiing for the last two weeks, we expected it to be a great outing. 

I don't know if you remember learning to cross-country ski, but I sure do. There is a lot of falling, slipping backward while you try to climb hills, learning to walk like a penguin and struggling to get up the slightest of hills.  Add to that the biting wind, the frozen toes and fingers and the parents who lose their cool (hey, we are human!) and you've got yourself a memorable experience.

Well, against all odds, I truly enjoyed gliding on the fresh snow. I love opening the trail in front, when you cannot even see the elevation because of the perfect whiteness. It was meditative. Well, for five minutes. But, hey, I'll take all the meditation I can find.

 :: Five minutes before the big meltdown ::

Patching pieces together

We baked Hollyhock spiced carrot muffins for snack and cocoa banana cake for dessert. I forgot to put the milk in the cake and we didn’t have a bundt pan. When I fliped the cake onto the rack, it broke into pieces. I lost my cool. I needed to feel good about something I could control and I thought that having snack, dinner and dessert ready by 4 pm would make me feel good. Like a small victory.
 
I feel like I am coming apart at the seams. My edges are frayed. There are holes in my patience, rips in my sense of humor.

I put lots of frosting on the cake. Patching pieces together. Mending my soul.

Possibilities

I love waking up with a different thought every day.  

Even if it is only a possibility.

Bursted bubbles

I didn't accomplish a thing today. I ignored the dust bunnies and the mess on every surface. I braved the cold and went outside to snap a few pictures. Mathilde and I laughed as the saran wrap-looking pieces of bursted bubbles floated around us. It was glorious.

Gravity's law

How surely gravity's law,
strong as an ocean current,
takes hold of even the smallest thing
and pulls it toward the heart of the world.

Each thing 
Each stone, blossom, child
is held in place

Only we, in our arrogance,
push out beyond what we each belong to
for some empty freedom.

If we surrendered
to earth's intelligence
we could rise up rooted, like trees.

Instead we entangle ourselves
in knots of our own making
and struggle, lonely and confused.

(...)
This is what the things can teach us:
to fall,
patiently to trust our heaviness.
Even a bird has to do that
before he can fly.

-Rainer Maria Rilke, quoted by Bill Plotkin in Soulcraft, a great book I am reading right now.