i will be a mom who lets her kids stay home from school on stormy days.  shoes will be optional, well strongly discouraged and our umbrellas will be collecting dust in the closet.  i don't see any way around it.

baby steps though, because i have a baby. 
we strolled through papago park and took shelter under an ramada. we watched the planes set sail and dock at Sky Harbor, and ender foraged for rocks.

ender making his airplane noise...

papago is awesome because you walk through a corridor of creosote, the aroma is dizzying. 

beauty is a light in the heart

strong & beautiful is our sister abigail

her imagination is a deep well, mystical & clear that is dug into the sky, even beyond, into the heavens.   she used to, does she still? imagine that God carved those He loved, those who faded away from human history, into the stones, into the mountains, as His own secret, precious memorial to them.  i like abbie.  i miss her telling wild, imaginative stories.

Happy Birthday soon! 

i remember this post. see the last photo?  she was right :)

this was our weekend

of course we had to pause under the sycamore, of course. 

"you girls need to do this more often. No, I'm serious.  This is is good for you" - zander

This is why you, our dear boy, along with emilio esteves, zach galifianakis, tom hanks (80s) make it so easily onto our list of honorary boy members.

"Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord

The fruit of the womb is His reward

Like arrows in the hand of a warrior

So are the children of one's youth

Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them

They shall not be ashamed

But shall speak with their enemies in the gate"

i adore this verse! what does it mean?

children who are precious ,vulnerable, weaker creatures are compared to weapons against darkness. i feel deep in my spirit that this is true. I have never felt braver than when ender came to stand by my side.

i've had plans of decorating his room with arrows in lieu of this verse. definitely for his next room when we move soon! OH! I'll put a red arrow above his door to signify his blessing and Jesus's blessing of being the Passover.

I've also been thinking if i should get a necklace with ender's name on it. it seems to be what alot of mamas are doing these days. well, if i do decide to wear the turkey's name around my neck, i think i'll go for something more like this.... maybe with his name etched in the shaft.... ?

image 1: Waddler

image 2: all the mountains blogspot

oakies

my mama is ornery!

talkin 'bout uncle bubba and his two week wedded bliss after Vietnam "she was ugly! had to sneak up on a glass of water to get a drink, i swear."

tonight we let the weather channel eat dinner with us, considering our old stompin ground is oklahoma, we were quite concerned with the deadly twisters.

like yankin' teeth, i asked my dad his earliest memory of a tornado. i finally pulled a molar. "in third grade, our teacher rushed us out on the playground when she heard the fire alarm go off. we were speechless when we were the only ones out there with the tornado. she got the alarms confused."

boiling the rain plant to extract its dye will make your kitchen stink to high heaven. and just when you thought that the smell of the desert in a rain storm would be ruined for you forever, you fling open all the doors, turn on the fans, take a deep breath and realize the creosote is still one of your favorite desert scents. next year i will do more foraging in the desert to see what natural dyes it offers.

some vegetables and fruits. swiss chard doesn't work for green(top right egg). in fact, it leaves an odd film on the egg that peels away.

an easter portrait.

Vermillion Cliffs & my dad

yet again, my dad returned from a jeep trip in the desert. I used to live for these rides. I would quit a job on a whim so I wouldn't miss out. I hated school for the very reason it kept me from the hot wind in my face as we sped down the highway. Eventually, my responsibilities became more concrete and these escapades became fewer. the spirit of adventure faded in me as i continued on with the daily grind of secretarial work.

Ender found me wandering aimless on the fringes of the wilderness. he brought me home and I believe he tends to refine me. He threw a bucket of cold water on my face and told me to snap out of it, get a hold of yourself woman, you lost your way, look to Jesus.

Ender is like the little darling rock tumbler I got for Christmas as a child. I'm being tossed and spun with water and sand until I come out smooth and shiny.

"As for me, ....i shall be satisfied when i awake in Your likeness"

Looks like I'll be in this rock tumbler for the rest of my earthly days.

the phoenix has molted its winter feathers

sweet, sweet acacia.

just like when we boil veggies and fruits to enhance or draw out the flavor, the sun warms and lifts the scent of desert plants right off of the tree and onto our olfactory palate. the air is drenched with an arid kind of sugar. I'm excited to go to Junipine and smell the vanilla sweat of the pinetrees this summer!

ender and i went on a bike ride this morning. he rode in a trailer in the back. Thank you heather! and it was very liberating dragging a feisty toddler behind me. released some angst of my own. the sun baked us, but did not transform our scent into anything worth writing about. tis so stinky to be a human.

*zander went rock climbing today, so more pull ups on his hangboard for me :)

donde esta la luna

i saw a rusted penny roll out from under a velvet blanket of stars. And as it rolled, it rose, and became the moon

driving with my family on a country road in oklahoma, the celestial rock was different. i asked them all the description that came to mind. i wanted to remember them in that way. i wrote down their responses somewhere in my stacks of journals. I'll have to dig them out. I will especially treasure my bobbye jean's response. when i find it :) !

in germany i sat in the library and poured over quotes and poems about the moon...

"that orbed maiden with white fire laden, whom mortals call the moon." - Shelley

in sixth grade for our mythology report i made a mask of the moon goddess, a hideous plaster of paris of Artemis, hideous!

if i ever got a tattoo, oh yeah, the moon, but i will never get a tattoo

one of ender's first words-'moon'.

what is it that you think of when you see your moon?

they have sprung and are springing!

oh so long ago, the hobbits with not only a palate for fine mead and wild mushroom, but adventure and curiosity of the great beyond, migrated to the city. here are two of their descendants.

fresh and natural

when i lay down at night, i have the vision of these treasures dancing over my head.

zander is getting nervous about my obsession with painting everything white. he has been through this before with me, except, it was with black and crayola green. haha, oh zander, you love it.

i know the succulents in the trendy CB2 candle holders is so last season, BUT, i had to get it out of my system, you know? And i have to hand it to my awesome cousin greg who was the first before any magazine to craft these cactus creations. hes so hip :)

the stones my father brought back from one of his trips into the heart of the desert. This is them after a few baths in the rock tumbler. smooth and creamy.

the antique-ish candle vases are from the dollar rack at Target. Score! 3 for 2.50, say what!

katie's craft

my quote for katie, always, is "impressed, but not surprised!" artfully lifted images of her family, given a glassy medium.

i stole this photo of her off a stranger's (my stranger, not her's) facebook. i like it.

hopefully i'll see this face rollerskating around in my new house. rustic, stained concrete floors are in my future.

Saint Patrick- I award you the Purple Heart.

purple shamrock. you're a dream!

That dear little plant still grows in our land,

Fresh and fair as the daughters of Erin,

Whose smiles can bewitch, and whose eyes can command,

In each climate they ever appear in:

For they shine thro' the bog, thro' the brake, and the mireland,

Just like their own dear little Shamrock of Ireland.

i can't lie. when i found out Zander had not a drop of green irish blood in him, i was a little perturbed. in high school, i swore by his irish ancestry. how did i get so delightfully confused? looking back, he was really into punk and listened to the Dropkick Murphys. that must have been it. AND he had a really thick lyrical accent at the drop of a dime. oh yes, and his sisters were really into Lord of the Dance. Talk about mixed signals! ahh, ignorance was bliss.

i discovered the shamrock at our local nursery. and my snail pal, i rescued from Walmart! he is too cute! he has the happiest smile.

ranting - one of my fortes

zander rock climbs. i love his spirit. i don't want him to be caged. as a dad, lets face it, he has less limitations than i do as a mama. so on a whim he can go unless ender and i are in immediate need. i'll admit, it can get pretty exhausting fighting to be a selfless person, fighting to embrace this season in my life, fighting to realize that the source of adventure, passion, and beauty are in Jesus. He proves it over and over. Especially in the existence of Ender.


Well, on Saturday Zander spontaneously went rock climbing. And instead of being excited for him, i seethed with jealous anger.... :) I really did! I was so mad, like The Hulk mad, I went to his hang board and did ONE furious pull up. ha ha ha, i laugh now, and I should have laughed then, but one pull up is very hard! I had such a mix of strong feelings that day. I felt sorry for myself that I couldn't go, but then I felt like I was the most blessed person alive because I spent it with Ender and my mama. The storm eventually lulled to a calm and my emotions returned once again to peace and understanding. Truly truly i have an adventurous life with the fellas. i am not stifled. i live in no cage.

I went to the plant store, as I always do to cheer myself up and bought a plant specifically designed by God to attract hummingbirds. Our feeder is new on the block and so its not really well known among the locals. I think my Mom and Dad's place, just down the road, gets all the customers. They have more of a Ma and Pa feel...

dr. suess's romantic side, i didn't get a photo of the trunk, but believe me, its whimsical and this beauty should raise its head high up to 5 five feet!

ender grows serene whenever we go the the nursery. those baby blue eyes soak in all that green and filtered sunlight

i've been treating my blessings more like debris than treasures. it took ender and a tin pie can to go and scavenge them back to me. these are small items small fingers found before small fingers crushed and or threw them. ender is a living breathing reminder of the Good Stuff. That said... he is also a chameleon of fickle substance: glass to stone to upholstery stuffing to fine china...


this photo gives you time to study a little bit of his method. Here you notice the blue eyes beckoning you closer in, perhaps for a kiss, light banter...? I think not. A keen observation and you discover a glint of a mischievous ruse.
for the past two days ender has made it quite clear that he is changing into a man. A man with opinions and tastes! Hes mad I tell you! Thankfully there is a version of him already grown and when he gets home from work everyday i set the boy loose on him and they have a swell time battling for power. Really, they like it.

LIST FREAK

My "to-do"lists all began back in the day when i was emotionally overcome by zander and picking flower petals one by one, "he loves me, he loves me not". In order to still be a productive human being, I wrote my chores and activities down on a good piece of scrap paper.

This came so essential to time management in college.

And when ender was first born you could see a pathetic list of: feed ender, eat breakfast, shower, cry, call my mom. ( i had a hard time getting motivated after hurricane Ender hit)

Still, if I do not have my to do list, i find myself wandering aimlessly. And even when I accomplish lovely, awesome things, if they are not written down I don't feel as satisfied. I quickly scribble the item down on my list and then with a sigh of success cross it out.

No I am not clinically OCD... I can't possibly be alone on this:) I refuse to believe I'm unique!

To enable my obsession with notes and lists, anthropologie came out with....

petrified magnets! I'm a rock geek, but not a big spender. This is another great idea to help me enjoy my rock collection again. I will be making these.

Lightning Bolt Colt

my sister has the quirkiest, cutest kids. Colt, the boy, turned one, so we thought we would try to capture him. We only had a prime lense for a net, and this guy is constantly kinetic. the next morning i felt like i hiked a mountain.

his older sibling, isla. best buds.

this is the face that ender is making a lot these days.

*yellow suits our summers and our fair haired boy

when i was little i never had the jaw stamina to chew carrots all the way and the fibrous half masticated veggie flesh would get stuck in my throat. not a pleasant experience. was i the only one? embarrassingly this might be so. needless to say, i hate carrots. until i discovered the sunny side of life! glazing is amazing! honey, chicken broth and other sorts of spices. mmmm

once again at one of my favorite stores, "The Antique Trove", ender and i found this beautiful red velvet dress. after convincing myself that i could not fit into it, i remembered a little girl who was just born and one of her name's is rose. now thats a fit! and she lives in a place thats green, really green, well much greener then my beloved desert. i couldn't resist the color palate of this dress and her environment.
this is also i book about sleep, opened to one of the best illustrations, that i sent with the dress. one should never underestimate the art of slumber. all you parents and aunt aricas know whats up.

*Its Time to Sleep, My Love - eric mataxes & ill. nancy tillman

a different kind of difficult

all the jobs i've had, i could do them because there was a light at the end of the tunnel- money, respect, experienced gained and so on. i would push through a long day because i knew my mummy would have dinner ready for me, or my room would still be there, my sanctuary from the storm. i also had the freedom of quitting at a whim.

the position of ender's mama is one of extraordinary endurance and work ethic. i am terribly weak in both. and if you look at motherhood as a job, and you can, and i will for today, it is the hardest work i've ever had to face day in and day out. Inmature leslie would be asking around for a new position already or deciding to go back to school on her parent's dime, ha! Its true. Yet, for the first time in my life I am doing a job and still reaping bountiful rewards by putting another person before me. Imagine that! 24/7 folks. the life i live is supernatural now. it was before, it could have been, but God used ender to have me see beyond the material.

this is ender's world view

he owns it

was and is

once a year, i take zander to buffalo exchange to buy his shirts and pants, this last year i found this very sweet, silk garden dress. (vintage of course!) i immediately imagined myself twirling on a rooftop garden, but when I went to try it on, wowza! this number was tailored for a wasp. no amount of inhaling would make the zipper ascend into its perfect place. blast! but i could not leave it in the store. it had to belong to someone and that someone had to be katie.

zander's aunt helped me turn another unwearable garment into a classy high waisted skirt :) This is one of my favorite projects to do. I just need to become completely independent.

Source: 2.bp.blogspot.com via Megan on Pinterest

the humming trees

with no breeze in the air, these trees are the only one's moving....a slight quiver

curious, you creep closer.

a droning

and closer

a frenzy of flitting, fleeting, flocking bees.

brief and to the point with each blossom.

which reminds me.... bee pollen! granules gleaned as the flying foragers go about pollinating the desert. sweet and powerfully healthy, especially in the sonoran desert where its a smorgasbord of blossoms for months on end. enjoy it in milkshakes, salads, cereals or like me, just pop a pinch in your mouth and let it melt.

*Note: the above photo of the tree is an ornamental pear tree. When the blossoms fall, it snows in the desert.