Anticipation

Just wow, as I look out my window every day, I remember how the leaves on our Japanese Maple are always the most brilliant red velvet-red in time for my birthday which is on Love Thursday this year!  It gets more red every day and I am so excited!!!  Red velvet was my favorite kind of cake that my grandma (Oma Boyer) used to make me for my birthday, so now it is always good that I have this to remember.

Flash Back Friday 225

Oma Bouman, ca. 1920

Love Thursday

Wow, this week flew by!  It's Love Thursday already and we are celebrating with another one of Maria & her friends!!!

College Girls

I took some photos of Maria & her friends last evening downtown!  We even managed to find some fall color.

Messenger

My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird —
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all ingredients are here,

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.

- Mary Oliver

Falling Slowly

I must say, the leaves in this part of Michigan are taking their own sweet time turning colors which is fine by me...we have longer to enjoy them.  Looking out in my backyard, I can zero in on a bit of the fall action...

 

Around the neighborhood too, I found a few starting to glow...

Flash Back Friday 224

November 2008

I thought of this visit when I was in Chicago last weekend.  Hard to believe it has been 3 years!

Love Thursday

Our daughters and their friends had such a wonderful time in Chicago this past weekend...and Cathy & I did too! It had been a long long time since we had had any togetherness and it was very good for the soul indeed.

The Bean and the Most Epic Jumping Pic EVER

We walked over to Millenium Park and enjoyed the architecture on the way.



The girls were so EXCITED to be by Cloud Gate, aka the Bean...



...that I could not hold them down for 1 second!

Sweet 16

Bridget & I piled in a big passenger van this past Sunday with my bff Cathy, her daughter Emily and 7 more of her friends to celebrate Emily's 16th birthday in the Windy City!  We left earli-ish in the morning and got home late at night and had an EPIC day in between.



We first went to Navy Pier, had lunch at Connie's Pizza (Cathy's fave) and then rode the Ferris Wheel.



Bridgie and I are both a little afraid of heights but it was okay when we squished together...



and kept looking up!

Flash Back Friday 223

Maria, 1993

Love Thursday

I can't believe it's love thursday already!  Well, these white roses are here just in time...

sweet.simple

it is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all.  ~ laura ingalls wilder

Patterns in the Sky

Taken from the passenger's seat of our Volvo going about 70MPH up the highway!

A Rose is a Rose

I was walking by the front window the other morning and just noticed the sun falling on our old roses.

Flash Back Friday 222

Bridget & Maria, 2002

Love Thursday: Fleeting

The other day when I was downtown hosting our ArtPrize Venue, I had a little time to make a video of the piece I made.  We have had thousands of people come through in the first week and a half, but I had a few quiet minutes here!  Well, except for the siren...

Fly Bridgie, Fly

for a long time she only flew when she thought no one else was watching.  ~ story people

Fleeting

Some of the kids featured in my ArtPrize piece...

I was very honored that the piece finished in the top 25 of the Monroe North neighborhood.  So many people even told me it was their favorite!