little messes

i’ve been feeling rather lucky lately. lucky to have such dear friends and family. lucky to have my home and jeff. lucky for this pup. and oh so lucky for these little ones kicking their way within. i’ve also been feeling exhausted and overworked. nothing so much beyond the norm in terms of my working day, but i find myself struggling to keep up. so today we’ll take a break. a road trip. perhaps our last before these wee ones make their entrance at the end of the summer. we’re off to new hampshire and the hudson river valley of ny.

in some ways i know this trip will start off hard. being in a car for nine or so hours is perhaps not what my body will appreciate. but there’s something cathartic in this journey too. we haven’t made this trip by car in some time. it changes everything i think. it’s slow and mindful though sometimes chaotic. it’s guided by quick stops. usually by coffee and fuel breaks, this time by our pup and much needed stretching.

i hope we take it slow and breathe it all in as we muster up this coastline. all five of us together. though two of our party still quiet in voice.

my small joys for this week have been plentiful and the start of this trip will open up plenty more i’m sure. so i’ll leave you with a few moments from this past week.

an early morning tennis game with my two favorite boys:

a few quiet moments of making… something i’m doing far less often than i’d like. thanks sarah for giving me a much needed assignment:

lisa organized a really great postcard swap to kick off the fall. i always love a swap and gocco is just so easy to dig into, especially when i walk down the stairs into the studio and realize i have days of organizing before i can get anything actually made down there. usually as soon as i hit the third stair from the bottom i let out a sigh, then a yelp, and then i turn around and come back upstairs where it’s nice and clean. but honestly with all the organizing/rearranging/cleaning that’s been going on around these parts, it’s only a matter of time before i make it down there for real.

until then, gocco and i can rendezvous on the dining room table. and my walks with henry can help source my inspiration. ahh fall. i so love this season.

you can see all the creations folks worked up over here on the flickr group: gocco swap.

my prints made their way out to my swapping co-horts last weekend and i’ve been so excited to see what’s been popping into my mailbox in return. i was mostly happy with my first gocco attempt. i can’t wait to start experimenting more.

on friday jeff and i got out of town for the day and made an impromptu trip to meet dear friends from another coast who we wish we lived just down the street from. everytime i see these two i spend nearly every minute laughing. and even thought the antiques were crazily overpriced it was nice to take a day’s road trip. we avoided late friday afternoon commuter traffic by taking the long way home. which if you’ve ever tried to drive through dc on any weekday afternoon, is probably not as long as sitting in traffic on the beltway.

and now today we’ll add another trip to our list. we’re off to tucson for a short week in the desert with friends and family. when next you see me i’ll most likely have enchilada sauce dried to my chin and a round happy belly to boot.

i love a busy saturday, well as long as the busy refers to making and not running errands. today was great. full of friendly drop-ins, ink and sketch pads. you can’t get much better than that. i got all my prints ready for the gocco swap and worked with a friend to design her wedding invites. oh geez i love a day of creativity and the sunshine didn’t hurt either.