little messes

there are so many new moments for the senses round this house.

right now, as i bounce little v in her seat i can see as her eyes get just a little too heavy for her gentle face. with m against my chest in a post-nurse stupor i can feel his fine (barely-there) hair so soft against my face and hear a tiny whistle escaping with each deep breath he takes. his body is so warm against mine.

we’re in a holding pattern at the moment. soon it will be time for our daily walk with the pup. can’t leave henry out of this equation. he drags us to the park each afternoon, past the falling leaves, through the mud and with only a quick stop off for coffee delaying our trip.

i so love these days. knew i would, but never could have guessed how much.

today jeff found a new friend. he’s a shy little guy. a real slow mover and he fits on the tip of a finger. the garden is in full bloom so it’s no surprise to find this little guy. i hope we get to see more of him.

in other news of tiny creatures, the wiggler’s and i are growing pretty big these days. i’m expanding faster than i can find long shirts and stretchy skirts and my train rides are filled with silent hurried fingers on my needles.

i’ve gotten one sweater nearly done (ran out of yarn before i got to the sleeves) and a second sweater started, well so far just the hood. just waiting on another round of skeins to arrive to really get down to business. the house is quietly shifting it’s focus too. we’re having a bunch of work completed on the hallway upstairs and the back roof. a room that i’m too shy to yet call a nursery has been painted and FLOR laid in place. we’re just settling i guess. and hoping the next few months don’t pass too quickly so we run out of time and focus to get stuff done. i guess i should add agility and energy to that list too. i’m just trying to be quieter. which if you knew me you’d know what quite a task. but there it is. the quiet before what i hope to be a happy storm of new voices filling the halls of our home.

henry and i set off this morning just as the snow stopped falling, which to be honest, made me a bit sad. i love snow. and i love walks in the park with snow even better.

what i love about my fellow dog walking wanderers is that when the city took over the main portion of a path leading from our neighborhood to the park, they met up on consecutive weekends and built a new path to circumvent the project. they even made three step areas out of stones and logs. brilliant. i forgot to take photos of them of course. not so brilliant. guess i was busy just enjoying the air and watching henry run around in the leaves.

on the way home we spotted the very best lost and found sign i’ve seen. thank you fellow litter hater.

there’s nothing quite like growing something in a yard the size of a suburban bathroom.

and then in the span of an afternoon…

it goes from this:

to this:

to this:

ahh summer in baltimore city. who knew it could get this good. for a very first batch and try at canning, i have to say i know it won’t be the last.

jeff just sent me this hilarious photo of henry. he must of gotten inspired by all the knitting around these parts and decided to make a go of it for himself.

sadly for him, knitting + pups = naptime.

i had big plans for today. get up early, drag a carload to the local thrift store and perhaps find a bit o’ gold, clean the house, put all the ornaments away and put the tree out for mulching, maybe dig my sewing machine out from beneath the pile of fabric where it’s been buried for weeks… but then i walked outside with henry for his morning jaunt in the park and the found the day had other plans for us. the sun was out, the coat stayed at home, and we got an invite to the farm.

i’ve written of the farm before, visiting over 200 acres of woods and farmland just 30 minutes outside of baltimore always makes me feel like everything is right in the world. just to know that places like that still exist in this development crazy world of ours warms the ol’ ticker.

and i think henry enjoyed himself too. he ran. and ran.

and ran.

and me, i got to walk in the woods with my dear friend adrienne and her pup smellers. it was just what i needed. i think henry’d agree… if he were conscious that is. a visit to the farm always ensures this pup will sleep well for days. ahhh.

do henry feet count?

there’s rippling afoot and although i’m not such a great crocheter (i can knit until my fingers bleed, but for some reason crochet is beyond me), there is some fabulous stuff popping up across blogland. alicia’s ripple is oh so gorgeous and seems to have kicked off the year of the ripple.

i’ve got a ripple fancy too here at home, with a blanket i found at a yard sale for twenty-five cents. score! the colors always give me joy and it’s warm and toasty as all get-out!

three cheers to ripples!

on a side note, henry is a big fan of this blanket and can often be found sleeping away the day curled up in it’s folds and colors. but not without his beloved rat.

this is henry’s rat v.03 (he was given the first one by our lovely neighbor darcy and has worked his way through two since. hopefully this one will last more then a few weeks. he just loves them too much i guess.

how can you pass up one last cycling hoorah when it’s nearly 70 degrees in november?? that’s right, you just can’t. nevermind that it most likely means global warming is popping in to remind us it’s waiting for us to act, the creepy sunshine and warmth still makes me want to get outside.

and since it was judy’s last weekend in charm city before she’s moves west to portland, we made a day of it. up to gunpowder falls state park we go for a little ride:

here’s jeff and chris leaving judy, darcy and i in the dust. those boys love speed, but mostly i like to take my time on my bicycle. especially here, i just rode quietly through the trees, peaking through the falling leaves. just beautiful up here.

oh judy, you will be so missed. although i’m excited i know have more great portlanders to day-dream about visiting.

oh the darkness. it’s so funny how much light has to do with our moods. when my train pulled out of the station yesterday evening it was pitch black outside. makes for a really long ride home. but when i really looked there was a bit of reddish purple sunset beyond the trees that made me smile and take a deep breath in at all the beauty out there if you stop for just a moment.

and even though the early loss of light can sometimes make me a touch blue, fall remains my very favorite season. growing up in new hampshire, there was just something about the fall that set it apart. it had it’s own smell, it’s own pace. i used to love taking in a super deep breath through my nose as soon as i would leave the house in the morning. the cold clean fall air would fill my lungs and would feel so restorative. and there’s nothing better then pulling on a warm sweater and walking through the crackling leaves in the woods. listening intently to all of the sounds of fall. and not to out do the ol’ sense of sight, there are the brightest colors of leaves everywhere you look.

i remember searching for the brightest, loveliest leaves as they fell to the ground and bringing them home to iron between wax paper to hang in the windows. my sister knows how much i still love that. a few years ago she made me some for my birthday and sent them to me. almost makes me want to hit the streets now and dress up the bedroom windows for the next few weeks.

and then there was the tastes of fall. we lived just down the road from an apple orchard, which i still visit today when i’m up in nh, fill my suitcases with local honey. but we would go to the orchard and pick apples and get our cider fix and come home and make apple crisp.

ok. so there you have it, the fall is a sensory overload. and it makes me appreciate each day… even if it the darkness comes early.