back home
it's been weeks, y'all! we loved spending a month in santa fe, but i had a hard time posting to my blog there. i'm back now and ready to go.
i took the above middle pic myself. my belly is now too big to fit into a self-portrait....
santa fe and austin seem to be a world apart.
we're glad to be home, but i feel so fortunate to get to inhabit both worlds.
santa fe
we're happy to be in santa fe these days. we usually make our annual trek later in the year, but chose to come early this time since our son will be arriving this summer. it's such a different scene here - we lived here for 4 years so you think it wouldn't seem that foreign to us, but santa fe is a world of its own. the pace, the accents, the architecture - the whole culture is noticeably different. and today it is COLD and SNOWING. fortunately, most of our days here have been drenched in glorious mountain sunshine. we celebrated spring's renewal this weekend with koruna's first egg hunt. i got hold of a natural egg dying recipe (thanks, belmer) and we tried it out. we used turmeric, orange peels, beets, purple cabbage, chile powder, and more.
a lot of the eggs turned out brown, but we did get some lovely greens and yellows as well. i'll do some tweaking next year.
the old santa fe casa had all sorts of cool places to hide eggs. we definitely had more fun hiding than koruna did finding. she found maybe 3 and then was done.
it's nice being on the other end - the parent end - of traditions. we get to do with them as we please. we incorporated one of ian's family traditions this year: we left a trail of pebbles outside of koruna's door that led to a secret hiding place for her basket of goodies. (it was a trail of candy in ian's day, but koruna doesn't even know what candy is.)
it was the first time koruna has really participated in a holiday. until now, the rituals and celebrations have really been for us. i gotta admit that i didn't even have a party for koruna's 1st birthday - we just had a simple family breakfast. i figured she didn't care and would just be overwhelmed by any hoopla. this year will be different, though. i guess she still won't remember her 2nd birthday party, but she'll feel special on that day just like she did with her own pebble trail this weekend. i reckon that feeling gets tucked away somewhere deep inside her whether she has a mental recollection of the day or not.
reading
one of the biggest luxuries in my life these days is personal reading time. i have always loved reading and counted it as a necessary indulgence before becoming a mama, but since the runabird's birth, my reading habits have changed drastically. these days i spend a lot of time reading goodnight moon, harold and the purple crayon, ferdinand, whistle for willie, and lots of dr. seuss. lately, i've tried a little harder to squeeze in a few minutes of personal reading before falling asleep at night. it took me 8 months to finish it, but i recently read the view from the center of the universe by joel r. primack and nancy ellen abrams, which i found mind-blowing.
i only wish i could remember a smidgen of the countless facts about the universe that are packed into the book. i'll have to revisit it someday.
after contemplating things universal, i decided to bring it back down to earth and read decoded by jay-z. ( oh, how i dig jay-z.)
the book is autobiographical and is told partially through his lyrics. he decodes lots of his songs line by line, offering insight into his personal life as well as his take on hip-hop and our culture in general. i kept my laptop open as i devoured the book and referenced all the songs on youtube as i was reading about them. it was the first time i added outside visual references to my reading in this way and now i want to do it more, more, more. sooo, my friend, bean, and i traded books. she took decoded and now i've got life by keith richards, which she assures me is maddeningly good.
i'll start that one soon, but now i'm in the middle of radical homemakers: reclaiming domesticity from a consumer culture by shannon hayes.
it's already motivating me to make some of the lifestyle changes that ian and i have been talking about for a long time.
it has been almost 2 years since koruna's birth and i am STILL just now reclaiming parts of me. the reader in me is resurfacing after being drowned by new-mama-hood and i have only a few short months before i most likely leap into another reading void once our son is born. i'm going at it voraciously and don't have anything lined up after keith richard's book. any suggestions?
boy, oh boy....
****we've got a BOY on the way****
we peered deep into his cave last week and caught our first glimpse. as we saw those beautiful black and white images on the screen, my mind emptied and my heart filled. for just a minute, all i could hear - all i could feel - was my heartbeat. i swear it felt like the whole world's heartbeat.
getting to SEE our bebechild, our son, changed things for me. just the image of him was captivating. only 19 weeks to go until we get to lay our eyes, our skin, our breath on him. oh, boy.....