Three Beautiful Things #25

Three beautiful things on a wintery weekend day:

1. Silence behind the door of the room in which the napping baby lies
   
   
2. Whipped cream
   
   
3. Driving over a bridge by my home one morning, the fog was so thick it swallowed the river, the banks, the horizon. Suddenly I was driving through clouds miles above the earth.

What is beautiful in your world today?

Three Beautiful Things #24

Another Sunday means another three beautiful things post, winter-is-arriving edition:

1. Peanut butter toast. Enough said.
   
   
2. My happy mittens:
   
   
   
3. The arrival of Advent, with its rituals and scents and sights, that annual reminder that no matter how deep seems the darkness, how complete seems the silence, there is still yet hope.

What are you finding beautiful today?

Three Beautiful Things #23

Another Sunday, another three beautiful things list. Let's call this the oh my, aren't we glad NaBloPoMo ends in ten days edition.

1. Blanket on lap, book in hand, tea at the ready, fire in the fireplace
2. A clean and empty kitchen counter
3. A home filled with the buttery sweet smell of a baking pie

What is beautiful in your world today?

Three Beautiful Things #22

It is Sunday, so it is time for another beautiful things post.

1. The full stillness of a house after all the children have fallen asleep
   
2. A compliment from someone you admire (and secretly want to grow up to be like, just a little)
   
3. A three-year old's sweet, tiny singing voice

What is beautiful in your world today?

3BT #21

It's been awhile since I did a three beautiful things post. What better month to revive them in than November, as we look forward to Thanksgiving?

Three beautiful things, autumn weekend edition:

1. A pile of brightly colored felt--orange and aqua, red, blue,and gold--glowing in a half lit room on a cloudy day
2. Your nose cold and the rest of your body cozy warm as you stroll outside wrapped in a jacket on a crisp afternoon
   
3. A single maple tree ablaze in orange and ruby against a deep green backdrop of towering fir trees

What is beautiful in your world today?

3BT #20

Three beautiful things, as I claw my way out of this funk I've been in lately. Things are kind of rough in my little world right now. Still dealing with the aftermath, I'm afraid. It's hard work and frankly I'm tired. All the more reason to focus on the pieces of good:

1. The sun. Oh sweet heaven above, the sunshine. Look, I live where it rains. It is grey and cloudy for a good chunk of the year. The dreariness doesn't bother me much, at least not when it stays in the seasons it's supposed to. But lately things have gotten ridiculous. We had 25 days of rain in April. Then another three weeks straight of rain to usher in June. Every day for weeks I woke up to another cold, yucky sky outside my window. But yesterday! Yesterday there was sunshine: bright, warm, summery sunshine! I'm not even kidding, people were nicer. Strangers were smiling and talking to each other again. I am certain a dozen people impetuously proposed marriage.
   
   
2. The french fries at Red Robin. Enough said.
   
   
3. The feeling of a child in your arms who has completely given themselves over to hugging you, eyes squeezed shut, arms around you, their hair nestled against your neck, the weight of their head on the curve of your shoulder.

Beautiful Things #19

Three beautiful things, gratitude edition:

1. You! You all are beautiful for what you made of the Interview Project. In the beginning, I told myself that if we managed ten pairs-- just twenty bloggers--I'd consider it a success. I even had a mental list of people I'd beg to participate if I had to. Instead we had over thirty pairs! To everyone who participated in an interview, shared the project on their blog, posted a link in a forum, or visited the participants' sites--thank you, thank you, thank you. You blew me away with your enthusiasm and insightfulness. I hope you all made some lovely new connections.
   
   I've got some ideas for the future, and I'd love to hear yours, too. If you have any feedback on the project, definitely let me know.
   
   
2. More sincere thanks to every single person who reached out after the hey-my-life-just-imploded post. Each comment and email was like a little hug. My life is still wackadoodle, and it will be for the near future, at least. I haven't yet found the new normal; I'm sorry I haven't been around as much. But the family is physically healthy, God is near and the cherry trees are blossoming. No small things, those.
   
   
3. Did I mention the cherry blossoms? We had a string of beautiful spring days earlier this week and I took some long walks around our neighborhood.  Passing close by some of the snowy white and pink trees, I felt like all the things that have been weighing on me this month were a bit lighter. There is something about their fleeting loveliness each year--they come and go in a week or two--that makes me feel like there is always the possibility of renewal if only you wait and watch.

3BT #18

Three beautiful things on a winter day:

1. The steady drumbeat of a hard rain on a shingled roof, turning the indoors into a warm, sheltering cocoon.
   
2. Pesto. Enough said.
   
3. Bare toddler bottoms trotting down a hallway post-bath, accompanied by squeals and giggles. Ah, for the freedom to run around naked without a care in the world again.

I Can't Believe I'm About To Tell You This

The first day of our jaunt was really quite nice.

The second day--oh, friends, the second day. The second day I got a brush stuck in my hair.

For seven hours.

There was a brush. In my hair. FOR SEVEN HOURS.

Please, for the love of all that is holy, tell me that one of you has done something more ridiculously stupid than that. Please.

We eventually got the brush out, although I ended up losing a chunk of my hair. Would that I could go back to the beginning, lose the hair, and get the seven hours back. Ah, well.

If ever there were a day for a three beautiful things post, it is this.

1. Tonight we baked a peach pie that I had frozen this summer, made of peaches we picked as a family one afternoon. It was so perfectly peachy I almost cried. Every bite was like a burst of warm sunshine.
   
   
2. My husband still loves me, even though I ruined the second day of our vacation. I made him a three-pound monstrosity of a meatloaf tonight as part of my attempt to make amends. With two different meats! Meatloaf is his love language.
   
   
3. The smiles and hugs from the kids when we returned home were utterly delicious.

Three Beautiful Things #16

Three beautiful things on a November evening...

1. Children giggling as they lie down to sleep
2. A tart sweet warm caramel-ly bite of apple crisp
3. Kind words in my inbox 

What is beautiful in your world today?

Three Beautiful Things #15

Three beautiful things, I'm-riled-up-and-need-to-find-the-calm-still-center edition...

1. The tiny, deliberate voice of a one-year old carefully practicing her newest word
   
   
2. Piling with a book under a warm duvet cloud while rain falls in the dark outside
   
   
3. Finding yourself in the middle of not one, but two lovely books

And you?

3BT #14

Three beautiful things, summer day edition...

1. Finding a cluster of perfectly ripe berries tucked behind a leaf, warm from the sun, begging to be picked
   
   
2. The wet squishy sweet tart burst of a blackberry on your tongue
   
   
3. Simply walking hand in hand

Your turn.

3BT #13

Three beautiful things:

1. The soft warm sunshine on your arms on the first short-sleeve-weather day of the year.
   
   
2. A single perfect corkscrew curl.
   
   
3. The way his small face beams when you tell him the story of the day you first met him.

What is beautiful in your world today?

3BT #12

Three beautiful things, back-from-vacation-and-trying-(unsuccessfully)-to-
not-freak-out-about-the-fact-that-I-can't-get-my-work-computer-to-turn-on edition:

1. That first, perfect bite of pizza. It is somehow the only moment when the ratio of crust to sauce to cheese to topping is just right.
   
   
2. A baby leaning in, full-body, for a hug, stretching their arms out as if certain they can wrap them around you if they only open wide enough.
   
   
3. The first early blossoms on the cherry trees, white and pink against a still-grey sky. They surprise me every spring.
   
   
   

3BT #11

Three beautiful things...

1. The sharp twinkle of Christmas lights across a roofline (even if they are up a week too early)
   
   
2. Smooth bright crimson cranberries piled in a white bowl
   
   
3. A spouse who cleans up the mess when your grocery bag full of glass jars breaks open onto the garage floor
   

3BT #10

Three beautiful things, rainy weekend inside with the kids edition:

• Listening to a toddler explore and experiment with language.  Puppy has a slew of made-up words that he gleefully uses at every opportunity: stromp, stromboom, boomstromp, stromdrum, roh-hah. And lately when he doesn't have an answer to a question, he tells you, "I can't know, Mama. I can't know."
  
  
• Baby girls in dressy coats and rib knit tights
  
  
• That final peaceful, focused look babies give you before drifting to sleep in your arms
  

What is beautiful in your world today?

3BT #9

Three beautiful things, long August weekend edition:

1. Tucking into a good book in a freshly made bed
   
   
2. The trusting weight of a child's body resting against yours, head in the crook of your neck
   
   
3. The rush of cold-tinged wind on a late summer day that whispers autumn is coming

What is beautiful in your life today?

3BT #8

Three beautiful things...

1. Dark purple iris blooms against a storm grey sky
   
   
2. The wisp of a sleeping child's breath as you lean in to kiss his cheek
   
   
3. The fuzzy sweet, sunshiny wet tart taste of the first nectarine of the year
   

3BT #7

Three beautiful things, I-want-to-win-a-fabulous-prize-from-mama2roo edition...

1. The clean, stark line where a freshly painted wall meets the bright ceiling
   
   
2. The satisfaction of getting the damn room painted before the end of the year just like you swore you would way back in January
   
   
3. Looking back with a happy heart at a year in which our roots sank deeper in a new city
   

I started writing here in earnest 2007 and I am so glad I did. It has been a good year. I hope at the end of 2008 we can all say the same. Happy New Year, friends!

3BT #6

Three beautiful things...

1. The soft stillness inside a home when everyone else sleeps and
   
   
2. ...you sit wrapped in a quilt alone with your drifting thoughts...
   
   
3. ...while outside the wind swirls hungrily, fighting for a way in.