where the minutes go

For baby laughs at 7 AM (for no seeable reason, but she's chuckling just the same)
For partners who are quitting smoking, again, like the hero that he is.
For sunshine flooding through windows that wink out at the sea, like a flirting sailor.
For wooden floorboards under my reused battered rocking chair.
For tea with honey
For toasty muffins
For feet up on the stool you re-upolstered
For birds digging worms for their nest in the front garden
For wounds that heal
For empty spaces filled

Do you ever wake up in the morning and think to yourself, 'This could be it. This is quite possibly the happiest moment of my life....' I did that this morning. It was one of those Perfect Moments which you just have to lay name to, even though you know, even as you're laying name to it, it's passing, and trying to cling to it is not only useless, it's counter-productive, because then you're not enjoying it.

But suffice it to say, I am so proud of my partner, I am so pleased with our new home, I love the baby's 4-month smile-in-the-morningness, and there are lots of lovely projects to be worked on. It's just a Yes Day, and that's enough. I don't need us to have any more money, or to have any more aspirations, or to worry about any of the niggly piggly little details... Life is Good at Present. (Which is an ephemeral and passing state, but all the more precious for it.) So say the name, I believe.

Shawl & Shrugging it all off

Well, I've covered the rocker.

I've taken down half the curtains in the house (a step backwards)

And haven't put them back up again because,

well,

I just plain don't have enough material to cover all of our huge new windows... a good problem.

So let's hope we all remember to wear clothes when wandering around the house for the next few days.

Partner is home from work for the afternoon, so he and baby are having a snooze together. This means.... a project could get Finished....if I could just get off the computer and actually do it.

Maybe I'll just upload few more photos first?

finishing

Projects All In Progress:

Oh my, the WIP situation is out of control. Something about moving & the baby and, well, my total incapacity to finish anything, so I'm making a list to shame myself into action:

-Nursery curtains (reclaimed, need to be lined)
-Lounge curtains (reused bed sheets, need to be lined)
-Mates to (god this is awful) 4 pairs of socks
-Baby's new trousers, based on Soulemama ideas, oh how i love that blog (need to be lined)
-Cushion on rocking chair (needs pinning down and finishing)
-Windowseat cover (needs pinning down and finishing)

Catching a theme? I just need a Final Touches Day, and I should be done. As my childhood best friend would say, 'Closure? Not my strong suit.'

Here goes!

The Dream

A few nights ago, I had this dream so powerful that when I woke up from it at about 5 AM, I couldn't fall back asleep. And no, it wasn't one of THOSE dreams. But I figure that anything that powerful must be a vision-of-sorts, and so I'm taking it Very Seriously.

I think the the dream was telling me major things about my life being re-paved for a new direction. But following it is harder than it seems. For my entire professional life, I've seen myself as a teacher, an academic, and to rethink that feels...like learning how to write with other hand. I guess starting over is always awkward and hard, and especially on foreign soil with a funny accent.

(My inner gremlin just said, 'Suck it up, sister, stop snivelling, and get on with it.' My inner gremlin-monster is usually right, if a touch snippy.)

Anyway, the moral of all this self-doubt is that I'm trying to embrace whatever rolls my way in the next few weeks, even if it seems mad. Like me applying for a baking job at the nearby farm, or considering not returning to teaching. Walking down the road today with the buggy, I could smell spring in the air, and thought to myself, 'Open up those heart-eyes, see what approaches.'

Writing needs to become daily.

This I know.

The Swing of Things

Getting back into it? Overrated.

New spaces

The move is done.

By that, I mean that we have officially unpacked the last box, sorted the last drawer, decorated the last wall. It's taken almost two full weeks, and that surprised both of us. You would think that between two Geminis, who've moved almost 50 times in the last decade, we'd have this thing down to an art. But one little mewling baby creature changes the whole equation, and brings a lot of new baggage. Wow. We both swear that we're here in the new house TO STAY, at least for a good long while. And what a place to stay!

Waking up to the sunlight streaming through our bay window, or lounging in the sun room with the enormous windows open to the front garden is sheer bliss after our tiny cubicle of a flat which preceded this. I almost don't know what to do with all the space to sprawl out... I spin in circles, just because I can.

The girls have a room all their own, with lantern lights and a crib and paintings on the wall. That's been a long time coming too. And our master bedroom is massive, bigger than our old place, I think. But it is the view, the view, the view that just makes my heart soar each day. I love it here so much - the friendly ghosts of the mother and grandmother of our landlord, who clearly love this place and haunt it with a warm and gentle presence of welcome... the tiles in the kitchen and the wood floor in the nursery.... the fireplace's cosy warmth and the single iris poking its spring face out of the garden. I feel like it's a real home, like it was a real home from the first box being opened.

And there's a rocking chair. A £10 find at the resale shop, and a sewing project for me, as it needs a cushion. (So does the windowseat, but one thing at a time right now.)

There's been a ton of stress too. The car needs almost £1000 of work done to it, and we were hoping to take a trip to the states in June that now is clearly not going to happen. I've been dealing with paperwork and taxes and recertification and PhD applications and job interviews, but in the end, I'm so so glad to be in this new beautiful space, perched on the edge of the world, I feel like it's all manageable somehow. I enclose evidence.