Your First Camping Trip

"The summer sun was not meant for boys like you. Boys like you belonged to the rain."

We had big plans tonight. Your first camping trip (in the backyard).

Mother nature spit heavily on our parade so we filled our afternoon with books and hide and seek and conversations about pooping and other things toddlers find fascinating. The sun gave us just enough time to walk to our favorite midtown corner and read a few books in a small local shop.

We walked and you babbled like you used to when you were a baby. I closed my eyes and went back to that time...you as a baby. And then I realized I liked you just the way you are right now.

You remind me why life is so exciting and easy and uncomplicated. You remind me how happiness comes from doing the same thing that brings joy over and over again until the joy is gone and there is something new to do over and over and over again.

Like a slow bike ride and the way it makes the world stand still.

Like a trip to a coffee shop just to watch people hustle in and out and hopefully catch a few deep conversations.

Like music. Whenever. Wherever. Always.

Like water and the way it has always brings peace.

Like feeding the ducks at sunset on the canal and catching the next sunrise together.

Like sitting and being present and celebrating life the way it is at the exact moment in time.

The Tiny Movement and Using Space Wisely

If you follow the tiny movement, you know there is a new obsession with living small so you can LIVE big. I support this message. But after one night in a TINY hotel room with my Grandma and my child, it was decided. I could never live THAT small.

Here are 4 ways we have used our small spaces. (And by the way, I don't stage photos and I don't use a fancy wide angle lens camera. Real life is messy.)

Dog Beds under our custom sunroom/office desk. They are clearly used by Myles, the white seal.

Organization in a small house is key. (This is coming from a creative minded person). Here are four small bins labeled: soaps, dental care, lotions, shampoos. I can't believe I own a label maker. Who am I?

And here are built-ins in the bathroom with baskets for each of us. 

I love white bedding. It makes a small room look elegant and bigger. Next up-floor to ceiling curtains...another way to create the illusion of a bigger window.  

Our fixer upper is just the right size for our family of 3. Yes, I do occasionally walk thru a friend's mansion and think it would be nice to be able to do a round-off back handspring back tuck in my living room. And then I remember. Bigger means more stuff and I can't actually do a back tuck or a back handspring. So we're good with small.

Read Me Your Favorite Line

Time…

Sitting poolside as you and your Grandma separated by 60 years talk about nothing. 

Time…

Enjoying the simplicity of a blackberry melting on a dehydrated tongue as the sun pours into pale winter skin. 

Walking around a tiny charming lake town in central Florida and stumbling on a halfway decent band and a packed patio. 

Seeing a red-winged hawk in flight. 

Heck, seeing any bird in flight. 

Opening an envelope and finding a transcript of an interview between my 16-year-old self and my grandpa in the sky.

Reading it.

Crying.

Time... 

You looking up at me with big half brown half hazel eyes and saying "I'm so happy. This makes me so happy."

The way you look positioned next to one of the smartest men the world will know.

And then curled up beside the most tender teacher heart for just one more story. 

Just. 

One. 

More. 

Story. 

Time. 

We’ll never get it back.