paying attention

sabin glanced out the bathroom window this morning and squealed, "there's a deer right in our back yard!" i almost never look out the bathroom window. especially not in the morning, where i've stumbled into the bathroom, bleary eyed and blind anyway, because likely as not, my glasses are still on the bedside table. but there she was, a sweet young doe, standing under the old apple tree, nibbling at the tender new leaves on the bramble of wild raspberries that's at the edge of the lawn. she's probably around all the time and we just don't notice, but there was something delightful about starting off our week seeing her there. she was gentle, quiet and a bit wary, but nibbled away for some minutes before disappearing into the trees. you never know what you might see if you're paying attention.

please disregard the dust

please disregard the dust

that's pretty much going to be my theme for the week...please disregard the dust. lots to do - proposals to revise, projects to start, pretty things to pin, pictures to take, thoughts to write. so much more exciting than dusting the windowsill.

happy monday.

a new dawn

i find myself increasingly bewildered by the corporate landscape in which i find myself these days. i remember when i first entered corporate life a decade ago, i was struck by how much more postmodern it was than i expected it to be. virtual teams and dotted reporting lines were far more removed from reality than i had expected. from the warm cocoon of my graduate studies, i thought somehow business was all about reality and the postmodern social and literary theory i had studied would be of no use to me. oh how i little i knew...

but now i have entered a world where things are ever more protracted from reality: forms without purpose, incomprehensible and ever-changing organizational charts, IT systems where apparently no one considered that actual humans might be using them, and a language that is ostensibly english, but at the same time not and don't even get me started about people crying in meetings. i find myself in this web of artificial structures held up by thin air. and i wonder when it will all come crashing down and what that will look like and whether i'll be able to stand clear of the rubble.

but then, i get up in the morning and i look out upon a world where dew glitters in the light of the rising sun and i realize that the webs that matter are there, in the garden, glowing in the morning light, constructed by spiders which had a purpose in doing so. and somehow, i can face the week.

loving monday

i know i've been harping on and on about the rainy, cloudy, cold weather we've been having and even i am tired of it (both the weather and the harping), so i thought that regardless of the weather, i would start the week by remembering that there are lots of things to love, so i give you what i'm loving right here, right now, rain or shine...

unexpected prezzies in the mail.
even better if they're a crocheted stone (all the way from canada)!
thank you delena!! 

more unexpected prezzies in the mail.
a sweet little book of amanda's own photos and a GORGEOUS card!
i wanna make little books like that too - waah!
thank you so much, amanda!!!

the variety of flowers i'm finding in our new garden.
picked this bouquet this weekend.
tho' the wind blew so much the past two days, this will be the last of the lilacs. (cry!)

stitching while watching t.v.
on my black-bean dyed linen.
which has changed color (on its own) to a lovely purpley grey.

more experiments in dyeing.
trying with those lilacs. i love lilacs, but i'll admit i'm not sure this is going to work.
and i love the light in my kitchen window.

i also love the girl effect, facebook (yes, facebook - i'm into it thanks to my AyePhone (which i also love) and the fact that you can choose "pirate" as your language), flickr and blog camp. and i love that my nephews, who currently are in possession of my sabin's iPad, refer to it as "the big phone." oh, and i also love the new blogger template editor (as you can see from my new look). i didn't change my old picture sizes, so if you look at old posts, the pix will bleed over into the RH sidebar. i wanted to remember when i made i the switch, so i left them.

maybe we can all change the world this monday, just by thinking of what we love and not about hating mondays (and that infernal weather).