well, hi.
i was awakened at 5:30 am this morning by two things: an orange kitten who thought that every time i moved my foot under the covers i was inviting her to play, and, a phone call informing us that the kids around here were to report to school today for approximately two and a half hours. and then come home. and most likely stay home tomorrow, too.

ok, so i've got some cooking to do. i'm a compulsive stocker-upper in case of a snow day, but this one took me by surprise. no one's going to go hungry around here, but i will have to get a little creative.

that's ok, i like a challenge.

in the meantime, these are a few of the color film photos i took around the house yesterday.

enjoy the day! the snow is so pretty here, right now.
tt

hi.
i've been playing around with film. i took two entire rolls today; one black + white, one color.

these look so dark to me...but i do like them anyway. each of them is a small piece of my day.

today was one of those days where i spend about three hours in the afternoon driving back and forth and to and fro and all around town picking up and dropping off and picking up, again. so i was able to also drop off and pick up some film, too.

i do love the look of film, and i love the click of the shutter, and i love (is this odd?) the anticipation of it. digital feeds right into my compulsive nature: i can take a shot-i can take seven!-and then get rid of the ones not quite right. i can do it again. i can do it again, right that very minute.

but...
i'm finding i so like to slow it down. let myself off the hook of getting it perfect, and just taking a leap of faith that my eye will be clear and my hand steady.

so...
i need to say out loud and emphatically that i do not consider myself a photographer. i find myself in increasingly good company, being inspired and encouraged by people who blow me away with their every picture. i am, for lack of a better term, green.

but, i also can say with utmost happiness and truth, that i have not been as excited about anything since learning to cook, having babies, and falling in love.

and that's really something.

more (color film) tomorrow. thanks for reading.
tt

little failures:
{the other list}

.not doing yoga with anna every morning, despite repeated, adorable requests.
.lacking any self-discipline in the following areas: everything bagels with cream cheese, cornichons, sweetart hearts, black tea, homemade pizza, red wine, cinnamon rolls, hot sauce, cookie dough, new tea towels, replaying the same cd over and over, cookbooks, and flickr. i could go on, but...
.ignoring, flat-out ignoring, the mounting pile on my desk.
.driving the car across the street the other night for dinner. (tim's shaking his head right now.)
.not scheduling a mammogram yet.
.being too lenient with the girls about staying home "sick".
.not being lenient enough about making messes.
.perennially forgetting my nieces' and nephews' birthdays.
.rarely finishing the book for book club (although this time , no problem.)

alrighty, then. i think that's just about enough of that.

more tomorrow. thanks for reading.
tt

small achievements:
{promises to myself i've made and kept lately}

.writing a letter that needed to be written.
.reading every night.
.getting a good nights' sleep, which means knowing when to walk away from the computer, put down the book.
.walking anna to school.
.waiting a bit before i intervene in the girls' quarrels.
.looking at the things that stress me out with a cold eye.
.stopping what i'm doing when someone is talking to me.
.laughing at myself. a little.

and, last but not least,

.making granola, finally. i've had the ingredients for a while, and never followed through.
the recipe i used is here, found via heather this morning.

yeah, there's a longer list of what i haven't done. but i like this one better.

more tomorrow. thanks for reading.
tt

so, a good sunday.

anna and i, alone this morning, eating warm cinnamon buns and painting with watercolors. i have a stack of spring catalogs and some daffodils on my table, and i'm getting in the mood for spring.

then a visit with the best sort of friends; anna got to stay and play with her friend, i got a nice long walk with mine.

a burst of energy in the afternoon, and the girls' room all fancied up for their arrival back home from skiing. what fresh sheets and a good vacuuming can do is a lot.

an invitation to dinner across the street, and a conversation that prompted a really good discussion back at home. the girls never cease to amaze me with their ability to really get things. and then make me laugh about things, too.

now some tea, reading, and early to sleep; back to school tomorrow. i can't say i'm eager, but i am ready. i hope the girls are, too.

best wishes to you on this sunday night. thanks for reading.
tt

i feel so fully that i am in the middle of something i can't control, but am lucky to be a part of.

the john lennon quote that "life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans" keeps scrolling across my thoughts like a jenny holzer piece.

and i don't think it's supposed to be any other way. if it wasn't complicated and beautiful and difficult and funny and painful and frustrating and sweet, i'm pretty sure it wouldn't be quite as good.

don't worry. i'll be ok.

more tomorrow. thanks for reading.
tt

ok.
so is it alright to post these photos together just because i like them?

is it ok to say that i've loved being home with the girls this week, doing nothing much of anything, and saying yes every chance i get?

i know it's ok to tell you that i love my kids just so.very.much.
but how about if i admit how much i love the cats, too?
and certainly you don't want to hear about how i still crumble, a little, at the thought of tim.

i miss houses that i've lived and and stayed in. i think about them often. i can remember the smell of the cutting boards, or the sound the drawers made, or the movements required to get butter from fridge to counter and reach for a knife.

sometimes still, when i wake up in the middle of the night, i for a split second might imagine i'm in some other room, in some other house.

we've hung bells on the doors, so we can hear people come and go, but we rarely lock our doors.

except at night, during which i often lay awake listening to every sound.

i feel the need to be alone frequently, but i am very rarely alone. this is not a complaint, so much as an observation. i wonder how i would feel if i were alone often. maybe i would be lonely.

i've been completely lacking motivation lately to clean and tidy up the house. laundry stays unfolded. dishes get hand washed because i'm too lazy to unload the dishwasher. some days i go to get the mail, look at it standing in the driveway, and then put it back in the mailbox to deal with it some other day.

and yet, today, i was overcome by an impulse to clean, and organize, and move furniture, and put on something pretty. tim came home and looked around and said "you must be tired."

i felt more like myself than i have in a long time.

i feel like i'm very far from my own thoughts, lately. which may seem strange, given all the navel gazing that goes on around here. but definitely things are moving and shifting inside of me, and soon, i'll know which way to go next.

is it ok to say that i'm not really sure what i'm doing, but i like being here, so i'm sticking with it?

ok then,
i'm really grateful to any of you out there listening.
thanks for reading.
tt

hi.
i'm a little bashful, but pleased to tell you about something fun, today.

catherine, from the beautiful french blog parismages, is posting a series about taking photographs of home and everyday life. she asked me a few questions, which you can read, here.

the previous interview is with amanda from mocking bird, who has just wonderful photographs, as well as a nice little q & a last week with one of my favorite flickr friends, brian ferry. you can read that post, here.

all this photography inspiration is encouraging me to keep trying film. these are two recent experiments...i took the same shots with both cameras (color film + digital), and i have to say, i like them both ways.

ok, then. that's all for now. hope you have a great day!
tt

there is the softest, loveliest snow falling now,
and i am calm and steady this morning,
even though i barely slept
last night;
i lay awake,
worrying and wondering,
and listening for the sound
the night air makes
just before it starts
to snow.

tt

nothing to say.
i just like these pictures.
they are soft,
and still,
and home.

goodnight. thanks for reading.
tt

we've had a lot of good days together.
i think that's what makes life so sweet...not having the perfect day, all the time. but the sum total of all of those in-between, just regular days adding up to so much more than the grand events, the elaborate gestures, the milestones.

in a few years we will say, perhaps, do you remember that day we drove up to garrison, because we didn't have time to go any further, and the river was frozen, and anna ate the whole jar of walnuts?

or maybe we'll say, do you remember when you took anna sledding at sundown and she came back so proud of herself? wasn't that on valentine's day?

or,
maybe,
we'll say,

that was a hard february. that was the year your father died.

but in any event,
we will remember some days,
and forget some.
we'll have some good days, and bad days, and great days.
not a one will be perfect, though.

and in the end,
the days will add up to so much more,
and we will remember them all,
because they will all
be right there,
a part of who we are.

happy valentine's day. thanks for reading.
tt

saturday morning.
bread is rising.
tim is drawing.
anna is playing.
big girls are sleeping.

i've begun reading a book that stays in my head even when i'm away from it. it's been a while since that's happened, and i am so glad to have the sensation of bringing the story with me as i move through my day. it's a familiar thing to me; i think since i was a kid, the voice of the book i'm reading would occupy my thoughts next to my own. does that happen to you, or am i just odd?

and, would you think a led zeppelin song an odd choice for a snowy february morning?

enjoy the day! thanks for reading.
tt

well, hi.
today was the first real day of our winter break. we did have some surprise days off with the snow this week, too, so it's all blended together to become one long hiatus in the middle of winter.
i don't think i could be happier about it.

we assemble and reassemble ourselves into various family units here, at different times of the day, days of the week, weeks of the year. this is one of the handful of weeks that we become a family of five: just my three girls and tim and i.

it's funny, because as much as i long for time spent one-on-three with my daughters, i recognize that it stopped feeling normal so long ago. normal is not just we three, or four, or five. normal is all eight of us.

all of us may not = easy. but it is-especially when they are all asleep and the front light is on, the doors are shut, and a new day is waiting at the end of a good nights' sleep-what feels right.

in the meantime, i have a long stretch of time now to pay some good sweet attention to my girls. and when "break" is over, there will still be plenty more to go around.

more tomorrow. thanks for reading.
tt

thank you to everyone for all of the kind comments and thoughtful e-mails about my last post.
i've decided not to put them on the page...i might have closed comments, i suppose, but i'm not sure how to do that. please know that i've passed along all of your warm wishes to tim, and that we appreciate every one of them. it is one of the remarkable things about this little world we've made here, that i truly feel comforted knowing that all of you are out there thinking about us during a sad time. thank you so very much.

and,

thank you, also, to the remarkably kind friend who did this for me. you brought tears to my eyes and a smile to my face, and i can't stop thinking about those words. i do wish you would reveal yourself, so i can thank you properly!

so, that's all for now. there's a little girl who is putting her snow gear back on. time to play.

best wishes. and thanks.
tt

hi.
as you can see, we got our snowstorm.
and something else, too.

tim's father died yesterday morning. it was not expected, and he was only seventy-six years old.

he was a good, kind man, and we are all very sad. tim is very sad. but we had just spent a week with him in december, and so that seems like a small gift, now. a great gift.

i'm not going to try to draw some profound conclusion here. to pontificate, as my mother would say. but i will say that if i thought every conversation with the people i love might be the last, i would definitely end every one by saying i love you.

thanks for reading.
tt

hi.
the sun came out this afternoon.
it's not that it's been so completely grey here, but today, i just really needed some sun.
i needed to go out in the sun.

tim came home in the afternoon and we left the kids and walked around the neighborhood. we looked at houses and things we hadn't really noticed before. we did not talk about the kids. he held my hand.

i don't know if i've mentioned it before (ahem), but we have six girls in our family. three of them are thirteen. one of them is four. all of them are together everyday. and all of them have incredibly strong and distinct personalities.

to say that we are outnumbered would be fair. exasperated. exhausted. consumed. you get the picture.

so it's interesting to me how much a walk around the neighborhood with tim, a little afternoon sunshine, a few beautiful details that make me stop and look closer at something...can really make all the difference in my day. can change the word scrolling through my head from overwhelmed to abundance.

some days you just need to go out in a little afternoon sunshine.

and,
i hear birds in the morning, now. do you?

thanks for reading.
tt

we thought we would get snowed in.
we stocked up, and were ready.
but it's not happening, they say.
so we could go out,
each our own way.
things went off without a hitch.
dates were kept and
errands were run.
the kids quarrelled,
(unnecessarily so, if you ask me),
and tim went to work,
a steady stream into and
out of the gallery,
today.
he could even
grill our dinner
outside
in the driveway
with his coat on.

i was hoping to be snowed in.
to have an out
for so many things.

it was a good day.
it just wasn't the day
i had expected.

enjoy sunday, all.
tt

hi.

this is a busy week and i don't have a lot to say. but i do miss being here, so...

i've been having a hard time taking a decent picture this week. i definitely think it's because i'm rushed and distracted, and also because i'm not really getting out, much. too much time at the computer and the stove.

but then- these two, i like. and i certainly didn't have to go far for either. one right in my back yard, and one waiting right next to me, to be done doing something important.

tomorrow will be different. tomorrow i will pick my head up and see what's around me.

::

and,
i can't stop looking at this photo by heather.

::

goodnight.
tt

i am so thrilled to announce the opening of our new show today.

with work on paper by:
eunju kang
jennifer judd-mcgee
heather smith jones

in the gallery.

and now also available through our online gallery at eyebuzz online.

we are offering 20% off through february 15th, on work from the color show, as well as all of our other inventory. you can enter eyebuzz at checkout to receive this discount.

i'd be honored if you would take a look and let me know what you think!

best wishes,
tt

i'm no longer sure what i was scared of, but i am certain that this was the right thing to do.

the girls are happy, and gentle.
and when they are out of the house, i go upstairs, and get down on my belly, and extending my arm, solicit a revving of little engine, a tender motor, that begins before i even stroke soft curry fur. and then she inches ever so slightly towards my hand. she rolls on her back and licks my fingers and her soft eyes pleading, she backs away at the slightest shifting.
it's ok. i'm not going anywhere soon.

and neither is she.

abigail.

::

back tomorrow, with some news.
tt