strange & beautiful

3/52, originally uploaded by girlhula.

have you heard about the 52 strangers photography project being done by andrea at hulaseventy? every week she goes up to a random stranger and asks to take their picture. isn't that amazing? i think she's done 9 weeks so far. read about her first week and her first stranger (and her nervous exhilaration) here.


*post title came from song title "strange & beautiful" by aqualung's album also called "strange and beautiful"

books written for girls

this book by julie orringer? it's a collection of short stories mostly told from the point of view of young women or girls. a lot of them have to do with the awkwardness of being a teenager, trying to fit in, accepting your body while it's changing, etc. these are quite typical themes for fiction about (or for) young women, but i felt that her writing brought a real freshness to the subject that i really appreciated. i liked that it was simple and not overly dramatic. it really brought to mind my younger self, especially the story "note to sixth-grade self." my favorite was probably "the isabel fish." i have to admit that when i read stories as varied as this by one writer, i find myself wondering about the imagination of the author. the only things i can ever think of to write are things that have actually happened to me.
anyway, i liked it, and hope you do too, if you choose to read it!

*post title came from song title "books written for girls" by camera obscura from their album "underachievers please try harder"

carnival

there was a tiny little street carnival in town just for today and tomorrow. we took the kids and they had a great time...for a little while. but we had fun. we thought about the people who worked the rides and booths and if they like their jobs and their lifestyle, traveling around from town to town...i think it might be fun for a while. we might go back tonight and get some night shots- the rides look so pretty when they're all lit up! for more photos of our carnival trip, go here







*post title from natalie merchant's song "carnival" from "tigerlily" album

black coffee in bed

i love this bed. i love the color, i love the design, i only don't really love the pricetag (although it could be considered affordable compared with a lot of modern furniture out there...)
blu dot nook bed at 2modern

*"black coffee in bed" by squeeze

i am weary (let me rest)

how do you deal with a big blow in your life? do you talk it out? do you shout, scream, throw things? do you go on a walk? a run? do you escape into a book or movie? what do you do if you can't talk to someone about it?
have you ever had something shock you? just take the breath right out of you? a moment where your vision focuses in, like you've got blinders on, and then there's a silence like ringing in your ears, and then you hear the thing that changes your life forever? you had no idea. no idea. it might be too much. more than you can take right now.
and then maybe the tears come automatically. there may be sobbing, the kind the shakes your whole body and wears you out. and then you're just tired for a long time, and trying not to think about it and thinking about it too much. but what happens after that?

everyday i write the book

i don't know if anyone's noticed, but the last few posts' titles have also been titles or lyrics from songs. haha. it's a new thing.

anyway, i've been thinking about blogging lately, and about the version of myself that i put out there in blogland. do you know what i mean? what i mean is that there's big chunks of my life that i haven't talked about here. i don't discuss my sex life on this blog. i don't really talk about my daily routine (wouldn't want to bore anyone to the point of banging their head repeatedly on the computer monitor.) i know there are bloggers who share a lot more about themselves on their blogs, and i wonder sometimes where the line is of how much is too much. you know, "TMI!" i think it's probably different for everyone.

the thing for me is that this blog is a place where i get to kind of "create" myself in maybe a different way than my daily life is lived. it's not that i'm trying to misrepresent myself at all, it's just that most of the time i don't get to talk about books and music and movies and philosophizing about things in my regular life. that's what i like about this blog.

how about you guys? how open are you on your blogs? do you feel like there's a difference between the way you are on your blog and the way you are in your "real" life, your everyday life?

my own face inside the trees

here are some of my favorite photos from flickr involving trees. aren't they beautiful?


1. Untitled, 2. Lace Tree, 3. one grey day, 4. Camilla, 5. Walker3_600, 6. Photographing Elisabeth photographing me, 7. reaching, 8. birch at 8 am, 9. It's fantastic outside

papa, can you hear me?

these are two of my favorite pictures of my dad, even though they were taken a long, long time before i was born. my parents like to say they have two families. they had six kids really close together, and when the youngest was thirteen, traveltwin and i came along. yea. it was quite the shock for them, having twins at 42. but by the time they got to us, they were parents extraordinaire.
some favorite memories with my dad: walking a ways into the woods from our campsite (we went camping a LOT) to find the most fitting branch, and him teaching me how to whittle away the bark and hard places to make a perfectly-fashioned walking stick out of it.
right after having my first baby. it was a really difficult, surreal experience for me. she was caught behind my pelvic bone and i pushed for over 3 hours. in the meantime the epidural hadn't worked correctly and i was in such pain and so tired, i felt like she would never come out. when she finally did, they took her right away and i couldn't see her or hold her for a few minutes. i remember feeling like all i wanted was to look at her and make sure she was alright, and i was jealous that all those other people could hold her before me. when they finally gave her to me, they let me hold her for just a few minutes and then whisked her away for a bath. they took my husband too so they could demonstrate the proper way to bathe a newborn. my mom and twin sister went with them to watch, and i thought i would be all alone. i was still in shock and the epidural had numbed my legs and feet so much that i couldn't move them. there was still no feeling in them for a couple of hours after the delivery. my dad said he would stay with me, and he rubbed my feet and put my socks back on for me. he adjusted my pillows, he told me how proud he was of me. i don't think i could've made it through those first few moments as a mother without him.

gone daddy gone

my husband is a great dad. it's very nice for me that it worked out that way. at our family reunion this past week, we had a little discussion about fathers and we all listed qualities that we thought were important in being a good dad. one of the things i listed was an attribute that mr. mama has in spades: a willingness to be silly. maybe that doesn't sound very important, but can you imagine a father who would never get down on the floor and play with his kids? never make them laugh by pulling funny faces at them or inventing silly songs with their names? never make up child-friendly versions of the board games his 4 year old wants to play but can't understand yet? i'm spoiled because i have a husband who does all this and so much more. his affection for his children is so genuine, so matter-of-fact, that i'm kind of at a loss as to what to say about it. i'm just grateful for it.

daddy and the little self-dresser, m. in her heart outfit: heart shirt, heart dress, heart leggings, and heart socks.


at the family reunion: little c had just got up from a nap, daddy was trying to copy his pointing.

dinner at eight in the suburbs

next time i'm feeling in a culinary-aspirational mood, i'm going to try out these little suckers. don't they look yummy?
found via jordan ferney's sweet blog. she tried them and said they were yummy and quick, two things that are very important in my little family.

you will go to mykonos...

ok, that's IT. i HAVE to see fleet foxes live. they are seriously rocking my little world. their new self-titled album is amazing. it's like the beach boys mixed with something a little more bold, a little harder. i can't put my finger on it, but it really works. even pitchfork likes them, and that's saying something, my friends.
for some reason i can't get videos from youtube to work on the blog here (i'm obviously technologically challenged), but if you want to hear some of their most excellent stuff, visit their myspace page here.

everyone knows it's windy

kite flying 4, originally uploaded by jowrites365.

the only good thing about living in a place where it's almost constantly windy is that is prime for kite flying. the other night m. headed outside with mr. mama to fly her brand new mickey mouse kite. i stayed inside with the wee one until hubby ran in and told me to watch m fly it. i headed outside with the camera, and this is what i saw. meanwhile, the light was so beautiful that i think the pictures turned out great. no thanks to me as the camera was set on auto.
for more pictures of the kite flying session, click here.

side note...

i wanna be a rock star and have autumn dewilde take pictures of me...

kid music that's actually good

so i'm always posting here about music i like; why not continue the tradition? when i started expanding my musical horizons i eventually got interested in finding kids music that didn't, how can i put this nicely, suck. in my quest i discovered that there are actually a lot of good children's artists out there. including:

they might be giants. i'm sure most people with kids know that they might be giants does kids' albums. this new one with numbers has some pretty fun songs on it.

dan zanes:
so i hear that dan zanes used to rock out in a non-kiddie band, and switched genres when he had kids. parents around the country are so glad he did! some favorites of his are: malti, around the kitchen, and dance party.
for the kids is a great series of albums that has really good musicians singing covers of old songs and some originals in kid-friendly ways. this last installment, the third, might be my favorite yet: it's got over the rhine singing "the poopsmith song", and other great tunes from rogue wave, damien jurado, great lake swimmers, and hem. yum!
sometimes i like to play non-kids' music for my kids, and they love it too! we like to listen to the you've got mail soundtrack, the white stripes singing we're going to be friends, and lots of up-beat stuff from vampire weekend, squeeze, weezer, and r.e.m. (like "shiny happy people") m.'s current favorite: "new shoes" by paolo nutini.

a time for haircuts

IMG_2532, originally uploaded by jowrites365.

it seems that pretty much every little girl i've seen in our neighborhood has long hair. many of them have moms who take the time to fix their hair in pretty braids, piggy tails, curls, and lots of other creative fabulous up-dos. we usually let millie run around with her hair not fixed. this is for a few reasons. 1) when it comes to her hair, i'm kinda lazy. 2) she HATES to have her hair combed. i mean HATES it. this goes beyond the normal ouchies that most little girls give out when having their hair combed, this is like full-on crying and wincing EVERY TIME i go to comb her hair. 3) unlike most little girly-girls (and m. is VERY girly,) m. doesn't usually want to have her hair up.
so this weekend we came to a decision: it wouldn't be so bad if we cut her hair quite short. even though all her friends have long hair. even though it seems to be quite unpopular for little girls her age. and let me tell you, we are SO HAPPY with this haircut! she can comb it out herself, it looks cute without doing anything to it, and it really suits her cute heart-shaped face. and it's going to be a great 'do for the summer ! hooray for short hair!