Enchantment Learning & Living Blog

Welcome to Enchantment Learning & Living, the inspirational space where I write about the simple pleasures, radical self-care, and everyday magic that make life delicious.

On Tasting the First Tomatoes from Your Garden

June 18, 2014

There they are. Two small cherry tomatoes ripening on your potted tomato plant. Sometime between when you left for your short trip and your return, those little globes went from green peas to ripe red fruit. You stare at them for a long time, not quite believing your luck. Two whole tomatoes, there for your enjoyment.

Then, barefoot and holding your watering can in one hand and dead plant leaves in the other, you consider your options. You are hesitant to eat them all at once but can't think of any recipe that would call for just two cherry tomatoes. Even worse, you would hate for them to get lost in a salad, where the lettuce, vinegar, and oil might overwhelm them completely. As you weigh your options, you know you've already made up your mind: you lack the self-control to do anything but eat them straight from the vine. You set your watering can down and toss out your weeds and debris--the rest can wait.

As you pick those little tomatoes, you can feel their sun-warmed skins, the smooth, soft flesh wrapped tautly around their juicy core. You take the first one in your mouth, allowing it to roll around your tongue, almost afraid to break the surface of its skin with your teeth--but you do it anyway. You can't resist the taste of a real tomato.

You feel the skin break, spilling out soft seeds and flooding your mouth with the sweet taste of summer: sun, soil, savory red fruit. You are left with the tart taste on your lips and soil on your hands. It is over too fast; you promise to make the second one last longer but you know it, too, will be gone sooner than you would like. Already your tongue is missing the bright taste of this homegrown magic.

You pop the last one into your mouth determined to savor every last inch of it. You roll it around your tongue remembering why your garden tomatoes have turned you against their mealy store bought cousins. Then this second one, too, is gone in a flood of seeds and juice. You gaze longing at your tomato plants, searching for signs of yellow flowers or little green bulbs that will one day ripen into edible euphoria. Until then you can only wait, water, tend. So you pick up your watering can once more and go about the business of tending your garden, the tang of the first tomatoes of the season still fresh on your lips.

Enchantment Learning & Living is an inspirational blog celebrating life’s simple pleasures, everyday mysticism, and delectable recipes that are guaranteed to stir the kitchen witch in you. If you enjoyed what you just read and believe that true magic is in the everyday, subscribe to my newsletter below for regular doses of enchantment. Want even more inspiration? Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. Here’s to a magical life!

On Reasons I Love My Home

June 16, 2014

First, it's the way you don't have to wear real clothes--or any clothes at all if you don't want to. You can let your hair down and not bother to comb it. You can walk around with bare feet, relishing the feel of the ground beneath your soles.

Second, it is where you surround yourself with the things you love--and keep out the things you don't. All your books are loving piled on your bookshelves, a riot of multicolored spines, some rigid and sitting up straight like good little hardbacks, other cracked at the seams, their thin paper covers wearing the memory of the countless times you've read them. Your knitting--that turquoise blue blanket you started forever ago and will continue working on until forever--is always right where you left it, on the couch, ready for another knitting session. Your writing desk is an open invitation to sit and dream or gaze out at your patio garden. Even your kitchen is exactly how you want it to be: ready at a moment's notice for cooking, baking, conjuring up tea blends. It is as if it knows the pleasure of being always fully stocked for anything from a simple lunch to an impromptu visit from your sister just as you do.

Third, you don't have to answer the door if you don't want to. You can lose track of time, let the hours unravel before you in the safety of your sanctuary without bother or worry. You feel no obligation to join the rest of the world when they come knocking, only a sweet satisfaction that you can linger in your space just a little longer.

Fourth...the list can go on and on. You will content yourself, then, with saying just this: the reasons you love your home are varied and unending, just as the stash of flouncy dresses and colorful skirts in your closet seemingly are. You love your home because it molds itself around you, always a reflection of your energy, your constant nurturing of simple pleasures, quiet moments of bliss, a life rich in nourishing enjoyment.

On Restocking Your Refrigerator

June 7, 2014

At last! You finally get the chance to restock your fridge. The week was a study in making some hastily bought lettuce, eggs, beets, last until you could go grocery shopping properly. Your fridge has stood forlornly in the corner of your kitchen, almost empty except for a stray bread end and your meager staples. This simply will not do.

It is sweet relief to enter the store, to fill your cart with fresh basil and wine and aged Gouda cheese--the essentials. Your heart is light as you pile on the berries that have suddenly come in-season while you were away, yes they will fill your shelves nicely. And you cannot live without radishes. Or organic lemons. Or, frankly, dates. So in your cart they go.

Then there is the question of dinner for the next few days. You already know your weekend breakfasts will be omelet filled (you select heirloom tomatoes, mushrooms, sweet onions). The heat makes you crave nothing but crisp salads, light fish, fresh fruit. You feel a menu forming in your head: salt and pepper calamari with beet and radish salad. Then pesto pizza with those heirloom tomatoes the next night. You even eye the apricots--not quite ripe yet, and wonder if you can turn them into a 5-minute refrigerator jam. Your mind cannot stop forming recipes, meals, kitchen experiments.

At home again, you unload your bounty into your now happy refrigerator, marveling at its shelves, almost bursting with whole foods. You must celebrate. You take the freshly-made sparkling water and mix it with grapefruit juice and basil simple syrup (newly made with the basil only just purchased) for a festive mocktail; happy to once again have an arsenal of goodies at your disposal, ready for anything from a simple meal to an impromptu get-together with family. You try to enjoy your drink on the patio, but it doesn't last. You find yourself in front of the fridge, enjoying your modern day cornucopia, sipping your drink. It is good to be home.

On Returning Home After a Long Journey

June 5, 2014

You love adventuring, you really do. But after days of touring several different countries and seeing so many sights, what you really want is a long bubble bath in your own tub, a glass of wine in hand, jazz playing softly in the background. You want to sit out on your patio and linger over your morning coffee. You want to sleep in your own bed again.

As you slide the key into the lock of your front door, you feel like Bilbo Baggins--there and back again--and ready to write about your adventures. But first, you want to feel your home around you once more. You breathe a sigh of relief as you close the door behind you and take in your familiar surroundings. Everything is just as you left it--the turquoise blanket you are knitting in a heap on your cranberry couch, your writing desk covered in books and painting supplies. The kitchen, spotless.

It is the garden you go to first; you want to see how your plants fared while you were away. Did the cabbage worms eat all your lettuces? Did the pea shoots get enough water? Is your cucumber plant surviving? Your plants appear none the worse for the wear, though you fuss over them all the same, trimming back dried leaves and watering them.

Then you fill your home with light, pulling back curtains and opening the windows for fresh air. There is life here again! You go to your bedroom and stare longingly at your big colorful bed, the covers of which you can't wait to snuggle under that night. It will be nice to dream in your own space again. Then your take in the kitchen, looking fairly forlorn without a full fridge or something cooking on the stove. It looks almost as if dust has gathered there after two weeks without use. You make plans to remedy that quickly--grocery shopping must happen; new recipes must be tried.

You unpack slowly, pulling out each simple treat you've gathered from your travels and taking time to decide where they belong in your home. The ribbons bought in London must go on the vanity table, the tea, in the pantry. Later, you will hang your paintings of Paris--done by a street artist, bought along the Seine--in your living room. And you will place your magnets on your fridge alongside the others, some from past travels, some bought in a fit of pure whimsy.

As you go through this ritual of returning home, you feel your things; your creature comforts begin to wake up, your house stirring as if from a long sleep. It is pure pleasure to be back. The only thing left to be done now is that long bath. You have journeyed far to restore yourself, and you find that restoration, at last, in rekindling your routine.

On Packing Your Suitcase

May 20, 2014

You have learned your lesson from past trips: pack lightly, start early.

The past week has been one of packing and unpacking, rearranging and folding. Your bed has been strewn with dresses and skirts and leggings in an attempt to find a traveling wardrobe that is a unique combination of simplicity, style, and comfort.

Steamer trunks...glamorous? Yes. Convenient?  No.  Travel light! — Steamer trunks...glamorous? Yes. Convenient? No. Travel light!

You wistfully think of the giant trunks Barbara Stanwyck traveled with in The Lady Eve or those boxes upon boxes that Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe tow around in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. These ladies have their arsenal of beauty concoctions and a wardrobe full of fashionable travel ensembles. Yes, that is the romantic notion of travel, always perfectly quaffed and ready for cocktails on the deck as your cruise liner takes you to your exotic destination.

Yet as much as you enjoy that happy vision of travel, you are not so taken with it that you lose all sense of practicality. No, you will stick to a wardrobe of tunics and leggings, walking shoes and plenty of room for souvenirs. It is a treat to take your small suitcase from one stop to the next--never wasting time on lugging steamer trunks about, but simply gliding from one place to the next with ease.

This is your preferred way to travel for all your fanciful musings on your silver screen ladies. As you fold your last tunic into your luggage, you think of your upcoming trip: a Gaudi-feast in Barcelona, days roaming the streets of Paris, high tea in London, leaving plenty of room in your day and your suitcase for experiences and mementos.

Yes, it is nice to travel light.

On Kitchen Sink-ing It

May 17, 2014

You must get creative with the food you have, using it all up before you pack your bags and head out on your next adventure.

It took all your self-control not to over-shop at the grocery store, despite the perfectly rounded artichokes and thick stalks of asparagus staring you in the face. You bought only the bare necessities: coffee and wine. It took even more reserve not to go to the farmers' market; that would only lead to a fridge full of spring's bounty--tender lettuce, red radishes, and if you were lucky, garlic scapes.

You know mustn't do that, hard as it is. Everything but the kitchen sink must go, so you pile your plate with all manner of strange meals. You are traveling soon--that phrase playing round and round your head, a constant reminder--and have to clean out your fridge of anything and everything that won't last till you get back.

It has been a series of creative lunches and kitchen-sink dinners. There was the breakfast omelet with one and a half bell peppers and small wedges of several different kinds of hard cheeses; the lunch of quick pickled carrots, radishes, and cucumbers; the simple dinner of crudités and aioli to use up those eggs and any stray vegetables at the bottom of your crisper. Everything must go!

Then there is the carton of half and half that you try to ration out across the next four mornings, so you don't have to buy another and have it go to waste. There is the watermelon you had forgotten about--the one you intended to juice. A watermelon cooler must be made, perhaps several. You will diligently work on whittling down the contents of your fridge until it is nothing but bare shelves and butter, mustard jars and a wine bottle.

It's as integral to your travel preparations as packing your bags and boarding that plane. Yes, this is kitchen sink-ing it.

On Watching the Birds in Your Bird Feeder

May 4, 2014

It is a quiet afternoon. You've given yourself over to reading on your patio, your only company the birds--sparrows, finches, doves--swooping in and out of your bird feeders.

They used to be shy creatures, forever dissuaded from your patio by the cats with the hungry eyes in the patio above yours. You courted them night and day with bird seed and three homemade feeders you crafted out of small colorful colanders and fishing wire. You wanted to thank those birds for their songs, their morning chatter that serves as your natural alarm clock. Finally, after hanging your feeders beneath your herbs--as far away from those cats as possible--and filling them up with thick, black sunflower seeds, you find the little birds at home on your patio.

You pause momentarily, lifting your head from your book to enjoy the quiet spring afternoon. And then a red-breasted finch swoops into the turquoise feeder closer to you, swaying gently in time with the rocking of the feeder. It eyes you as if afraid you might chase it away or take its seeds. It is fast and efficient, cracking the thick sunflower shells and gobbling their flesh in gluttonous delight. Another bird flies toward the same feeder, this one a dusty brown but just as small as the finch splashed with red--its mate, perhaps. You keep still; you don't want the flutter of a turned page to frighten off your friends. They are so much more graceful than the pigeons and doves that swoop into the feeders as big as they are, forcing the metal colanders to clack and cling against your patio railing. No, these little finches nibble and sway in time with the feeders.

Without thinking about it, you set your book down. With that one swift movement, you startle the finches and they take off with a quick flap of their wings, nothing but spent sunflower shells scattering in their wake.

On Cleaning Your Home

May 3, 2014

It becomes a meditation on your life, never just about wiping off the dust from your writing table or sweeping away the cobwebs on your patio. It is about sweeping off those same cobwebs from your mind, clearing away the debris from the week, ironing out the wrinkles in your thoughts as you iron them out of the flouncy dresses you so love to wear.

You use your baking soda to scrub away bad thoughts and any mildew on your shower wall; your homemade vinegar spray kills the germs in your kitchen and bathroom as its sharp scent, mixed with lavender, clears the head. Your vacuum sucks up the dirt and stress that your shoes have dragged in, leaving behind only tranquility and fresh air.

As you clean, as you tend to your things, your home, you remove all doubt from your mind, cast away anything that does not actively nourish you, fill your spirit with light and well-being. You create your sanctuary, a reflection of the life you choose to lead, free of dirt stuck in corners and grunge in the mind.

You fill your space with light, with warmth, with clean thinking and clean air. You know your home is a living breathing thing that does not flourish unless well-tended. Together you nourish each other, creating a life worth living.

On the Dandelion

April 24, 2014

A weed.

The bane of the perfect lawn's existence, wantonly flinging its seeds wherever the wind will take them. Eternal survivor, oblivious to weed killer, lawn mower, calloused hands attempting to uproot it from the crack in the concrete. Never as beloved as the luscious rose nor the frail beauty of the orchid, yet worthy of its own song--a song praising its bounty, a song of healing and grounding.

This weed is more than a weed, kicked about and neglected, but such medicine under the right touch. The hands that would rip this flower from the ground, happy to banish it from her plot of earth, instead tenderly collect the leaves, the stems, the roots, the flowers--dries them, preserves them.

For she knows the potent magic of the dandelion, detoxing the seat of the soul, the liver. Flushing out stagnation and poison from the body, rooting the spirit once again to the earth, the ground, the seed that makes the dandelion. You steep your treasure in hot water and drink the healing potion, reveling in how the dandelion spreads through your body like its seeds spread through the city, finding each nook, each empty space and filling it up with its light.

But it does more. Once inside the body, it makes its way through the liver, to the heart, to the mind, to that soft space between and above your eyes. It opens you up, casting aside the glamours of this world in order to see beyond the trappings of the mundane and into life beyond the veil--past, present, future swirl at the bottom of a cup of dandelion tea.

And yet this healing collection of seeds, roots, and leaves, lives relegated to the role of weed--only revealing its magic to those who are willing to see past the limited glory of its finer looking cousins, only sharing its bounty with those ready to be nourished, to be healed.

On Watching Your Garden Grow

April 18, 2014

It has been almost a week since you have sown the seeds into your potted garden. Just a few short days since the last frost date has passed and you can now safely keep your tender plants outdoors.

Each day this week you greeted them with fresh water and little cooing noises as you encouraged those seeds to plant themselves firmly in the soil you provided for them. You fussed, too, over the larger plants--your herbs and tomatoes. You snipped cilantro for last night's blue corn quesadilla and rosemary for this morning's omelet. You rearranged your pots so your spinach and chard seeds could get more shade, and your mint gets all the sun it wants.

And then you see it, those tiny little heads poking up from the dirt: your radishes are sprouting. Your lettuces are making their way into the world. A zing runs up your spine. Those are your seeds, your plants, happily growing under your gentle care. You breathe in the scent of wet earth, the soft perfume of a spring morning, already anticipating the first peppery bite of your radishes, the first salad made from your greens.

You marvel at these earthly treasures, these capsules of self-care that open and grow with the right nourishment. You know you will not be able to stop yourself fussing over your plants throughout the day, checking those sprouting seed to see if they have grown just a little more, but for now, it is enough to see small radish leaves making their way through the dirt into the sun.

On Doing Yoga in the Laundry Room

April 16, 2014

The afternoon was one of house cleaning and grading papers--end of semester routines. You check your clock between one stack of essays and another and realize you have forgotten about your laundry. How long ago had you stuffed your clothes into the dryer? Surely they are done by now. Your bones at least are ready for a break from sitting, so you gather your laundry basket and make your way down to the laundry room.

You hear the industrious whirring of the dryer before you see your brightly colored clothes spinning in the machine. You'd miscalculated--there are five minutes left on the clock. By the time you get back upstairs, it will be time to turn back around and gather your clothes, so you are left with only one option: yoga in the laundry room

You look around and realize you are alone, save for rows of washing and drying machines. As the clock ticks down to four minutes until your clothes are in, you stretch your arms up high and swan dive down to touch your toes. You lift your rib cage and inhale, then lengthen down on the exhale. Three minutes left. You reach your whole body up again into mountain pose, firmly rooting yourself into the ground with each toe stretching to feel the floor beneath you.

You raise your arms over your head again, hands together, and carefully tilt to one side, then the other, into half-moon pose, luxuriating in the stretch along your rib cage. Two minutes to go. You arch your back, lifting your spine almost out of yourself as you extend, lengthen. One minute. You release your grip and then take one last swap dive to the ground. Lift and lengthen. Exhale and release forward. Ping. Laundry done.

You load your clothes and make your way back to your apartment, refreshed, revived--and ready for that next stack of papers.

On Grounding and Gardening

April 13, 2014

The week had been one of transformation, skin shedding, disorientation. It is a relief to find the weekend upon you, two whole days of gardening stretched out before you.

You take comfort in the way the dirt feels between your fingers as you cast aside the little spade in favor of pushing loose soil around with your hands. The color of dark roast coffee beans, the dirt smells of rich wet earth and things growing. Even the little crystals of Epsom salt you stir into the soil ground you to the here and now; they are comforting reminders that, one seed at a time, you conjure new life firmly rooted in the present.

The sharp scent of rosemary already welcomes good energies into your home, while the light perfume of lemon balm promises the power of future healing tonics. You dig your hands deeper into the soil and gently tuck your oregano into its planter, making sure to surround it with plenty of life-giving dirt. Already you are thinking of the Sunday night pasta made more delicious because of this herb, or the Friday night pizza that was given an extra zip after you return from you patio garden with cuttings from this zesty herb.

With each plant that you settle into the safety of pots, you feel more firmly grounded, gently cradled by the loving embrace of the earth. The week's events that had made you feel disoriented, untethered to this world, have lost their sting and in their place is only the quiet industry of gardening, the soft breeze tickling the trees beyond your patio, and the mellow chatter of finches.

You look forward to the harvest of dark rose cherry tomatoes and Armenian cucumbers, even as you remind yourself to buy carrot seeds--because a tomato plant is nothing without a ring of carrot seeds to keep it company. Those two, they can never be apart for long.

Later, when all your plants are potted, and you linger over a glass of fresh lemonade on your patio, admiring your work, you realize that for two blissful days, you have not thought of the past, old ghosts, or what-might-have-beens. You simply tended to your potted garden. It is so obvious now. This careful act of tending these plants is what your life is all about. One small seed at a time, you lay the groundwork for present enjoyment and future harvest.

On Watching the Robin Build Its Nest

April 4, 2014

It is far too cold out today for it to really feel like spring, certainly too cold to muster the energy for the potted gardening plans you had been only too eager to work on when it was warmer. Your breath streams out in thick white clouds before you as your venture out onto your patio. You feel winter's fingers hugging the earth for one last time, before letting it go--wistfully almost, as if winter knows that as soon as it's gone, nature will turn to another lover, spring, where it will happily settle into the new season's warm embrace.

The robin in the tree, however, feels none of this. For this bird, winter is already good as gone. And so it flits from tree to tree, gathering brittle leaves and other ephemera to build its nest. Spring is here. There is much to do.

You watch this robin swoop down to the ground, gathering dried grass in its beak, hopping over the empty fountain, in search of stray bits of thread and fluff for its new home. In the cold that is almost too much for you to bear, even snuggled in your plush robe, you can't take your eyes off this bird as it takes its treasure. What others might see as debris and nature's castoffs, this bird uses to build itself a shelter nestled in the crook of two gnarled branches high up in the tree outside your window.

This robin builds its home tenderly, tucking dried grass here and there into the folds of its perfectly round nest, fussing over the sticks and leaves that make up the plush foundation of its home. Busy, busy. The home must be built for soon it will be time to settle in and lay those eggs, to care and nurture that new life.

Finally, the cold has got the best of you, and you make your way inside, but not before you cast a glance at your potting soil and seeds in the corner of your patio. Soon, soon, you will tend your home too. You will flit here and there, gathering supplies for your garden. You will fuss over the seeds and the arrangement of pots. You will even leave out bits of dried plants and thin strips of bark for the robin.

On Drinking A Glass of Wine on My Patio

March 31, 2014

The day is at an end. You have turned your teacher clothes over for yoga pants and a comfy top. Your hair is loose around you. Your bare feet enjoy the feel of the earth kissing their naked pads. All thoughts of school are fading quickly under the magic of the evening's cool air, the soft cooing of doves, and the chilled glass of white wine in your hand.

You sip from your glass, savoring the dry flavors of grapefruit and basil. The cool liquid rolls over your tongue and down your throat, just as the sun sets a little lower in the sky. You know you should probably turn your attention to the news soon but for now your relish the simple quiet after a day of noise and bustle.

The city itself seems to be winding down for the night, relinquishing its fast pace for calmer hours as if it were a person, undoing its neck-tie before unlocking the front door. You take another sip of wine, relishing how the herbaceous flavor warms your belly and loosens your limbs. For a moment, you are nothing more than you--a quiet soul, enjoying a quiet night.

You take another sip and close your eyes; underneath the mellow birdsong, you hear the gentle murmur of traffic as people head home, looking forward to a hot meal and a couple of hours doing nothing. Nothing--nothing more than gazing out at the world from the humble perch of your patio, mind blissfully focused on nothing in particular, nothing but the gentle grace of a day coming to a close.

On Pulling Out Your Warm Weather Clothes

March 30, 2014

It is one of those chores that inevitably follows after the days get longer and warmer. Suddenly, your wool sweaters are too thick, your winter coats too cumbersome to wear. You find yourself looking for this thin sweater or that breezy tunic--both tucked in storage.

Then the day comes when your closet is a mess of half-open boxes holding summer clothes and almost abandoned winter things hanging limply from your hangers. It is time--time to say goodbye to the long, dark days of winter and greet the spring that is already at your doorstep.

One by one, your heavy clothes go into your storage, just as each polka-dot dress and floral skirt tumbles out of its box. You shake them out as if waking them from a long nap, even as you tuck your winter clothes in for their seasonal sleep. As you pull each item out of its box--a forgotten yellow sundress, bought late in the season, or a favorite pair of ladybug pajama shorts--you marvel at how these clothes are a reflection of you.

Each brightly colored scarf and vivid A-line skirt is a drop of your essence expressed to the world. You hang these concrete tokens of that ephemeral thing that are you, already looking forward to when you can don these summer feathers and swan into the world full of light and playful bounce.

On the First Bird to My Bird Feeder

March 26, 2014

I would like to thank you, brave soul, the first to venture into my homemade bird feeder.

Built from a small blue colander, fishing wire, and more gumption than crafting know-how, it was my ode to spring, my gesture of goodwill to you lovely birds that fill my mornings with sweet songs and my nights with quiet lullabies.

How long I have been courting you, dear birds! How long have I been scattering seeds around the perimeter of my little patio--advertising the new restaurant in town. Yet still my feeder sat, filled with too much birdseed, forlorn and untouched by anything but this brash March wind.

I know the perils you face dear birds--the cats living above me make no secret of their desire to have you visit their patio. I spied them one night, sipping wine after a long day at work. I looked up to find their little heads peeking over their patio awning to peer into mine.

Aha! I told myself. It is the cats that have scared you birds away. I will give you a safer place to feed. So I put my bird feeder safely inside my patio, away from the prying eyes of cats. I scattered more seed. I waited. I hoped. Eventually, I began to reconcile myself to the fact that none of you would visit.

It was in that frame of mind that I once again went out to my patio to enjoy a glass of wine. And there you were--my brave little friend! My one lone adventurer who risked the cats and dove into my bird feeder and gobbled up seeds. I thank you. What's more, I'll put out more bird seed for you. For you and your friends. Please come again--soon!

On Home Renovation

March 22, 2014

You peel each roll of old wallpaper from the walls, marveling at how years of history unravel as you help the kitchen shed its skin. There goes the thirty-year-old wallpaper, equal parts vinyl and cooking smells and the glue that held it in place for so long. There goes the cheerful blue and white backdrop to so many family dinners, so many evenings spent learning how to cook or roll out flour tortillas with your mom's wooden rolling pin. There goes the kitchen of early childhood.

In its place is new life. The walls are cleaned of glue; the kitchen grows lighter and brighter with each new coat of Venetian plaster. These are new memories being made. Together we let old versions of our family fade to leave room for continued abundance, renewed joy. On goes the butter-cream plaster to the walls, just as if new life is brought into the family.

The kitchen, in the home as old as you are, is the epicenter of your family life. It is the place of Sunday night dinner and holiday gatherings, afternoon tea and summer grilling. You meditate on this as you help wipe down the walls--a daunting task that must be done before the plaster goes up. Together you and your mother reinvent this space, you open it up to light. Already you can imagine the celebratory feast your family will have to celebrate this new era of family life.

Spring Break Shenanigans!...and Website Housekeeping.

March 18, 2014

So my website is almost back to its normal self--should be fully back in action tomorrow. In the meantime, I'm still tinkering with it and taking some time today to indulge in spring break shenanigans! Thanks for your patience!

On Technological Glitches

March 17, 2014

You have no idea how it happened.

One moment, everything was fine. The next, the bottom half of your blog page on your website has taken on a mind of its own. No longer confined to the clearly outlined crisp white area, the words of each daily meditation sprawl across your window, taking up every extra piece of space--and the few images you have soon following suit.

You take a deep breath. Then another. Then attempt every little trick you know about technology to fix it (granted they are few); you play with your admin gadgets and your style options, you restart your computer, you pray to whatever tech gods hide inside your computer. But nothing works. You are left with no other options but to contact the web host powers-that-be so that they can fix it. They will look into it, they say. It will take time, they say.

So you sit at your writing desk and ponder. And as you gaze at the mason jar full of daffodils on your desk, your mind goes back to the other little electronic glitches that have come up in the past week: an iPod that temporarily stops working, a light that shorts out when you turn it on. All of which lead you to one realization: it is not the tech gods in your computer that need appeasing or the lights in your home that need a change. It is you.

Your battery has run low. There have been too many days in a row glued to a desk, too few opportunities to let your mind rest. The energies around you pick it up, absorb it, and then power down, short out, unravel. So you do the only thing you can when life has taken so much effort to show you your own reflection: you turn off your computer. You leave your desk. You take a walk.

After a while, your mind remembers what it is like not to be in front of a computer screen.

Blog Temporarily Down due to Tech Glitches!

March 16, 2014

Sigh. Yes, it's true, somehow little tech gremlins did something to my website in the middle of the night and turned the formatting upside down on the blog. Frowny face. But fear not! I'm going to figure out how to clean it up and be back in action by tomorrow--hopefully! In the meantime, I will choose to see this experience not as a setback but as some divine life lesson given to me in the form of shenanigans pulled off by mischievous tech gremlins. Thoughts on this experience to follow...