I told Jeff the beach may be my favorite in December. Empty, chilly. The birds own it in winter. The sun still sets there and the waves still crash there the same as in July, but in winter I feel like it is happening only for me. There is nothing quite like being surrounded by something so vast and beautiful and yet not have to share it with others. 

“No, summer is best.”

Sometimes I like that I can’t persuade him even though I feel I’ve given the best reasons for my opinion. He is his own person. A man. My favorite person. My favorite man. 

Thanksgiving weekend. Sequoia national park. 

We walked around, among, and through the largest things I’ve ever seen. Just to think they are alive blows my mind. Most of our hike was spent looking up and about half way through we started to wonder if there were any bears or mountain lions around since we hadn’t seen humans for hours. When we would stop walking and crunching the ground we could hear the most empty quiet that we’ve never known anywhere else. Just when my feet had had enough we would stumble upon a clearing with mountains looming in front of us, their tops covered in snow, and I would get a burst of energy just from the beauty. 

Twelve hours in the car when it should have taken six means that we are either really good or really bad at road trips. We stopped to pet horses and take photos of lakes and mountains, almost ran out of fuel, drove up and down so many switchbacks on mountain roads that I felt car sick for days after, and sang and sang and sang. 

Hwy 395

Our new home is something between a house, a cottage, a studio apartment, and a camp cabin. We don’t really know what to call it. But we like it and it already felt like home after only a week of sleeping in it. I already have a routine of moving outdoors around 4:30 since the time change. Looking forward to wintertime fires outside, summertime grilling, Thanksgiving (and other) dinners here with friends, and maybe one day soon having a dog to run around our small yard. Dreams!  

Hello! So many life changes since the last photos shared. 

We moved from our apartment to a tiny cottage a few minutes drive from our last place. It has a backyard and so many windows and we are very much in love with it. More to come soon. Life is busy and holidays are looming. My head is exploding with excitement, ideas, etc.

For now, mostly taking photos with my phone. Just started posting them over here. 

Au revoir! 

A heat wave in san diego county is not the same as the heat of my childhood. Here you can fix it with an iced coffee, a dip in the icy ocean, or a fan (A fan! Not air conditioning. Just a fan. Blows my mind.) Labor day here feels like a celebration of summer just beginning to me. It is a weekend where we spend all day Saturday spring cleaning, Sunday with friends seeding pomegranates we picked from a neighboring tree, and Monday eating French food al fresco and then swimming, laying, reading.

We have been comparing the water temperature here with the temperature we grew up with. The warmest this ocean gets here in summer is how cold our Atlantic gets in the early springtime - when no one swims in it unless they are feeling particularly frisky, or have been dared.

And here, when we have made it past the white water and are up to our shoulders, when our bones are starting to feel numb and we are done asking each other if it was this cold the last time, we look back to land and there are trains, houses, roads, and cliffs where we used to see nothing but dunes. I like that we moved from one ocean to another. There are a lot of things to compare and wrap our minds around. I keep wondering when I’m old which one will feel like home. 

One of our favorite things to do is ride around our neighborhood with the top down and look at houses. We love our little apartment but we are always dreaming and looking. I always did that with my family growing up. Three girls in the backseat riding and reading and looking out windows. Every block has a different feeling…yesterday we saw a little girl riding her bike down the street with her feet up on the handlebars. I thought she was the coolest. For a minute I remembered what it was like to spend every moment practicing those sorts of things outside until dinnertime.

Today we bought plane tickets to North Carolina for Christmas! Seems so far away but it won’t be long before we are there, baking and visiting. 

This weekend we are going to see two friends, bandmates, perform a backyard concert. Instructions are to bring blankets and food and drinks. I’m excited for it. 

We went to visit some dear friends from Savannah in their new home in Pennsylvania last week. The last time we saw each other was the longest night of our lives, as we were in the final stages of packing up for our cross country move. We couldn’t have done it without these people…they’re our family. So we spent our visit just making eggs and coffee in the mornings, bike riding, pool swimming, riding through the lushest green neighborhoods I’ve ever seen, eating birthday dinner, watching movies, playing with their pup, and laughing lots. Remembering humidity and southern accents made my heart swell a little with nostalgia for the east coast. But California is not a place you can complain about being, so when we got back we spent my birthday generally enjoying the mid 70s weather and even a sprinkle of rain in the evening. A good birthday indeed.

jeff took these photos and i love them (giraffes!!). if we ever move from california i think we will miss the zoo the most. 

I think I will get in the water next time I’m at the beach. I’ll walk in up to my knees and almost change my mind and then a swell will come and I will go for it. Maybe my body will get numb and hate me for doing it until a half hour later when my fingers are raisins and I’m finally used to it. I just want to know what it’s like out there in our cold ocean. The only people not wearing wet suits are kids. They don’t seem to mind the cold at all. 

p.s. pizza 

june already.

I am feeling inspired by alotta things lately. All I want to do is sew and cook and organize and do aerobics in the living room. Let me tell you about a few of the things I have been up to…

I made the pillow case in the first photo out of a huge amazing table cloth or some other sort of thick, nubby household fabric that I bought at an antique store in Georgia a long time ago. This is significant because a) I have been wanting to cover some naked couch pillows for a long time using this tutorial (it really did only take twenty minutes) and b) because the fabric from the antique store was just sitting prettily in a basket for a year instead of being useful.

Bought a yoga mat yesterday and intend on doing headstands on it everyday, forever. My sister is doing this handstand challenge and since we used to have the best time doing gymnastics for hours in the backyard on a makeshift balance beam, I wanted in on it. So I spent yesterday afternoon doing this.

We decided to switch our current garage, which houses all the water heaters for our apartment building and flooded the first month we were here, to an empty one in our building with a beautiful concrete floor that just needs a little cleaning. Soon it will be a studio where I intend to have some fun getting messy with paint and tools and I am even going to eventually make all my dreams come true and buy a potters wheel. 

Summer arrived this weekend. Used book sale perusing, sewing, thrifting, coffee and cinnamon rolls with girl friends, Friday night drinks where our friend tends bar, porch dining, cleaning, car washing, iced lattes every morning, and a Thai dinner date night a few blocks from our house.

I haven’t yet had a Californian summer. I arrived when the end was so close, the beaches were not crowded and there were only a few more weeks of shorts weather. I like seeing the season in the beginning stages, when there is some shift in everyone’s personalities and daily lives that just makes me want to read in a hammock all day long with a layer of salt always on my arms.

The view from the car is much different here. Eastern North Carolina and Savannah were filled with roads flanked by tall tall pines or grassy swamps, flat for as far as the eye could see. Just roads and forests. Roads and fields and swamps. In California from the road you can see something far below or high above at all times. You feel in the middle, surrounded. Even the interstates have pretty views of bodies of water that lap right up to hills, always with mountains in the distance. I can’t imagine getting bored with the surroundings here; turn a corner and the landscape changes. I’m still getting used to all this beauty. I have to remind myself it is going to be just as beautiful tomorrow and the next day. 

p.s. The beach is the best place to get free pebbles for succulent drainage. Go at dusk and you’re likely to see pelicans in flight, sailboats on the horizon, and old couples in love. 

bears at the zoo. doin’ what bears do. 

How quickly life changes on us. 

I got a job. I didn’t do much to get it, actually. It was one of those things that happens to you and you didn’t have anything to do with it at all. But I work now. I handle the administrative needs of a small nonprofit organization that does great things for underprivileged children. I never thought I would enjoy administrative work until it fell into my lap and I felt I would have been stupid not to take it.* I am busy but not overworked. Although I work enough that the weekends have morphed into this glorious two day period where everything seems amazing and is filled with caramel apple pancakes and zoo animals and catching up on doing things around the house.

Just realized it’s almost March. Happy Easter season! More photos soon.

 *Especially with this perfect, massive St Bernard as a coworker. 

She’s 50 today and she doesn’t look it. She has gardening muscles and a humble and sweet spirit. She’s a good woman and a good mama. She is a good parallel parker. When I was younger, she taught my sisters and me around the house, the kitchen, and the garden. It’s hard being far away from her because I know we’d have such fun being in the same city. We’re a lot alike and can talk and talk or cook or knit or read or sew or hike or sip coffee or whatever together all day. It was fun being a little girl in her care but it’s great being a sort of grown up with her too. And I’m happy it’s her birthday today. Because she deserves celebration.

Our weekend included a spontaneous hiking trip after church that ended with a ridiculous sunset view over both mountains and ocean followed by burritos and beer. Hiking in the desert is a much different sport than hiking through forests laid with moss and mushrooms. The sun was hot on the way to the top but there were spots between the rocks that shot out cold air. On the way down when the temperature dropped and the sun fell the cold spots felt just like when you swim in the ocean and you come upon a part deep in the water that hasn’t been beaten by the sun. It was breathtaking and invigorating and made me feel like a Californian.

January is promising me that things will become routine, and our life here will feel whole and full soon. 

We got year passes to the zoo so we can go whenever we want. I think of this as a good investment for us. So many animals to see and it never gets old because they do different crazy things every day. 

The view of the sun from the giant pier that is a short walk from our house…this will never get old either. I could watch the sun and the sea there in any weather, at any time of day. It’s a magical place.

One favorite daily ritual: My coffee sometimes gets cold before I finish it. There is about a third of a mug left some mornings. When that happens I add a drizzle of maple syrup, a few ice cubes, and top it with milk. It is the most deliciously easy iced coffee.

Happy long weekend! We’re gonna explore. And maybe go to the zoo again. xo

p.s. photo credit to Jeff for taking 90% of these.

Two pregnant friends in winter means brainstorming, gathering supplies, and putting them together to make tiny, soft, and warm things by hand. For a Canadian baby, a hand stitched quilt and matching hat + mitts for staying cozy in negative temperatures. For a Californian baby, a pair of teensy boots lined with fleece. 

I almost forgot to share these special projects because they were being kept secret until delivered to my mama friends. I had so much fun making these tiny things, bent over my sewing machine or curled up on the couch with needle and yarn. On the lookout for more pregnant women now!