banner day

Posted on September 7, 2022 by marybethrew

This kind human is a sophomore. He spent our labor day hike dispersing dandelion seeds because, “every living thing deserves a chance to grow.” I made a wish on each seed, in similar words, but my wishes were all about him.

Also, today we sign closing papers to buy the dragon house. A long-held dream comes true.

Honorable mentions:

I am halfway through semester three of my program, and still loving every 4am writing session. On a sunny day back in January, I typed one of my essays on Great Grandma Rew’s typewriter and submitted it to a zine called Selkie, and I recently received word that they’ve published it! I will share how to get copies when they become available. My first published essay, hurray! In a zine named for mythical females who zip in and out of sea-suits to live in both realms, on the theme of “disobedience.” Sounds about right!

I started my permanent job in July. I’ve filled out what could be the last round of new hire paperwork, for the last set of changing benefits, and the waves of relief are still washing over me, and I expect that will keep going for some time. Three pay periods in, I went to Kodiak, Alaska, for field work. A new place to fall in love with. (They have otters there!!!)

rock greenling

penpoint gunnel

giant Pacific octopus

humpback!

uh-oh

Salmon for breakfast, and second breakfast.

Sending love to all the mama bears out there with cubs snuggled close and the otter mamas with their pups swimming off and away.

~thankful thursday~ collecting butterflies

Posted on November 4, 2021 by marybethrew

11/1/21

~30 days of gratitude~ day 1

Today didn’t have any obvious things to set it apart from other days. Coffee and eggs. Handling gross fish guts. Then coming home. Coming home is something I am keenly grateful for, having spent quite a bit of time away from home recently. I’ll say more about the away days in other posts, I’m guessing. But hand in hand with coming home, is who I come home to/come home with, who I sit down and read voter guides with over popcorn, who still builds me and the kitties a wood stove fire every November day. I am grateful for my partner in all of the things, including road trips that are not vacations.

11/2/21

~30 days of gratitude~ day 2

When taking trips that are not vacations, I am grateful for my camera, which gives me a great excuse to take breaks from non-vacationing to collect images of butterflies. Collecting butterflies while not vacationing is a lot like practicing gratitude. You start with an intention. You have to pay close attention. You find them if you look, sometimes in unlikely places. You can’t hold onto them, only notice them. Gratitude and butterflies seem to both teach about letting go. I have been grateful for butterflies in past years, I was grateful for them exactly two years ago today according to the data, but I have been looking hard for butterflies during this season of our lives and they continue to appear and appear.

11/3/21

~30 days of gratitude~ day 3

Grateful for this human and honored to be his mama.

~thankful thursday~ stoking the gratitude fire

Posted on November 23, 2017 by marybethrew

11/16/17

~30 days of gratitude~ day 16

i am thankful for dragons. we have fondly referred to our house as the dragon house since quinn was about 5 years old. all three of us love dragons. like many households in oregon, there is a head on the wall as part of our interior décor, but in our case, it’s a sculpted glittering dragon, not an elk.

a friend commented on my post for days 11-13 about edges, that dragons used to be drawn on the edges of maps by cartographers who had reached the limit of their geographical knowledge. it took me until just now to put that together with my dragon loving husband who likes to drive off the edges of maps for fun (which i mentioned on day 9).

my friend also mentioned how dragons traditionally guard treasures of rare and unsurpassed value, and i think that in retrospect, this makes them a very fitting guardian of our household. dragons also stood guard over our wedding!

quinn knows that all the best stories contain dragons. he had a dragon theme for his 8^th birthday party, and is often to be found playing video games that involve dragons, reading the wings of fire series about dragons, or creating characters and landscapes for dungeons and, yep, you guessed it, dragons.

there is so much to love. their mystery, their magical capabilities, their indomitable spirit. their ability to wield fire.

fire dragons can be protectors, exhibiting strength and courage. i also think of them having enthusiasm and energy, ready to overcome obstacles in the path.

water dragons might be more concerned with connection, depth, transformation, peace, compassion, healing. but that doesn’t mean they lack courage and passion.

my relationship with fire has been long and not always peaceful. i loved helping my dad “fix the fire” in our cellar wood-burning furnace when i was little, shoving sticks into its bright orange mouth. and of course nothing was better than summer campfires at fish creek campground. however, when our heifer barn burned down, i was only four, and i think a touch of irrational fear of fire stuck with me after that. as a person who tends to feel chilly, i do love wood stove heat in the house, and the handsome fellow who fixes that fire for me daily, and seems to be able to handle flaming hunks of wood bare-handed, is a welding fire building fiery guy. all that hotness is hard to live with, but i manage somehow. (on my tour of the manifold pictured in last night’s post, so he could show me the rainbows, i hung on his every word about how “you have to get the heat right to get the color.” did you know colorful welds are strongest? just as i would have suspected.)

but i digress. about my husband. as usual.

anyway, we’re keeping the gratitude fire stoked at the dragon house.

11/17/17

~30 days of gratitude~ day 17

jumping for joy and full of gratitude to have my dragon boy home at the dragon house.

11/18/17

~30 days of gratitude~ day 18

i am thankful for my great aunt margie. i attempted to write how i feel about her in a post a few weeks after she passed away, and just a few weeks before rich and i got married this summer. today a small memorial was held for her, and many of her loved ones were not included in that, but in a way, i can hear her saying, “i don’t want a fuss.” i don’t know the story behind why it was kept small and all but secret, but i decided instead to focus on my own grieving of her death/celebrating of her life right here, and it’s easy to feel immense gratitude for the unparalleled impact she had on my life. of course, tied up in that is incredible sadness and a gaping hole in my heart. exhausted from selling organic brussels sprouts and cauliflower and butternut squashes all day, i laid down for a while and read back through that post, and shed some more tears. after that, there was only one thing to do. so i got up and made nachos for dinner.

11/19/17

~30 days of gratitude~ day 19

i am thankful for my dog ruby. i don’t actually have my own dog, but at the same time, ruby and i both know we are human-dog soul mates. she’s only the second dog in the world i have felt that way about. i am far from a dog person, and certainly don’t love all dogs across the board. some of them are smelly and some of them are scary, and a little one bit me one time for no reason. but ruby is my doggy love. i am her fairy dog mother when her real family goes out of town or especially when they go camping. she favors comfy chairs over campgrounds. one of our favorite times to be together is for thanksgiving. her family is vegetarian, and the week she spends here while i’m cooking turkey, ham, sausage, and lots of gravy, her mom says is like a dog spa retreat. she is asleep on my lap as i type this. she may eschew camping, but she does love long walks on the beach, just one more reason we are meant to be together, once in a while, which is all i can handle of the responsibility for a canine life. quinn is thrilled to have her for the week, they also have a special bond, and to give our kitties their usual sleeping space with us, ruby gets to sleep in quinn’s room, and he loves the company. borrowing ruby is the perfect arrangement, everyone wins, especially me.

11/20/17

~30 days of gratitude~ day 20

i am grateful that although i would pretty much rather gouge out my eyeballs than play the game risk, the folks at hasbro at least made it rainbow-rific to look at. also, i am thankful my son wants me to play games with him, and thankful for the tip from my friend to serve honeybush tea with honey and heavy cream at bedtime. thankful for drinking in sweetness as the theme of this gratitude-enriched season. and also for parsnips.

11/21 and 11/22/17

~30 days of gratitude~ days 21 and 22

i am thankful for today, the penultimate dorkaversary before we celebrate six years together! rich and i have now been married for 4 months, and celebrate like goofballs when we realize any given day is a significant one (namely, the 22^nd of any month), or when it’s not and we’re just happy to see each other after a long day of work. looking around on a day like this, prepping for a big feast, it’s easy to feel gratitude for all the abundance surrounding us. the food is bountiful and fresh, the boy cranking the apple slicer has grown into a competent helper, loved ones are close at hand, and a kitty is in the empty ham box. the borrowed pup is sprawled on her blanket on the couch, nose pointed towards the wood stove in worship. tomorrow the man i love will shut off the alarm and we won’t get out of bed any earlier than we want to, and we’ll be so grateful for the extra sleep.

11/23/17

~30 days of gratitude~ day 23

happy thanksgiving! it’s been a great big gratitude day here at the dragon house, stuffed with goodness and topped with gravy. i’m feeling thankful for amazon prime getting my new oven element to me on tuesday, because when it gave out on the friday before thanksgiving, it could have presented a minor source of stress (if, you know, there wanted to be anything baked for said holiday). i am thankful for a relaxing morning after a busy night of making pies, and time to play skip-bo with quinn and listen to him read to me about the ice cow goddess audhumla of norse mythology from whose udder flowed four rivers of milk, and about the rainbow bridge bifrost connecting asgard to middle earth, all from one of his library books. i am thankful for how my son’s pursuits inspire me to learn new things; i have so many questions about this cow! i am very thankful for cows, i know i mentioned growing up on a dairy farm during last year’s gratitude posts, and riding around in the passenger seat next to rich, he is used to me mooing out the windows whenever i see a pasture full of cows. i had no idea, until today, that such a cow featured in creation mythology, and i’m thoroughly intrigued. cows are the quintessence of birthing energy in my experience, which includes years of observational and participatory cow midwifery, and this choice of motherly cow likeness licking the father of norse gods (buri) into being, brings me joy. and then we can talk about rainbows some more! you can imagine my delight at having these things brought to my attention through the voice of the son i birthed into being while channeling all of my inner cow mojo over ten years ago. i am thankful for this family i am blessed to be a part of, the wonderful surprises life brings, pie crust confidence, libraries, friends, rainbows, and cows today.

~tuesday tunes~ almost heaven

Posted on October 3, 2017 by marybethrew

while summer swiftly swished away, one of the ways the emotional waves of wedding were felt by me, was music. i decided it would be fun to share music a bit more frequently in general, and thought i’d give music a day of the week in which to organize itself here in the cyber canning jars. monday was taken… so tuesday tunes it is! to kick it off, i thought i’d share 3 versions of a song that captures the arc of emotion of my summer. like the ocean waves i describe to quinn in my best yoga teacher voice during the dolphin story at bedtime, these sound waves were protective; i tell him to picture himself held by the waves, as they are big enough to hold it all, so we can release and fall asleep and let go of it all. the emotions of weddings are just so big, and so in like manner, the best way i can think of to start to share that enormous emotional journey is to share some of the music which helped me release some of the big feels.

i did not have major plans for video at our wedding, though because we live in such a modern age, we received several great unanticipated videos from friends and my now step-daughter. in the aftermath of it all, though, i discovered that i myself had taken only one single phone video during the entire time my family and rich’s family came together to celebrate our marriage. this is the one, and it does a great job of summing up the brim-fullness of this time. just to orient you, from my vantage point i begin in the corner sitting by the door, where i am perched on the lap of my then fiance. we didn’t yet have our entire families in attendance, but we had a pretty good representation, and my best woman, too! dad had already picked up his/my guitar, regaled us with roger miller songs and best woman’s request for the very unfortunate man (ever appropriate for weddings, this was also sung on my big brother’s wedding day!) dad then sang the one i would have requested, had he not gone ahead and played it without me needing to ask.

was i the only one who danced around the raw sienna living room rug with their mom to the warm crackle of the record player making john denver croon his greatest hits in the 80s? “all my memories gather ’round her” is a perfect way to describe my mother, which is always who i think of when i hear that line, including as we gathered around my dad to listen to this rendition of take me home, country roads. we grew up on a country road surrounded by rolling hills, and my mom did her own growing up in a place devoid of hills known as the bronx, but her heart for the mountains of the adirondacks certainly qualifies her for the description of “mountain mama” as well.

my heart was so full, looking around at our loved ones gathered around, the children immersed so fully in their play in the next room, and listening to this song that has always captured the very essence of longing for home for me.

~~~

we departed for our honeymoon a blissfully blurry several days later. our first stop was a brandi carlile concert at the oregon zoo, and after brandi pulled on our heartstrings with the story and wherever is your heart, she thought she’d break the poignant tension with a sing-along!

this is the song, though not the performance we saw, but from another venue.

unfortunately, i was unable to participate in the sing-along until she got to the bridge, because i was too busy sobbing into my husband’s shoulder. it was difficult even then to croak the words, “radio reminds me of my home far away, driving down the road i get a feeling like i should have been home yesterday… yesterday.” there were two moments for me when the emotional floodgates opened after the wedding: the first involved laughter at the beach the day after the wedding, and that story is still to come, but the second was a good cry at an outdoor concert, surrounded by thousands of people.

~~~

after we returned home and started sweeping away dried petals and resuming normal life, except new and improved because it’s married life, i made up some new mix cds based on songs that had come up during the wedding week and honeymoon week. i found a version of brandi carlile singing country roads with emmylou harris, so of course that went on the mix. riding in the car while i overplayed said mix, quinn absorbed the song and began to sing along. in a few short years his voice will no longer be in the right register to warble along with brandi, so i decided to record it for posterity. one evening after he had it memorized, we sat on his bedroom floor and i strummed on dad’s/my guitar while quinn sang:

maybe one day he’ll sing along with it when it comes on the radio, feeling the things i feel when i sing it, but about this home of ours. “life is old there… older than the trees… younger than the mountains… blowing like a breeze.”

~tuesday tunes~

audio inspiration, musical memories and stories with soundtracks

~rainbow mondays~ butterfly butts and darth moths

Posted on June 20, 2016 by marybethrew

red: the biggest one

red: seeing hearts

red: a dragon of dragon house 2.0

red: darth moth

orange: lilies of the lab

yellow: one of the best things about the bayou walks is the wafting aroma of honeysuckle lurking around various corners

yellow: i finally sat still long enough to catch some swallowtail photos

it was impossible to just choose one…

yellow-green: western tanager is still hanging around, eating the neighbor’s plums in addition to our cherries.

green: another frugivore munching huckleberries on the bayou trail.

green: the bayou

green: fauna of the bayou. yes, i know, seeing a mama hummingbird feeding its baby was supposed to be once in a lifetime, but apparently someone goofed, because i just got to witness it twice in the same one. (different birds: this one has apparently fledged but is still getting help from mama; this one is in our backyard, while the others were from work.)

so glad i happened to be holding my camera.

thank you, universe.

blue: more bayou fauna, this time cedar waxwings.

blue: the view from down here

blue: finding some creative alternative lighting options for the dragon house kitchen. since we don’t get real fireflies here, we’re having to mimic bioluminescence with artificial firefly jars: micro leds in an old blue jar above my sink.

periwinkle: there really should be more periwinkle in the rainbow…

purple: bayou grasses

purple: butterfly butt, as it turned its back on me to drink from each and every blossom on the bright purple buddleia.

i hope you have a fantastic week!

~rainbow mondays~

a splash of color on monday morning

a photo study documenting the colors of the spectrum: the balance points between light reflected and light absorbed

~rainbow mondays~ happy surprises and love everywhere i look

Posted on April 25, 2016 by marybethrew

just 23 of my favorite images from the past few busy weeks.

red: seeing the vacation house spring blooms appearing is a happy side effect of living there 2 or 3 seasons longer than we originally anticipated. it has continued to be a haven of beautiful wonders to behold, you gotta love providence.

red: last night quinn tagged along with me on a market training and tour of the farm i work for every other saturday. we were csa customers for years and have toured there several times, but never before in this early spring season. i am so glad i brought my camera along.

orange: the farm stand restaurant is another haven of beauty, with so many details creating a feast for all senses, not just the tongue.

orange: i love to be involved with this farm, because a little part of me will always be homesick for the farm i grew up on, and although it’s 3000 miles away and not a dairy, this farm has a lot of little reminders… an antique manure spreader and a silage chopper, bending like an old dinosaur reaching to munch on some of the nearby vegetation, could easily be spotted at either farm.

yellow: sunset over the apple blossoms at the vacation house.

yellow: another old farm equipment photo for my dad, i love the way there are some vivid yellow lichens growing on the hood, as if to match the truck’s original paint job.

green: farm stand in the afternoon sunlight.

green: reflection ussie.

green: even better reflection, like something out of a dream of mine.

green: i don’t even really need a special lens anymore to see hearts everywhere i go.

green: april showers.

green: lemon balm, a happy surprise growing next to my doorstep at the new dragon house.

blue: lots of happy surprises there, as we discover little secrets in every corner of the yard. my mom was reminding me that i have always loved forget-me-nots, and they were also one of nana’s favorites, which makes them extra special to have around my new home.

blue: opting out of the compost tour, he decided to chill on the flatbed truck and listen to sparkle stories.

blue: see what i mean? love is all over the place.

blue: if you have to do homework, at least you can do it outside on the front porch.

purple (and green!): one of these things is not like the others….

purple (and green!): lilacs of the dragon house. oh so happy about this.

purple (and green): these are in the stone flower bed in front of the dragon house. one more happy surprise!

vacation house… this azalea’s blooms got pinker, though i had been calling it purple. file under: red violet.

pink: vacation house apple blossoms

pink: the earliest rhodie at the dragon house is in full bloom, a lovely vanilla ice cream with a hint of strawberries.

i hope you are taking many moments to enjoy the feast for the senses spring is bringing you, wherever you may be planted!

~rainbow mondays~

a splash of color on monday morning

a photo study documenting the colors of the spectrum: the balance points between light reflected and light absorbed

~rainbow mondays~ lighthearted

Posted on January 11, 2016 by marybethrew

i didn’t take enough pictures this week for a full rainbow monday post, but i also don’t want to skip posting today, because i am feeling so blessed and joyful. i attended a wonderful yoga and writing workshop on saturday that filled me with inspiration was just so invigorating. then yesterday (sunday) looked at a beautiful house with my love that we would like to put an offer on. (all good house-buying mojo/chanting/prayer/finger crossing appreciated! not to wish anyone else out of the running, but there are others interested… even if we don’t get it, it felt very hopeful to see something that was such a good fit for us.) i spent a good hour on the phone with my mom hearing about the niece and nephew blessings in my east coast family, and then not long after that, received the news of my newest nephew’s birth here in oregon. i just returned from meeting him, it’s important to let them imprint on their aunties as early as possible. i am off to a great start on my theme for 2016 of lightheartedness, don’t you think? i thought quinn’s joyful look of receiving rainbow blessings in his upturned hand was perfectly symbolic for the occasion.

~rainbow mondays~

a splash of color on monday morning

a photo study documenting the colors of the spectrum: the balance points between light reflected and light absorbed

woodstove prayer

Posted on December 31, 2015 by marybethrew

back on the home hunt, i am reminded of our peculiar set of non-negotiables in a house we might buy.

hers: bathtub

his: woodstove

i claim that he has more criteria than i do, including high ceilings, a garage and/or a basement he can use as a workshop, and generally, more space. i have some yard requirements, though, so it’s good if someone is prioritizing the inside of the house. it’s probably wise to buy a spacious house for tall people, since we are both of taller than average stature, and quinn could very likely exceed us both in height in a few short years, and at the rate he’s going, will likely have a sizeable pack of friends. not to mention that we’re hoping to lure our pancakes back to this part of the country before too long as well, so space is good. if you know me, you know i crave something more like bag-end than the boxes we americans call houses, but i will do my best to make all the rooms in whatever box we buy feel round and womb-like, suggestive of a hobbit home. but without that claustrophobic feeling gandalf has when he visits bilbo and bumps his head at every turn.

at the rate we’re going, it might be faster to have quinn build dragon house 2.0 out of legos.

i have enjoyed our lovely stay in the vacation house, and there are days we think of approaching the owner about buying it, but it lacks criteria number one on rich’s list. no woodstove, which would mean a remodel right away to install one, putting the house essentially back to how it was before they took one out and enclosed the middle of the house as a laundry room. we would reverse that decision, put laundry back in the basement, and restore the hearth to the center of the house, where we feel it belongs. which is all fine to say, but is logistically challenging and expensive to do.

meanwhile, 2 of the 4 houses we liked when we started looking again now have sales pending. but we’re keeping hope alive.

i should admit that lack of a woodstove is really a deal-breaker for me as well, even though i keep attributing it to “his” list. i am very much looking forward to having a home heated with wood once again. one thing that has been different about living here in vacation land, is that rich doesn’t have any man jobs to do around this house. it’s not ours, and not even our rental (we are sub-letting, technically), and it doesn’t require anything of him, other than an occasional lightbulb change or shower drain plunge. there is electric heat, which requires no hauling, sawing, or splitting of logs, and definitely no lighting of fires. it’s not that i want him to have a bunch more chores to do, the guy already works hard all day doing backbreaking labor beside which my own work day pales in comparison, but i can see that the lack of purpose in his own home is existentially uncomfortable for him (he will say i am overthinking this, whereas i’m just thankful he still has litter boxes to keep him out of trouble). he’s a lot like my dad (and his own dad), who finds tasks for himself when he comes to visit me on “vacation,” lest he fade away into oblivion. only, this isn’t a one week vacation, and there were a finite number of tasks. for me, it’s an active mindfulness practice to steer clear of resentment when we both come home from a full day of work, and i proceed to stand up for hours more, making and cleaning up from dinner, while my partner is sitting and reading or petting cats or relaxing. it is much easier to keep that perilous brain chatter at a minimum when one’s partner is also busy, in his case, at the task of making the home we share warm and toasty, chopping wood while i am chopping veggies, bringing forth a crackling fire on a chilly evening while i am scrubbing all the dishes.

back when i was doing woodstove salutations, trying to distract myself from preparing my ask-rich-out speech in the mirror, i could be found wielding my own chainsaw, because around here one can get a forest service permit to cut firewood for a small fraction of the price that can be paid for a cord of firewood that is already cut. it was a matter of pride to me that as a woman, i not only could, but made a point to, operate my chainsaw and splitting maul as the sole means of heating my house in the winter, by which i saved money during a time when money was more scarce, and empowered myself to be independent after too long living codependently.

when rich and i began our long conversation in the laundromat, one of the things i remember him telling me was about how he had been up early the previous sunday morning, and had watched the sun rising as he had set out to fill his forest service firewood quota. he had me at hello, but lumberjacking at sunrise? head over heels. sweet nothings involving manual labor surrounded by beautiful natural phenomena: there is really nothing that can top this.

i have rambled before about how i have sold out as a feminist and given myself completely over to the very traditional division of labor roles that at one point i strongly rejected. i’m still a feminist, just like i am still an unschooler, though i fit neatly into neither of those boxes. i am glad to have trained myself (and pestered my dad to teach me) to be able to do the typically male jobs, but i am overjoyed that i no longer have to do them unless i want to, that a big strong man is more than happy to swing an axe for me, and i am more than happy to fix his meals for him, and i think we embrace this crazy tradeoff more than i would ever have imagined possible. there is such a world of wonderful difference between codependency and healthy interdependence, and i have been granted the lucky gift of being able to appreciate the one i’ve got in my life now, thanks to the perspective i gained from years in the trenches of the other one.

(dear grammy and grampy – quinn loves his treasure island legos from you, and found a perfect “habitat” for them on the grammy quilt from several christmases ago!)

and let’s face it. wood heat is just so much warmer (it’s not just about over-analyzed relationship dynamics, it is about actual heat as well). for those of us who have thermoregulation challenges, a woodstove is a must. i can’t get these cold bones to any semblance of warmth with electricity. maybe it is the aries in me, but i require fire. or to be submerged in scalding liquid, which is impractical outside of one hour per day.

and so, i would like to send a special prayer out about that woodstove we will one day soon be filling up with firewood (and when i say we, i mean he). because we are looking for you, woodstove, and we are hoping to find you very soon. we hope you won’t mind us (me) cooking beans and boiling the teakettle on your surface, because we tend to maximize the functions of our woodstove, and we hope you are up for the task. we are eager to meet you and get to know your idiosyncrasies, to learn to fine tune your flue damper and your air intake, to let our home life revolve around you through the winter months, and bask in your glow. you will be central to our household, in more ways than we can describe. to us, no other appliance, and not even the bathtub, is more central to what we think of as home – there’s a reason for the phrase “hearth and home.” while we are looking for the latter, we are just as fervently searching for the former.

a fond farewell to dragon house 1.0

Posted on July 29, 2015 by marybethrew

we have moved! we had to bid a fond farewell to dragon house 1.0, however, we are taking our dragons, and our memories, with us. dragon vacation house is a comfortable stopover on our way to dragon house 2.0!

a little photo stroll down memory lane…

There’s a house on my block
that’s abandoned and cold
Folks moved out of it a
long time ago
and they took all their things
and they never came back
Looks like it’s haunted
with the windows all cracked
and everyone calls it
the house, the house where
nobody lives.

Once it held laughter
Once it held dreams
Did they throw it away
Did they know what it means
Did someone’s heart break
or did someone do somebody wrong?

Well the paint was all cracked
It was peeled off of the wood
Papers were stacked on the porch
where I stood
and the weeds had grown up
just as high as the door
There were birds in the chimney
and an old chest of drawers
Looks like no one will ever
come back to the
House where nobody lives

Once it held laughter
Once it held dreams
Did they throw it away
Did they know what it means
Did someone’s heart break
or did someone do somebody wrong?
So if you find someone
someone to have, someone to hold
Don’t trade it for silver
Don’t trade it for gold
I have all of life’s treasures
and they are fine and they are good
They remind me that houses
Are just made of wood
What makes a house grand
Ain’t the roof or the doors
If there’s love in a house
It’s a palace for sure
Without love
It ain’t nothin but a house
A house where nobody lives
Without love it ain’t nothin
But a house, A house where
Nobody lives.

~tom waits

“After all,” Anne had said to Marilla once, “I believe the nicest and sweetest days are not those on which anything very splendid or wonderful or exciting happens but just those that bring simple little pleasures, following one another softly, like pearls slipping off a string.” ~l.m. montgomery, anne of avonlea

“If I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own back yard. Because if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with.” ~l. frank baum

After you leave home, you may find yourself feeling homesick, even if you have a new home that has nicer wallpaper and a more efficient dishwasher than the home in which you grew up. ~lemony snicket

The ache for home lives in all of us. The safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned. ~maya angelou

Home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjuration. ~charles dickens

Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is mother. ~ hermann hesse

heroes in a half shell

Posted on November 19, 2013 by marybethrew

a quick post to get some quinn photos out there to grammy. i realized my rainbow this week only covered the adults in my little family.

things are good. school is incredible, and quinn is thriving. he has discovered a love for the teenage mutant ninja turtles, his favorite being raphael, the one who wears red.

our biggest challenge right now is to find time for him to be home and be a kid. we are at school and then after-school program, and when we get home it’s time for dinner/bath/books/bed, and that leaves very little time for re-building every single lego set he owns from start to finish while warbling along with brandi carlile songs on the living room floor.

but we’re fitting it in where we can.

mb

magic & bioluminescence

Tag Archives: home

banner day

~thankful thursday~ collecting butterflies

~thankful thursday~ stoking the gratitude fire

~tuesday tunes~ almost heaven

~rainbow mondays~ butterfly butts and darth moths

~rainbow mondays~ happy surprises and love everywhere i look

~rainbow mondays~ lighthearted

woodstove prayer

a fond farewell to dragon house 1.0

heroes in a half shell