playing dress-up

The girls received these wonderful dresses for Easter--and today is a blustery day, great for dress-up! Hope to get some better shots of both of them wearing their frocks (Laurel has a matching jumper!) at my friend's wedding in Florida this weekend!

easter!

Eggs and rabbits--fertility reigns!

delight

We are currently in Houston and spent a few days this weekend in Galveston. We had some really blustery days, but my eldest was not deterred and passed many an hour making drip castles on the beach. I can't wait to get back home to the hill country, though. The breezes on our hilltop are a delight. I love our sunken living room and sprawling dining table, which looks as though it was made for those saltillo tile floors.

We propped up the honeysuckle which had been pulled down for the painters before we left. I hope our slapdash job has kept it aloft these few days. Those coral red blossoms are awesome. Now trying to decide what to plant along the property line at the foot of the field in a little exposed area. Sounds like Arizona cypress will be a good bet. It likes limestone soils and will withstand drought, grows fast and has a bluish--green cast. I also love the look and sound of honey mesquite. Might have to find a spot for that on the property.

still packing

I have gotten to the point where it feels like I have been packing forever--the piles of boxes are taller than I am--and yet it still seems as though I have everything left to pack. So frustrating.

We have officially closed on the farmhouse but do not move in until Tuesday. I went out yesterday with the kids to make sure the place was still standing--and it, thankfully, was. And clean to boot. I nursed Laurel on a flat-top log next to our fire circle. It was breezy and cool and the grasses still have that winter gold to them, but you can see those perfect green shoots flying up from their bases. I also found within the confines of the fence the remainder of someone's herb garden. There is mint and sage and oregano and a couple things I can't identify. It will be a thrill to see what emerges as spring unfolds.

the things we leave behind

As our cabinets grow barer, my heart is also packing its boxes. Today we went to our neighbor's daughter's birthday party. From their back screened porch (so very lovely--they have painted the wooden floors crimson) you look down into our own backyard. So strange to see your own home through the eyes of your neighbors. It all looks so orderly and pastoral over here. My husband's wonderful white chapel of a shed, the shinto arbor smothered in lady banksia, the radio flyer tricyle perched between two whiskey barrels planted with snapdragons and lantana. And for the first time I started to really hurt over leaving this place, over pulling away from its sweet old dignity. This place is a mirror of decisions we made before our lives changed so deeply and miraculously, before . . . before we were who we now are. Our lives were so profoundly different then.

And tonite I sat on our back deck, the wind blowing so moody over us, with my baby girl sleeping over my shoulder, and watched the bare trees tangle with one another. The trees here are magical, tall and mysterious and full of life, towering over the bustle of this city. I will miss them.

I have loved (thus far) the process of packing. Handling all these pretty things. Delicate teacups and bags given to my by friends and shoes covered with the grime of our wedding night. It is not such a bad thing to take the time to touch all of these objects--little fossils of myself.