our week

Posted in advantageous adventures, familyness, let me let me update ya, love and happiness by ElaineMarie

a
small
collection
of moments
from our week

^^^ crafting on the porch ^^^

^^^ pollacking on the porch ^^^

^^^ unschooling the franklin park conservatory ^^^

^^^ “mom, i want our house to look just like this jungle!” ^^^

^^^ nature walk treasure ^^^

photo 8EA5256E-EAE8-4884-ADB0-C5CF6CEA45B4-10130-0000038249D547F0_zps823a30cd.jpg

^^^ and i continued to grow a human ^^^

if this were a face-to-face convo this would be the point where i would deflect and say “let’s talk about how you’re doing” because i’m just kinda all over the place. the week was beautiful and i’m glad i snapped these photos of our outings and life because i can’t pull my head out of my pregnant ass sometimes. it’s so hard to focus on anything else other than getting this baby here.

i know my whole family is feeling stretched right now. i look around and i just see all these humans that are stretched so thin. but maybe i’m projecting and seeing that everywhere because it’s how i’m feeling. i tried to really take it easy this week. and it was nice to stay at home a lot. darla did her own things, mostly on the front porch. i spent a lot of time there too soaking in the air and sunshine. soaking in the feelings of just being. but i cannot escape this encumbered feeling. it makes everything feel so heavy.

maybe i’m on the brink here because i feel like all i want to do for this weekend is walk and walk and walk until i can’t anymore. it’s that very animalistic feeling taking over because i feel like this body has to do something. i feel like the tigress pacing back and forth before i slink off to find a place of solitude. please send me good vibes for finding some time to work these things out of my body and mind over these next few days.

*wishing you all the best for the things you wish to work out over the weekend, whatever they may be*

hi all, please give us your vote for the week by clicking the vote for us icon below. thanks for your help!

11Jul2014

our week

Posted in familyness, let me let me update ya by ElaineMarie

i don’t know where these days are going.

it’s friday and i got up early to write out a little about our week and i really can’t remember much that has happened save for a few big events. we spend much of our time here at home these days and i fear i’ve not really been able to stay present while here. my mind seems hyper-focused on chores and organization and cooking and errands.

and it all seems so ordinary.

and i feel like that has taken up a lot of my brain space this week: reconciling with the fact that i’m going to lead an ordinary life.

i, like most of my generation, was ingrained with the idea that i was a special little flower and that i was going to go out and do great things in the world. i have genuinely, 100% honestly always believed that I was going to lead some out-of-the-ordinary life. mainstream life was not good enough for me.

but here’s what i see when i step back from myself: 31 years old, lives in ohio, full-time mom, drives a pt cruiser, listens to neil sedaka live in concert on the 60s station….

it’s so ordinary. it’s so vanilla and blah. it doesn’t feel like this was the life i was supposed to lead. it’s not how my life played out in my head. and it certainly doesn’t seem to measure up to the adventurous lives of my peer group before i got myself saddled with motherhood.

and feeling that way feels terrible.

then i sit down here to this space and i start to take a look back at the weeks and i’m once again glad that i’m recording life here because when i scroll back through the days and weeks and months i see a whole mess of ordinary, every day beauty. it’s not over-the-top exciting and most of it is mundane but there is so much beauty shining through this ordinary life.

and i feel a bit foolish that it took me SO LONG in my life to see that. i feel like even from my earliest days i’ve wanted to live a life different and more exotic than the one i have. i’ve wanted to be a completely different person. i’ve even survived much of these last few years by telling myself that this is just a little pit stop in my life and that i’ll be zooming off to great adventures before long.

but that is not guaranteed to me. nothing is. and what a waste of an ordinary life it would be if i never ended up in this spot able to see how beautiful even the dullest of moments here on earth are.

so, this week i sat around on my porch a lot, watching my child cut grass with a pair of scissors {seriously}. i cooked some meals for my family. i took my girl to the pool. i ran errands. and i spent a whole lot of time gazing at a growing belly.

it was thoroughly ordinary. and it was beautiful.

* sending you all the best for a super, super moon weekend *

hi all, please give us your vote for the week by clicking the vote for us icon below. thanks for your help!

29May2014

may mural tradition

Posted in familyness, let me let me update ya by ElaineMarie

we stopped by my favorite mural in columbus today just like we did a year ago. looks like this is becoming a may tradition.

i cannot believe the growth that has happened in a year. in a way this photo makes me sad because darla’s spirit was shining through so free last summer. maybe i don’t realize in our everyday how she’s growing up and those little bits of raw human are falling away.

i wonder what changes next year will bring…

23May2014

our week

Posted in familyness, let me let me update ya, love and happiness by ElaineMarie

what would 80 year-old me want to know about this week? what would i want to remember?

i try really hard to capture life as it happens and tell the story of our time together in this space. you see, this story that i tell myself now is how i will remember my life in my years to come. our lives are a collection of the stories we tell ourselves. once this moment passes all we have left is the story.

what do i want to tell myself?

i want to remember the way darla said “i’m the queen of the underworld mermaids” after she colored her lips with black marker. i want to remember the brightness of the poppies around the corner. i want to remind myself of how many times i gaze at that little cradle next to my bed and think about the day in the not-to-distant-future when this person will no longer be a part of me but separate and taking up space in the outside world instead of within me.

i want to remember this picture darla drew of Woody Cat during a breakfast date doodle session and then her demanding i send a picture of it to my parents. i hope to remember how engrossed darla has been with her first set of legos. i want to remember our colorful garden projects and how we really got into finding new objects to paint and add to the gardens, how a walk down the alley to find these items turned into an adventure. i want to remember how it feels to watch new things sprout from the ground and have such high hopes that they will turn bountiful by summer’s end.

i want to remember how darla talked a complete stranger into constructing a fishing pole for her from scratch. i want to look back at a moment of late afternoon life in my household and remember how normal and beautiful it looked bathed in sunlight and be reminded that sometimes there are moments of peace here. i want to remember darla’s joy and enthusiasm as she shows me how she’s taught herself to jump rope 20 times without misstep. and i want to remember how that little girl planted a tree. i want to remember how i tried to talk her out of it at first, tried to explain the years it would take for that tree to grow, and had to stop myself. i had to say “elaine, she’s a little girl who wants to plant some seeds in the hope that they will grow into a tree. just let it go.” and i did. and she did.

i want to remember how overwhelmed and exhausted i felt by midweek. i felt utterly incapable of handling any and all things in life that day. i was short on patience and rude at times. i cried. i yelled at darla and snapped at mike. old lady elaine will smile as she reads that all it took was an early bedtime for my household to then wake the next day and have the nicest of days. the difference a day makes.

and i think 80 year-old me would want to remember how much i love my life and my family and myself at this point in time. i think future me will need to know that is part of my story. that it’s hard some days and i feel lost but despite that, the majority of the time i am happy. so the other stuff doesn’t matter.

future me needs to know that i’m happy, so that’s what i want to put down here. this week was real life and real life makes me happy.

*best wishes for a sunny, memorable Memorial Day weekend to you*

hi all, if you have a chance will you please click the vote button below and cast your vote for momjeanz for top baby blogs? it helps the blog gain exposure and readers. thanks!

16May2014

our week

Posted in familyness, let me let me update ya, love and happiness by ElaineMarie

let’s just take a look at how the view to my week began:

yeah. yep.

and also these wonderful moments took place somewhere in there…

i’m exhausted. this could be because: weather is warm and life is full, my child is an endless pit of energy, i am growing a human, and finally, i am not an endless pit of energy. i’m more like one of those shallow rubbermaid containers of energy. you know, the kind that fit under the bed?

mmmmmm bed.

i guess it means we’re doing life right. i really do love keeping busy. i’m not always the best at turning around and taking a good look at all that we’ve accomplished with the day or the week. i tend to focus forward and get wrapped up in that never-ending to-do list, leaving myself feeling consistently overwhelmed. these friday posts help me take a look back at all that was done. and most weeks when i look back i see a much better balance of fun, work and learning than i do in the everyday. i probably should start some kind of gratitude ritual with darla at the end of the day to review all we’ve experienced. that would help. i’ll add that to my to-do list.

i thought i was going to get a full and separate unschooling post done with this week but i don’t have the brain power to extricate that out from our regular life doings. plus, i feel that since we’ve been doing this for a full year now i’ve finally fit it into my brainspace that unschooling is the integration of everyday life and learning and not separate times or days i set aside. i have done a better job of not being focused on regimented, scheduled unschooling. it’s just part of our life. we wake up and if it’s beautiful out i say “we’ll find another time to do the chores. let’s get outside” and we learn outside. if it’s rainy we stay in and learn inside or from our errands around town. and if it’s a long, cold winter that breaks our souls, we learn from the powerful world of netflix…

we took an adventure day this week that resulted in a trip to a waterfall, picnic and stroll along the river. multiple visits to the nursery, and helping with our own garden provided ample learning opportunities for D. we started an art project this week for the garden that i hope will help us bring some bright color out into our growing space. i can’t seem to get enough color into my life these days. i want to paint ALL THE THINGS!

*that’s all from us for the week. sending you love and butt pinches for a wonderful weekend!*

you may have noticed a new little button over on the sidebar of MomJeanz, maybe not. so i’m going to point it out over there. see? well, i signed up for a baby blog directory so other bloggers can find and connect with MomJeanz. pretty nifty! if you could click on that button when you visit MomJeanz it casts a vote for my blog and helps the blog gain more exposure. I’ll be including it in my friday posts from now on so even if you can only give me one vote a week, or whenever you remember, it will still help. thanks for reading and helping this momma out!

9May2014

MY week

Posted in familyness, let me let me update ya, love and happiness by ElaineMarie

y’all, i’m going to talk about alone time.

these last couple weeks i’ve been craving alone time. i think it correlates to my nesting and urge to get things accomplished. it’s left me wondering if other women experience this deep need for alone time in their last trimester as well? is it a part of birth preparation? or is this constant desire for a bit of solitude in my day part of my personality?

well, i got what i asked for. D spent the week with my parents and mike started a new job. he’ll probably put double the hours in at this first week at his new job than what he’s been working for the past two years. so in a short span of time i went from having people all up in my grill to being quite alone, quite a lot.

i was busy. i was productive. and i wasn’t always alone thanks to the many appointments, meetings and friendly dates i crammed into this week. but this week did leave me feeling lonely and above all else, BORED.

the week made me take it down a notch in my desire to be alone with my to-do list. because while it was nice to get things accomplished…accomplishments are boring. i look back through my snapshots of the week and see a lack of life. it’s nice to have the moments when i can sit down and eat a snack on the couch because no one is looking, or to get my new green babies potted, to take walks and to get the bathroom painted, but without my family these things mean a lot less. maybe this week was about learning that squeezing these check lists in to all the chaos of family life is a pretty fantastic blessing. i’m glad to have a chance to come back around on that before life gets a whole lot more hectic. i know i’ll be singing a different tune in a few months so i need to put these thoughts and feelings down here now so i can pull it up when i’m at my limits.

and look at that rad little bit of life in that first photo!!! it was nice to remind myself i was never truly alone. and it was so lovely to see my littlest love for the first time. that was by far the most important thing that happened this week. part of me was sad that darla wasn’t there for it and that mike was at work but part of it felt right. i got to call darla up and tell her the baby has her nose. a nose that i’ll be able to give lots of kisses in a few short months. until then i’m happy to have these pics to gaze upon. even if the last one is pretty creepy because the babe has one eye open. must be a metallica fan. i know an uncle that is going to be happy about that…

*thanks for reading this week. i hope you had a good one. sending you my best for a lovely mother’s day weekend. please read on for a little favor that i need to ask you. because you are one of my favorite readers ;-) *

you may have noticed a new little button over on the sidebar of MomJeanz, maybe not. so i’m going to point it out over there. see? well, i signed up for a baby blog directory so other bloggers can find and connect with MomJeanz. pretty nifty! if you could click on that button when you visit MomJeanz it casts a vote for my blog and helps the blog gain more exposure. I’ll be including it in my friday posts from now on so even if you can only give me one vote a week, or whenever you remember, it will still help. thanks for reading and helping this momma out!

2May2014

our week

Posted in familyness, let me let me update ya, love and happiness by ElaineMarie

low lighting gave our pictures this week that fuzzy look, which is ok because that’s how our week felt. anyone else have a fuzzy week?

normal life rolls on out and the magic is in the small stuff: washing up and organizing saved baby items, visiting the market with my girl for a waffle reward as a stimulus after i’d been out late at a birth, watching darla take on the pottery wheel. you can see that girl means business. i think my favorite little life detail is in that second photo up there. the ever so slight arch in darla’s eyebrow as she takes in the enormity of her donut. i wasn’t going to include this last photo of myself {that darla took} until i noticed that i, too, have that slight arch of my eyebrow present in that image.

that might be the most important thing that happened in my week. even though much grander life events took place this week, transitions and births and responsibilities, that small shared trait trumps them all. there’s little in life so poetic as the slight arching of a woman’s brow. those few centimeters can mean the difference between living and existing.

*i’m sending out my gratitude for the living that took place this week

…and for the existing.

i hope you had a good one. all my best for your weekend.*

13Apr2014

learning how to share

Posted in let me let me update ya by ElaineMarie

dear friends, family & fans,

thanks, as always, for reading my blog and being a source of encouragement. i have no idea why some of you have stuck with me for so long but thank you just the same.

many of you might have read about facebook’s upcoming changes to their algorithm that affects how pages such as MomJeanz share new posts with their fans. right now about 8-10% of a page’s fanbase organically sees a post. the upcoming changes will limit our audiences to about 1-2% viewing for those pages who do not pay to promote a post.

say what?!

now i would love to be able to pay to promote my posts and grow my readership but that’s just not feasible or financially smart for a hobby blog such as mine.

there are a couple of things you can do as readers to stay up on MomJeanz action and help circulate new posts: 1. you can hover over the “like” button on my blog page and click on “get notifications”. Keep in mind, this means you will get a notification for every post i make. this option is good for the hard-core MomJeanz fan who wants to keep close tabs on our doings {mom, this one’s for you} 2. OR you can just visit the MomJeanz page, frequently, and comment on or share the posts. the more interactions a post has, the more it will show up in the feed of others, organically. 3. OORRR you could add MomJeanz to your blog feeds. i use bloglovin’ for organizing my blogs but another one is called Feedly {both have free apps as well}. and then you can share your favorite MomJeanz posts to your Facebook page. yay!

of course, you can always do none of these things. but fyi, soon your feed will be full of a lot more posts, articles, and links from businesses that have paid to be in your face and there will be a lot less of the actual things that you want in your face…in your face.

i hope you will choose to stay in touch with this blog. if you haven’t liked the facebook page for my bloggity then come on over and do so. thanks for reading as always. you’re a gem. a real diamond in the rough.

7Apr2014

weekending

Posted in let me let me update ya, love and happiness by ElaineMarie

look at that sunny weekend! finalllllllllllllllly. we have sunshine back in our lives.

here’s my view from some of the further nesting and weekend doings we had going on:

finished darla’s dream catcher so now both my babies will have sweet dreams, had some quiet catch-up-on-work time, rubbed some old paint on some old pots and made them over like new, brewed up a tasty batch of veggie broth, wore eyeliner for the first time in a long time out for a ladies bday taco fest, cheered on the beard while he ran a High FiveK in perfect spring weather.

it was all very domestic and friend/family centric and full of spring time magic. sending you poz vibes for your week!

14Feb2014

Bun in the {L}oven

Posted in familyness, let me let me update ya, love and happiness, parenting apparently? by ElaineMarie

think you know what this picture means? other than that i need to give the inside of our oven door a scrub down?

Well, it only seems appropriate that on this day of love i disclose to the webiverse that this summer we’re going to have a new little wrucker to love on.

i gots a bun in my loven oven!

yeah, i just called it a loven oven and what’s more is i’ve used that term with clients before. i am nothing if not tactful and professional.

do you guys know what this means? this gets to turn into a pregnancy blog! the internet needs more of them! there aren’t enough out there.

but in all seriousness, i do plan on documenting this pregnancy here. now that i do birth work it’s been quite a different experience for me. it’s been a good one. it’s put me back in the shoes of my clients, reminding me what this simultaneous state of power and vulnerability feels like. to put it bluntly i’ve had to put my money where my mouth is. i am experiencing again how hard it can be as a woman in our society to trust in my body. i am experiencing the overwhelming amounts of information out there that requires sifting through to discover the best, informed plan for my family.

i’m reminded of what it feels like for a tiny human to be an acrobat inside you and to feel ferociously determined to protect and provide for that person with each nudge and kick.

so, we’re on our way to becoming a family of four. darla has BIG plans for her and this new babe. we told her on her 5th birthday and she was absolutely the sweetest to me. when she got her bike for her birthday she said “but where are we going to put the baby seat?” which filled me with fear of what i’m going to have to intercept down the road {bike pun!} and happiness that she sees toting a baby on her bike as normal, since that is what she experienced.

well, happy valentine’s day to all. sending you love vibes to you and yours from the growing ours.