Every time I look at this picture from our recent camping trip, I feel about 25 different things all at once and can be most clearly distilled into:
Those two men are my family. I was one and now we’re three.
(then my heart explodes and I have to stop looking at the picture. For my health.)
Love that.
I think that my feet are just touching down from our trip to NC. It was soul food. I’m not really sure what else to say beyond that…my brother Drew was there with my nephew Jack and as a big family we stayed up late and played hard and cooked (parts of) a pig, and smelled like wood smoke from lingering by the fire, and ate charred hot dogs and marshmallows, and watched Asher blindly follow his cousin Jack around with unabashed adulation, and we got to see my sister and step mother and father, and we saw early morning fog and old friends and got hugs and laughed hard and ate my aunt’s amazing cooking that was rounded out with homemade bread and freshly collected eggs and fresh (really, really fresh) milk, cheese and butter. We rolled in the grass and returned to something essential. We went home.
I hope that each of you has that place where you pull up or walk up or sit down and the deepest parts of yourself say, this is where I want to be. This is where I am. For me, that’s Madison County, NC, and specifically two plots of land that aren’t far from one another. Seeing Asher walking around so confidently there is…it’s just soul food, there’s not another word for it.
I only did nominally better than last year with taking pictures, but I did remember to catch a few.
I wish that all of you could have one of these:
That is a Claui. She is one of the better human beings on the planet, and certainly one of my favorites and, along with my cousin Justin, can do a lot of things, but one of them is milk the cow Marigold and then use Marigold’s goods to make these:
mmmm hmmm…homemade (in the absolute truest sense of the word) strawberry shortcake. I know that I’m supposed to be talking about Asher’s 2nd Easter, but I just had to get that out of my system. Whipped cream directly from the source on homemade biscuits? I kind of flipped out.
Ok, so back to Asher’s 2nd Easter…
He didn’t really get it.
He picked up eggs and put them in his basket (not before declaring them balls and throwing the first one in the air and having it land on his head, which made him laugh) but as far as Asher knows, this is what Easter is all about:
His cousin Jack has a battery powered Gator that he cruised all over the farm on. Asher wasn’t totally sure that he wanted to ride on it, but he was 100% sure that he didn’t NOT want to be on it, and so he climbed into the passenger seat, grabbed on to that OS bar with a death grip and rode around with the sweetest look on his little face. A boy was born out of a baby this weekend.
Everything else about the weekend was sublime, so rather than going on and on and on, I’ll just share a couple of more shots and keep grinning ear to ear. Soul. Food.
With my stepmom:
Asher gets to fuel up before the big hunt with his very first taste of fried chicken because, as Drew is always quick to remind me, that’s what Dad’s are for:
And here’s a glimpse of the party (those of you that were at our wedding might recognize this scene!):
So that’s it!
Happy Easter!
Seems simple enough:
(found here)
Drew and I are tumbling down to Georgia tomorrow (Savannah to be exact) for a wedding, and this little sentiment seems like the perfect send off for both our first vacation sans baby, and for our friends that are kicking off their rest of their lives as married rockstars. Maybe I will be blogging about our trip while we’re there and maybe I won’t…it depends on how rigorous our schedule of sleeping in, champagne toasts, and marveling at Savannah’s beauty is. We’ll see.
Let’s be happy. Amen.
I wrote this the month before Asher was born:
Following that conversation, for some reason I started thinking about what the baby might look like…which is a very abstract concept at this point, and something that Drew and I both admit to giving very little thought to. We’ve wondered a little, but I’ve at least never actually tried to picture any of his features…how could I? It’s funny to think that I have no idea what this person that we are about to know so well will look like, while in the very near future I won’t ever be able to imagine not knowing his face. Soon enough, soon enough.
And indeed, my pregnant self was correct. I can’t ever imagine not knowing this little face. My love.
Well team, I’m still shaking off the crazy flu-monster and I’ve thought of a lot of little bits to share but nothing that really amounts to much of a blog post which brings us to the Random Tuesday Link Up at The Un Mom which further provides me with an excuse to over share a couple of things…
I’ve been debating telling you this for a little while because it’s gross and I worry about being gross, but ya’ll this is my life and while I doubt that I will EVER forget this little piece of Walton history, let’s go ahead and get it in writing so that it’s sufficiently saved. (Good grief, what is she rambling about?) Well, in no uncertain terms, here it is: Asher is a bath time tub pooper. Like, 3-4 times a week. And mainly on the nights that Drew is at the hospital and I’m doing the nighttime routine solo. I’ll spare you the majority of the finer points, but suffice to say that my running dialogue with him in the tub every night could probably be recorded and aired as some kind of one woman comedy of errors. I’m sorry that I’ve just shared that with you, but having children=talking about bodily functions A LOT. I would also like any suggestions that you might have about how to curb this decidedly un-bathlike pastime. It turns out that treating yourself to a glass of wine to calm your nerves after the rogue pooper is in bed doesn’t prevent it from happening again the next night no matter how many times I’ve tried that tactic, and Drew’s suggestion of a cork for The Young Sir is most likely illegal in our fine state, so I need some other input. Fire away.
In considerably cleaner and more cheery news, I’m daydreaming about having some kind of spring tea party that will involve hats and girly dingly danglies, but not until the peonies have started blooming. What an unbelievably optimistic flower. (photo from here)
I’m thinking about repainting our Accidentally Aqua living room (Hey Drew! Surprise!) because it needs a little freshening and I can’t decide if I want to stick with the current color or go towards its intended robin’s egg blue or do something totally different. I hate painting but love painted walls.
We tasted Drew’s beer this past weekend, and it’s almost ready…it needs to sit for another two weeks to let the sugars produce some more carbonation, but the flavor is excellent. This has been a dream of Drew’s for a while, so I’m excited that he’s excited and it’s always fun to learn something new.
My interior designer friend Natalie has launched a cool new blog, Bella Hem, as a landing spot for all of the things that her impeccable eye spots. Definitely check it out, and bonus points if you become a subscriber!So that’s a sufficient amount of random-ness for a Tuesday. I will put together something a little more coherent later in the week, and in the meantime kisses and tidy bath time wishes!
I was going through my box of letters from Drew as I was getting stuff together to make the ol boy a Valentine (c’mon, you know I love this stuff!) and came across a letter that stopped me in my tracks. Drew and I starting dating at the end of my freshman year of college and this particular letter is from a winter when Drew was living in Aspen and I had just returned from India, so…second semester of my junior year of college. We tried, rather unsuccessfully, to break up for this time, and despite taking a stab at dating other people, we just found ourselves getting closer and closer despite the half a country that was between us. During this time Drew wrote to me almost weekly, sending along post cards and <<<sigh>>> mixed tapes of music that he was checking out from the library and compiling for me. While he was frying sausages in lift houses and seeking out perfect powder days, I was sorting through the literal and metaphorical ashes of my burned down dorm, and we were sharing those experiences through pen and ink and through music across the miles. Drew came home at the end of the ski season, we got engaged my senior year of college, we were married the following year, and the rest my friends, is our growing history. That time formed one of the tenants of our marriage though, which is that we both believe in having experiences independently of one another at least a little of the time, so that we will always have plenty to say to one another, and so that we are always reminding each other through our actions that trust is the core of our foundation.
So this letter that I found that kind of rocked my married world is sort of epic, and in the vein of keeping one or two things sacred in the blogosphere, I won’t share the whole thing, but I thought that I would share one little quote that Drew wrote because it is Drew Walton 110%.
“Only through love are we able to have understanding and fully grasp our own existence and all of the complete beauty in this world. Only through love can we handle our daily lives and the world in which we live.”
With that in mind, I have to tell you that I love having a reason to celebrate LOVE in the middle of the freezing cold flat grey winter, and that unlike most out there, I don’t see this as a Hallmark holiday, but as a much needed reminder that love, in all of its forms, is worth recognizing. Much in the same way that we spend November saying thanks, December lighting candles to drive the darkness away, and January laying plans for will surely be the best year ever, to me it makes quite a bit of sense that we would spend February celebrating all of the love that we have to give and receive. This quiet time of year is an excellent chance to revisit the basic principles of the Golden Rule, and to let a little more love in. Bleeding heart cheesy hopeless wonder loving woman that I am, I can’t help but believe that John Lennon was quite right. Love IS all you need, and all you need is love.
Happy Valentine’s Day, m’dears.
I have been having a little lovefest with our fair city of late. There are so many working minds and hearts here, so many people looking to not only make a difference, but to explore and expand, to ameliorate (couldn’t resist, sorry), to make creative experiences common, and common experiences creative. 2011 seems to have brought even more of these folks into my life, and all I can say is I am feeling motivated to keep making discoveries of my own to take a modest stab at keeping pace with everyone.
One of these projects is something that my new photographer friend has cooked up and dubbed The People of Charlottesville Project to capture the faces and stories of the members of our community, and she graciously shared her talent and lens with me last week. Sarah is a phenomenal photographer, able to seamlessly blend the emotional and the playful, and to capture not only the moment, but the core essence of the moment. If you’re in town, I highly recommend checking her out, this is a lens and eye that you won’t regret standing in front of. AND…this month she’s running a Love The One Your With special and offering $100 off portrait sessions! I encourage you to think outside of the ol love box here and consider a photo shoot with your pets, your favorite local spot, your best friend, your big sister…if you can dream it, she can capture it, so just give it some thought, and then check out Sarah’s blog here and give her a shout.
So without further ado, but with a little blush, here a couple of pictures from our session. Thank you Sarah!
***Really quick aside: Sarah didn’t pose me at any point during this session, I grabbed the stool and got all lean-y on it. Maybe I see a professional photographer and instantly revert back to the school picture days with my Blossom hat and fist under the chin pose, but as I was just looking at this, I thought I better clarify that you’re looking at 100% Walton moves there.***
is so cute…
Here’s Asher splashing to the oldies with his buddies Cort and Austin last night while the papas watched kick off. These guys are all within 6 months or less of each others, and I feel like a better mama for the time that I get to spend with their mothers. When we were all sitting around with our various growing bellies last year, I’m pretty sure that this is one of the moments that were dreaming of…I know I was at least. And I promise that there was no conversation of “showing these pictures to your dates” or “busting this picture out on prom night” or “making this picture into a shirt for your first big game” or anything like that. Nope, not even a little bit, we would never. 
In the mornings that Drew is home and doesn’t have to dash off to the hospital in the dark, he will often be the one to go to Asher, to give me a few minutes longer under the covers, sleeping or not sleeping, listening to them, and then he brings Asher to our room. Asher reaches out and collapses against my chest and Drew lays back down and we snuggle against each other with this beautiful lingering infant intensity for a few minutes until the world calls to Asher and he’s off, ready to stick his hands in cups and fit pens and tops together and pat the dog and do all of the other 85 things that he’s able to do in under 10 minutes. I know that there will be a day in the not too terribly distant future that the prospect of snuggling with me in bed will kind of horrify Asher, but it is my hope that we can stave that off until there’s at least a teen attached to his age, because the weight of that child against my chest, the feeling of his oh-so-alive body, the body that was cultivated in the soothing darkness of my body, the body that holds every expanding inch of my heart in it, and the little body that right now needs to lay against us before he can greet the day, that body makes me feel whole.
Drew and his buddy Jedd are brewing beer. Watch out! They each have a batch bubbling away in a closet near you, and now I’m told that it’s a waiting game. Personally I think drinking games are a lot more fun, but we’ll get to that. What do you think we should call it? Drew likes Monkey Pig Amber Ale in honor of Asher (I don’t know how or why Drew started calling Asher his little Monkey Pig except to say that it was obvious that Asher was both a monkey and a piglet when he was born, and Drew isn’t one for making the hard choices in life so he went for both.) so that takes care of the name for this batch, but what about his brewery name? Because didn’t you know? We’re apparently starting a brewery. In Drew’s closet. Please by all means share any and all names that you think we should consider, and if you’re nearby and we choose your name, there’s a beer with your name on it (ha!) in your immediate(ish) future. Beer’s not your thing? Then I’ll make you a cake! Ok?
