The way things go + some current crushes
Posted on | May 6, 2010 | 17 Comments
Hi! I have so many things I want to share with you today.
First, some crushes:
These luminous folder icons have completely revamped my desktop and seriously upped both my cool factor and organization.
These fabulous planers are also rocking my organizational world. I am so not an organized girl when it comes to creative projects. I see BIG PICTURE and details sometimes get sidelined. This in particular has really helped me to narrow my focus and get things done.
And I’ve been wanting to share this glorious camera bag that arrived in the mail a few weeks ago (I was the Shutter Sister’s giveaway winner) and oh man… I can’t even begin to tell you how lovely and awesome it is. It’s big enough to fit my camera and everything else I schlep around, and pretty enough to make me look put together even when I’m not. (THANK YOU Maile!!)
These photos (swoon) and this blog.
Some news:
I was interviewed here and here this past week by two of the most amazing, inspiring women in the blogosphere.
Last night I put some new prints up in my little shop!
And at this moment: the weather is all over the map still. Rain, sun, wind, rain.
Everything is exuberantly green in the same way that kids color the grass in their pictures: GREEN EVERYWHERE. And while I love what green stands for (summertime picnics, gardening, bike rides, bonfires) I wish the apple blossoms could stay longer. In a single afternoon they exploded into full bloom with bees everywhere, each tree its own secret universe of pollen and petals, and then today, just a few days later, there are already as many petals on the grass as on the trees. So fleeting. So fleeting. Everything is this.
We hung out with the very first friend we made here last night. He was sitting on the porch across from our new apartment as we backed over the curb repeatedly with an enormous moving truck. I remember feeling utterly out of place among the scads of college kids with 7 month old Bean in tow and actual real furniture instead of futons, but M. walked over and said hello, and Bean thought he was the coolest person ever and we’ve been friends since. Now Bean is five and M. is moving to Austria for an unbelievably awesome job, and wow. Time. There it went.
There is no more of a tangible way to notice time’s passing than to watch a child grow. This, and then this. SO FAST. I’m carrying on about this today because I get it this time. I get that these moments right now are the ones I’m going to look back on and say, oh, that was when it started. That’s when we had no idea. (Sprout is still small-ish, but the next time I stop to think about it he’ll likely be riding a bike. )
I’ve gotten the most wonderful emails from some of you about being at similar points of transition–and I so love them. I think it is incredibly helpful to tell each other these stories about how things begin. About the moments before beginning when all we’re doing is imagining and waiting and things feel scary and at large (because they kind of are.)I want to hear more about these moments in your lives.
What is beginning right now? What are you on the brink of?
Comments
17 Responses to “The way things go + some current crushes”
Leave a Reply
I am Christina Rosalie
Hello. I'm so happy you've stopped by!
I am a multimedia storyteller, digital strategist, idea starter, stalker of wonder, finder of four leaf clovers, MFA graduate student, and mama of boys. My first book,
will be published by SKIRT! Books in September, 2012.
DAILY ART:
Follow:
Tags
Categories
Archives
ALWAYS:
May 6th, 2010 @ 10:35 am
Congratulations on your book being funded! What a wonderful project and a great example to keep hope alive! ; )
May 6th, 2010 @ 10:45 am
Thanks for all of the links… Fun stuff! And I so enjoyed seeing Super Bean and reading your past posts. My beginning is beginning my new job in August. I am planning and taking classes and writing lessons (even though I don’t exactly know how or what I need to do yet) and also thinking about how to say goodbye to this phase in my life. Goodbye to kids at home during the day, making lunches, playdates during the week… All three kids will be in elementary school all day next year. The days go by so slow that you don’t see the years whizzing past.
May 6th, 2010 @ 12:34 pm
I want that bagggg too!!
Tomorrow is my last day of fieldwork, at least for now. I am on the brink of returning to SF, looking at what I’ve done these last 9 months, and beginning to write my dissertation or plan another stint of fieldwork. Also on the brink of settling down in a way I’ve been yearning for. A place where i can have vegetable plants and paint the walls and say “I live here, indefinitely”.
May 6th, 2010 @ 12:36 pm
Fleeting, my goodness, yes. Each *hour* has seemed fleeting lately… perhaps some of the bewitchery of spring. I’m not even going through any huge life transitions like you, just the mental one of What should I be doing? Am I mooching off of my husband’s paycheck by sticking around the house all day trying to find moments for dream-chasing? Are my dreams worth chasing anyway, really? How can I make the SAHM life I have right now feel worthy? What needs to change? I’m hoping spring has some answers hidden up its spangled sleeves.
May 6th, 2010 @ 12:47 pm
i certainly love that first photo…so pretty!
on the brink of moving across the country, (as you know), and getting things done in our home which will become rental property, and trying to pack and all i want to do is paint background pages in my travel journal, listening to music and drinking tea and scan and edit photos.
May 6th, 2010 @ 1:07 pm
I loved the post with the long legged shadows. So many times you say it EXACTLY RIGHT.
I am on the brink of deciding whether to have kids or not. I say this because we have not gotten pregnant in the last 6 years and I am in my mid 30′s so we now have to decide whether to pursue what I will call medical intervention or just content ourselves to the fact that we will not have kids. We like our life they way it is but we both were raised thinking we would be more than a family of two some day. We worry that later we will look back after I am too old and wish that we had. Do we want kids enough to go through all the poking & prodding & treatments & hopes & disappointments & possibility of multiples, etc? We don’t know. For so many people it is not a even a concious desision but for us right now it is like we are all in or we walk away.
May 6th, 2010 @ 1:53 pm
I’m on the brink of (and in the midst of) big life changes. Last autumn, I reached crisis point. I could not keep spending all my time working at a job I hate and then having nothing left. The years are passing and I feel like I’ve lost a lot of myself!
So, my partner and I began the work of Big Change! We just finished a very exhausting move into a smaller apartment that we love in a new town we’re excited about. Next up – quitting my job! As it turns out, I’ll be laid off. So…I am waiting for that. It’s a matter of weeks now.
That’s going to leave me with an unimaginable amount of new time and space in my life. We’ll be able to get by financially for a while as I figure out…what is it I want to do with my life? I vow never to go back to something that drains my soul. That is exciting, but I’m also SCARED. It’s up to me now…
May 6th, 2010 @ 4:50 pm
“you can’t know the shape of grief when you’re in it. It comes only after, when the days are ripe with springtime green and fleeting sweet fragrance of blossoms, and you look around and see the shape of your life.”
healing, so, so beautifully expressed…
May 7th, 2010 @ 2:44 am
Hi Christina, many thanks for mentioning my Luminous Folder Icons, I’m so glad you find them useful!
Love Awake and Dreaming!
Take care,
Kate
May 7th, 2010 @ 8:41 am
how thoroughly desireable and relate-able. Although I wish I could see a time when my son will ride a bike!
Crazy weather too in the UK, plenty of dreaming, ideas and inspiration. Love finding other artful mothers making it work.
Lovely blog.
Amelia.x
May 8th, 2010 @ 11:12 am
Your boys are growing up so quickly! They are such beautiful boys! tara
May 8th, 2010 @ 2:31 pm
What a lovely space you’ve created here; thank you for sharing
May 8th, 2010 @ 6:26 pm
At 32 weeks, I am on the brink of everything. Motherhood, the changes to my career it will required, the changes to my marriage it will inevitably bring, and even a move to a larger house. Its exciting and terrifying all at once.
May 9th, 2010 @ 12:50 pm
You really struck a chord with me, I am so conscious of time flying by and my three little boys growing up much too fast. I want to freeze these moments so that nothing is lost.
May 10th, 2010 @ 9:45 am
christina,
your posts made me cry this morning. i was a few days behind. and while i’m not a mommy watching her boys growing up and launching a beautiful project with the backing of many who believe in her, i am someone who is in the midst of new beginnings. it’s that scary-excited feeling that sometimes can feel lonely and sometimes can feel joyous and full. i’m finishing up grad school, avoiding my last paper just to prolong what’s become comfortable. and i’m starting a new fulltime job in one week, a new position at a place i’ve been a while, but somehow it’s scary nonetheless. and i’m taking that next step beyond this one passing closer to the many dreams i have. dreams that don’t necessarily bring lots of people near to join me on the journey.
as always, thanks for sharing and uniting us in universal happenings and struggles and quotidian delights.
liz
May 10th, 2010 @ 4:12 pm
it is different the second time around, isn’t it?? now that hyla is two I am remembering all these things about porter at that age.
i am on the brink of feeling better, on the brink of trusting that the meds will work and i will get better and be my old self again. today is a good day and i woke up with a smile on my face. i told my husband that i was afraid that the thyroid medicine might make me “manic” … he said, no, tanya, this is just how people feel normally. i am on the brink of a lot of GOOD.
May 19th, 2010 @ 11:41 am
At 32 weeks, I am on the brink of everything. Motherhood, the changes to my career it will required, the changes to my marriage it will inevitably bring, and even a move to a larger house. Its exciting and terrifying all at once.