molly irwin

roam if you want to

... without anything but the love you feel.

Monday Mosaics

While on holiday, I thought I'd share a mosaic featuring some of my favorites from flickr.  Enjoy! 

1. new bedroom  2. empty - paperquilt  3.  moopy monkey  4. looking up  5.  green blue vine  6.  Yellow tomatoes  7.  untitled  8. Have a seat, or ten  9. new drawing corner  10.  Untitled  11. Sewing with Felt  12. sailboat  13.  crayon cookies  14. This one's mine   15.   gocco - before burning the screen, all set to go  16. Diversity Garden

little of this, little of that

This is so cool!  If you ever visit DC you might want to try a segway to get around. 

Evidently, Capital Segway does complete tours or just rents them, hourly.  We were at the US Botanic Garden last weekend and this group was going by as we came out.  They looked like they were having so much fun.  Some were better at operating them than others, but it seemed everyone managed to cross that intersection okay.

Aside from the usual flora at the Botanical, this time they had these amazing metal sculptures of culinary plants with glass enclosures for smelling the raw spicy aromas.  We all loved it.  Unfortunately, I was so occupied taking the pictures and keeping little hands at a safe distance, that I entirely missed any info on the artist.

I realize that my blog reads more like a travelog lately than that of someone sharing creative projects and I have to tell myself over and over - that's okay.  We are a culmination of our experiences and we create, not in a vaccuum, but as a result of our interpretations of those life experiences.  So, if there is no outside interest in these small glimpses of our daily life, at least I can look back and call upon the thoughts and feelings and ideas that I had at this time.

My "work" of late has been in planning two other blogs, one for an organization and one for an individual.  I've been asked, and have accepted, to co-chair our annual fall auction for my childrens' school and I'll be designing the campaign for that effort.  I love these projects so much mostly because of the great enthusiasm and professionalism of the chairperson (or, I guess now, co-chair)  Frances Evangelista.  She is a total go-getter!

I need to be organizing my house; it needs a complete purge.  We have a fantastic third floor space with exposed structural timbers and 3 large skylights that I would really like to use for my desk and a nice round Herman Miller table that was my Fathers, that currently contains the contents of two large storage lockers.  I look at this and wonder why we ever bothered to keep these things.  But for some old books and a few nicer wedding gifts, I don't know what it all is or why we have it.

This week I sort of lost my desire to write anything for a few days by the sheer emotional gravity of a couple of things I read.  One was this, and the overwhelmingly supportive response.  The other, was an account of a friend, the former boyfriend of my best friend, who by a combination of drinking problems and bad choices is in a very, very sad spot indeed.  My heart was heavy for him for days.

We are getting ready for a summery visit with family and friends and my thoughts are pretty fragmented right now.  Hopefully with some time away I'll get a little clarity.  I want to see my Mom.  It's been too long.

take off

Paul had a great idea last night.  After dinner and before bed, we headed down to Gravely Point, just across the Potomac from National Airport.  From here, you can watch the planes take off, up close and loud.  We haven't done that in a couple of years and the kids had forgotten all about it. 

They were crazy with energy and barely stopped moving, until a big one was directly overhead, or just to watch someone down at the boat launch.

Then it was off, on the run again.

This is one of my favorites:

 

A great way to spend a cooler summer evening!

100 years

Life does not drift by.  It does not fly.  It soars.

I've had that song 100 years in my head all day, by Five for Fighting.  That guy is good!  I think it's because I've been corresponding with some old SWCS friends who I haven't seen in forever and thinking about how fragile and quick it all is.

Thomas Moore said "The soul delights in an extended sense of time."  I can feel that's true.  And so, to slow things down a bit, I'm catching a few of my own memories:

Today at lunch Helen said:  "Mom, remember in the little house on St. Patrick's Day you put green food coloring in the milk and Joanie wouldn't drink it?"   She remembers everything.  And I'm so glad she does 'cause I would not have remembered that.

Last week with her first taste of a fresh Basil leaf, a wide-eyed Joan remarked: "mmmmmm ... it tastes like jelly beans!"

I also want to always remeber this small, but frequent conversation we had at meal time in the little house (H=5, J=3) I went just like this:

H:  "Mmmm, num, num, num, num"

J:  "Bop a no"

H: "Can you not say bop-a-no?"

J: "I will say bop-a-no."

I need to document this stuff.  My life with them ... together. This simple, small unique stuff that only they would think, do or say.

Anna Quindlen phrased it so eloquently when she wrote: "...but the biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make while doing this. I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of the three on them sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages 6, 4, and 1. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in a hurry to get on to the next things: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less."

Write it, picture it, preserve it.

errands and key fobs

This morning was set aside for errands.  That means our local shopping center and that means running into people I know.  This makes me happy.  After eight years at this address, these small encounters make me feel that this is my place too; that this area has become my home. 

Last night for a bedtime story, Paul read a Christmas story to the kids, celebrating the fact that we are now halfway between last Christmas and the next.  I thought that was so cute.  At the same time, unbeknownst to him, I have begun my Christmas shopping. 

I'm not usually the get-it-done-early type.  But I found these really cool little key fobs, while sufing flickr last week.  They are handmade by company out of North Carolina, called Black Bags.  I like supporting cottage industries and can absolutely appreciate the effort they put into manufacturing and marketing with the greatest care.  I was delighted when they arrived yesterday:

The quality is outstanding in fabric weight, stitching detail and hardware and you will not believe the price.  The range of patterns and colors is really good.  I bought a bunch of them.  I think in the fall around the holidays they will be hard to get. 

Also, you have got to check out her bags!  They are remarkably affordable and so beautiful and unique.  It's just a matter of time for me.  I plan to keep one of the key fobs for myself and give the rest.  This is the one I'm leaning toward, but it's a tough choice.  I love them all.

Black Bags is my latest "fun stuff" item in the sidebar to the left.  Do not wait.  Go there now!

Also, on the topic of Christmas, I have several projects already lined up to share with you.  A couple from years past (since I didn't have my blog then) and a couple of new crafty things that should bring in the season right.  Check for it sometime early November.

water, water everywhere

One thing that Paul is continually dismayed about is the number of half empty water bottles that float around my car.  It's one of those small things that just gets to him, not because the car is a mess (which it is) but because I buy the bottled water in the first place. 

It's a waste of money, he argues, when it is something that comes into our home for free.  We have a really good water filter that removes any potential unwanted trace elements, so it is not a water quality issue for me.  My bottled water habit has developed over time and has become one of convenience.  I don't drink soda, so when we have been out somewhere for hours and I want a drink, I go for the bottle.  Also, I think the kids drink more water in the car from a bottle - better than a juice box, right?  Most of the time I refill and reuse the bottles, but occasionally the clutter just gets to me and I find myself trashing the lot when I gas-up.

When we lived in Vermont, I worked for a brilliant product brand man, Jack Maguire. Before I knew him, Jack had been the exclusive importer, of Evian for the US market in the '80s. He confided that the US selling proposition for Evian (at the time) was all about health. They met the market mindset at the right time, in the right way, at a time when product positioning in film and television was still a fresh concept.  After making a success of the Evian brand, Jack moved to Vermont and launched the Vermont Pure water company, which can be found in stores throughout the east coast today. 

As a sales rep in specialty foods, with a pretty big territory covering the hills of Southern VT, northern MA and Eastern NY (mountains really, not hills) my bottled water habit took hold.  I would have two, big liter bottles in the car; one on my way out and one on the way back home.  It became a big thing for me.  I don't smoke and I don't drink caffiene, so what's the harm, right? 

{next to my kitchen sink on any given day.}

Well, last night, Paul dropped this article, from ENR, on my desk that really opened my eyes.  The article is protected by purchase agreement, but it's so very relevant to me personally and I think enough others, that I want to summarize and quote a few key passages.   

The article points to environmental concerns with the making, transporting and disposing of bottles, which according to San Francisco Mayer Gavin Newsom requires more than 47 million barrels of oil a year, with more than a billion bottles ending up state landfills annually.  The other illuminating factor in the article is the implied correlation between water marketing and a cavalier attitude toward the status of municipal water supplies.  Theoretically, the article claims that with bottled water as an alternative, people can afford to take less interest in the quality of the available water supply; its maintenance and funding.

I try to do what I think is environmentally responsible in small day-to-day things that I can affect, like recycling, buying less-toxic cleaning products, etc.  But this one just slipped right under my radar. 

It seems I need to make a change. Gulp.  Or rather, no gulp.

Mama time

I've been just Mama for the past couple of days.  Not the person who has time to create things, just Mama.  It's remarkable, really how much time it takes to do all those little things to keep them happy throughout the day. I have actually vacuumed the kitchen three times a day, out of sheer necessity -- no way am I a clean freak -- it really needed it.  These little events can really slice the day into the smallest increments. Then, where did the day go? 

I still have an afternoon napper, so the girls have been filling their quiet time with collecting paper cutouts from magazines and playdoh. After nap and before dinner we do this regular driveway play (pictured above).

We picked out some cherries at Whole Foods today

and yesterday at the co-op I found some of the tiniest, most beautiful organic plums I've ever seen.  They were only slightly larger than cherries.

It seems I am in the store every couple of days now because we are going through the fruit and vegetables like mad. 

Sometimes I wish for a little uninterupted silence to simply make a phone call or write something, and I have to remind myself that I will have that someday.  These kids will only be small and I will only have summer vacations with them for a few short years before they're off with thier friends and on their way.  I really need to keep that perspective because there is so much whirling through my mind that I'd otherwise like to be accomplishing.  There's no rush.  No rush.

inside ... out

Okay, well, that didn't go so well. 

This little (very young) house sparrow somehow managed to get in our house, presumably through the chimney, last week.  I thought I'd use the photos I took for inspiration on a theme:  Inside ... out.  I started this on Friday, and worked it a little more today, but I'm just still not happy with it.  There is also, an acrylic on canvas that I've started and might share later on if I can get it to where I like it.  Just trying to paint with the kids talk, talk, talking ... asking me to look at their paintings, lots of interuptions, etc.  I couldn't get into a groove.  They managed to bang out a couple of awesome watercolors though.

One thing that I did like about the way I painted today, was to have two paintings going at the same time.  This way, I could allow the one to sort of sit and dry before adding new color layers to it, while working on the other.  I like that!  That, I'll do again and again. 

animated weekend

Image from An eye for Annai, animated short, by Jon Klasses and Daniel Rodrigues, Canada, 2005.

A good lazy summer saturday afternoon for us included: 

+ Little Ones, animated short film series @ National Gallery of Art. The image above is from my favorite of the six - absolutely adorable and completely fun.  It was great to see it on a big screen, but I just saw that you can view it on Utube.

+ Seeing three, large Mattisse Cutouts from 1953. 

+ A Pint of red ale, fried shrimp and crabcakes on the waterfront.

+ Wandering the southwest seafood market.  I really wish I had my camera for that one - the blue crabs flopping all over themselves.)

Once again, enjoying summer in our area, feeling like tourists in DC. 

Paul and I both missed our high school class reunions this weekend.  We just could not travel to New York two weekends this month and, in the end, had to choose a family event.  To all our buddies out there ... have one with a kind memory of us.  We are thinking fondly of you all.

I've been having fun with a bird theme (inspired by my encounter) and will probably have some paintings to show you on Monday.

Cheers!