Dance in the wind.

I wanted to share a few things I have been sitting with for the last few days.

I think every mother (and probably every father) at one point or another tries to be "SuperMom" or "SuperDad". Trying to do the right thing, say the right thing, feed your child the right thing, use the right 'gentle parenting' methodology, discipline gently but firmly, all the while trying to keep a spotlessly clean house and fashionably dressed and have all your ducks in a row. You feel constantly like you are on a treadmill you can't get off.

At least that's the way I tend to feel from time to time. Then a realization, a rememberance comes out of the fog and whispers...

"just let go Jess..."

LET GO.

Stop trying to be and JUST BE. Stop trying to make your life into anything and just LIVE IT.

Enjoy it. Take deep breaths. Delight in every bite of food you take. Dance with your daughter to the radio. Read your favorite books until you fall asleep at night. Kiss your husband and feel all those butterflies you felt the first time you kissed him.

LET GO and LIVE.


This is somehting that I have been working with today and just thought that I would share it.

You hold the key to your happiness. The only person standing in your way is you.

Mantra of the day:

I am releasing control.
I am letting go and letting it be.
I am the light. I am the love. I am the flow.

friend.

Hello all :)

I promised birthday party pictures and they are soon to arrive but I had the urge to post this tonight.

Compassion.

I have been facing some shadows with certain family members of mine, and it's been a really rough road. It's a female member of my family who is very dear to me, and it's been very hard for me to try and stay positive and be compassionate towards this person because of this situation. Without giving to many details, because it's a very personal matter, I never realized how my relationship with this person and these trials effected me on such a massive scale.

Lately I have had this feeling.
This craving.
A deep primal urge for a female connection. For a circle, a tribe of women to be surrounded and supported by. To be my strength when I feel weak, and vice verse. Even just one, one true friend who would listen to me ramble, laughing over coffee while our children played, or just letting me cry and just hugging me.

I had this, in high school. When I was younger. A few certain friends and I were inseparable. But life and time have a funny way of putting spaces between you that you can feel like you can't get across. One went off to a different college and is still single and living the young mid 20's life. Another is also married with a little one, and working full time. Several others over time have fallen off after I got married and especially after Layla was born.

I feel like I haven't been able to reconnect in a way on a intimate level with them, although we do our best to keep in touch. Life just flies by and before you know it, you realize your list of friends has dwindled down to less than a few.

I am curious if there are other mothers, women, young women, older women who feel like this.

I feel like lately (and this could be hormones and PMS talking...lol), I could cry at the slightest bit of emotional connection, for the sheer relief of it. That feeling of being supported and cared for by another, of just love untainted. Truth has been moving me so much. Realness. A picture of a woman who obviously has conceived and birthed several children, her open, honesty, of her naked frame, the stretch marks the wrinkled loose skin, age, it literally made my breath catch in my throat.

We need more of this. More exposure. My raw unapologetic truth. We have been spoiled on perfection and it's boring and predictable. And sad. Give me real. Any day.

I send my intention out into the universe that a true female friend will be brought to me when the time is right. Someone to supplement my life. Someone who wants to be friends with me because they genuinely appreciate my company and feel enriched by being close to me as well.

I know these feelings stem from what is going on with said female family member, but I feel like really that just barely scratched the surface of a desire for a connection. The purity of true friendship, intimacy, joy in being around someone that you relate to on so many levels.

These are just some thoughts that have been running around in my mind of late. For those of you reading this, have you ever felt like this? And if you have a female friend in your life whether it be a sister, mother, daughter, or best girlfriend, tell her how much she means to you or better yet show her. I almost wrote to pick up the phone but no...GO. Go see her. Go hug her. Sometimes a hug can mean so much more than the sum of itself.

There are not enough hugs being given.

Give more hugs. And more compassion. And more truth.

Summer Days Short but Sweet

Layla enjoying an ice cream cone. Layla singing into the huge outdoor fan on the deck, hair blowing in the wind :). Little Miss Hollywood. Sweet cousins and their books.
You'll have to excuse the quiet around here.
These are what my days have been made up of lately.
love. love. love.

Layla's birthday is in 21 days so there is party planning going on as well :).
Previews of DIY'd birthday decor are coming soon...
Hope everyone has a fabulous week!

Nourishment.

Things that are nourishing my soul right now.

This lovely woman and her healing blog.

Spaces like these.






This book that I am nearly finished with. It has made so much sense and brought such a feeling of peace to my frazzled mama heart as of late.

creating with your hands.


Can I live in this for the rest of the summer?


Solitude.


What is nourishing you?

Kindness.

Kindness.

A word that can be so loaded. I believe that every person on the face of this earth, regardless of race, religion, sexual preference, etc., desires to feel kindness. Kindness and love. Warmth for another. Connectedness. To not be a alone.

How choices are made, lives changed, based on the loss or gift of kindness and love.

I feel a deep sadness in my heart and have for a while. I feel the pain of others so enormously. The tone of my brother's voice over the phone, calling from North Carolina, living on his own for the first time, the loneliness, the sadness from a recent loss in his life. The pain of watching a loved one struggle through a very difficult change in their life.

My own pain. From events and memories that I didn't realize were still holding me bound. Things that I thought were fading into the dust of history. I feel as if I am grieving. Grieving for what could have been. For the things lost. Needing to cry these things out. The tears to be a balm for old wounds.

I know this post is vague but it's something that I needed to get out.

Hope everyone has a happy weekend and I send you all love.

And kindness.

What Layla has Been up to Lately.

playing in a kitchen cabinet



giving me "the face"


dancing near the window.



my precious angel girl.

I never realized how much my heart could love.

Right now she's singing along to Disney's Mulan and dancing in her jammies.
My heart is full.

I know there's got to be a blue sky waiting for me.

Hello all :)

Monday official start of the week. A lot of things have been brewing and stewing around here lately. A lot of digging, and figuring out where I am headed on this path to living my passion and making it happen. I am in the beginning stages. Planning, brainstorming and researching. Making up a game plan. I set a goal for myself at the beginning of the year that I would be selling my creations, my crafts, by New Year 2012. And that plan is still in motion. I am doing some research and this week plan to get cracking and crank out a few items (that I entirely plan to take photos of and post on here) and prepare to be sold. A local antique store here, owned by a friend of my mothers' is letting me set up a shelf for my items to be sold locally, so I am super stoked! Once I get everything set up I will take some photos of the layout at the store so you guys can check it out.

My brother was home for the weekend, and although I wish that I had pictures to post, sometimes aren't you just happy experiencing the moment instead of being behind the lens recording it? I love documenting life moments, sure, but sometimes I just like to soak it all up right then and there.

We hung out and watched "Easy A" and "Mystery Science Theater 3000" (our favorite). We quote movies to each other all the time. It's almost like our secret language, because half the time no one knows what we are talking about. We'll be laughing, and spouting of hilarious lines from movies or shows and everyone else around us is like ...."uhhh......"
:)

I am sad he had to go back home today. Back to Charlotte NC. Back to work. Back to being on his way to becoming an awesome chef. I am so proud of him for going after his dream, and doing it all on his own. He's going after what he wants and making it happen.

I think I'll take a page from his book this week and set the wheels in motion on this "Dream Train".

Here goes nothin!