Rainy day in Seattle
I never imagined I’d be the kind of Mom who let my little girl play in a mud puddle in the middle of a Seattle street.
Yet here we are…
Don’t underestimate the value of mud puddles.
Turnagain Pass
Turnagain Pass is the highest point on the road between Anchorage and Soldotna, Alaska
As of yet unscathed by corporate interests
I love getting pictures of my little girl out in the wilderness
she looks so fragile, buffeted by the wind
of course, there’s the obligatory “Little House on the Prairie” shot
complete with falling down scene
but seriously, isn’t this gorgeous?
Poppies
I thought I’d share these poppies for a little color bling for this end of summer post.
Monday was our seventh wedding anniversary. Seven years, and I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat. I know I’m lucky to spend my life surrounded by so much love.
Any day now…
In the meantime, we’re just trying to soak up the beauty we find all around us.
Grandma’s House
This is the house in which I grew up. It was my grandparents house, but it was my Grandmother who made it a home.
In 1948, my Grandmother packed up her children, and left her beautiful home in Michigan, to join her husband in Alaska where he had moved his dental practice.
She moved from this:
To a 32′ by 32′ log cabin
Her youngest child was 7 months old.
This wasn’t just a house in Alaska. This was a house in an area that was, at the time, the middle of nowhere, Alaska. My grandfather commuted to work in Anchorage by airplane.
Of course, they needed to embiggen the house a bit to accommodate all those kids
And Grandma made sure their newly enlarged home was lovely. Just because they were in the middle of nowhere, Alaska, didn’t mean they were going to live like country bumpkins. Grandma had standards.
This was dinner.
And after dinner
Notice Grandpa’s commuter plane out the left window…
Sure they had chores, a fully operational farm, in fact. But those boys mucked out the pig pen in jeans that were ironed.
Years later I came to live with Grandma and Grandpa, on my own at first so I could attend the local kindergarten, my parents and brothers joined us later. This is the house that comes to mind when I think of my childhood. I think of the wind that blew right through those walls bringing with them the glacial silt from not one, but two nearby glaciers. We dusted every single day. And every week we baked bread, with wheat we ground ourselves in a heavy, loud, wood and metal flour making contraption. Then when the loaves came out of the oven, she’d cut me a thick slice, still steaming, slather it with homemade butter from our cow, and then sprinkle a little brown sugar on top. Heaven.
I think of myself as being busy now, but truly, Grandma got some work done.
Grandma lived to be 99 years old, and she was beautifully pulled together every time I saw her.
Oh, my, I’m glad Grandma can’t see my home right now. I’ve fallen a bit short of her standards.
Change is constant
Can you believe the leaves are turning already? It doesn’t matter how hard it is for me too keep up; change is constant.
To me, every hour of the day and night is an unspeakably perfect miracle.
~Walt Whitman
She’s got a style all her own
My little girl is starting to exert a little influence over what she wears.
This is what happens when she picks out her own clothes. Mama’s just trying to stay out of her way.
She definitely has a style that is all her own.
Yeah, you wish you could pull this look off. 😉
And Stasha, I’m submitting this to listicles this week even though it’s not a list; just because of the yin yang topic.
tee hee
