meet the library pocket totes (and a question for you)

Summer. Hot sun. Keds. Pulling my little brother behind me in his wagon. A purple bike complete with banana seat and white wicker basket. Walks to the neighborhood library for books. Stopping at the Burger Dairy corner store for popsicles. Walking home and curling up on the orange-flowered cushions on the screened-in porch with a stack of books…The Yearling, Trixie Belden, The Boxcar Children. Adventures await...

This is a peek into the summers of my childhood. I remember carrying a small rectangular tote bag with a rainbow on the front during these walks to and from the library.

With these memories in mind, I designed this tote for the summer reading of my adult life. It will hold adventures where I might:

Have a picnic at Pemberley
Take a walk in the gardens of Green Gables
Have tea in Cranford
Solve mysteries in Sleepyside

I can't wait.

I would love to know some of the places you visited while reading through your summer reading lists of the past...or the present. Where have you had a picnic or solved a mystery or twirled with laughter? I would love to join you there...and a bet a few others would too.

Share your favorite summer reads with us...

(I have added a few of these and some simple selma totes and some aprons to my etsy shop)

blooming...a question.

backyard bloom, april 2008

it can be very difficult to check in with ourselves when we are in the midst of living our lives. we have so many roles that we juggle and so many things to get done and we are pulled in this direction and in that way. it can be easy to forget ourselves. this can happen even when we might be in a place where we have time to do things that are "for us" (like creating and writing and taking photos and cooking on and on).

all the ideas and thoughts and hopes and dreams that tumble inside my heart and mind sometimes invite me to just want to take a nap. my wish that those dreams would become real now or my idea for a new design that takes over the energy i need to put into the current design i am working on can quickly change from inspiring to exhausting.

in the balancing of my full-time job with time with family and friends with living this creative life with trying to breathe, i can lose sight of what i am actually doing, how i am actually growing, how i am living in my life. it is hard to see when i am standing in the middle of it all...

today though, as the confused snow falls once again on the spring blossoms, this thought came to me:

how are you blooming?

it felt like an invitation to take out my moleskine and write an accounting of me. to write about where i am right now. it felt like an invitation to sit quietly and close my eyes and breathe and just notice. it felt like an invitation to honor me and where i am in a given moment in time.

i wonder if you might want to join me...

this is an invitation to let go of the shoulds and the pulls of others and things around you. this is an invitation to check in with yourself through writing an accounting or sitting quietly or whatever other way moves you.

this is an invitation to honor how you are blooming in your life.

a question (for you)

caprese salad for one, 2.7.08

What have you done just for you today?

(If you haven't done anything just for you today, think about what you could do...just for you...then come back here and share after you do it or even after you think about doing it...)

a question...or two (for you)

(dreaming of summer at the market)

i sometimes think of questions i would like to ask you. you, the people out there who stop by and read my words and connect with me from your corner of the world.

sometimes the questions are simple like "if you had this friday night to spend all by yourself, what would you do?"
sometimes they are more along the lines of "when does your heart feel at peace? even for just a sliver of time...will you tell me about it?"
sometimes they are just little daily living things like "what is your favorite fruit/veggie juicing combination?"
sometimes they are craft+art related questions like "what's your favorite glue or thread or yarn or crochet pattern or..." and how the list goes on.

i think i am going to start a new little series of blog posts here; posts where i just throw these questions out there in the hopes that you might answer me with your wisdom. maybe you will answer in a comment or an email or even in a blog post...

today, i want to ask one of those little daily living questions.

i want to start cooking more often, but i am looking for quick, healthy meals that fall under categories like:

i probably have most of the ingredients in my cupboard or can make do with what i have
the ingredients can be purchased in a quick trip to the store
it's 4:30 pm and i just realized i need to think of something to make for dinner
this is so damn good that i want to eat it every week even if it isn't as easy as i'd like...it's worth it
one pot meals

do you have any recipes you can share (or link to) that fall into any of these categories? recipes that work for you (and your family) as you try to balance everything and still eat healthy and at home at the table...

thanks,
liz