The BIRTHDAY BOOK IS DONE!!!

At long last I am actually writing this post. I have dreamed about this for almost as many years as I have been authoring this blog. It is with great satisfaction I can finally say–and mean it–The birthday book is done! 

I have told my husband and the kids so many times "the birthday book is done" that it started to loose meaning. Draft after draft, after frustrating small-tweaks-here-and-there draft, it is really truly completely, no-more-to-do done. I invite you to to pop some champagne for me... no not really, I can do that myself, but geez luize, it is good to put this one on the shelf and say fini! 

It was a project my good friend Robin and I started back when the kids were little. We traveled through so many stages of our lives and I have lived in five houses since we started. I guess I like to move! Or it has just taken a long time and finding the place that is home takes a long time too. 

But anyway, enough about that, here are some of my favorite images from the book:

Filled to the brim with step-by-step instructions for making original gifts, favors, cakes, wrapping, decorations and games, BIRTHDAYS: HANDMADE, HOMEMADE is interwoven with stories, photographs, illustrations and anecdotes. We invite readers to pull up a chair, pour a cup of tea and spend the afternoon making and creating. Our goal is to offer inspiration on how to make a birthday handmade, homemade and your very own.

Readers will love the creative ideas that make this book so personal and tangible. Projects range from fast and easy . . . Dinosaurs in real eggshells, to more timely and in depth . . . Dining table forts. Young parents and do-it-yourself enthusiasts will find endless help onhow to prepare and execute a homemade birthday party.

At a time when it seems like families are trying to take back just a bit of their own and blogs hum with self-reliant know-how, this book is a great jumping-off point for those aiming to leave commercialism behind and bring it all back to the ones they love. 

Birthdays: Handmade, Homemade is available online. 

Hope everyone is enjoying summer!
                                   

                                              Cheers~
                                                         Marica


P.S. I have one copy to give away, so if you live in the United States and would like to enter for a chance to win, leave a comment below. I'll pick a name at random and post a winner Sunday July 23rd.

Snow in Portland

 Snow in Portland is a rare treat. An occasion that stops the city in its tracks and beckons a large number of people to go out walking. My daughter and I spent a wonderful afternoon trekking through the novel whiteness, taking pictures and (hee hee hee; singing a few Christmas carols).

                              
 Hope everyone is well!

                                         
                                                                                  Cheers ~ 

                                                                                        Marica

A short visit...

And a very special one. The kids and I snuck a few days away from our usual hubbub and spent some time with some very missed grandparents.* It is so funny to watch the kids rediscover the property where they used to live. To them it is now a distant memory. Sometimes it feels that way to me too.

 

      

                                                Cheers ~

                                                         Marica

*Unfortunately I am missing pictures of the other set of very dear grandparents who we also got to visit.

From an experience while visiting my parents. Today, I decided to put it into words.

Sitting on the hard ground, more rocks than actual dirt, I watch the water in the river, except—oh wait—there is no water there is a drought. I look out to the dry riverbed, birds a fluttering in every which way, I wonder where they fill their drinks and I smell the strong shrubs of the canyon hills. 

I see a long irrigation pipe scroll across from bank to bank and beyond. I feel the words blow through my head, they sound like something my dad would say “unfortunate that has to be there.” It’s not bad that a pipe lies across the ground, just unfortunate because it would be so nice if it were only willow shrubs, packed dry earth, grey and white river stones and the vibrancies of birds.

A realization sets in motion and I feel the truth, the real truths that emit their essence only when there is a moment like this. I feel it. I hold the sensation, I hold it and flow it across my very face and body and inner piece that so often is diluted and submerged in disillusion of where and what is clear.

Philosophy is for the one in the wilderness, impossible to be seen surrounded by concrete roads and brick buildings. You can still analyze in the vivid culture of modern world, but no philosophy can be extreme enough to be true unless you are in the open scape of no human.

I look carefully, I know my eyes can see, just for a brief segment of time, I want to know, I trust I will pull what I need out from this moment and I will carry it with me to the typical world I mostly toil in. I see clearly, we are not all one. That common misconception is so close that it can be muddled and stated as a truth. I wait for more; I know it is on the tip of showing. We are each a square or a perfect small piece of a giant whole. I feel that small piece that I hold up, if I clean my piece and make with it what I can, I will affect this giant one. I am not responsible for the other pieces.

I gather myself, I walk the fifty yards to a fresh sage plant and collect a bouquet for my good friend who had requested such. I feel my brother in my heart. I pick each twigy branch and feel the tie, the gift, the thankfulness, the complete of him, then my sister and myself.

Sage has an intensity, fresh off its rugged stems, that wafts and penetrates more than any other plant I can bring to mind. I carry that powerful smell with me as I climb into an outdoor shower not far from where my kids are sleeping. As the water pours directly down—not at an angle but straight from above, like a waterfall from the heavens—I shut my eyes and sustain the beauty of what I have witnessed. 

                                           

                                                                                      ~  Marica  

Lazy relaxing + yogurt and ice cream...

I am terrible at relaxing. I run my mind too far and wide even as I sit thinking—don't do anything. I like the idea of relaxing, and I do manage to lay on the sofa to watch some terrible something when my day has been too long and there is nothing else left in me to stay upright. But even that gets to me. 

I just sat down with this exciting plate of vanilla ice cream, plain yogurt, sliced banana and toaster waffle. I took out the book I am supposedly reading and started alternating between sweet and sour bites and detangling the words that make up a page of the story I am trying to feel enthralled in. I'm not caught. My thoughts drift away to the pretty plate, the perfection of ice cream and yogurt —something I learned from my great aunts in Utica New York—and the fact my computer is only ten feet away, fully charged and I could even write a silly post about nothing. 

A silly post wins.

 Right now the little ones are at some national women's soccer league game with their godfather. My fifteen-year-old is in his room doing his own version of nothing and my husband is still working. 

A quiet house to my self. Remarkable!

I think I will get out my knitting and try to find some cold, wet, British movie that captures my imagination. Any suggestions?

    

                                                                                     ~ Marica