hello, hello.

Just popping in with a little update.

I'm not sure what to do with Window Ledge Arts, or my Etsy shop, or this blog anymore. When I'm not chasing after a very VERY active, intense, sweet, smart, toddler, I'm working on my photography business and taking whatever freelance projects come my way. It has been unpredictable, hard work, that's for sure. So this blog, and my shop, are just going to have to sit neglected for awhile until I find my groove.

Do we ever find a groove? I hope so. I feel like I've been searching for mine for over a year now, and I'm starting to think it'll never show up.

Come April, I will not be renewing my www.windowledgearts.com domain, so you'll be able to reach this blog and it's feed at http://windowledgearts.blogspot.com.

And if you have any ideas or suggestions for what I should do with or add to my Etsy shop, I'm all ears. Making jewelry is fun, but the amount of time and effort that goes into photographing finished pieces, writing descriptions, packaging and shipping, and keeping up with listings and renewals is just too much to handle with very little payoff. So I'm torn. But I'm not throwing in the towel just yet...

Lovestorm

The end of January was so stunningly awful for so many good people. Was it something in the air? Were the stars askew?

In our lives, there were brakes that suddenly needed replacing, a flat tire, getting (hysterically) locked in the bathroom with a toddler, dog poop, and the worst case of norovirus imaginable, all in a span of just a few days. Mercifully, I was spared from getting sick. But my husband and the little dude were not. So. Much. Barf. I am a little traumatized. As is the interior of my car.

All of these things seem remarkably trivial when I consider what some of my friends have been going through. So while I may gripe out of lack of sleep and boredom at being stuck in the house for so long, I'm simultaneously grateful that these troubles are minor and not life-altering. I just wanna give the world a big hug. January, I don't know what the heck happened there. But I welcome this short new month with open arms and a furious storm of love.

compass

There's something that always seems to happen mid-autumn, when the days get grayer and wetter and I feel stuck, physically and mentally. Physically in the sense that I cannot get outside and get some sunshine, and the rooms in my house grow smaller and smaller - even more so now that I share that space with a little person who gets bored very very quickly.

And mentally in the sense that my brain feels slow. A little less alive and very much in need of some nourishment. I haven't had the chance to sit down and make some real art in well over a year now, and I think it's starting to gnaw at me. I've said it before, but there are some days where I really feel like I might die if I don't just get out there and create something. Anything.

***

Today was rough. I wrestled with a sad toddler who can't quite communicate his needs and wants yet, who throws a tantrum if I don't feel like climbing up and down the stairs with him all day (he grabs my hand and pulls me to the stairs to help him up and down...over and over and over again), and who had his morning frustrations capped off with shots at the doctor's office. The day turned dark and rainy, but was saved by the most delicious pho I've ever tasted, hot and rich and salty. And then bedtime was mostly tears, feverish pitching about, limbs kicking and hands pushing me away, and then finally wrapping around my neck and giving in to a heavy, sweaty sleep.

I hate shot days. 

***

So I drew this. A doodle. I used to draw shapes like this all over my notebooks in school. Endless mandalas, compass roses, fans and petals.

And now all is centered and right again.

a perfect fit.

Thirty.

Yesterday I turned thirty.

Three. Zero.

Thirty has been feeling heavy to me, and I've been struggling to put my finger on just what it is, but I think I'm getting closer to figuring it out. Yesterday Dave and I had a good chat about all of the crappy stuff that happened in our twenties, and how we should be happy to move forward and leave everything behind. It made me feel a whole lot better, in the moment. Turning over a new decade feels, in many ways, like a fresh start.

But mixed in with all the hard, stressful moments, my twenties were filled with so many big awesome things, and I can't help but feel a little sad that they are done. I studied abroad in Ireland. I graduated from college. I got an amazing first job. I got married. We moved to Seattle, and both found incredible jobs out here. We bought a house. We had our first baby. I left my job and finally started my own business, for real this time (though I'm still figuring things out).

So many big things.  Wham bam. Done. And now there's this little voice inside that says, "Look at you. You've done it all. There's nothing left." Which I know is not true. And I feel silly saying it, but I'm struggling to figure out what to look forward to next. I'm a planner. I like to know. Of course, watching my son grow and enjoying my family are the unspoken Things That I Look Forward To the Most. But my goals feel very different, and more about slow measured growth than about huge life changes. That's something new to wrap my head around.

I think a lot of my anxiety has to do with the unknown. I had a pretty good idea that all of those milestones from my twenties would happen, at some point, in the span of a decade. I kind of knew what to expect. But now I have absolutely no idea what to expect, and thirty and beyond feels like this great big blank slate and it scares me. I'm scared to watch my mom and my in-laws grow older. I'm scared of what it will be like for my son to go to school. I'm scared that my business will fail, miserably. All reasonable things to have fears about, and it will pass. It always does.

So that's where all the heavy comes from. That, and late fall in the pacific northwest is gray and thick and heavy, too. Fitting for a birthday I'm not too terribly excited about.

But a birthday I was really super excited about? A certain little dude turned one a couple of weeks ago. Oh my stars.

Nothing heavy about this kid. He's sunshine (most of the time) and firecrackers (all of the time) and he walks and runs and babbles and when he laughs it sounds like a fountain, or a tree full of birds.

And right now, that is enough.

Nesting slippers

Let me tell you a story about these slippers.

Almost exactly one year ago, I started my maternity leave and found myself face to face with large amounts of wide open free time before my little dude arrived. I spent the bulk of this time on a bizarre mission for the perfect pair of slippers. My packing list for the hospital was complete except for the slippers. "Bring slippers!" everyone said. "Slippers! (and a shitload of other stuff I'll NEVER EVER need)," all the online lists from mommy bloggers proclaimed. But I had no slippers. When I imagined myself shuffling down the hospital hallways, bent over and trying to walk through contractions, I was most definitely wearing a cute pair of slippers, not some thin hospital-issue ankle socks with the grippies on the bottom.

Clearly, I was not going to be able to birth a child without slippers.

But I had very specific criteria for the perfect slippers: they couldn't be made from any weird polyester, which would make my feet sweaty and uncomfortable; they couldn't be fluffy or furry; and they had to be cute. And under $30. I went to every department store and mall within 30 minutes of my home. I hauled my 40-week belly from store to store, but everything was wrong. SO WRONG! Too fluffy. Too pink. Too polyester. Too expensive.

One particular trip to Target, very very near my due date (in fact, I think it might have been ON my actual due date), was particularly memorable. I walked into the store, and all of a sudden I felt a rush of warmth and "fuzziness." I truly felt like I was in some sort of half-asleep dreamland. I was there looking for slippers, but I ended up buying a bunch of weird impulsive stuff that we didn't really need. Like that goofy bottle drying rack that looks like grass (which actually tuned out to be AWESOME), and some bed sheets with snowflakes on them that didn't match anything in our bedroom. I think I got a doormat, too. Seriously?

Looking back, I think this was the start of baby's long slow journey into this world. That warm fuzzy feeling was probably a rush of oxytocin signaling my body to get things moving, already. I went into labor later that week, and after he was born I got that exact same woozy feeling every time I nursed him during the first few weeks. Oxytocin, yo. That's some potent stuff.

But back to the slippers. I never did find a pair in any store, so I took to the interwebs. After, not even joking, hours of slipper-hunting online, I finally found the perfect pair of Smartwool slippers. Made of real wool! On clearance! And relatively cute! But at that point I was actually scheduled for an induction in a few days (turned out I wouldn't need it, anyways), and I knew that my precious slippers wouldn't make it to my doorstep in time. I had pretty much let go of my vision of laboring in the perfect goddamn slippers and just wanted that baby OUT OUT OUT. But certainly I would need slippers for the days and weeks after, while I blissfully nursed my baby in a warm bed, propped up by pillows while sipping tea and resting HA HA HA HA.

I never once needed a pair of slippers during my time in the hospital. I never even thought about slippers, and when they did arrive, I really didn't care anymore. But I've gotta say that afterwards, once I was finally up and getting around, they were really great slippers. And still are.

I guess some women scrub their floors or clean their stoves. Apparently, my form of nesting was to think about slippers nonstop and do weird shopping at Target. So now, whenever I wear them and look down, I laugh at what an insane person I became in those final days of pregnancy. They're a good memory.

Fort

When things start getting a little dull around here, that means it's time to make something. Anything. So we throw the crib mattress across a book shelf and an ottoman (because, who am I kidding, he doesn't actually sleep on said mattress. might as well have fun with it), drape a blanket over the top, and call it a fort.

And a mighty one, at that. At least for a 10.5 month old (!) little dude.

A fort is the perfect place for reading. I Am A Bunny is his absolute favorite book. I don't know what it is, but this book is magic and soothes him when nothing else will. (Usually. Ha.)

Ahoy there, little explorer.

Our fort is pants-optional.

I'm so glad I have someone to build forts for. If you want to see more awesome fort action, check out Fort Fridays over at All For The Boys!