i had every intention (three weeks ago) to begin writing & posting again.

i uploaded (or is it downloaded) the following photos (everyone loves photos) with hopes of starting to share our lives once again, three weeks ago.

yet, with beautiful weather outside and sweet evenings & weekends with friends and my beloved, remaining on the computer has been the least of priorities. i apologize (i need to know who set this computer's spell check to "london style" - let us embrace the "z" and leave the "s" where it belongs - in strawberries!) as l know this is the way most of us stay attempt to stay connected.

today, with the smell of spring in the air and sweet memories finding a home as the trees blossom and settle my spirit - here are photos of early april and late march. enjoy.

- an afternoon nap in the park -

- we were honored to have our dear friend Kaleb & his wife Sa with us for Easter -

- OD on simply sinful Easter treats from mom, dad & neighbors -

- Easter dinner with friends at WPG -

- my precious (and longest known) friend Amber & i -

- an early spring day of work on our city transportation -

- for spring break I headed down to kansas city to spend some time with my sisters, parents (who were visiting as well), niece and closest friend. i love this picture of Allison and this classic face of hers (most likely in the middle of saying, "Jessica, that's ridiculous.") -

- Jen & i at jerusalem cafe -

- we also spent one weekend visiting with Jake's parents, grandma and the woods. I can only dream of how green the woods are today..." -

celebration.

today, in celebration of my 30th (yes, 30th) birthday my beloved and I gathered some blankets, sweet books, spring jackets and delicious banana bread (thank you Kevin & Christina) to spend a day in the woods and largest prairie (Goose Lake Prairie State Park) east of the Mississippi (a fact we learned on our little adventure today). upon reaching the wet-lands and marsh prairies of Goose Lake we enjoyed a long walk together and later enjoyed a picnic in the park. not long after we found ourselves wandering throughout the DesPlaines Conservation Area where we basked in the sunlight walking alongside riverbeds, lakes and blossoming wooded areas. hand in hand we enjoyed exposing hidden treasures (two beautiful feathers, hibernating insects, an in-tact skeleton of an unknown small creature, varieties of nuts & beautiful lichen), exploring indigenous prairie birds and plants, climbing abandon barns, conversing, tossing a few rocks with our new slings, and often finding out feet quite soggy from the receding flooded plains. it was such a joy to scout out new trails and places for retreat.

this one is for those of you who know Jake and love him for exactly this reason...

afterwords, we headed back to chicago for or spiritual gathering and found ourselves having dinner with Andre, a young 17 year old boy who has taken some time (by AWOL) off of his residential treatment to "get some fresh air." such a good kid.

to bring a perfect conclusion to this day of celebration my cherished friends had prepared a yummy vegan cake, vegan banana split cupcakes (from Vegan Cupcakes take Over the World - both creations of Amy) and showered the evening with inspirational gifts and laughter. thanks friends!


as for the rest of the evening - we are home after a wonderful day's journey with sun-kissed skin, dirty toes (and hands) with another decade waiting to be explored. thanks to each of you for your wonderful birthday wishes, sweet messages, e-mails & notes.

and to tickle your appetites for what's occurring in our backyard...

a couple photos from the last week.

so grateful for clear days without a cloud in the sky.

we love a little fungi in our home.

when i was young i use to think that these little bug tracks use to be old petroglyphs to tell me secrets no one knew. i now revel in ways which otherwise insignificant creatures mark their territory in such beautiful ways.first spring wild flowers.

i cannot get enough of the beauty inside grape stems. so much intricacy in such a small and insignificant form.

beautiful wet lichen.

last weekend we had the gift of hosting Cory for the rainy days.
beer, late nights (kinda), hookah, cheese & time = perfect weekend

our kitchen table in full bloom.
look at those iris' & succulents!

sweet blossoms.

The more I see him, the more I like John Stewart.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

CNBC Gives Financial Advice

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Economic Crisis

it's a dark, wet, thunderstorm kind of day.

a good reason to stay close to home and in the company of good friends, dense loaves of bread and sultry cheese.

we have a blossoming iris harmony bringing light into our room for gathering together. her colors are contagious.

do you have a favorite thunderstorm or rainy day memory?

if one wants to laugh.
one must go here.

enjoy your weekend!

"I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time."
~ Jack London

"Eventually, mind discovers that it's free, that it's infinitely out of control and infinitely joyful. Eventually, it falls in love with the unknown. In that it can rest. And since it no longer believes what it thinks, it remains always peaceful, wherever it is or isn't."
~Byron Katie

the perfect kind of day.

my favorite hair cut of all time. yes, christmas decoration that are not read or green are all still up.

\the day began with a quick run outside with ballerina slippers to engage the clean air, test the wet (here they are drying after a scrub down) ground & pick up the consequences of accumulated winter trash that has been hibernating under the snow over the past two months. plastic bags shown after our weekly washing. christmas lights over the shower (since we moved in) as a gift from my husband to make it feel like every shower i take feel like it's under the stars.

such a beautiful warm day the rainbows & chacos were singing from the closet sweet words of potential spring/summer days.

edgar stopped over for quite some time to help jake work on the motorcycle and received his favorite treat - sweet butter corn muffins.

an early blossom.

each weekend we make our way over the John & Elaine's home to rest for a couple of hours. with conversation, laughter, rest & sweet treats they have become our surrogate grandparents in this cold city. on this particular day John did not bother to find Elaine upstairs. we think he just needed some time with us by himself. as we rested in his stories he shared memories of his childhood, feelings related to being a parent, his struggle with alcoholism and together we entered into a sacred time of passing on some of what he shared he has not even told Elaine after 40(ish) years of marriage.

I like this.

Everything's Amazing, Nobody's Happy.

articles that riled me up over the last couple days.

I quit, I think.

The Most Radical Thing You can Do.

V-Day.

question.

i'm a little angry this morning - the right kind of angry. the kind of angry that gets your blood boiling, arms waving, and husband saying, "please don't yell at me, i'm not the one you're angry at." still - he is the perfect kind of partner and takes the verbal abuse and confusion.

today's topic of conversation: are we really animals? do we, the greater society, really not think before acting? if so, how can this be? if not, how can we reconcile accountability for what we have done?

how do we reconcile patterning all of our children after each other by sending them all to public schools instead of letting them invent themselves and supporting them in doing so?

how do we reconcile watching men, groups of men, rape and abuse women across the globe with no recourse?

how do we reconcile the pressure to stay away from home, the essence of who we are and where we grow roots?

how do we reconcile city life, lack of health care (i spoke with a man for 10 mins. this morning outside of Aldi who has no insurance, is a roofer who feel off a roof this past summer and is now in poverty with limited options outside of begging), lack of forethought, insight, and long-term consequences?

are we really that animalistic?

"you do realize that if i was able to record and video tape your behavior in this house i would be able to receive some type of court settlement for mental and behavioral problems and concern."

spoken by my beloved.

tonight we're goin' here.

this morning i drove to work with the windows cracked open just a bit to remind myself that it's still Feb. it felt amazing.

i'm also wearing pink & read together with big hot pink hoops - one of the only redemptive plus points to v-day.

"you're like a kiss parasite," he says while walking out the door with a twinkle in his eyes.

last night i read almost an entire novel.

melatonin, where are thou?

this morning:

my husband spoke, "you smell so good in the morning when you're not farting."

i also took a nice morning walk to welcome in an early spring day. the sun is parting the darkness and i saw my first cardinal.

on living simply.

the rich usually imagine that, if they do not physically rob the poor, they are committing no sin. but the sin of the rich consists in not sharing their wealth with the poor. in fact, the rich person who keeps all his wealth for himself is committing a form of robbery. the reason is that in truth all wealth comes from God, and so belongs to everyone equally. the proof of this is all around us. look at the succulent fruits which the trees and the bushes produce. look at the fertile soil which yields each year such an abundant harvest. look at the sweet grapes on the vines, which gives us wine to drink. the rich may claim that they own many fields in which fruits and grain grow; but it is God who causes seeds to sprout and mature. the duty of the rich is to share the harvest of their fields with all who work in them and with all in need.

saint john chrysostom, on living simply

this morning i woke up after a full night of sleep to sun (at 6:40am!) and the song of birds.

the best is yet to come...

But for most, it is not written....

Empty the Cities

In many recent discussion I have stated, half jokingly and half seriously that we should all collectively declare urbanism a failed experiment, and move back to the country to reform our farming based communities of ages past. Cities, which form the incubation hot-bed of new ideas and culture, are also farms of consumption, waste, and destruction of ecology, life, and spirit. Of course this is a gross over-simplification of a vast problem that does not lie just within the limits of our "great" cities, but as a boiled down synthesis, it will have to do.

Just today I saw an article that further fuels the fire of fleeing urbanism. This article in the Boston Globe, How the city hurts your brain, is a commentated collection of psychological and behavioral studies done on individuals after being exposed to nature of urban environments.

Because the article is long, and many of us live in urban environments and therefore have limited attention spans, I shall pull out some of the more pertinent points of the article.

"Just being in an urban environment, they have found, impairs our basic mental processes. After spending a few minutes on a crowded city street, the brain is less able to hold things in memory, and suffers from reduced self-control."

Limited memory abilities and limited self-control? Sounds just about right from my experience here in Chicago and previous experiences living in other major metropolis centers like Mexico City.

"In a study published last month, Berman outfitted undergraduates at the University of Michigan with GPS receivers. Some of the students took a stroll in an arboretum, while others walked around the busy streets of downtown Ann Arbor.

The subjects were then run through a battery of psychological tests. People who had walked through the city were in a worse mood and scored significantly lower on a test of attention and working memory, which involved repeating a series of numbers backwards. In fact, just glancing at a photograph of urban scenes led to measurable impairments, at least when compared with pictures of nature."

And for the ADHD child thriving in your skin...

"This also helps explain why, according to several studies, children with attention-deficit disorder have fewer symptoms in natural settings. When surrounded by trees and animals, they are less likely to have behavioral problems and are better able to focus on a particular task."

For my college age friends still all-nighting their way through papers and test preparation...

"When a park is properly designed, it can improve the function of the brain within minutes. As the Berman study demonstrates, just looking at a natural scene can lead to higher scores on tests of attention and memory. While people have searched high and low for ways to improve cognitive performance, from doping themselves with Red Bull to redesigning the layout of offices, it appears that few of these treatments are as effective as simply taking a walk in a natural place."

Jess and I both know how much nature impacts us for the better, but I think I always thought that the negative side of the city was just because it lacked nature, not because the very essence of the city was damaging to the psyche.

Sigh...