Honeyanne

random thoughts & sisters...

 

Okay, this song makes me happy - Jason Mraz makes me happy. What is it about his face that makes me want to rollerblade while eating a bubblegum ice cream cone?  Is it just me? Probably. 

I know I shouldn't write this but...did you know I made it through winter without catching a cold?! That is amazing! I hope I don't eat my words.

The other day Tansy and Emma spent some quality time together doing each other's nails and makeup. I thought I'd share some of their "after" pictures...

  

 

I don't think I was ever a big sister like this...you know, one you could look up to because she was so cool.  Gosh, moments like these make me count my blessings...Life is wonderful (insert trombone solo here).

natural lighting...

 

Oh dear, I'm behind on my posts. We've been fighting a nasty virus here at the Hotel Got-a-Fever. Someone had to throw Streptoccal pharyngitis into the mix. So I hope pictures will suffice for now...

okay, I love cousins...

We don't get a chance to see my side of the family very often - maybe once or twice a year. In August I took the kids up for my Dad's 60th birthday. They spent some time with 'the cousins'.

The cousins. That is what we call them. There are 13 of them. That is why we call them 'the cousins' - there are simply too many to name individually. To us they kind of seem to exist as one whole anyway. They are wild and wacky and full of cousin-induced shenanigans... I mean, come on, don't they just look like cousins?! 

     
 
 
Can such energy be contained? Should such energy be contained? I thought as a whole (even without my brother's three in attendance) they were delightful. No one swung from the chandelier (which was rather disappointing).  There was no howling at the moon (again I was let down. Didn't they know? I came for the howling).  Just a lot of free spirited tomfoolery which isn't so bad after all... If you like that kind of thing... and I do...

enchanting

 

She was so elegant - so lovely at her dance recital.  I felt overwhelmed by her grace and beauty. How can something so enchanting come from me?  There is nothing graceful or elegant about me but somehow Tansy has gleaned 'enchanting' from somewhere. My mother is, no doubt, claiming credit. 

You should have seen my two year old, dear reader, dancing in the isles at the recital. When the dancers had finished the audience would applause and Emma thought they were clapping for her.  Oh to be the center of the universe!  It's hard to keep her humble.

Tansy is the girl I always wanted to be when I was 13.  She is my role model and I delight in her talents and beauties. I forgive her for rolling those big blue eyes at me the other day and complaining about doing her chore and fighting with her brother over (insert trivial matter here). How can I not?  
 

glimpses...

     

"Do the things you know, and you shall learn the truth you need to know."  Louisa May Alcott

receiving Tansy...

 

Who would ever think that so much can go on in the soul of a young girl?” Anne Frank

Mmmm...do you remember this gaze - this pose?  Do you remember being almost 13 and trying to figure it out?  I remember.  Everything  was changing on the inside. I was more aware of my moods - skipping from melancholy to effervescent to inflamed.  This is the time of shifting and stretching and pushing. It's actually an amazing time in life because life has never been more in color. The moments pulsate.

It is a time to explore.  It is a time to take a timid toe and test the waters.  What a marvelous time in a young girls life.  I wish I could go back to that blip in my time line just for a day.  At least I get to experience it again in small part through Tansy - to share some laughter and tears and maybe do a little yelling at those circumstances which refuse to go the way we wish.

Above all, this is a time to listen ... Never before has a young girl needed her mother to be tuned in.  There is a great deal of soul swirling and bubbling in my daughter and I need to hold my tongue and let her figure herself out in a safe and loving environment.  Sometimes I feel like my whole life has been leading me to this time in her life. 

Quiet is an art.  I've been trying to be quiet for probably 20 years or more.  When I was Tansy's age I felt I talked too much and said the wrong thing too often.  I tried very hard to control myself - I am still working on it.  I still stick my foot in my mouth and have been known to swallow my leg whole from time to time. 

I am learning that being quiet is not so much about keeping myself from taking over a conversation, or blurting out the first thing that comes to my mind - being quiet is really about listening. 

Listening to others first.  Seeking to understand first.  Giving someone the courtesy of being heard and appreciated for their voice.  Receiving the jewels of wisdom others have to share (after all I don't know everything - truth is I hardly know anything).

Listening to a still small voice.  Listening to what the Highest Power has to say on the matter.  Listening for peace and reassurance.  Listening for love.  This kind of listening leads to speechlessness and awe don't you think?

Listening is receiving. Receiving understanding, receiving truth, receiving peace, receiving Tansy. 

 

“Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” Steve Jobs

 

more everyday prayers ...

  
 
"You don't choose your family. They are God's gift to you, as you are to them." Desmond Tutu
 

everyday prayers ...

   

“An authentic life is the most personal form of worship. Everyday life has become my prayer.” Sarah Ban Breathnach

  

"We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects."  Herman Melville's Moby Dick

Liam has been reading Moby Dick for the last few years.  He has gone through a few of those Classics for Children additions and has been slowly plodding through Herman Melvilles' unabridged for the past year - on and off.  I find this a rather curious endeavor. How far along he is I do not know.  How much he understands is also a mystery to me.  It is interesting to me that he took the biggest book off of the shelf and ventured to open it - be him Ishmael or Ahab.  Does this say something about the type of man he will become - he does not fear a challenge no matter how big it appears?  Or maybe he just liked the picture of the whale on the front. I haven't asked.  I am only observing and hoping and marveling.  

Someone else is also observing.  When Liam lays the book down, someone reaches to draw it up.  She stares at the matrix of symbols on each page and pretends something.  Curiouser and curiouser.  Who are these souls that have entered this family?  The more I think about them and who they are the more I mean to just let them reveal it to me.  Each time I am tempted to write their script for them I see that they are the true authors.