Happy list.

"S p r i n g t i m e  is the land awakening..."

blackberries in the yard last summer

What better day to make a happy list than today...68 degrees and sunny and murmuring of spring?  Thank you, Tara, for the lovely idea!

• Envisioning my flower beds bursting with wildflowers in just a few short months.  I've got 5 or 6 packets ready to plant...
• ...and juicy, tart blackberries ripening on the white trellis in the back yard.
• Driving really fast with the sunroof open, windows down, and Margaritaville on a radio, as it was when I took a quick trip to the post office earlier...
• The little book/music/tea exchange program Jenni and I have going on.  I can't wait to borrow her copy of Peace Like A River by Leif Enger, and I sent her my Rosie Thomas When We Were Small CD, an all-time favorite. 
• Tazo Passion unsweetened iced tea - the only drink I'll get at Starbucks.  Now I'm craving it...
• How my hubby looks in his grey workout jacket from Lululemon.  Yowza.
• Thinking about future fun 4th of July birthday pool parties for our little girl.  Fresh-baked berry pies and that wonderful feeling of eating lunch in the sun while still wet from swimming all morning.
• Amy Butler fabric - there's not a single pattern I don't like.  Also, have you seen her rugs? There aren't words.
• In anticipation of Shauna Niequist's new book, Bittersweet, releasing later this year, reading this beautiful excerpt and savoring this line, "I believe that suffering is a part of the narrative, and that nothing really good gets built when everything’s easy."
• 2010.  It's been a year of restoration, redemption so far.

What are your happies right now?

Happy day!

Hello!  I'm so excited to introduce you to my new little home on the web.  I wanted something cheery-ier, more joyful.  And turquoise.  And bright orange, too.  When I see these pages, I feel a surge of happiness coursing through my veins as I remember the perfectly clear California beach day when I took the above photo, when seagulls danced over my head and waves crashed along Manhattan Beach.  It was the perfect beach day, one of my most favorite-ist simple things.

I hope this site brings you further into my world of appreciating the simple, beautiful things in life - those found in nature, relationships, good, pure food, and everyday moments.  

{If you're already subscribed to this blog, your feed should change automatically; if not, just click the "subscribe" button in the left toolbar.}

Some improvements...

• My blog and website are now one!   I'm no professional photographer or anything...just a girl with a camera who likes to capture life. Most photos were taken with my good 'ole Sony Cybershot that's accompanied me to India, Africa, Colorado, Maine, California, and many places in between.  With my art, I like to mainly use paper scraps and watercolor.  I hope you enjoy.
• For those of you who would like to continue to follow my pregnancy, I put all the belly pics on one page instead of in individual posts.  
• Center column - I've always wanted a 3 column blog design, and I like how the content is nestled nicely between the two side columns down the center of the page.  I guess the left-brained part of me finds much satistfaction in the symmetry.

I'd love to know what you think!  Is there anything else you'd like to see here? 

He won!

Thanks to everyone who voted!  Steven's recipe won Omnivore Runner-Up in the Weeknight Meals Contest on TheKitchn.com!    Yummy yummy bacon, cream cheese, honey, and peppers!

Patch of beauty.

This is an ode to my garden and all the beauty she brought into our lives this spring and summer.

Oh, she had some shining moments. After four years of laboring and learning, we can celebrate all the food produced by the work of our hands and the blessings of earth, wind and rain: bulging tomatoes, foot-long squash, peppery lettuce, savory and sweet herbs, fuzzy okra, shiny green bell peppers, and spiny canning cucumbers that were crunchier than any I've tasted before. And then the wildflowers...it seemed that new ones sprouted up each morning - a different variety, a different shade. The whole place hummed with color and life. A haven in our own backyard.

There was much hard work and struggle. We composted, dug, planted, weeded, pruned, prayed for rain, and had a moment of silence for our beloved pole beans that shriveled up and died a few weeks after the first harvest. But as the metaphor always is with growing things, with the struggle, there has been beauty. And community, too, as we got to share our garden bounty and discoveries with so many others {photo of me and Mary in the garden one June evening}.

And then, a recent discovery: with the sweltering, uncomfortable weather that can be so burdensome in Texas, there's a unexpected gift on the flip-side: a second growing season! When everyone else is retiring their gardens for the fall, we haul out more compost, turn the soil again, and replant a bunch of seeds for a second harvest! Fall is coming. I can feel it - beneath the heat that has finally begun to relent, a subtle breeze and coolness is rising. Perhaps this fall, our pole beans will be successful...

For now, we will keep doing our part: tending our garden, feeding people, using the ability given by our Creator to go on creating. We'll keep cultivating our own little patch of beauty nestled behind our home and between three fenced walls. Here, we grow things and in our own little way, take part in redeeming the earth.

Life is indescribably beautiful.
Enjoy it today, and say thank you.

Four years.

Four years ago at this moment, the closest people in my life were in a cozy room together at Maggiano's, stuffing ourselves with mushroom ravioli and Nonna's Pound Cake. And celebrating...celebrating the fact that two people can be picked out for each other in this crazy world where it seems to be a one-in-a-million chance.

And today, I am here in our cozy little home, so thankful for the last four years of life, of growth, of love. And boy, do I have a story for you from this past week, the week before our anniversary...

Wednesday night is date night around here, a tradition we began when we first got married and vowed to keep no matter what. So this Wednesday, he took me out to dinner to an Asian tapas restaurant, Nandina. Then, when we pulled up in front of our house after dinner, he told me I had to wait in the car because he had a surprise...

"What? What kinda surprise?" I asked as I clasped my hands together like a 4 year old.

"Just wait here. I'll come out and get you..." he said.

So I sat in the car and waited. And waited and waited. For 10 whole minutes. I looked out the window. Checked out the house next door that is being remodeled. Noticed how dirty our dashboard is, picked up wadded up pieces of paper from the floorboards. Wow, we really need to clean the car...

Until he finally came out and got me, walked me to the front door, and put a sleep mask on my face as a makeshift blindfold. He opened the front door and grabbed my hands, facing me, and walked himself backwards through the house as he led me to my destination. Frank Sinatra was playing in the background, and I could smell tons of candles burning. Through the livingroom, into the hallway, down the hall, turn right...and we landed in the guest room.

He sat me in a chair and took some photos of me. What on earth is he doing?

And then, he read a letter he had written for me. It was beautiful. It was obviously very personal, but this line, I just had to share...

"Tonight I want you to know how creative and lovely your life is. That you bring the silly, fun, and warmth into our home that so many have enjoyed. Christine, I never want you to be anything that Jesus doesn't want you to be. And I hope He can inspire you..."

When the letter was finished, he removed the blindfold, and I could hardly believe my eyes....there it was...the painting that I fell in love with over 2 months ago!!!!!

"He Drew Me Out Of Mighty Waters" by an artist named Carolyn Rekerdres.

I was literally speechless. For ten whole seconds, I just sat there with my mouth wide open, shocked, with tears in my eyes.

It was "my" painting! The one that inspired me so much, the one that spoke to me of summer days and freedom. And then I realized the room was aglow with about one hundred candles...which explains why I waited so long in the car!

Next, I stammered, "How...wait...what? How did you do this? Where did you get this?" I knew that the original painting the artist made was 7 ft. x7 ft. - huge, like the size of an entire wall. In my mind, it was just fantasy, really. Then he told me how he took all the money he had been putting aside to buy a Compost Tumbler and scrounged around for as much extra he could find and offered it to Carolyn, the artist, hoping she would take it and paint me a copy of my very own, in my own size. She graciously agreed!

Steven said he had picked it up at her studio that morning. And then while we were at dinner, our friends The Fletchers had sneakily come over and hung it for us above the bed!

And the most inspiring thing is what this painting symbolizes to me. Its title, "He Drew Me Out of Mighty Waters," comes from the Psalms. And one of the greatest challenges I've been working through recently is finding my own voice. I love to blog because it's a place for me - on my own - to speak, and to share. But written communication comes easily for me. Verbal communication, not so much. I have a great fear of being bold verbally, of speaking out. And I've seen a million ways lately how my God wants to draw me out of that fear into a place of courage.

Even in the painting, you can't see her face. Her body is submerged still, just reaching the surface, but her face, her voice, has already surfaced.

It's a daily reminder...

"He reached down from heaven and rescued me;
he drew me out of deep waters."
~ Psalm 18: 16

I am thankful to be married to a man who loves me, encourages me, and infuses my life with hope and goodness. He challenges me in the many ways I'm weak. Oh, but it's a very good thing.

Any struggle we could face is like a dandelion in the wind measured up against this kind of love.

The man responsible for it all...

I must have this painting.

It's breathtaking.

It reminds me of days upon summer days of swimming underwater, one of my favorite places to be in the entire world.

The artist is Carolyn Rekerdres, who I actually met through my husband's training studio, The Movement Dallas.

Oh, I can't stop staring at it...

Never too old to color.

On Saturday afternoon, I took one of those naps where you wake up and have no idea what day or time it is anymore, and you've slept on one side for so long that your hair is smushed into a conehead and, more than likely, there is a pool of drool on the pillow. You know that kind? It was so refreshing. And the first thought that occurred to me when my eyes peeked open was, "I am going to color now."

It was a strange thought, considering that up to that point, my Saturday had been filled with a very adult-like and responsible task: hauling compost back and forth, back and forth, between the huge mound in the driveway and each individual tree stump and veggie sprout and plant base in the front and back yard. It felt so "homeowner." It was great functional exercise though {all those squats and bicep curls with the shovel and wheelbarrow}...and I actually liked working with the compost. You might think it's smelly and full of flies, but compost actually feels fresh in an earthy kind of way. The only unfortunate fact is that it’s so powdery that with a light Texas wind, it seeps into any crack and crevice of your skin that is not covered with an article of clothing. I didn’t realize this until I heard Steven singing, “It’s A Hard Knock Life” from Annie, complete with flamboyant hand gestures, as I passed by with the wheel barrow for the umpteenth time.

Uh-oh. I went inside to check myself in the mirror, and it was not a pretty sight. The white tube socks that I had pulled up to my knees and over my workout pants were now black. My hair was frizzed almost to the point of no return, and dirt had caked on my face and formed so many visible lines and smudges that I looked like a coal miner...or perhaps a street sweeper from the movie Oliver...or, admittedly, one of the kids from Annie. Maybe compost-hauling doesn't have to be so adult-like after all.

I took a very welcome hot shower and scrubbed myself from head to toe with my honey mango shower gel and then collapsed into bed for that perfect, drooly nap. I don’t know what happened in my dreams, but when I woke up, all I wanted to do was color. You're never too old to color, you know. In my "Rain Washed" craft room, I found my box of Crayola State Collection Crayons and a butterfly coloring book that Steven got me as a surprise at the Mennonite grocery store. I set out for the back yard with my supplies tucked under my arm like a little girl on her way to kindergarten.

Outside, Steven’s phone rang. It was my dad calling from New Jersey. Steven answered it, they exchanged greetings, and then there was a pause on our end of the conversation - my dad must have asked what I was doing.

Steven answered nonchalantly, "Oh, she's coloring."

{"Coloring??" I imagine my dad must have asked in his brash Jersey accent.}

Steven answered again, "Yeah, she's coloring...with crayons."

I looked up at him and smiled. Then I went back to busily coloring my butterflies as the real-life ones hovered above the flourishing lavender bush.

A few random girl things.

Just had to share a few random things that you might like. The first is my new favoritest item of clothing in the whole entire world. This black wrap.

Oh, I love it.

It's perfect.

It's comfy.

It has bell sleeves.

(hard to see in this pic, but you get the idea)

I got it in Nashville at Francesca's as a belated birthday gift from Amy! I've worn it about a hundred times since then, and it goes with everything, I tell you. It's shorter in the back, and when you untie the front, it goes down really long, past my knees. It makes me feel feminine. Oh, I love it. I also got this dress, perfect for a beach day in California. And perhaps I'll get this dress too, if it goes ridiculously on sale.

Next, I wanted to show you my office/creativity studio now that it's all organized and painted a lovely shade of Rain Washed. I'm still debating changing the curtains to a more coral-y color with a fun bohemian pattern. But for now, you can see how calming and serene it is. At this current moment, the walls are bathed with late afternoon sun. I guess it's the next best thing to working outside!

Here's a perfect place to display my preserved autumn leaves from New Jersey until I get some India and Africa photos printed...

And here's a creation that I adapted from a picture frame from IKEA. It was originally black, but I spraypainted it white. Then I removed the glass and painted the cardboard backing with chalkboard paint and...voila! A whimsical chalkboard for writing notes, reminders, and inspirational quotes.

I love being a girl.