hello...and the hurry & blur.

once again: "testing, testing...is this thing on?"

a YEAR has passed since my last entry. a whole damn year. one of my resolutions for 2015 was to blog more. i've clearly failed miserably. but we've been busy! and moved across the country! that has to count for something, right?...at least a few months worth of resolution-failing.

there are a thousand words to share about our new home + new life. mostly rough, probably cursing words toward the beginning...and much more pleasant, downright happy, grateful-to-my-toes words curling up against the present moment. and although i now find myself trying to balance working from home a bit + the usual busyness of caring for a toddler & a home, i'm really going to try to write down more of those words here. and i mean really, truly, honestly. i miss this space. i love reading past entries and the little capsules of time & memory i've created here.

if you're reading, thanks! maybe let me know you're still here? at least i know one (very important) person will be happy with the return of b.notes: my dad. hi, dad!

so, until more of the words come, here's a pretty picture from a walk we took on sunday...on a trail just a few minutes away from our house. that's the thrill of moving to a new place: discovering little gems of places (and vistas - oh, the views & vistas here!) you didn't know existed before. i'm still enamored with the mountains and hills and ridges and canyons of this place.

also, here are more beautiful words than i could ever create that capture what i've been thinking about a lot lately (due in large part to a wonderful moms group i've joined): gratitude, its daily practice, and the joy it cultivates.

i thought it fitting for my first (november) post of this year....especially in a time when, after much transition & upheaval & a whole lotta struggle, i find myself constantly feeling that deep thankfulness for the bite-sized & fleeting moments of grace.

[gratitude for little moments]

Exhaust the little moment. Soon it dies.

And be it gash or gold, it will not come

Again in this identical disguise.

    -Gwendolyn Brooks

gratitude, yes,

for all the big things

that stand tall,

thick with abundance,

joy, fruitfulness.

I cannot help 

but applaud

their presence.

but deep thankfulness

for the bite-sized

pieces of my life?

I had not thought of them,

those little snippets of time

so easily consumed

in the hurry and blur

of pretentious days.

the little moments,

assumed and presumed,

slip quickly through

the fingers of my busy life.

November gestures

with a wrinkled brown hand,

beckons me wisely

to consider

those fleeting moments of grace,

in things quickly passing:

a walk on a musky-wooded path,

a cup of coffee silently savored,

a birdsong in the squeaky hours of dawn,

the gentle touch of a liver-spotted hand,

a loving letter from a grateful stranger,

a fading crescent moon in a royal blue sky.

i turn to gather

finely layered remnants like these

in the come and go of my days,

and discover, with surprise,

how quickly my inner room

is a harvest place of gold.

-joyce rupp