Today

Sometimes you need a pick-me-up... some days you are tired, and distracted, and nothing seemed to work exactly the way you want it to. Some days the roads are full of crappy drivers, and the offices are filled with annoying gossips, and the dog digs a hole that is just a liiiiiiiiittle too deep... Today is one of those days, the kind that would be greatly improved by a big glass of wine, a bowl of spicy noodle soup, and a looooong bath with a fabulous new (or old) book. 

But since you can't have that every single day that needs a bit of work - wouldn't it be great if you could, though? - these soft, sun-kissed blooms will do the trick.

xoxo

Joel

Many more to come of this sweet little man. 

xoxo

Funny I should mention it

So I really shouldn't write things like, "Come at me, world. If I can do all of this, I can spend my spare five minutes a day handling whatever  else you want to throw at me...." on a blog that clearly World reads religiously.

Everyone give me a high five for good luck (and a kick up the ass for good measure) on three - 

 - ONE, TWO.... 

xoxo

Sometimes life gets in the way of life.

My cathartic ritual of posting my mind's eye here has been stalled somewhat, as all of you have so gently pointed out via email, facebook, and one particularly abusive text message that I could never show to my mother because she'd cry with the knowledge her baby girl knew language like that.

My head is a whirlwind and my imagination is running wild, as ever, but the ability to do anything even vaguely recreational or creative is being hindered by that thing - that gorgeous thing - life. Between two jobs, full time uni, insomnia, a committed relationship, the horribleness that is winter, organising my grandmother's looming 90th birthday party, a backyard that is so full of mud it is actually flooding - flooding! with mud! - and two needy, destructive dogs who just so happens to love mud... I am too busy after handling all of that to do anything other than thank my lucky stars nothing else is coming my way. And that, of course, is tempting some serious fate, and I should spend the next twelve hours knocking wood. But you know what? I don't care. Come at me, world. If I can do all of this, I can spend my spare five minutes a day handling whatever  else you want to throw at me.

I have so much in my mind to create... I have gorgeous bodies, glorious smiles, heartbroken landscapes, and so much beautiful depravity to capture... 

But first, I need to curl up and do this.

xoxo

Isabel and Jeremiah

xoxo

Sundays

Two boys, a couch, soft afternoon sunlight, and a laid-out coat for warmth.

Lazy Sundays in our house look like this. And that's how we like it.

xoxo

Mother's Day

I do love Mother's Day. I spent the day at my aunt's house with the family, eating and drinking and laughing and all that good stuff. The morning at home had my house smelling gorgeous as I baked a Lasagne Pie to take, which got snapped up faster than I could have imagined, and I ate far too much home-baked cheesecake and marinated tofu. Oooooh, baby.

My mother is a really funny person. And I mean that in a funny ha ha kind of way, with maybe a little bit of funny peculiar on the side. Okay, a lot of it. Okay, fine. She's about 65% funny peculiar, 30% funny ha ha, and 5% black coffee.

For example, my mother saves lives. She goes to work every day and because of her, sick and premature babies get to go home with their mothers in a bassinet instead of a casket. She does it as if it's the most natural thing in the world and when she gets home at night you ask her how her day was and she says, "Oh, good. Bit of poo, bit of placenta. What's for dinner?" I don't even think she knows she is actively practicing medicine on babies and saving their lives, because sometimes she talks about it like she's just happily changed the oil in someone's car, or done a nice big pile of paperwork. 

That's the funny peculiar part. The funny ha ha part is that even though she spends all day, every day, burping and cleaning and intubating and resuscitating and basically being neck-deep in nothing but babies, and remains a consumate unflappable professional the entire time; but the second someone outside of work brings a baby anywhere within a five hundred metre radius of her, she starts to coo and blush with excitement and demands immediate cuddles.

See? Funny.

My mother is also funny in other ways, but aren't all mothers, really?

I love to make fun of my mother, not only because she's several kinds of funny, but also because she is a real conundrum. I'm not even sure my father understands her completely; she is an oddly rolled combination of fierce, whip-smart, and butterball soft. But I can never make fun of her too much because no matter what, my mother is always painfully sincere. And also because when I look at her, I see some of what I'd like to be in 25 years. And I'm okay with that.

I love my funny mother.

xoxo