• Family

    Harvesting a Christmas Tree

    Chris and I have always wanted to harvest our own Christmas tree but since we don’t live in northern climes with fir trees and acres of our own forested woodland we made do with going to Spring Creek Growers for our first Christmas tree in this house. I haven’t decorated for Christmas in over five years, mostly because I’m too lazy to get the decorations out and then put them back up again a month later. Since we now have a little one in the house we figured it would be good to enjoy the holiday season a little bit more and opted to get our decorations out and get…

  • Florida,  Outdoors,  Travel & Places

    Bletia purpurea | Fakahatchee Strand Preserve State Park

    Digging through my Florida photos from last March still. This post had been sitting in my drafts folder for months and months. I was able to steal a few moments while Forest was sleeping to process the photos and get this up to share. This lovely little orchid was very accessible and growing by the side of the road. Sometimes you don’t have to dig too far in Fakahatchee Strand to come up with something so lovely.

  • Baby Teddy,  Family

    Forest at 10 & 11 Weeks

    I meant to get this out earlier this week, but here we are, days later. Oh well. Week 10 started off well, things were progressing in the sleep department. We were working our way up from 5-6 hours a night in the first stretch to a wonderful 7 hour stretch and then *bam* serious regression. In the last two weeks it has been consistently 2-3 hour stretches with one eye crunching 1.5 hour awakening just after being put down for the night. Last Thursday I got 4.5 hours before he woke up but that has been the longest stretch in the last two weeks. I did some reading online and…

  • Thoughts

    Loving Lately

    +Patrice and Justin are hiking the Te Araroa trail in New Zealand…follow them! +You Know You’re A Hiker When… +The Girl Who Goes Alone +What Going For A Personal Record Can Teach You +Raw Chocolate Pie +Panic At The Drive-Thru—I had a similar experience in the Chick-Fil-A drive thru a few weeks ago. My word of advice, don’t take a sleeping baby thru a drive thru at lunch time where you’ll be jammed in by other cars. Just don’t. +I painted a single leaf +Cow Buck +Food For the PCT +Northeastern Sierra – Finding Fall +Fun, Fearless, Female, and … Feckless?: Cosmopolitan.com and #Casey Nocket +The Serial Podcast…excellent podcast brought…

  • Gardening

    The Garden’s Last Hurrah

    The overgrown and weedy section near the bees. When I stole 10 minutes the other day to wander around the yard I also tinkered in the garden for a few minutes. My time spent enjoying the garden is practically non-existent now that the weather has turned cooler, the daylight is short, and I have returned to work. Weekends are spent trying to catch up on chores in the house and keeping the baby fed, changed, and happy. Gardening? What is that? Despite being a little sad that winter is coming, I’m glad at the same time—I can just abandon the garden and not worry about it until spring. I can’t…

  • Gardening,  Thoughts

    Before It’s Over…

    I spend most of my commute to and from work oogling at the colors on the trees. There are a couple of sassafrass trees near the office that are a glorious apple red tempting me to soak in them, if one could soak in trees. Peak fall color is here now and quickly passing. I don’t get to wander around my yard much these days but I stole 10 minutes the other day and wandered around to see what I was missing. With what seems to be an early freeze this year (first one last night—but not a killing freeze at least) winter may be rolling in sooner than I…