red hook & a jellyfish

i've decided that i want to take more time to appreciate the little things in life. so i'll try writing them down here.

as we were leaving my parents' house yesterday i took a photo of the most beautiful hibiscus i've ever seen. isn't it gorgeous?! it made me want to grow them stat. i also love pale pink flowers with red streaks…there's something very evocative about that combination to me.

we had the rental car for a couple more days free of charge so i decided we'd go to red hook this morning. we hit the worst traffic on the way there- the damn draw bridge was up under the BQE - and i did the side roads thing along with about 3,000 other brilliant new yorkers and we finally made it.

we walked the red hook pier and lil p had the best time yelling and pointing out each helicopter, boat, and airplane we saw. then he watched the water crash onto the rocky little beach and screamed, "WAVES!" at each one happily. we saw a jellyfish. all in all, a huge success.

it would be nice to have a car so we could visit other neighborhoods easily but maybe someday! we had one today and it was great.

this afternoon we get to go celebrate a baby friend's birthday and i'm feeling very lucky for that.

already today has presented us with little gifts and i'm thankful.

fluidity

today was the day i left my parents house wondering if it would be for the last time or if i would visit again before it's no longer ours. i'm not looking for pity. it didn't hurt. should it have?
if you say good-bye long enough it begins to be another sentence. it begins to sound more like hello to something else. maybe that's what life is - moving through things and not stopping too long at any one station.
that was one of my homes. but i'm sitting in a more recent home. there were others before, and will be more. 
tonight when my husband, son, and i walked through the door to our apartment i said cheerfully to lil P: "look! we're home!"

little things

the wonderful thing about being a stay-at-home-mom who rarely leaves her neighborhood and is often home is that little things take on great meaning.

it's summer now in new york and i'm so grateful for my little life here. i loathe humidity and so summer is often a time i moan and groan a lot, but after this long, depressing winter with a 1.5 year old boy bouncing off the walls in my apartment, i'm much more inclined to enjoy the warm, soft air.

today, i'm grateful for my garden. it brings me a lot of joy. i've had a few iterations of it in the past four years we've lived here at our little castle in the sky and i feel like i've finally found a good balance of plants that complement one another and provide different functions. some plants are just beautiful and enjoyable to watch bloom like my lavender, rose bush, peony, japanese maple, and bamboo. other plants provide us with food and a little bit of a harvest- our herbs, tomatoes, fig tree, and new raspberry bush (see "raspberry shortcake"). we have fresh herbs all winter long thanks to our garden which is a real treat.
and lastly, there are plants that serve the dual function. those are pretty much our blueberry bushes. we have two now and they give us a decent amount of blueberries (you'd need quite a few to have a steady supply and then harvest for canning) and turn the most beautiful red colors in the fall.
i have found the most wonderful ground cover flower for next to and under other larger plants - portulaca. it favors dry conditions, which our terrace most certainly is. and that means i don't have to baby it with water. it blooms continuously throughout the summer. i discovered it our first year here and then for some reason decided it wasn't what i wanted. i tried other ones none of which worked that well and this year was at the nursery, saw some, and thought, "hey! my old friend portulaca!"

here's a photo of it blooming next to my lavender plant. in this photo is a shell from a beach in NC where my primary family and i used to take vacations. those beaches have the best shell collecting i've found on the east coast. i brought back a bag of shells years ago and just took them out for my son to play with. i've put a few in pots and i look at them, remember the good times i had with my family, and smile.

as i get older i realize life is filled with these moments of recollecting while at the same time making new memories. summers on the east coast remind me of my primary family. and all the while my husband and i are making our new family and enjoying these years while our son is small and at home with us. it feels so very precious. so fleeting.

we are going to cape cod this summer, to a town my parents and i used to go to, and i'm so excited to explore it with my new little family. it will be filled with memories of my parents which makes me a little nervous. but i think we will have fun and my son will be thrilled to play on the beach and in the ocean and lakes.

today, it's portulaca blooming on my terrace next to an old sea shell that filled my heart with love. and the thought of catching up on masterpiece mystery! the best!