Channeling Eden

I'm currently sitting in my garden whilst my youngest freely runs about innocently terrorizing the dogs and prematurely plucking our tomatoes, or "bapples", in toddler-speak.

He calls them bapples because any round fruit even slightly resembling an apple is, of course, a bapple.


My interventions have minimal and temporary success. With each tiny green bapple presented by my toddler's fingers, I restart the four stages of grief. I go through them relatively quickly now, as I've accepted a certain degree of defeat.

And, I'm simultaneously forced to self refect as I listen to my little imitator sternly scold the pups, "No No, doggie!" for nothing in particular.

Regardless of the on-going grief and introspection, this is my favorite place to be when I'm at Shadow Creek. This tiny Eden was why we chose to live here (well, that and the fact that the landlords were willing to rent to us, a whole other blog).



When we saw the lush landscape of trees perched behind our house-to-be, concealing the modern world, we knew we were home.


So, as I said, this lttle garden is now my favorite perch, but it didn't start out that way.








When we first moved in, our small yard was a huge, oddly shaped, thorny mess.

We referred to it as our East meets West jungle of, "holy Moses, what is that?!?"










We knew that, if we put some love into it, we could find the beauty hiding back there.

It only took a few garden tools (rake, shovel, rototiller, hacksaw, machete...),

a little tenacity (muscle, patience, bravery, rage, night-terrors...),

and some ingenuity (bribing the garbage men, child labor...),





and before much time at all

(except for the years stolen off our lives),

we had the beginnings of our sweet Eden...

While her progress is slow (thanks to that gopher from the underworld and his minions, the snails),

she is starting to give back some of the love.

And we are so grateful!

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MoonStruck

I think the feeling that surprised us the most was the sense of calm which followed our vows. As you might remember, I have debated the necessity of marriage quite a bit in the past. And still, I do not believe everyone needs a ceremony of public commitment to feel bound by love. But I cannot deny the transformation of thought that took place for me, personally, when we said, "I do". It was as if we took each other's hand and stepped in, out of the storm.

For this reason alone; to experience this belonging; to publicly choose and be chosen; I question how anyone could deny another the basic civil right of marriage.

Our wedding was perfect for us. Very intimate, just family.

We knew we wanted to dress up in honor of such a significant event, but neither of us could really buy into the whole church/tux/white dress thing. I mean white? Really? Four (4!) kids. We just wanted honest. He picked his snazzy gray suite and I chose an orange dress (and a significant amount of flair).

I added some puff and bling to my shoes and created a birdcage veil out of a black vintage pillbox hat. I bought the hat at a thrift store in Santa Cruz when I was 17. My mother made my teal bolero and the glass and pearl necklace belonged to my grandmother, Thelma Hughes...

And, of course, it had to be by the ocean...

We chose to say our vows, with our loved ones gathered around us, on a scenic platform overlooking Moonstone beach.

We even had our mothers officiate the ceremony

Our precious mothers

Everyone collected small jars of rocks from moonstone beach prior to the wedding. During our ceremony, each person poured a portion of their rocks into our jar while sharing their thoughts on love.

Now we have a jar of colorful moonstone beach pebbles found on the day we got married.

We celebrated with a fabulous dinner at Robin's restaurant in Cambria.

It was colorful and beautiful and surrounded by a garden. Klee's mom, Julie, created all our flower arrangements for the tables.

My kids looked so great!

Elliott loved all the flowers

 

Klee picked out our pretty teal cake...

...complete with an orange sugared dahlia topper.

It was a wonderful day.

One which I love to replay in my memory... over and over.

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Creating the World Around Us

Hello my friends and fans! How I've missed you. Somewhere along my blogging way life buried my creative time and energy. And then my laptop developed a personality disorder. I make my living by writing papers, so all of my computer's happy moments have been dedicated to limping through those assignments. So, let's hope my handy iPad can save the day. I found this blogsy app. It's a little confusing for a tech novice like myself, but maybe I can figure it out with some trial and error.

So first off, I should tell you, I got married! I'll blog a wedding post for you later, but here's one happy pic...

Klee and I are both creative creatures. As we evolve together, so does our vision for the life we want to share. It's a slow process but we're always adding details to that dream. We both thrive when we're swimming in projects or absorbing inspiration. For example, our weekends frequently involve a trip to one of the many local farmer's markets in search ingredients to use in Klee's jams, relishes, and vinegars. We've even designated a canning station for him. He has four concoctions brewing there now...

Much of our honeymoon was spent either beach combing for pretty shells and stones, or hunting for treasures in the antique stores. Fortunately, we made it home in time for the annual neighborhood garage sale. Never underestimate the joy bought by the aquisition of a $5.00 World War II army lockbox, $3.00 amber globe lamp, or a free box of canning jars!

Check out some of our other recent scores...

Awesome green trunk and vintage crate

The crate reads, "Cambria", which is special since that's where we got married.

The chair was free and we found the footstool at an antique store in old Capitola.

$25.00 cedar chest!

Pretty painting and frame

And, ok, this lamp may not be for everyone, but it caught my eye. If I want to, I can dismantle it and use the globes for another creation. I'm gonna sit with it for a while.

And, like many others, we love our garden, although that has been more of a learning process than a productive one this summer. More on that later, but here's a glimpse as I sign off...

 

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