Creating a gratitude collage

Dear friends,

Today I received a text from my sister Katie (my only sibling) that said,

"Feeling overwhelming love for my friends and my life today.  Y'all are such a big part of that!  Thank you for being so awesome!  I feel lucky to have you as my family.  Love you and miss you. Katie"  

Of course it gave me the warm fuzzies and made me think of all the amazing people and beauty in my life that I am grateful for.

I made a quick gratitude collage :)  The children are of course in my thoughts and always in my heart but now that they are teenagers I get censored on what I can post and how often I can use their images - lol.  

I have so many things to be grateful for and these are just a few.  This collage includes my daily creative practice and all the friends associated with it, my family including my adorable husband and dog Merlin who like to take naps, fresh cucumbers (from a friend's garden) and the abundance of yummy food, passion (and yes it is blooming at the new home), cool yard art (and the sale I found it at), beautiful purple flowers on the butterfly bushes that were given to me as a gift by two of my friends and finally the crepe myrtles that are abundant in GA and bring a smile to my face every time I see them!

Wrapping you around with infinite love and gratitude,

Christine

Creating a Daily Creative Practice and more

Dear friends,  

As summer draws to a close and we prepare for the kids to go back to school a week from today (I KNOW it's ridiculous) I've been thinking about my routines or lack thereof at the moment.

I've been "off" track with perfect storm of  the move, several guests and summer sleep schedules. 
 
So today my creative DCP was finished at 9pm vs. 9am and I'm giving myself a little pat on the back that it was completed!

This morning I had tea on the front porch and back deck - lol vs. doing my yoga and I managed to get the picture below.  See the "orb" in the middle of the tree?  It's a spider web being illuminated by the sunlight :)

Here is my DCP that was just completed before I started on this blog.  It is a quick doodle done with a fine tip sharpie then filled in with water color pencils.  I rubbed water on it vs. painted just for fun and sheer laziness of trying to find the paintbrushes in a box somewhere.  I liked how it turned out and even got a nod of approval from the teenager!

The idea came from the fun book, Craft-a-Doodle, that my dear friend, Denise, gave me when she came to visit last week.  You met her in the Creating Connection Chronicles yesterday.  She had seen some of my posts in the +Hallelujah Truth 's Daily Creative Practice group on facebook and thought I would enjoy it - boy was she right!


As part of getting back into my groove I'm heading off to bed early so I'm going to make this brief today.   As I was starting to type, Sammie (the 12 yr old) popped in and was inspired to whip out a quick picture after she saw my owl :)

Sammie's drawing

Wrapping you around with infinite love and soft summer breezes,

Christine 

Creating the ?___________? Chronicles

Dear friends,

I want to create a new day on my blog called the ? Chronicles.  Not sure what to call it yet.  I want to highlight the friends and experiences that happen when people sit on the front porch to visit, cry, talk, solve the worlds problems, etc.  I was thinking Front Porch Chronicles (yawn), Swinging Stories (could be misconstrued - lol), If this porch could talk (insert melodramatic music here).  So I'd love your feedback on names - thinking it will be a one day a week highlight on who's dropped by - and yes you are welcome to come join me and be a part of this series in person :)

My handsome hubby and I love to sit on the porch and chat

You might get a glimpse of my partner and spouse Joe - who likes to drink coffee and hang out with Venus (the black cat). 














 
My friend Denise stopped by for a lovely chat and cup of tea.  I enjoyed hearing how the edits of her second book are going and was thrilled to learn that she has publish dates for #3 & #4!!!  If you read paranormal romance check out her first book Syphon's Song  which is currently on sale!

Cheryl stopped by for a quick chat and picture before we headed over to our favorite upscale resale shop Wellspring Thrift where we found some awesome deals at their bi-annual sale.  It's less than a mile from my new house - squeeeee!






This porch is also a great launching pad for events :) The pictures below were taken on Sat. night the last night of Bridget's visit.

You have a choice of Swinging, rocking or just sitting :)

About to head off the porch for a night of dancing!

It's also a gentle place to recover from a week of revelry.  The above picture was taken the morning after dancing (and kayaking and Interplaying) before we took Bridget to the Marta so she could catch her flight home.

  



Last night Irena, our friend and previous neighbor, took a quick swing when she brought the girls over for a sleepover.  She gave the thumbs up for the new house even though it's 6 miles from the old neighborhood.

 

 Alex's best friend's are home from a month long camp and here the girls are pictured with the cupcakes Sammie made for their return!  They had a fun filled sleepover but I'm not sure they slowed down long enough to hang out on the porch :)







It was a fun and full week last week with the Gautreaux Gang.  It will be neat to see what this last week of summer holds before the kids head back to school!


Wrapping you around with infinite love and summer stories,

Christine

P.s.  The swing beckons you and I would love any ideas on what to call this "series."  What do you think?

Creating a sacred space

Dear friends,

Yesterday was spent shopping with my friend Bridget who's in town from New York (she was our host that you met in this blog...Creating Spring Break.)

We were on a mission to find swings that would work for my beautiful new front porch.  When we originally started researching we were leaning towards a traditional front porch swing and decided we had two problems...

1. My new porch is narrow and only about 4 ft across and we'd have to have one custom made

2. I'm not "traditional" in so many ways and we needed my front porch to greet people in a fun and funky way :)

We're in progress and hoping to finish in the next day or two but here are a few pics of what we have going so far....

The swing :)

The fun paper lanterns we'll hang once I find/get cup hooks

Me enjoying the swing for the first time!

I'm envisioning a mural painted on the ceiling of the porch, and candles and coziness!

It's fun to dream and create new spaces in our new home.  
 
I have an outdoor table to refinish and create a mosaic on for my back deck but that's a project and post for another day!!!




Wrapping you around with infinite love and summer stories,

Christine

Creating the Month of July

Dear Friends,

I'm amazed that it is July 22nd as I sit down in my new kitchen/breakfast nook to write this quick blog.  

It's been a wild month.

On July 4th we moved into our new home with the help of lots of friends.  
 

The strong ladies who helped with the move!

 Not pictured are Shelly and Cheryl who were lovingly cleaning my new kitchen and putting down liners so I would be ready to unpack!
Everyone was so amazing!!!

At the end of the day we went next door where our new neighbors were having

The strong men who helped load/unload 3! trucks

a fourth of July party.  
It was great to meet a lot of the new neighbors - of course I'm not sure of our first impression since we were exhausted after moving - but at least we were clean and semi-coherent!!!
 

My new kitchen! Yahoooo for working appliances!

The first week was spent unpacking the kitchen and getting the guest room in order since my friend, Sheila would be arriving to lead the 4th and final weekend of the Atlanta Interplay Life Practice program.  

(photo by Debra Hiers)

It was nice to take the 4 days to play with Interplay and some amazing friends.

We also got to celebrate Sheila's 75th birthday with a fantastic party and celebration!  The party was at +Hallelujah Truth 's lovely home and we brought gifts of performance!  To the right is a pic of Ruth, Marquetta, +Jennifer Denning and I dancing to Pearl Cleage's poem, "We Speak your Names."  Here is a small except:



"Because we are magical women,
born of magical women,
who are born of magical women,
we celebrate your magic.
My sisters, we are gathered here to speak your
names.
We are here because we are your daughters
as surely as if you had conceived us, nurtured us,
carried us in your wombs, and then sent us out
into the world to make our mark
and see what we see, and be what we be, but better,
truer, deeper
because of the shining example of your own
incandescent lives."

Surrounding Sheila with Love - what a terrific evening and experience

 

Interplay Life Practice Completed!  Sheila is in the white!

 
Since that time there has been more unpacking, the long arduous process of painting the teenagers room - 4 coats - 2 primer and 2 color since we were covering a bright mint green!

The beginnings - will post when it is finished!

We've had tons of visitors this summer - but I'll save that story for another post :)

The last week we've been hanging out in the new house figuring out how things work and deciding on what systems need to be put in place.  I still have tons of unpacking to do and I'm looking forward to putting up the artwork once I'm sure where the furniture is staying. More pictures coming soon!

My view out the back door :)

I for one need to add 15 min of weeding a day to my routine!  I love the yard and I'm excited to be out in it!

Well I'm sure I've missed a few things but I wanted to start getting back into my blogging routine so I'll call it done!

Wrapping you around with infinite love and gratitude,

Christine


P.s.

This collage is made from pictures from my friend's garden - I love it!

Creating a move and so much more....

Dear friends,

I have never wanted to be a minimalist more in my life than in this moment!  Still packing and getting ready for an immanent move once closing occurs on our new house.
 
Yesterday was quite an adventure that I wanted to capture  and since I woke up at 5 with my brain whirring (even though I went to bed well after midnight) I thought I'd jot a few things down.

My friends Shelly and Eric came over yesterday morning to help me dig up special plants to transplant to the new house. I am so grateful for their help and support. One of the plants was my knockout rose bush that has special memories of BLES for me....
 

The beautiful bouquet of flowers Shelly cut

 I was looking around my pink dogwood for baby trees to transplant and found a whole nest of slugs....
 

The cool fat slug in my pink dogwood with little babies everywhere

 We also dug up my bed of purple irises and there was a flowering plant hidden in the shade of the shrubs and irises...not sure what it is but I love it!!!

a mysterious flower

 A storm was rolling in and we had a visitor....

a beautiful Doe in my front yard

not moving this beautiful weed

 Here's my truck loaded with the transplants headed to the new house....

Yep I'm my daddy's daughter

 I met the vent cleaning/air conditioning guys over at the new house and took the load of plants too.  I gave them a good soaking and look forward to planting them in my new yard....

the collection I moved today

Bugs on my rose at the new house - what to do?

 After triple the time I expected the guys were done at the house and my dear friend and neighbor called to tell me to stop by on the way home and pick up dinner for my family....

Homemade Chinese takeout from a dear friend

 I feel so loved and supported by my friends during this stressful time!  Thanks you +Ellen McCorkle for being so awesome! 

We found out our closing got pushed back a day, or two, so I need to reschedule a few things and breathe.  And since I still have a ton of packing to do I think it's all going to work out great.
 
The night was not over yet...
My friend, Maureen, who I've known since I was a kid but haven't seen in at least 20 years, was in town with her husband, Cary and we met at The Highlander in Midtown to catch up.  We had a terrific visit and I realized this morning we forgot to take any pictures!!

Life is full of adventure and yumminess!

Wrapping you around with infinite love and beauty,

Christine