At the Market : Golden Watermelon!

Okay. I am eating the most delicious melon right now (after yesterday's Findlay Market trip). After every sentence I am stopping, biting, dripping juice everywhere, and grabbing the towel to wipe my hands. Back to typing another sentence...but I just can't stay away. (Bite, drip.)

This Amish-country grown golden watermelon is sweet, thick, and refreshing. (Bite, slurp.)

I love knowing that the fruit I am eating was grown less than 30 miles away, ripened on the vine, and picked yesterday! (Bite, slurp, drip.)

A Modern Tea Party

It's a D Party!

My friend Jenn recently hosted a girls night at her house with all the sweetness of a tea party (read handmade invitations, homemade treats, and fresh flowers), but also with an updated theme and youthful twist. A D Party is Dips, Drinks, and Desserts!

Jenn made ALL of this food, and the invites herself. It was a grand and classy time.

Just Something Beautiful for Friday

Alright, I have a new infatuation. I know it is a long-term one because it has grown slowly over time, gaining strength. I am simply infatuated with the flower arrangements of Amy Merrick.

Her work is wild but purposeful. It somehow manages to be natural but fully saturated with color and style! How?!?! I quite literally swoon. She showcases the natural "stunning-ness" of the flowers. Take a look at her new website.

Have a most beautiful weekend!

Oh and a fun announcement is coming next week! Stay tuned...

Writing! For Adults?

GUEST POST ALERT!!! IT'S A GREAT DAY!

I am fortunate in having a creative family and creative friends. They challenge me to new ideas, as well as give freedom and grace to experiment, create, and mess up. Some adults may not have the freedom, motivation, or encouragement to be creative. Maybe structured lives, rigorous schedules, or social expectations squeeeeeeze it out? Unfortunate I say! Surely brain-stretching, expression, and innovation are just as relevant in adulthood as childhood?

So I asked one of my creative friends to share some encouragement in her area of expertise : writing. Amy Sheets is a 4th grade language arts teacher, as well as a MA, lecturer, and college professor off...Writing! Of course! Writing can be done anytime, by anyone (aka, no drawing skills required :), so it is the perfect course for building creative adulthood muscles.

Thanks for sharing this with us Amy!!!

_________________________________

My Red Umbrella by Carambatack

“One of the gifts of being a writer is that it gives you an excuse to do things, to go places

and explore. Another is that writing motivates you to look closely at life, at life as it

lurches and tramps around.”

-Ann Lamott

Writing is a troublesome thing. It always sounds like a great—romantic, even—thing in which to take part. But then there’s the fact that at some point along the way of being a “writer,” one has to actually sit down and write at some point. For me, writing has been a fickle friend, but once I became a teacher of writing, I realized that I actually needed to be a writer. Otherwise, I would be like being a swim coach who seldom getsin the water. To do it well, I needed to dive in.

Retro Design - Car by Carambatack

But writing, once it gets going, can really be a wonderful activity. It can help you remember the details of a special moment. It can help to process difficult emotions or decisions. It can bring clarity to experiences from your past. It can also allow a complete divergence from reality. Writing even has a myriad of health benefits. Did you know that researchers have found that people who write about their deepest thoughts and feelings surrounding upsetting events have stronger immunity and visit their doctors half as often as those who write only about trivial events, let alone those who do not write regularly? The Journal of the American Medical Association showed that writing even reduces physical symptoms in patients with chronic illnesses.

In the past year I have challenged my students to think about the reasons we write. At first they looked at me like, “Uh…because you make us?” But once we started thinking

of reasons, they came up with some really beautiful ideas. One student said that you should write because maybe it will become a book you’ve always wanted to read.

Tree Print by Carambatack

Another said that it can be as exciting as being at bat with all the bases loaded (I don’t know that I ever got him to write about a topic other than baseball if you couldn’t guess).

I also worked to find the words of writers and teachers to add to our collection of reasons. One of my favorite quotes on this is from fellow writing teacher Ralph Fletcher, who says of keeping a writing notebook, “[It] can be a clearing in the forest of your life, a place where you can be alone and content as you play with outrage and wonder, details and gossip, language and dreams, plots and subplots, perceptions and small epiphanies.”

So, I challenge you to write today. Wonder at the world. Notice something about the world and the people around you. Allow yourself a “clearing in the forest of your life.”

And, just for a bonus quote:

“And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to

do it, and the imagination to improvise.  The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.”

~Sylvia Plath

---Amy Sheets

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To contact Amy with questions or for writing sources, email makinghomehomemade@gmail. 

The Rest of the Story

Now that you've learned of the little orphans of Haiti, and seen some of the things I love about Haiti, I thought we could share a brief overview of rest of the trip! I'll give the full summary in an upcoming newsletter...let me know if you want to get it!

This was Mountain Walk Day..about 2 miles up, up, up in the hot Haitian sun. That little dot in the road on the left picture is a truck...just for some perspective. I could have sworn we were about to reach the Dominican Republic. See Husband's arm after about 5 minutes:

But it was all worth it when we reached the mountain top village. This is what awaited us:
Beautiful Haitians, fun and games, story telling, wound bandaging, and goofy songs.

We had the privilege of viewing the mass grave from the Jan. 2010 earthquake...the government says that 200,000 people are buried under the gravel, marked by wooden crosses painted black.

Let's see what else was there...
Playground building, bathroom painting, gate painting...

River fording...

Aggressive US vs. Haiti basketball action (the red and white blur is Husband)...

Sleeping in bunks and riding around in the back of a pick up truck...

Group bonding time...

And I'll leave you with this, my favorite part of Haiti : sweet children in tough situations to love on.

 

Come to Haiti with us next year!

Husband Knows Best

It is August 1st, and that means it's our anniversary; we have been married for two whole happy years! It is strange how things seem to go so fast, and yet I feel like I've always been married to Ceej. You can see our first family portrait here.

This year Husband surprised me with a bed and breakfast stay in Columbus, complete with a trip to Cosi (science-y stuff geared towards kids, but right up my alley). The pics didn't turn out (iPhone in the darkness), so you'll just have to trust me that it was great! Imagine Husband lifting a car, animatronic dinosaurs, champagne pear flavored ice cream, dinner outside during a huge thunderstorm, and the best double chocolate cookie man has ever made.  It was the perfect celebration of our quirky preferences as a couple.

Did you know that the 2nd anniversary is the cotton anniversary? Functional!

I would choose this for my 2nd anniversary cotton gift :

Turkish Cotton Towels from TurkishTowel

30 Days : Check!

Have you every looked at 30 pictures of your head all at once? Neither had I...

BOOM! 30 Lisa Heads!

Not gonna lie, it's a little creepy.

But this is the result of my 30 Days : 30 Dos experiment...which I loved! I feel more confident in working with my hair, and I have a repertoire of styles under my belt for multiple occasions. Do you have any favorites? Any "lisa-don't-do-that-again"s?

You can find links to the individual hair styles here.

Here are some links to ladies who have either tried one of the dos, or who are doing a hair experiment of their own! Check them out!

Kristen at :  stellarmade.blogspot.com
Kelley at : dailysips.blogspot.com