Mill City Adventure Tuesday

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I met up with my friends Pat and Heather for an educational Adventure Tuesday at the Mill City Museum, where we were treated to this gorgeous view of the river. After watching me snapping away with my lens nudged against the glass, the tour guide kindly pointed me onto a balcony. My lens and I were thankful; these were the result:













The museum, housed in the old Gold Medal Flour mill, offered more than just a pretty view. We learned a lot about the history of the mill and Minneapolis. Did you know that for a while Minneapolis milled more flour than anywhere else in the world? There were lots of hands-on activities geared toward older children; Truman's favorites involved water (no surprise). We also road the excitingly named "flour tower," which was a lot less like the Power Tower than some would hope, but much less nauseating.

In fact, we left the museum hungry, on our way to The Spaghetti Factory for lunch.







This is what I would look like if I were insane, but enthusiastic (notice the thumbs up?) living in a giant field of wheat:




This is what it looks like when play food at a play dinner table is inexplicably glued together and you try to indulge in a nice slice of felt bread while your child wonders where their bread is:




Not enough pictures of me looking crazy for you? After the museum, Pat and Heather headed home and we went to visit my friend Vanessa, where I became a robot:



Or maybe an iPod, depending on your preference.

A Musical for the Whole Family

As most of you know, our very own Joe will be playing the role of the eldest son in the Mille Lacs Area Player's upcoming production of Swiss Family Robinson, which runs Aug. 13-16 & 20-23 in Milaca.

But you may not have known that I have been hard at work behind the scenes creating some pretty posters to publicize the show. For more details about the show, see the above poster. A factoid for the photoshop nerds out there: most of the design elements on the poster come from brush sets created from scans of actual antique maps.

We'd love to host anyone who wants to come up and see Joe in action. Just let us know when you'd like to visit so we don't over-book Hotel Walsh.

Although, as long as you don't mind sleeping on an airbed it is pretty hard to overbook the expansive Hotel Walsh.

Happy Birthday, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO JOE!

Joe has work and play practice today, so we won't have much time to celebrate. When he forgot a few things at home today, I took the opportunity to ambush him with balloons and sing him our crazy version of Happy Birthday, which involves lots of Punk Rock screeching (the one from Truman's birthday).

Happy birthday, my love!

The "Intruder"

While driving down our street last weekend we noticed the usual suburban ornaments — our neighbor's lawn windmill, the black decorative street lights that invade my bedroom with light at night, the giant trampoline near the stop sign — and then we saw something new, an RV called "The Intruder," parked in front of our neighbor's house.

It looked like this: Intruder picture.

I guess it's the RV for the horribly annoying guest.

Seriously, who names an RV "The Intruder?"

Hat and Onesie for Jill

I made these for my friend Jill who is expecting a little girl sometime this month. I can't wait to see her in the hat.

Thanks, Amy, for teaching me the joys of applique.

Mothers Day Lake Maria hike

This photo is just a few matching shirts away from Awkardfamilyphotos.com, but there is something about it I love. Maybe it's the look on Joe's face. Maybe it's my hair in Truman's hand or my half-face. Somehow that combo really reflects our life right now.


It didn't happen on Mother's Day, but we headed to Lake Maria State Park in celebration of motherhood. It gave us the chance to try out our new hiking pack (Joe gave it a good review) and gave me chance to photograph the forest while risking life and limb to a bunch of starving ground mosquitoes.


The reason I'm a mother:

Flight (words)

Have you ever noticed that there is a point right before a bird takes off in flight where they pause, glancing upward, then bend and push off on their pointy bird-feet to get the leverage to fly? Watching that quiet moment outside my window gave me the kind of deep recognition you only get from seeing someone do something you've actually done before.

We all try to gauge how well something will go before we jump into it for the first time, but flight seems so intrinsic to being a bird, I assumed they could do it with their eyes closed.

Now that I have the time to think and notice these kinds of things I've been amazed by the sheer effort it takes to accomplish most of the tasks we take for granted — mental and physical. That is, until we can no longer do them easily. I've been resolving to take with me into my everyday life the kind of mindful-appreciation it takes to wonder at the magnitude of each moment without dwelling so that I can actually live in the moment. Just as difficult to do as it was to say.

Do I wish I had a picture of the bird crouched just before take-off? Perhaps. Do I wish I had photographs to stand as place markers for the millions of poetic moments my prose-speaking-mind fails to capture metrically? Sure.

But all of these moments live somewhere in my mind waiting to be recalled and used as fodder for a future creative endeavor. And sometimes it's nice to write without pictures in order to remind you all where I started. Sometimes its nice to diversify my creative energy even if just for a moment before I plunge back into the world of shutter speed and light.