This is Water by David Foster Wallace

>THIS IS WATER - By David Foster Wallace

from The Glossary on Vimeo.

"But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear talked about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving .....The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.'"

'In 2005, author David Foster Wallace was asked to give the commencement address to the 2005 graduating class of Kenyon College. However, the resulting speech didn't become widely known until 3 years later, after his tragic death. It is, without a doubt, some of the best life advice we've ever come across, and perhaps the most simple and elegant explanation of the real value of education.'

This speech by David Foster Wallace, and video (made by The Glossary) was exactly what I needed at exactly the moment I needed it when I stumbled across it yesterday. Do you ever find that? You have questions in your head and unexpectedly you find something that helps answer them? These words can really be applied to many situations, so maybe if you have some questions floating around your head, you could use them too.

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Made by Good Fucking Design Advice. You need to check out their website.

To do:

{Image: The Elegant Abode via The Kitchn. Click the photo for a great bar starters guide, too}

So I did the deep and reflective post on the coming year, now time for all the little things which I have resolved will make this year all kinds of awesome.

1. Build a good home liquor stash
It seems I'm not alone in this new years resolution, if the ladies of twitter are anything to go by (and they are). There is just something very grown up about having some good, tasty, hard liquor in the house, which you intend to drink in moderation*. I mean come on now, I'm not 18 anymore. A cider and black just won't cut it. What's your favourite grown up drink? I'm a rum kind of girl.

2. Print more photographs
So, I take a lot of photographs. I mean, thousands. It's stupid really, and another of my resolutions really needs to be to self edit more. But in the mean time, what I really need to do is actually print the Goddamn things and fill our house with all these memories that I lovingly take and edit and then leave on the hard drive. For shame. Also included in this resolution is the need to start and finish Sachins baby books. Before he turns 18.

3. Grow stuff
Last year, I feebly tested the 'growing stuff' waters. We ended up with lots of herbs, some salad, a few tomatoes and some strawberries. This year I'm going to really get my hands dirty and plant so that we can have an abundance of fresh food this summer. Wish me luck. Oh and all tips gratefully recieved!

4. Read. Lots.
I have always loved to read. Probably because I spent a good part of my childhood in a library - I mean it was free and full of amazing places to escape to, my Mum knew a good day out. Since having Sachin though, reading has taken a back seat. Mostly because when I do get time to read, I'm so tired that as soon as my eyes hit the page, the words wash over and calm and...yep, send me to sleep. But I'm a lot more awake now (thank God, I mean he's two!) and in the past month alone have read three whole books. I might blog about them a bit too.

5. Learn to knit.
Ok so this one is a bit of a funny one. Because you see, I did learn to knit. My friend came over and taught me the basics and left me with the needles and the wool and I practiced over and over until I got a whole test square perfect. Then I meant to go buy more wool, and didn't. And now I've forgotten how to do it. So I need to learn again, then actually do it.

So by my reckoning, this will mean that by the end of the year I will be:

A woman drinking rum, in a house filled with memories that made it onto the walls, whose eaten lots of home grown produce, sat next to a massive pile of books (all of them read), wearing a wooly hat created with her own bare hands.

What are your fun things to do this year?

*you know, most of the time.

It's beginning to look a lot like....

My favourite time of the year. Honestly, there just isn't another time or month or season I love as much as Christmas. The lights, the scarves and hats, the nip in the air, the cosy nights in.


Now we're somewhat settled from the move, I've slowly been letting Christmas seep into the house. At the weekend, I put up a little DIY branch/fairy light installation (after pinning a stupid amount of branches on Pinterest and finally lumbering one home from the park). Today I made a rosemary wreath with the abundence we have growing in the garden.

{The branch in all it's glory}

{Rosemary wreath}

Then we decided to venture out and investigate the city's Christmas Markets. Now to be honest, I didn't have high hopes for this. I've never been to a really great Christmas market. Sre they always look pretty and smell nice, but beyond that? Not that it's bothered me after drinking down 6 mulled wines in the interest of 'keeping warm'. But Manchester? They know how to do a Christmas Market. The finest French cheeses, some really good sausage, the best Baklava I've ever had. Not to mention an abundance of alcoholic drinks. Hot burnt sugar rum, anyone?

Yesterday I played the first Christmas tunes. Sachin loves music, and he can actually sing snippets of songs now. I can't wait to teach him a Christmas song and take him to a carol concert. I know he will find it magical. 

And then I saw this. And I can't explain it, but I am actually a little bit in love with it. You know the bit in Bridget Jones, where she goes to her Mums Turkey Curry Buffet, and meets Mr Darcy for the first time wearing his Christmas jumper? No? Hmm, well that's what I thought of immediately. I just need to find a much, much, cheaper version. Or is it, ya know, hideous?

{Cashmere Jumper by Antoni and Alison}

What I most love about this time of year, is how it takes on a new meaning now I have my own family. M and I have started traditions to pass on to Sachin, that hopefully he will continue. Every year S gets that little bit older, he understands a little more. This makes me think too. What do I want him to learn about this, what shall we teach him about why we are doing what we're doing? We're not religious, although my Mum is Catholic and so as a child I spent every Christmas in church. I want him to experience that too when he's older, to know and see why others celebrate.


We're not big on presents, that's not what it's about for me, but we do give gifts on Christmas day (and a tradition from when I was little is to open a sneaky gift early on Christmas Eve too). I wanted to come up with an explanation of why we are giving each other gifts. I thought about Christmas and what it is that I love, and for me it really is a celebration of the year that has passed. A time to slow down and be thankful, grateful, and reflect before the coming New Year.


What does Christmas mean to you? What traditions do you have? Genuinely interested as I think it varies a lot...


We will be reflecting whist huddled up in wooly jumpers, drinking mulled wine and surrounded by twinkling lights and family. Let Christmas begin! 

Change

Recently, a light came on. In my head, in my heart, I'm not sure which. Probably both. I realised something about myself. I saw it like I was outside, looking in. Does that ever happen to you?

Since moving I have felt happier than I have in a long time. I feel lighter. Content. Calm. Don't get me wrong, it hasn't been without it's, shall we say, challenges. But overall, I feel different here. In a good way.

And I couldn't work out why. It's been bugging me, actually. Why haven't I been missing the places and people we said goodbye to more than I am? Why has the thing that I have been fearing for so very long, actually felt quite....good? It wasn't just that it wasn't as bad as I expected, it was more.

Out of the blue, as these things tend to do, it came to me. I realised that for the past year, I have been forcefully, with my whole body and heart, resisting. Nearly every thought that I had about this massive change that was to come, was negative. It was tiring me out. Draining me. Clouding every judgment I was making about everything. About the time I still had there, and the things we would plan for here. Colouring everything a shade of grey that was hard to shake off.

But the thing is,  I didn't know it at the time. Yes I was sad, but actually trying to push the notion of change out of the way completely?  No way! I'm open minded! I understand that everything changes! Well, it turns out that I wasn't being as open as I thought.

When we finally got here, it was almost like being set free. Free of that little cage of resistance I had locked myself in. Those thoughts of 'I don't want to, you can't make me', were no longer relevant. I no longer needed to think like that. Those thoughts were replaced with mostly silence. With an openness to this new place and what we might find. Letting go and quietly embracing the here and now. 

Just being.

Lesson learnt universe. Next time change is a-coming and I'm not being as open as I should, I'll check myself (*before I wreck myself)

*Oh yes I did just drop an Ice T lyric on y'all.

Photo by me, here.

Smart Girls at the Party

I was watching In the Actors Studio the other day (random, I know) and it was an episode about Amy Poelher. At the end of the show, she mention a new project she was working on called 'Smart Girls at the Party'.

“…The idea came out of us wishing we had a time machine so we could go back to the younger versions of ourselves and let them know it was gonna be ok.

We wanted to do a show that we would have wanted to watch at that age. And we knew we wanted to have a dance party at the end. We basically started with the dance party and worked backwards…

…Girls have to fight against a lot of the same stuff we did growing up…peer pressure, exploitation, etc. But what worries me the most is this trend that caring about something isn’t cool. That it’s better to comment on something than to commit to it. That it’s so much cooler to be unmotivated and indifferent. Our culture can get so snarky and ironic sometimes and we kind of wanted Smart Girls to celebrate the opposite of that.”

I went to the SMGATP website and fell in love (and on the floor laughing) with a girl named Ruby. Watch this, love her.

Find more videos like this on Smart Girls at the Party

I wish I had been this smart aged 7. I wasn't.

Colour therapy

These photographs make me want to dive into them. To swim around for a while and get lost in their beauty and emotion. Art that makes you feel something is worth everything.

photography by David Michael Cortés via bumbumbum

In a world of pure imagination

One of the things I love watching develop in Sachin, is his play. When I was 19, I did work experience with a Play Specialist in the pediatric unit of a hospital. The idea is to use play as a therapy for children who are having a difficult time. In that case, it was children who were ill. It was fascinating. From the use of teddies to show how different operations worked, to drawing as art therapy. In hindsight it's something I could definately have gone on to do career wise (after that I spent the summer teaching kids photography at an American summer camp), but life took me in a different direction.

With Sachin, I love how his play is changing. From his basic looking at objects, eating them, moving them around, to the involvement of a new toy. His imagination. He started pretending about a month ago. He picked up my Mum's glasses case and pretended it was a car. Moving it around, crashing it into something, 'uh-oh!', then 'beep beep!'.

Ages ago (probably when I was pregnant) I found Made by Joel. I love the way he encourages his kids to use their imagination through simple paper crafts. His designs are just so damn cool too. Sach has just started to love anything with wheels, so I thought I'd print out some of Joels Paper City. To be honest, I thought they'd be too small and well, plain for Sachin right now. His toys are bright and big, and easy for little fingers. But to my surprise, he grabbed them straight from the printer and squealed with excitement, 'Bus! Bike! Ba! (van)'.

So I cut them out, stuck down a road and skyscraper print out, and let him play...

 He loved them. He named the little man Daddy and little woman Mummy. He moved the pieces around the table, proclaiming beep beep and uh oh when they crashed. He was in heaven for a good 30 minutes, which for this toddler means he was pretty much in love.

So thanks Joel, from a very happy toddler.

Our New House*

*Ok, not really. But a girl can dream, right?

The calm! The colour! The light! I need me some of that.

All images - Alexandra Angle Interior Design.

Wise Words.

Edwin Land, inventor of the Polaroid. Dude knew what he was talking about.

Print from here.