31 Days: Let's get started!

My favorite month begins tomorrow...and so does 31 Days: Crafting a Creative Life!

Each October, for the past four years, Myquillyn (otherwise known as The Nester) has issued and hosted the challenge to write on a certain topic for 31 days. Last year, 1,239 people accepted the challenge. Wow.

Last year was my first year to participate. I was nervous...but so excited to complete those thirty-one blog posts. You can find my 2012 series 31 Days Making this House our Home here.

This year, I am choosing to write and share about creativity...you can expect to see a LOT of fun projects (some for adults and some child-focused), thoughts on creating spaces to cultivate creativity, and some of my musings on the process and importance of creativity. I'll also have some recommended reading as well!

I hope that you'll join me and be inspired this month! And if you're participating this year, please let me know in the comments...I'd love to visit your series and cheer you on!

Day 1: "Real" Art?  part 1
Day 2: Real Art. part 2 
Day 3: Crafty craft sticks
Day 4: Five Minute Friday: Write
Day 5: For The Weekend
Day 6: Sunday Reflection
Day 7: Celebration Wreath
Day 8: Hadleigh is Ten
Day 12: Madeleine is six
Day 15: Creativity Boosts!

Day 20: Nathanael is Eight
Day 21: Some Days
Day 23: Caramel Spiced Pumpkin Latte

For the weekend...

This week, I've enjoyed:

...adding these white pumpkins to our dining room...now that our local temperatures are starting to hint at the current season.

...looking forward to Tuesday, when this book will arrive on my doorstep!

...contemplating "drop-ins" after reading the Nester over at (in)courage.

...visiting Italy, via Stephanie Howell's family adventures; this link shows you around Vincenza...but don't miss her lovely pictures of Lake Como either!

...soaking in these images and this song.

...contemplating/planning my 31 Days series, which will begin next week on October 1! Will you join me this year?

Five Minute Friday: True

There are so many quotations that attempt to define true friendship.

Some of them are quite perceptive. Some really resonate with me. Some make me roll my eyes.

As a military wife, I've been so thankful for the provision of at least one (and often more) dear friend in each place that we have lived.

I consider it a blessing to have a small circle of friends that have known me for half of my life now, if not a bit longer.

Kiawah Island September 2013

They are true.

The five of us lived daily life together at Baylor...during those unique years of university.

We have walked the aisles for each other and watched as five families began. We have seen careers flourish and end and new roles grow. We have held newborn babes with joy, shared the heartache of loss with one another, lifted one another up in prayer after prayer after prayer.

We have known the idiosyncrasies and the habits and the joys and the disappointments--the history--of our early years, and so we now perceive (with humor and appreciation and grace) the changes life brings. The delicate shift of accent, the laugh lines, the greys, the catchphrases.

We make it a priority to try to have annual weekend together...and despite the miles and states that separate us, despite the everyday life that goes on away from one another...true friendship is so very visible. And such a gift.

Today, I'm joining in 5 minute Friday...you can read more about it and join in here!

Five Minute Friday: She

10 years ago, she began to be more still.

She had been all-gymnast in the womb from the first moment I felt that first butterfly-wing brush until these days. But with ten days until her due date, she was a bit more still, needing more space for the long legs and arms, that would soon bend at the elbow and stretch above her head each time before her eyes would open.

She has been that constant blur of motion ever since. She was a baby who needed motion, rocking in her car seat. Toddler-tall, spinning in circles around me...me the dizzy one. My outdoor girl, hair left behind while swinging to the clouds. My gymnast, cartwheeling and hand standing and somersaulting until exhausted.

circa 2010

She rides her bike and runs and swims and climbs and plays at full speed ahead. Every day. All day long. Only being really sick can slow her...and even then, perhaps the worst part for her is the having to be still.

And likewise, in a great blur of motion, she dives headlong into the last 18 days of her single-digits.

Ten is approaching more rapidly than I had thought possible.

And she, she who looks to me to see if I am ready, is ready.

Today, I'm joining in 5 minute Friday...you can read more about it and join in here!

Since the end of August...

I celebrated thirty-four years...and Brent surprised me with a long weekend in Asheville with my parents. The last time I had celebrated my birthday there, I had turned seventeen...half of my lifetime, so far. Crazy to think about that.

Apparently, Brent thinks the number of candles on my cake now requires a culinary torch to ignite. Hmm.

Other fun moments included a date with Brent and a morning/afternoon with my Mom, dining and shopping around some of our favorite places in Asheville, as well as a few new ones...like our afternoon tea/coffee at Karen Donatelli's, a place I look forward to visiting again!

I think we went into at least three or four bookstores (used and new) and what fun to discover a literary appearance of Charles Frazier, author of Cold Mountain, at Malaprops that afternoon. That's him below in the dark jacket. :)

There were also fairy houses constructed...and plenty of time outside.

Home again, the kids continue their favorite backyard pastime of collecting frogs/toads and building "habitats." Can you spot the three below?

After a day and a half home, I set out for Kiawah Island (near Charleston) for my mostly-annual girls weekend with my four college roommates. It is always a sweet time together...with plenty of laughter, tears, talking, and food. More to come on that.

I returned home quite sleepy...but was so happy to return to my sweet family. I set up the most ridiculously constructed badminton net and the kids played here for hours...until the net broke. Thinking a better quality set will be a worthy expenditure.

And we celebrated our first day of Co-op with shakes and slushies from Sonic, which is (happily) much closer to our home now than they were in Virginia. I'm not sure if that's a good thing?!?!

They always request a silly picture, and I figure that's a good trade-off for a sweet one...and I think, years from now, the silly ones that reveal such personality will be the ones I love all the more.

Today, we are prepping for another fun (but full) week after a weekend with extended family visiting us. School, laundry, planning meals, and working on our schedule over the next few months.

I can't believe we are half-way through September already. I just feel like I'm getting comfortable writing 2013. Time flies.

And while I don't anticipate things slowing down soon, I am looking forward to routine helping me iron out a more regular schedule here at New Every Morning. Thanks for sticking around!