Hidden In France

Mustard Seed and Moonshine

This will be my last post until I touch ground again.  Leaving for six weeks is a huge deal to me.  I'll relax once I get there but right now I'm stressed. As of yesterday I wasn't even sure I had found a house sitter. I hope to take pictures in NYc and Paris even though this is no gift to you because, lets face it, my pictures suck. 

To leave you with images pretty  enough to last a few days, here is the phenomenal work of artist Kate Carlyle, of Mustard Seed and Moonshine.  

Dishes inspired by nature, good enough to eat on everyday and to serve as museum pieces down the line.

 

Here is what Kate says: 

"We are a studio in Cape Town, which I started in 1992 with one person and it has grown very organically into 34 people with almost no turnover of people at all ……….so all the people who started with me are here still.  We all have a passion for flowers and everything is based on the botanical form…….in fact as a little girl I was incredibly fortunate to visit the Harvard Glass flowers (my father was a scholar for a year at Harvard until we returned home here to SA)and I remember being completely transfixed by these fantastic feats in glass and minute details of nature."

Delphiniums

Irises

How unbelievably pretty, a whole collection of ramequin-flowers!

Seriously, I want to have nothing but flowers in my cupboard now.

I dig her way of doing business.  Art, a lot of heart and passion, a commitment for her enterprise to be a home where employees can grow and blossom, and an eye for excellence.  That's one great business model.

I feel a bit lost because I have not been reading your blogs for days.  What's going on out there in your worlds?  Next post will be from NYC if I survive the next 48 hours.

Optimist by choice

I was reading the beautiful words of Clarity on optimism.  Read it here.  I started to comment and then decided to do a wee post on the subject of optimism.  What is optimism, really, and what is it good for?

To me optimism is absolutely a choice.  I was not always an optimist, but I think that's because most of my life or at least from childhood to my late thirties I had to deal with low grade to full blown depression.  Try to work on being optimistic when the sight of wallpaper is enough to send you into something ranging from melancholy to despair.

But Depression with a big D has now left me.  Pfff, just like that; it's left me. Yes I went to therapy quite a bit.  No I'm not on prozac, this is all natural baby.  I wonder, is depression like allergies, like acne, sometimes you can simply grow out of ? I can't  explain why I no longer feel depression, (as opposed to depressed, not the same animal.) I don't feel depression, not even a little bit, not even some of the time.  I will tell you that it's a fairly new thing (10 years or so) and that there is nothing, NOTHING, like waking up in the morning and not feel the dark cloud threatening to swallow you. And I don't believe there is a because to depression, nor is there a need for a because, just like there is not a because to cancer.  When depression hit, you're just of luck.

Oh.. but this was a post about optimism.

Because I do not have depression does not mean I'm not morbidly terrified of it.  Having sample the best  depression has to offer I can tell you I will do everything to make sure the beast is kept at bay. I'm a warrior, never quite letting myself sleep with both eyes closed.

When depression subsided I began to see patterns of negativity in me and others.  I began to see how I really affected my environment with my outlook on things.  I don't think that being angry about an issue or a person is negative (unless it becomes chronic.) I like my anger.  My anger is like a fire that makes me feel alive. I believe that anger can be an excellent thing as long as it's directed outwardly. But I do believe that negativism and optimism are choices, and that those choices have a profound impact on how we feel.  Lately I have even really started to believe that whatever I focused on is what I end up getting in my life.  That's a bit freaky, and I'm a bit embarrassed to admit it because I'm not a hocus pocus kind of girl, but I have come to believe in the power of intentions.  

These days I  I actively work on focusing on positive and optimistic outcomes for fear of negative shit coming into my life. I invented optimition:  it's a clever mix of optimism and superstition.

So what I'm trying to say is:  Depression is not a choice, but negativity is.  As long at we look at things in a negative way, that's what the universe will serve us on a poopy platter.  I don't want to feel depression ever again.  Any time i even remotely feel down, I go raging optimistic.  At first I think I'm just being a nut and who am i kidding.. and soon enough I start to believe and trust.

That's what being an optimist by choice means to me.. If i'm making any sense.

Yum and ahhh...

Two things cooler than ice cream for this scorching day.

I have yet a new crush. His name is Jason Jones.  Check him out. I though he was cool before, but now he makes me weak in the knees.  Just the right combo of humor and arrogance I love in a man. (Plus he can rap.)

Also, did you see Kim's (of Desire to Inspire ) new bedroom:

This is all thrift-store, paint and imagination people!

Deconstructed

This is fascinating work by artist Valerie Hegaty. 

Happy Sunday to you, unless you are, as i am, depressed about the events in Iran and no amount of Summer sunshine and interesting artwork can quite make you forget the injury.

Liberty of London

Rahhhh... got to post this!  Leslie got her hands on an amazing stash of insanely gorgeous Liberty of London fabric and is selling it here.  For all of us fabric junkies, this is a find.

is 3 PM too early for margaritas?

Being a mother during the year is one thing.  Being one when the kids are out of school is another.  It's been a week and I'm begging for mercy.  I know I whined about this before, but have you tried to work from home when the kids are present?  Ha!  

Oh but you want a sample day?

This morning I picked up a little friend of my ten year old at his house.  He lives 20 minutes away but his mother has a crippling illness and cannot drive.  Right as we arrived at the house, their cat was chased, attacked and mauled by a dog in the front yard right before our eyes. Because the mother cannot move I got involved the best I could but was powerless, and powerless to protect the children from seeing this carnage.  It was awful.  The owner of the dog managed to make the dog let go of the poor kitty, but the cat, badly hurt, crawled under the house where we could not dislodge him.

This took half the morning.

I finally brought the kid to our house, but he felt sick, poor little guy.  He wanted to be brought home, which I did.  (another 20 minutes each way.) The instant he got there he started to throw up.  I was relieved it did not happen in my car, but now worried there are flu germs all over my house.  I stopped feeling sorry for myself when I added in my head: 1 sick mother+ 1 near dead kitty+ being sick away from home... Some ten year old have more on their plates than most.

Now my kid is home and pressuring me to go to the movies because "he has no friend to play with and has not even seen Transformer and is BORED'.  But movies are loaded things too.  For example:  don't bring yours to Year One.  That was one seriously filthy movie, and I am no prude.  If you're a mom there is no way to look at the ratings and know what to expect from a movie.  Someone told me about a website that analyzes movies and describes each scene in detail.  I recommend you keep Kids in Mind in your bookmarks.  I'll know for next time. (read this and marvel at the level of obscenity they have managed to cramp into a short hour and forty minutes while maintaining a PG 13 rating (spoiler alert)

So now it's 3PM and I haven't done any writing  (blogging does not count, sorry.)  Should I just reach for the bottle of Tequila and call it a day?

Colors in Buenos Aires

If you're a news addict like I am, sometimes too much is too much.  This was one more day of senseless  violence and deaths. Of course a celebrity's life is no more important than a stranger's life.  But with a celebrity it's hard not to feel a bit of a personal connection.

So here, a little bit of Mexican inspired color.  Color warms the heart, soothes the soul, color is like honey on the tongue.  Color to me sometimes feel like a lifeline.  Hey, i must be getting old: I think I've posted these images before, but today, I need them.

These images via beautiful  Karina/ El Beso