Lovely Lil

Lillian gets a lot of photo space in this blog. I can't help myself, she is such a unique girl in such a wonderful stage. Five years old is a wake up age. Woken up intellectually- but not thrown, quite yet, into the whole wide complexity of the 'grown up' world. Ive been reading a lot on early child development and I am reminded that these years are a treasure and to engage in them as often and as fully as possible.
Yesterday we played hide the five dollar bill. It was a compromise between hide and seek (Lil's suggestion) and Desmond's recent currency obsession. We got our moneys worth. The acreage where the main home is is spectacular these days with lot's of blooms and exotic bird conversations. Spring is here, it seems (finally).
Ive been on a fitness 'thing'. When my friend Carol Jackson came for a visit and she was so slender and elegant I asked her about her secret. She said she took two substantial walks a day and continued to eat healthful, moderate meals. I decided to try this out. I vowed to exercise 2 hours a day at the beginning of September. I live in a gorgeous walking locale so I usually get at least half of my daily dose by strutting up a coastal trail or just walking the beach. I have been doing yoga and other movement classes, too. I don't know about lost weight, but I feel good and my skin is revitalized. I have also tried to eat more fresh foods with high moisture content like fruits and veg's, since I can easily get in a rut of forgetting to do that. It's pretty simple, I don't buy or bake the stuff that I would eat impulsively that has lots of calories and fat. It's easier to do while I'm in my Virginia Woolf retreat, I must say. Speaking of that, I gotta write, now.
These beautiful photos are the work of photographer Jane Best who lives in Karekare, the other little girl is her daughter Eve.

Wide Screen

Why is it that when I have something pressing to do, all the other aspects of life seem so inviting? I have a Poetry portfolio due and I keep wanting to read Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice which, by the way, went ignored all last week, but now is very captivating. I do the dishes right away, I read more books to the kids, I pay my bills-early, open emails I would usually neglect and have been cooking with extra flair. Oh and the birds! Why haven't I noticed them before this?

Alas, I'll snort and whinny and stamp, then push the blinders back to restrict my peripheral vision, again.

...But I do have this fantasy about just buying a lovely little portable Italian wood fired oven and trooping around to peoples dinner parties, film crews and festivals and cooking amazing breads and pizzas and telling stories or teasing them out of the guests, even better. I could go to schools and bake with kids, I could show up at Farmers markets and cook up the wares into lunch. I'd take artful photos and put them here. In the mean time, Ill knock out those assignments, I guess.