Photo Album

During a recent mental vacation/Pinterest perusal, I happened upon the above photo by photographer Jaime Beechum.

I am terribly in love with the intimacy and comfort of her photography along with the lack of pretense.

Nothing feels contrived or overly polished.

It just feels real.

Like I'm looking at my best friend's photo album of a road trip I was invited on but was unable to attend.

Her perfectly captured photographs give me a sense of belonging and balance.

I could look at them for hours.

If you would like to look at them for hours, too, you can visit her website.

À la vie et à l'amour

-Cortney

(Leftover) Jam of the Month: Astral Weeks

Yes, I completely failed on your Jam of the Month shipment in January.

But I assure you there has been much jamming going on in these parts.

When it comes to music, my tastes and preferences change like the tides, depending on the season, my mood, and an assortment of other factors.

Currently I've been feeling a very mellow vibe.

So, today's leftover jam is from Van Morrison.

The song is Astral Weeks from the album Astral Weeks.

In usual Van Morrison style, it's growly and mumbly and I can't tell what the hell he's saying most of the time, but it's happy and wonderful and jammie nonetheless.

So, slap this onto a piece of bread and sink your teeth in!

Jam on, my mumbly hippie friends!

À la vie et à l'amour

-Cortney

Important Things

Last Sunday was a glorious day.

I had no real plans and the weather was sunny and unseasonably warm for January.

After finishing the perusal of my stack of decorating books checked out from my local library and loading myself with plenty of coffee, I decided to throw on jeans, a t-shirt and my rain boots and work in my backyard.

Dear Local Library: I love you. That is all.

I spent hours back there with my 3 trusted assistants scooping dog poop, raking leaves, lifting stepping stones, and trimming an overgrown grapevine.

My assistants

Eventually my husband came out to admire my work and to retrieve one of the dogs and banish him to the crate indoors, as his obnoxious barking at the neighbor's roof repairs next door were simply too much to endure.

My husband laid a towel out next to the pool for the 2 smaller dogs to lay on and sunbathe and I sat down next to them and my husband, passing him a beer and popping the cap on my own.

We sat for almost an hour talking about his running, my brilliant idea of wearing rainboots to do yardwork, our kids, the dogs, and all sorts of important topics like that.

Thrifted $5 rain boots

It was ideal and I would give anything to replicate it every weekend.

Except for the poop scooping.

À la vie et à l'amour

-Cortney

Pressing Matters

At my own bequest when asked what sort of 'together' gift my husband and I might like for the holidays, a French Press was at the tippy top of the list and has, at long last, made it's way into my home and, most assuredly, my heart.

It's easy as pie to use so I have been partaking of it's offerings every day, and, more often than not, multiple times a day.

My husband has remarked that a coffee intervention may be needed.

I would elaborate more but I just heard my teakettle finish boiling water and there are some 'pressing' matters which need attending.

À la vie et à l'amour

-Cortney

Strings and Things

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There are 3 guitars currently residing in our house and not a single human within these walls who can play anything outside the first few notes of Smoke On the Water.

So far.

Obviously a live studio audience indicates growing popularity so I should probably begin making plans to arrange my decor around a collection of guitars.

Something along these lines will do nicely.

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via the Instagram account of A Beautiful Mess

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Don't worry - the thought of potential future fame and riches has not changed him one bit.

Yet.

À la vie et à l'amour

-Cortney

Memory Jar

Though many are tempted by post-holiday clearance sales, I have found that they are of little appeal to me.

I did, however, open my pocketbook as well as my mouth for this item that was half off at Sam's shortly after Christmas:

Originally priced at $20 and cut by half to a mere $9.98, and filled to the brim with assorted chocolates I quickly added it my bounty of groceries that day.

Though the chocolates themselves were nothing to write home about, they steadily disappeared over the course of the past few weeks when all three of my chocolate loving children were home for winter break.

We are now left with only a handful of chocolates and a mostly empty jar.

At the urging of my middle child, I have decided to use the empty vessel as a 'Memory Jar' for this year.

My plan is to fill it with bits and pieces throughout the year, then peruse the contents next New Year's Eve with my tribe and relive some of those tiny moments.

The first item going in is a ticket stub from my son's basketball game last week.

A win for our team and an evening when it became clear that my son, who currently stands at 5 feet 8 inches tall (for now), is no longer a little boy, but well on his way to being a young man.

And, as I sat next to my oldest daughter, who was still home from college for the holidays and had the good fortune of attending her brother's 7th grade basketball game, I realized that not so long ago, each of my three children were no bigger than that memory jar itself.

Don't be surprised if you see me walking around with my jar this year, cradled like a tiny baby in my arms.

À la vie et à l'amour

-Cortney

Jumping In

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Even as a child, I've always been one to ease into the water, never understanding how others could bravely leap into that unknown expanse of liquid, not knowing whether they would be bathed in warmth and comfort, or if chilly temperatures would stab at their skin and chill them to the bone. 

To this day, I'm still an 'ease-r in-er', plunging a toe, and then a foot to gauge the initial surprise, then often sitting on the top step of our swimming pool for an hour before slowly settling myself onto the next step as my body adjusts to the change slowly, even when others deem it "like bathwater."

(Which tells me that they have no idea how hot I actually like my bathwater because if my skin isn't pink and steamy like a fresh out of the pot boiled lobster when I finally emerge, it was not nearly hot enough for my preferences!)

This morning I return to blogging with no proclamations of resolutions or empty promises of blog plans.

I am, quite simply, jumping in to this year with a renewed energy for accomplishing goals that have, so far, continued to be out of reach despite my best efforts.

Which makes me wonder if maybe I should have brought a flotation device?

À la vie et à l'amour

-Cortney