Snacking on apples and strawberries...
I was reading a great contribution on Shutter Sisters a post called The Place Where You Stand. The end of the entry asked the reader to respond in kind and likewise take a photo of the place where you stand.
Dinner in a roasting pan: butternut squash, sweet potato, celery, red onion, beet and blue potato. Dinner on the stove: parsleyed-pine nut-quinoa with sesame seeds.
Lunch. An orange soup of types: carrot, red lentil and butternut squash with fennel fronds and red onion. So yummy in my tummy and good for warding of the fridgid cold here in Virginia.
This is the first photo I've taken of my daughter on the potty. I should have started taking them a long time ago... Aoife has been using the potty since she was only six weeks old (yes, you read that right). Aoife is now in big girl panties and uses the potty all the time now at 18 months old. I stepped out of the bathroom for a moment and she had somehow flipped around to play with the items on the back of the toilet. I thought it was just too cute.
Roomie and I are finishing finals this week. I have one more semester to go and Roomie is completed with degree number one and will move on to two and three simultaneously next semester. That is, if we can finish this week. We are both leadership/management students and our studies have started to verge on the redundant... and at 3 in the morning after a couple cups of fair-trade, shade-grown, it certainly all sounds the same. *yawn*
Aoife loves helping. Even today in the chiropractor's office... she answered phones, made calculations about insurance payments and scheduled appointments, all while Mommy and Daddy got adjusted and spent 20 long minutes in the "resting room". *bliss*
She's immensely curious, funny, witty, and overwhelmingly charming.
Baby is growing up.
My mom has to remind me that plants need water. I forget that sometimes. My Christmas cactus is prolific with blossoms this year and it reminds me of my grandmother. I lost my Nanna B when I was really young and there are very few things that I own that she touched: this plant was once hers. By a freak chance of luck (mainly my parents moving to Turkey), it was left at my house and when they moved to Hawai'i, it stayed with me.
Chestnuts make me think of whinny horses, thick brunette hair and eating fresh roasted chestnuts dipped in honey with my Roomie. There is something intrinsically fantastic about them though... they come in the autumn (my favorite), they pop in the oven and they are so heartwarming and mealy. What yumminess!"Chestnuts roasting on an open fire
Jack Frost nipping on your nose,
Yuletide carols being sung by a choir,
And folks dressed up like Eskimos."
It's been cold here in Virginia Beach this last week and I found myself last night finally uploading photos from my little point-and-shoot digital camera I took to Hawai'i. I spent a day snorkling with my family in Hanauma Bay two months ago, and I can still feel the warm waves, soft sand and gentle breezes... and watch my daughter happily eating her weight in tropical fruit.
There's a patch of old snow in the corner
Over her shoulder 
I love the library.
