halloween

cousins and bonfires and pumpkin guts and hot cider and string lights. and aunts and uncles and charred marshmallows and ward's childhood monster record. and candy! and hippies and jawas.

and jawas!

full disclosure: I was hand-sewing that jawa business up until the very. last. minute.

double full disclosure: I consumed many, many bowls of count chocula.

seven books

seven books I'd like to read right now:

1. m train by patti smith

2. jesus feminist by sarah bessey

3. photobooth: a biography by meags fitzgerald

4. how we do both: art and motherhood by michi jigarjian, qiana mestrich

5. the reason for god by timothy keller

6. the chronology of water by lidia yuknavitch

7. hold still by sally mann

you?

collected

(one)


(two)


(three)


(four)


(five)


(six)


(seven)


(eight)


(nine)


(ten)


(eleven)


(twelve)


(thirteen)


(fourteen)


(fifteen)


(sixteen)


(seventeen)


(eighteen)


(nineteen)


(twenty)


(twenty-one)


(twenty-two)


(twenty-three)


(twenty-four)


(twenty-five)

pinterest is great and all but it's the homes of my friends that really and truly inspire me.

and over the last year or so, I've visited quite a few. thank you, jen (4, 9, 14, 22, 25), dera (5, 12, 15, 18), amy (7, 16, 19), alix (3, 11, 24), leslie (10, 13), lisa (2, 23), shelby (1, 6, 21) and mollie (8, 17, 20) for letting me lift my sad little iphone up to shoot whatever lovely bits caught my eye.

this is the year

this is it, guys. this is the year. the year I will post something every single day during the month of november (aka nablopomo, aka national blog posting month). can you hear me laughing? because I am definitely laughing. every year, I say I will do this and every year, I fail. I wrote a little more about that last year, how I give no craps, zero craps, about the failings. that what I'm most interested in is the trying.

and nothing has changed, really. ten (ten!) years into the challenge and miraculously, I am not bored. I still come to the table fresh each year, believing I can do it, that I'm fully capable. that it's an exercise worth the time I will undeniably pour into it. and even though I seem to eat my own words every single year, I still write more, shoot more, post more than I ever would during any other month. this is the triumph, folks, for this very slow blogger here. this is the big fat v for victory.

and so here I go again. I do solemnly swear to show up here everyday-- or, as close I can manage-- with something, anything, some words, a picture, maybe both. inevitably, I'll struggle to carve out the time and, not even kidding, the struggle will be real. but there's value in the struggle, this I do believe. and there's real worth in the trying, there's gold to be found in it. and I'll be digging for it, everyday, everyday.

(internet fist bump to karen, xanthe and jeanine, who'll also be playing along with a little naphopomo this month as well)

(are you posting daily this month? if so, big fat internet fist bump to you too)

atlanta + amsterdam: cars

atlanta, left:

a little sky blue volkswagen bug I pass on my way to pick ezra up from school. mostly, this is not a town of volkswagen bug lovers. or, small car lovers, for that matter. this is a town of big car lovers, giant car lovers, multiple car lovers. which is probably why the sight of this guy each day makes me so happy. it fills me with hope.

amsterdam, right:

a vintage fiat 500, crazy popular in amsterdam because they're so tiny and easy to park. and cute. oh my goodness, cute, the very definition of cute. go ahead, look it up in the dictionary. under the word 'cute', you will find this car.

(more from my co-collaborator over in amsterdam, joyce, aka on a hazy morning//more about our twelve-week project here)

atlanta + amsterdam: flowers

atlanta, left:

when I see that patch of tall, yellow, spindly sunflowers start to bloom here in georgia, I know. fall is here. fall, season of butterscotch-colored leaves and indian summer afternoons. in-between weather so perfect you wish it would stay forever and ever, amen.

amsterdam, right:

there's not a lot of space in amsterdam. people are packed in there quite nicely, or so I've heard. and so they do what they can to plant colorful flowers in the space that they have. sometimes that means a patch of a little something growing alongside the pavement, where folks often live in what's known as souterrains. souterrains, a perfectly lovely french word meaning 'basement'. leave it to the french to make basement living sound lovely. and leave it to the dutch to make a patch of concrete a beautiful, beautiful thing.

(more from my co-collaborator joyce over at on a hazy morning//more about our twelve-week project here)

the best kind of bomb, really

super incredibly inordinately ridiculously excited and honored to be partnering with my brilliant friend and writer brene brown--

her words + my polaroids = COURAGEbombs delivered to your inbox every monday morning yo! each and every one, folks. I'm kind of excited about this.

read more here! sign up here!

all the exclamation points! all of them!

long live instant film

last week's offerings for polaroid week aka fall 'roid week 2015. the full set is here, a few of my favorites are here and well, happy monday.

atlanta + amsterdam: signs

atlanta, left:

the old clermont hotel: seedy, unyielding. permanently fixed along one of the city's most beloved arteries, ponce de leon avenue. ponce, we call it. I'm certain it was something back in the day, before the drug addicts and the prostitutes got to it. you can almost see people in black felt hats and shiny shoes coming and going. it sits empty now, save for the infamous clermont lounge housed in the back. broken windows like missing teeth, paint chipped and peeling, construction signs on the marquee. the place sits and it waits. for the inevitable boutique hotel makeover. when we were first married back in 1994, we lived in an old apartment building behind the clermont and for six years, we watched the comings and goings, for six years, we collected the stories. the old clermont became a fixture in our lives, too. like that great uncle, you know the one-- mostly sour around the edges but with eyes that twinkle,  sort of, if you look really hard.

amsterdam, right:

a beautiful arrow from the streets of amsterdam, story unknown. which, sometimes, is even better because then you can make up your own.

(more from joyce's point of view over at on a hazy morning//more about our twelve-week collaboration here)

well, it's fall polaroid week

and I am excited.

I'll tell you, there are more than a few reasons to be excited about this week. but more about all that business later. in the meantime, hop on over to fall 'roidweek on ye olde flickr because, you guys. that's where the real polaroid party is.

atlanta + amsterdam: bikes

atlanta, left:

we are not known for our bikes here in this town. we are a city that loves our cars. we do not love our traffic, we curse our many highways but we will not give up our cars. and I really wish we would because bikes are nice, bikes are nicer, bikes are nicest.

amsterdam, right:

city of bikes, teeming with bikes, busting at the seams with bikes. in fact, joyce told me there are roughly 900,000 bikes in amsterdam, that there are actually more bikes than inhabitants. well, we do not have 900,000 bikes in atlanta. but I bet we have 900,000 cars.

(more of joyce's perspective over at on a hazy morning//more about our twelve week collaboration here)

atlanta + amsterdam: treats

atlanta, left:

a fried peach pie from the varsity, still warm in the bag, sounds of the streets all around us, north avenue to the right, the big downtown connector off in the distance. the sounds of folks coming and going, swinging those front doors open, bits and pieces of that old varsity chorus wafting out, what'll ya have what'll ya have what'll ya have, a chorus cashiers have surely been singing out since the restaurant first opened back in 1928.

amsterdam, right:

joyce's norwegian cinnamon rolls and can't you almost smell them? because I can. straight from a cozy kitchen in amsterdam, which I imagine be filled with a lovely light,  a clean light, the kind of light I like to think only exists in amsterdam. am I wrong? I do not think I am wrong.

(read more over at on a hazy morning) (and more about our twelve week collaboration here)