I am a fair/festival/market/carnival JUNKIE. Anything with booths and some kind of music and a crowd, and I am drawn like a moth to a flame. Love love love. I'm blessed to have married a man who doesn't mind my passion and is content to tag along and enjoy the time with his overly-excitable wife. Truly--- I know he's a blessing to me. I'm sure plenty of husbands would happily stay home, save the cash, and watch a Netflix flick instead.

Since having kiddos, I've not gotten to indulge this crazy love of mine as much or as thoroughly as I once did... It's just not fair to the kids to linger in the heat/stay up past bedtimes/ponder boring things in a craft tent while they wait/drive long distances just to feed the silly excitement I get when happening upon a set of temporary tents with treasures and excitement inside. So I pass them by, or plan shorter versions of a trip, or tell myself I'll go next year... And that's perfectly okay. Its more fun to go with my family than alone, so I am perfectly okay waiting til they are good ages to go.

With the Laumeier Art Fair, which is every Mother's Day weekend, it just so happens that this year, both my kids are PERFECT ages for something like the Friday night start to the fair. I know they'll have live music, I know there is a lot of grass to run in should the bigger kid get restless or bored... I know Lucy is totally content in a stroller and VERY happy even when pushed a bit past bedtime... It was just a perfect time for a little trip to one of my favorite St. Louis Art Fairs...

And hey, it was Mother's Day weekend. I deserved a little time doing something I love, WITH the people I love, right? :)

So on a Friday evening, armed with picnic dinners for the kids, stroller, and a bit of cash for entry fees and junk food, we headed out to Laumeier Sculpture Park... Noah brought his trusty sidekick.

 

The park features a permanent display of fascinating, fabulous sculptures, this on being the most famous:

It was a gorgeous night-- cool, breezy... the music was just right, and as predicted, this little one was in heaven in her stroller, dancing in her seat to the music. (Plying her with peanut butter sandwiches and cheese sticks didn't hurt her mood either!)

After walking around many of the artists' booths, we stopped back at the live music to sit and enjoy. Lucy danced and bopped and smiled. Noah, in his strange Noah way, was sheepish and mad and embarrassed at the sensory input (he gets "shy" and overwhelmed when things are TOO awesome.. too loud, too amazing, too perfect) and had to settle into the experience before he let himself go and let himself love it as much as his initial gut response told him to. I don't understand it, entirely, but I try to be gentle with this tendency of his.

Once Noah warmed back up, he danced, too, and then wanted to play near the giant eyeball sculpture that was a few feet from the stage. I mean, come on! Who can resist a giant EYEBALL!?

Self-Portrait With Noah, Attempt 1: Getting the camera positioned right, therefore not thinking about expressions.

Too serious!

Self-Portrait With Noah, Attempt 2: Let's smile this time!

 

PERFECT. :)

Oh yeah, and the artists? Fabulous, as usual. (I only managed one photo of one little booth. Oops. Trust me, there was some good stuff at this fair!)

 

Once at this festival, years ago, we bought a piece of art. It was a real splurge for us, but felt amazing to do. Someday, we'll be in the position to do that again. I already have at least two artists in mind I'll be buying from first....Both of them mixed media types. (In an alternate life, I'd be a mixed media artist. I LOVE that stuff.)

ANYhoo... Just a few snaps from one recent family outing. Perhaps I'll get my act together enough to share photos from the TWO OTHER FAIRS we attended in May. Three in one month? Pure heaven to a festival junkie like me!

A Paltry Output For My Week So Far

 

This has been one of those weeks (months), that feels like I can't seem to get myself GOING. My discipline and motivation have flagged and I am floundering a bit with my goals, my personal principles of motherhood, my plans for the future.... It all kind of crashed to a halt after my insane April, when I had no choice but to be go go go go go go go go go go go for weeks... It was like after that insanity ended, I just....

QUIT.

So I've been trying to give myself pep talks to get back on track. 

It's not like I'm some crazy schedule-nazi that requires myself to be on a rigorous and stringent schedule of cleaning, cooking, self-improvement, mothering, and crafting. Trust me-- my goals are pretty small. Which makes this lull all the more embarrassing. It's not hard to do what I usually do. Yet I can't even seem to manage that small life. 

So. 

First of all, I posted the photo above as an ultimatum to myself to finally plant my butt in this seat in the next three days and pound out the epiphany and subsequent life changes surrounding rocks... Something that happened back in the fall and has led me since then.... that I've wanted to get down in writing, but never seem to make the time for. And now, more than ever, when I need to revisit that epiphany and recommit to it, seems a good time to get to writing. 

So, gauntlet thrown down. Photo shared. Epiphany must now get written. 

Second of all, I thought it'd be good for my sheepish inner self to jot down a list of things I HAVE managed this week, so that I can be kind to myself and forgive the bog things that keep not getting done. Maybe seeing a list of what DOES get done will help me forgive myself a bit more. 

So, this week, I managed to:

1. finish long-overdue client books AND send them off to the printer

2. make dinner for my family.  Once. Maybe twice?

3. Do one load of laundry. (Well, start one load. It remains to be seen if it'll get to the dryer before it starts to stink.)

4. Sweep up meal crumbs at least once a day. 

5. Throw away the junk mail. 

6. Get sticky labels off of 4 cute vintage lemonade bottles so I can use them for cold water all summer.

7. Ooh-- I DID cut out two sewing projects and nearly complete sewing on one of them. That was genuinely productive. Never mind I caught up on The Bachelorette while I sewed. That doesn't TOTALLY negate the productivity, right?!

8. Went on one walk, to pick up a prescription. 

9. Enriched my son's life with a cartoon while I dozed. 

10. Mailed a late birthday gift. 

11. Caught up on emails for work. 

12. Make the bed once. 

13. Remind and help Noah make his bed once. 

14. Watered our seedlings a couple of times.

15. Used a Massage Envy voucher. 

See? GREAT work, Em. 

Haha. 

Maybe tomorrow, since I'm bein' real, I'll go on a "my house needs some decluttering" scavenger hunt and show you guys the "dark corners". I think it makes everyone feel better to see someone's not-so-sunny stuff sometimes. And maybe my clutter will make you feel better about YOUR clutter. You DO have clutter, right? (Please tell me you have clutter. I need you to have clutter. It makes ME feel better.)

Okay. See? 16. Blogged. Like three times this week.

*

(Random: So I won't forget the little moments... I've recently discovered that Lucy is a CHAMP at entertaining herself while I work!!! Noah was NEVER like this at her age, so I just assumed she'd be needy and clingy, too. But she is amazing. She loves to take two halves of a plastic ball [like an Easter egg] and endlessly put them together, then take apart. Over and over. She just spent 15 minutes feeling up the strap of my camera and lightly exploring my camera bag in a surprisingly-non-destructive manner. She's AMAZING. I might just survive her transition to one nap if she keeps me company in this self-contented fashion. Woot!

Ooh, but must be careful not to abuse this discovery. She doesn't deserve me blogging every day during her awake time. I'll try to be aware of that. Just 'cause she CAN play alone doesn't mean she should have to every time.)