the story of our wild mountain pine : part two {the trimming}

every year my christmas wish is the same thing: to find a "charlie brown" tree.
there's something so heart-warming about finding the skinniest, most withered, lonely tree in the lot.
these days with tree farms all the rage, and the fact that it's illegal to go out to the woods
and cut my own tree makes it difficult to find an imperfect tree. sometimes i get so exhausted
of our obsession with perfection, you know?


so we found this skinny little tree, the most imperfect in the whole lot.
it grabbed our hearts, and we took it home with us.


our trimming party of course involved listening to our favorite holiday tunes,
and the hanging of my grandma's ornaments from the 1960's.
but this year we had some new traditions to add to trimming the tree:


first of all, ceej surprised me with a lovely snowflake ornament he picked
up in germany at the christmas market in munich.
he also surprised me with a tasty gingerbread treat from germany: lebkuchen.
once all the ornaments were in place we sat down to drink some
hot millk from our finnish wooden mugs (a gift from this lovely lady),
and i enjoyed my first bite ever of lebkuchen. i definitely think this will be a tradition.


we ended our night dancing with ella. does it get more magical than this?


{p.s. ceej made those ornaments he's holding when he was three! so cute!}

the story of our wild mountain pine : part one

it's so great to have ceej back home again. what relief.

we spent our day together yesterday looking for a christmas tree

in the freezing cold weather...it was one of those days where the sun

tricks you into thinking you don't need your thickest coat.

so, our looking for a tree was sped up by my need to get warm.

luckily, we found a nice wild-grown tree that a nice farmer had grown just for us (right?).

this is why i enjoy christmas so much. christmas day is not, actually, my favorite...

all of the festivities that lead up to it are such a joy:

finding a tree, trimming it, listening to the songs we always listen to,

making the cookies and candies i make every year,

walking up and down the streets to see everybody's pretty lights.

christmas day is lovely...but not as lovely as the entire month leading up to it.

so glad i get to spend most of this month with my favorite person ever.

more of our christmas tree shenanigans tomorrow.

telling stories...

i started writing a story yesterday
about a girl, a tree, and the sky...

can't wait to see where it takes me.
could be a short story or a novel.

love writing.

falling asleep in the tree tops

ceej is flying somewhere over the pacific for a business trip,

and i have stayed near our mountains.

last night was my first night alone in bed...

i pulled the covers back, laid down on my side,

pulled my pillow under my head,

and grabbed cj's pillow and tucked it close against my back

trying to convince my body that i was not completely alone.

i stretched my arm and barely reached the lamp to switch it off.

darkness was not complete.

i could still see the tops of the apple trees out my windows,

black branches scratching the purple night sky.

i slipped my earphones onto my head and listened

to a song about a rose blooming in winter...

i simultaneously ached for ceej

while knowing that this moment alone was spell-binding.

i truly felt as if i was falling asleep in the tree tops

in the mid-winter...

what awe filled my entire being...

thoughts were both racing through my head and settling in slowly.

i like falling asleep in the tree tops.

project film : slide film & poetry of the earth

Smile O voluptuous coolbreathed earth!
Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees!
Earth of departed sunset! Earth of the mountains misty-topt!
Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon just tinged
with blue!
Earth of shine and dark-mottling the tide of the river!
Earth of the limpid gray of clouds brighter and clearer
for my sake!
Far-swooping elbowed earth! Rich appled-blossomed earth!
Smile, for your lover comes!
-walt whitman

have a lovely, earthy wednesday...we are having an autumnal equinox party tonight to welcome in the first day of fall tomorrow (just ceej and i...but it should be fantastic!). i can hardly wait for summer to end (though we have 95 degrees in our forecast...ugh), and for the weather to cool down for my mittens and scarves. can hardly wait for the harvesting of apples, pumpkins, and everything else delicious. how are you celebrating autumn?

{and happy birthday wishes to frodo & bilbo of the shire!}

"trees go wandering forth in all directions with every wind"

{digital photos by cj}

i absolutely adored this camping trip, though it started off a little rough. both "plan a" and "plan b" camping sites were full upon our 10:30pm arrival thursday night...there's nothing worse in my mind than arriving to a destination after a long drive, late at night, with nowhere to sleep. luckily, we stumbled upon a pretty sweet RV campground just ten minutes outside the park.

these photos are from day 1 of our trip. we immediately went on a hike that would take us through an incredible old-growth forest. i was not prepared for how majestic and awe-some these old sages would be. i was not prepared for how still and quiet this forest would be. i was not prepared for how alive this forest would be. i could feel every tree move and breath inside me. it's just impossible to explain. this park now tops my list...in the top three of my favorite national parks. it will change you.

we hiked all day long...taking photos at every turn...making for a longer hike than anticipated, but oh so worth it {i certainly hope a handful of my film photos turn out}. we were back at our campsite at sunset, where we found a huge heard of elk grazing at the site. we watched them for quite a while before getting back to our tent to cook up some delicious dinner. every night we played speed scrabble under the light of our little lantern {we are not game people--scrabble is the only game we own, and we only play it when we're camping--that's just the way we are}.

this trip truly was amazing. i'm hoping we will make it back there a few more times in this lifetime.

"groves of redwoods and beeches are often compared to the naves of great cathedrals: the silence; the green, filtered, numinous light. A single banyan, each with its multitude of trunks, is like a temple or a mosque--a living colonnade. but the metaphor should be the other way around. the cathedrals and mosques emulate the trees. the trees are innately holy."
-colin tudge, the tree, page xvii

{the title quote is john muir}