The Desert Solar Eclipse.

Zander and I were driving west yesterday and he commented on how peculiar it is that the sun could blind us if we were to gaze into its fiery eye.  And yet, its not common to hear of people going blind from it...

Hikers at Papago Park,The Valley of the Sun.<--Click!  There is a slue more!

and then today, i found this quote from one of my absolute favorite books "The Pilgrim at Tinker Creek"....


"We have really only that one light, one source for all power, and yet we must turn away from it by universal decree. Nobody here on this planet seems aware of this strange, powerful taboo, that we all walk about carefully averting our faces, this way and that, lest our eyes be blasted forever."


I would love to plop Zander down at Oak Creek Canyon for a month with a pen and paper and let him scribble down his spiritual, philosophical and scientific musings. But then I'm pretty sure he would scrap that idea and instead scramble up the canyon walls, putter around in the creek, build more "churches" out of fallen trees and so forth... ah zander, if I didn't find your toe nail clippings scattered about the house, like right here next to this computer!, i would certainly mistake you for a mythological man.

roping together a giant cross

Spring is still with us.

“The breeze is the merest puff, but you yourself sail headlong and breathless under the gale force of the spirit.”

I can't think of a better thing to say to express the springs i have experienced in Arizona.  The breeze carried me all through the weekend; i couldn't have imagined sweeter times. If I could I would convert into analogue the smell of creosote or the taste of warm peaches freshly plucked from the tree, so you could know more accurately.  All the photos are from "no nos" birthday party.  Do you see the golden fairies swirling around ender in the pool?  Babies laughter tends to attract that particular crowd.  Or sharks.  Depending on what body of water they're swimming in...

He likes to get his recipes from You Tube

"thank you so much for making dinner tonight, zander!"
"Yeah, I should do this way more often." 
Lets just lay two ground rules, then:
1)Zander, do not over salt.
2) Leslie, stay out of the kitchen.  Hes a diva!

We all lapped it up!  Ender took his time falling in love though.  But we figured if he likes to eat raw onion and garlic, Indian food wouldn't be such a stretch for his adventurous palate.

This post also doubles as an add for anyone out there who is obsessed with Indian food and needs a place to get away for a bit.  This meal is officially a staple in our home. So come and enjoy and please bring a Bollywood movie.  I'm just sayin....

Last night Zander and I were both restless laying in bed. 

"I can't stop thinking about rock climbing and my cams.  Isn't that silly?"

"No," i replied. "I wish I could think about that."  (i was too busy sulking over the fact that i didn't live at the ocean)
After talking a bit about the gear, i see zander steal away to his chest of toys and i hear the clanking and tinkling of hexes and new cams.   His pearls all strung neatly on steel or nylon rope.  He let me hold one.  In the dark, I could barely make out a shape.  I pulled down on the lever, the metal pieces rotating down looked like a jelly fish inhaling and exhaling.  Maybe I can convince Zander to find some nice climbing walls over the sea...

Then he slept with them, like a little boy and his favorite toy car or baseball mitt.  Don't be embarrassed Zander.  I will now admit to whoever so reads:  I still sleep with a stuffed duck.  She has a pink bill and pink feet & used to done a pink garden hat with white polka dots until her childhood bully ripped it off of her! 

Before I drifted off to sleep, zander gave me strict orders not to let ender play with his toys.  He was concerned that the boy would unlock the kitchen cabinets, find the bleach, unscrew the lid and pour the liquid death all over his cams.   Around here we mistake our 19 month old as an evil genius.

our perch

zander is great, but he has flaws.  for starters,  he will not build me an observation tower so I can see over the rooftops.  so ender and i went to scope out the view from papago and feed the ducks. apparently bread is not good for our webbed city companions, so i've read to try frozen peas.  the duck and I say "blech!" but ender ate half of the bag!  his breath was rancid, but it couldn't deter me from kissing him as usual. 

well the view is amazing to the east from the old kinkel family ramada.  i can't wait for the next storm to come riding over the mountains!  and if you go up to Hunts Tomb you can see a sweeping view of the southern and western valley.

i'm deciding  how to handle ender's aversion to the wind.  he screams whenever a breeze kicks up his hair and pleads to go "in-sigh, in-sigh!"  i crouch down to his point of view, a gnome-ish size and look around and quite possibly,i've concluded, ender thinks the earth is falling down upon him.  All that heaving of the trees and swirling of the leaves, the rushing over your ears.... what a fright!  but i know, he will overcome, much like he did the vacuum cleaner, he can't get enough of that machine. 

we love our mama

me, older sister, mother

What makes mothers all that they are?
Might as well ask, "What makes a star?"
Ask your heart to tell you her worth
Your heart will say, "Heaven on earth"
Another word for divine
Your mother and mine ~wendy darling


i wish i listened more to little wendy.  i was truly one of the lost boys without her, my mother, not wendy.  she irked me in the disney version. so did tiger lily- can't the gals just get a long and join forces?

rain rain, go away - quoteth ender

i couldn't believe my eyes when i looked out the window to the east and saw a horizon overcome with a massive storm cell.  ender was dozing.  should we skip our play time at noahs and speed toward it, meet it head on?  well I decided that like with all travelings, it might be best to share with friends.  when he awoke we headed to the boys brigade at erin's to await it. 
however, much to my dismay, ender cowered before the thunder and melted in the rain.  how could he do this to me?!  doesn't he know who i am?  doesn't he know how much the storms mean to me?  how can you let all the other tots run free in the rain while you shrink away and get strangely obsessive over the Jesse doll from Toy Story. I left.
I complained to Zander.
Then I felt horrible.

Ender eventually tolerated the storm.  We came home to zander and all the doors were flung open.  We bundled ender up in our arms and showed him what some american boys do in the rain, play football.  We showed him what mama likes to do in the rain, dance. 

Later that night after ender went to bed, i paused in my reading, and told zander "I am so proud of Ender." 
Zander stopped whatever he was doing and went to sit on the couch, "Are you really Leslie?  The sky was not beautiful today because you saw it and said it was so.  It was beautiful because it was." 

ender is his own definition of ender.  zander and i were given him and our quest is stewardship. 

If an ender shines brightly in the forest, and no one was around to see him, would he still shine? 

us, ready to play together in the rain.

absolutely yes!  The God who saw the tree that fell, sees the ender that shines. 

clear creek, clearer minds

Wild times, until the light has gone
Wild, until the rising sun
Let us hear the sigh,
Of all the days gone buy
Wild times

Shine the light, down through the years
Through the fields of yonder, the veil off tears
And well take the time,
That is yours and mine
Wild times

Wild times, into the dawn
These wild times, will not be gone
And the music plays,

To these golden days
Wild times

You can here the sigh,
Of all the days gone by
Wild times

And well take the time,
That is yours and mine
Wild times

we cannot be caged, and we, like our God are not tame, its written in His word.  i know the sea is calling you girls.  i'm ready when you are. 

"Superstitious sailors used to hear the mournful songs of whales echoing up through the hulls of their ships, and were enraptured.  Singing whales once inhabited the Mediterranean, and probably are the Sirens Greek myth says lured sailors to their doom on the rocks." - diane ackerman

there is more written about whale songs that needs to be read on the sandy threshold of their deep wide home. 

as a child i never would have chosen tv over the moon especially a super moon.  however, i have realized that the ones we love have a stronger pull than the celestial orb.  you stick zander and his family in a room with episode 3 of sherlock holmes and its over for me. 

so on Sunday night, zander snapped a few shots, even though we had plans of silhouetting me against the moon drawing his bow and arrow. ha ha ha.  it didn't work.  zander was feeling uninspired :)  he takes his night photography seriously. 

oh boy, i just remembered, ender had a terrible sleep saturday night.  now, i told myself i wouldn't blame the moon.  but why is it that the waves can vehemently respond, but not a baby? 

*arica, there are rumors sneaking around that you have amazing shots of the moon.  i'm waiting for the great reveal!

what does a very young little human perceive?  in terms of colors.

i am making a cape for ender's spunky and bright cousin, noah, whom he affectionately refers to as "no-no" which makes grand sense if you know the mischievous boy! 

the lining of the cape is going to be buzz light year and its on lime green fabric with splashes of christmas red.  i cringe.  but noah and i'm assuming the majority of 2 year olds just don't care.  he will only notice buzz, a man, much like himself with non stop energy and fun.  pure.  and maybe i've been watching too much of What Not To Wear....  i'm sorry!  stacy and clint woo me with their wit. 

but i'd like to look at that lime green cape and think of Tom Sawyer gleaning bio luminescent mushrooms of "foxfire" to light his way through underground passages.


  i have a glowing idea!  plant these (can you plant fungi?) along your walks and lanes to guide your wonder struck guests up to your door for an enchanting evening.  Something tells me this won't work in the urban sonoran desert.  well, if i were a fairy's electrician, i would install these for sure. 

and really buzz, you're such a romantic.  "to infinity and beyond!"

photos: noah's eyes- i stole them off ashley's facebook
mushrooms, that i forgot!

good riddance april! you were not yourself.  i'll give you a year to shape up and i'll meet you in fields of wildflowers where we both belong.  until then....

 good tidings may!

well, zander likes to pull photographs off my blog for his desktop at work.  so.. here ya go bud. 
basically, ender is donning a hobbit cape for a smorgasbord of a whimsy wedding and we are trying to keep up an appearance with him so he'll include us in his entourage. 
*photo by a lovely lass called Charity Maurer :) 

i will be a mom who lets her kids stay home from school on stormy days.  shoes will be optional, well strongly discouraged and our umbrellas will be collecting dust in the closet.  i don't see any way around it.

baby steps though, because i have a baby. 
we strolled through papago park and took shelter under an ramada. we watched the planes set sail and dock at Sky Harbor, and ender foraged for rocks.

ender making his airplane noise...

papago is awesome because you walk through a corridor of creosote, the aroma is dizzying. 

beauty is a light in the heart

strong & beautiful is our sister abigail

her imagination is a deep well, mystical & clear that is dug into the sky, even beyond, into the heavens.   she used to, does she still? imagine that God carved those He loved, those who faded away from human history, into the stones, into the mountains, as His own secret, precious memorial to them.  i like abbie.  i miss her telling wild, imaginative stories.

Happy Birthday soon! 

i remember this post. see the last photo?  she was right :)

this was our weekend

of course we had to pause under the sycamore, of course. 

"you girls need to do this more often. No, I'm serious.  This is is good for you" - zander

This is why you, our dear boy, along with emilio esteves, zach galifianakis, tom hanks (80s) make it so easily onto our list of honorary boy members.

"Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord

The fruit of the womb is His reward

Like arrows in the hand of a warrior

So are the children of one's youth

Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them

They shall not be ashamed

But shall speak with their enemies in the gate"

i adore this verse! what does it mean?

children who are precious ,vulnerable, weaker creatures are compared to weapons against darkness. i feel deep in my spirit that this is true. I have never felt braver than when ender came to stand by my side.

i've had plans of decorating his room with arrows in lieu of this verse. definitely for his next room when we move soon! OH! I'll put a red arrow above his door to signify his blessing and Jesus's blessing of being the Passover.

I've also been thinking if i should get a necklace with ender's name on it. it seems to be what alot of mamas are doing these days. well, if i do decide to wear the turkey's name around my neck, i think i'll go for something more like this.... maybe with his name etched in the shaft.... ?

oakies

my mama is ornery!

talkin 'bout uncle bubba and his two week wedded bliss after Vietnam "she was ugly! had to sneak up on a glass of water to get a drink, i swear."

tonight we let the weather channel eat dinner with us, considering our old stompin ground is oklahoma, we were quite concerned with the deadly twisters.

like yankin' teeth, i asked my dad his earliest memory of a tornado. i finally pulled a molar. "in third grade, our teacher rushed us out on the playground when she heard the fire alarm go off. we were speechless when we were the only ones out there with the tornado. she got the alarms confused."

boiling the rain plant to extract its dye will make your kitchen stink to high heaven. and just when you thought that the smell of the desert in a rain storm would be ruined for you forever, you fling open all the doors, turn on the fans, take a deep breath and realize the creosote is still one of your favorite desert scents. next year i will do more foraging in the desert to see what natural dyes it offers.

some vegetables and fruits. swiss chard doesn't work for green(top right egg). in fact, it leaves an odd film on the egg that peels away.

an easter portrait.

Vermillion Cliffs & my dad

yet again, my dad returned from a jeep trip in the desert. I used to live for these rides. I would quit a job on a whim so I wouldn't miss out. I hated school for the very reason it kept me from the hot wind in my face as we sped down the highway. Eventually, my responsibilities became more concrete and these escapades became fewer. the spirit of adventure faded in me as i continued on with the daily grind of secretarial work.

Ender found me wandering aimless on the fringes of the wilderness. he brought me home and I believe he tends to refine me. He threw a bucket of cold water on my face and told me to snap out of it, get a hold of yourself woman, you lost your way, look to Jesus.

Ender is like the little darling rock tumbler I got for Christmas as a child. I'm being tossed and spun with water and sand until I come out smooth and shiny.

"As for me, ....i shall be satisfied when i awake in Your likeness"

Looks like I'll be in this rock tumbler for the rest of my earthly days.

the phoenix has molted its winter feathers

sweet, sweet acacia.

just like when we boil veggies and fruits to enhance or draw out the flavor, the sun warms and lifts the scent of desert plants right off of the tree and onto our olfactory palate. the air is drenched with an arid kind of sugar. I'm excited to go to Junipine and smell the vanilla sweat of the pinetrees this summer!

ender and i went on a bike ride this morning. he rode in a trailer in the back. Thank you heather! and it was very liberating dragging a feisty toddler behind me. released some angst of my own. the sun baked us, but did not transform our scent into anything worth writing about. tis so stinky to be a human.

*zander went rock climbing today, so more pull ups on his hangboard for me :)

donde esta la luna

i saw a rusted penny roll out from under a velvet blanket of stars. And as it rolled, it rose, and became the moon

driving with my family on a country road in oklahoma, the celestial rock was different. i asked them all the description that came to mind. i wanted to remember them in that way. i wrote down their responses somewhere in my stacks of journals. I'll have to dig them out. I will especially treasure my bobbye jean's response. when i find it :) !

in germany i sat in the library and poured over quotes and poems about the moon...

"that orbed maiden with white fire laden, whom mortals call the moon." - Shelley

in sixth grade for our mythology report i made a mask of the moon goddess, a hideous plaster of paris of Artemis, hideous!

if i ever got a tattoo, oh yeah, the moon, but i will never get a tattoo

one of ender's first words-'moon'.

what is it that you think of when you see your moon?

they have sprung and are springing!

oh so long ago, the hobbits with not only a palate for fine mead and wild mushroom, but adventure and curiosity of the great beyond, migrated to the city. here are two of their descendants.

fresh and natural

when i lay down at night, i have the vision of these treasures dancing over my head.

zander is getting nervous about my obsession with painting everything white. he has been through this before with me, except, it was with black and crayola green. haha, oh zander, you love it.

i know the succulents in the trendy CB2 candle holders is so last season, BUT, i had to get it out of my system, you know? And i have to hand it to my awesome cousin greg who was the first before any magazine to craft these cactus creations. hes so hip :)

the stones my father brought back from one of his trips into the heart of the desert. This is them after a few baths in the rock tumbler. smooth and creamy.

the antique-ish candle vases are from the dollar rack at Target. Score! 3 for 2.50, say what!

katie's craft

my quote for katie, always, is "impressed, but not surprised!" artfully lifted images of her family, given a glassy medium.

i stole this photo of her off a stranger's (my stranger, not her's) facebook. i like it.

hopefully i'll see this face rollerskating around in my new house. rustic, stained concrete floors are in my future.

Saint Patrick- I award you the Purple Heart.

purple shamrock. you're a dream!

That dear little plant still grows in our land,

Fresh and fair as the daughters of Erin,

Whose smiles can bewitch, and whose eyes can command,

In each climate they ever appear in:

For they shine thro' the bog, thro' the brake, and the mireland,

Just like their own dear little Shamrock of Ireland.

i can't lie. when i found out Zander had not a drop of green irish blood in him, i was a little perturbed. in high school, i swore by his irish ancestry. how did i get so delightfully confused? looking back, he was really into punk and listened to the Dropkick Murphys. that must have been it. AND he had a really thick lyrical accent at the drop of a dime. oh yes, and his sisters were really into Lord of the Dance. Talk about mixed signals! ahh, ignorance was bliss.

i discovered the shamrock at our local nursery. and my snail pal, i rescued from Walmart! he is too cute! he has the happiest smile.

ranting - one of my fortes

zander rock climbs. i love his spirit. i don't want him to be caged. as a dad, lets face it, he has less limitations than i do as a mama. so on a whim he can go unless ender and i are in immediate need. i'll admit, it can get pretty exhausting fighting to be a selfless person, fighting to embrace this season in my life, fighting to realize that the source of adventure, passion, and beauty are in Jesus. He proves it over and over. Especially in the existence of Ender.


Well, on Saturday Zander spontaneously went rock climbing. And instead of being excited for him, i seethed with jealous anger.... :) I really did! I was so mad, like The Hulk mad, I went to his hang board and did ONE furious pull up. ha ha ha, i laugh now, and I should have laughed then, but one pull up is very hard! I had such a mix of strong feelings that day. I felt sorry for myself that I couldn't go, but then I felt like I was the most blessed person alive because I spent it with Ender and my mama. The storm eventually lulled to a calm and my emotions returned once again to peace and understanding. Truly truly i have an adventurous life with the fellas. i am not stifled. i live in no cage.

I went to the plant store, as I always do to cheer myself up and bought a plant specifically designed by God to attract hummingbirds. Our feeder is new on the block and so its not really well known among the locals. I think my Mom and Dad's place, just down the road, gets all the customers. They have more of a Ma and Pa feel...

dr. suess's romantic side, i didn't get a photo of the trunk, but believe me, its whimsical and this beauty should raise its head high up to 5 five feet!

ender grows serene whenever we go the the nursery. those baby blue eyes soak in all that green and filtered sunlight

i've been treating my blessings more like debris than treasures. it took ender and a tin pie can to go and scavenge them back to me. these are small items small fingers found before small fingers crushed and or threw them. ender is a living breathing reminder of the Good Stuff. That said... he is also a chameleon of fickle substance: glass to stone to upholstery stuffing to fine china...


this photo gives you time to study a little bit of his method. Here you notice the blue eyes beckoning you closer in, perhaps for a kiss, light banter...? I think not. A keen observation and you discover a glint of a mischievous ruse.
for the past two days ender has made it quite clear that he is changing into a man. A man with opinions and tastes! Hes mad I tell you! Thankfully there is a version of him already grown and when he gets home from work everyday i set the boy loose on him and they have a swell time battling for power. Really, they like it.