Breaking Bread ~ Parfait-asana

Berries, dairy, crystal. 🍓🐮💎

Procuring, preparing, serving, and bussing (week)daily dinner takes an immense amount of effort, consideration and sacrifice; therefore, it is imperative to nourish your family by making and sharing the recipes you yourself LOVE. Breaking bread is a daily form of modeling universal respect and zest for life.

Germans love potato salad.

Chocolate pots all around.

Greek salad is pretty in pink and green. 

Just add granola: substantial Greek yogurt and berry dessert to prevent late-night snacking.

Flavors ~ Vasisthasana Janu

Vasisthasana Janu - Side Plank Pose on Knees

With endless iterations of every asana, get a sampling through your vinyasa - move fluidly through numerous variations to discover a new flavor.🍦 

Dip, dip, dip, FRY, bake…
Crispy chicken tenders are THE crowd pleaser - so triple the recipe!!!

Always playing with homemade frosting. 🧁 

Doodlers Love Doodles ~ Tadasana Hindolasana

🌈Tadasana Hindolasana - Standing Cradle Pose. Just here being my embellished self. 🎀🐯🎄  

How we do one thing is how we do everything. One look in my cabinet and I had to laugh - a collection of drawings on both my shelf stable household items and my perishables…

Everything must have doodly drawings in HappyGoLuckyILoveCreativityWithColor&PatternAstridLand.

Special state of mind

Eka Pada Raja Kapotasana - King Pigeon Pose, P.J.s all day. 🌹 

Eka Pada Rajakapotasana - King Pigeon Pose

Much ado leading up to the big day (in this case Christmas). IN THE WAKE of any momentous occasion I find myself in a very unique state of mental clarity; this is a prime opportunity to write reference notes. Keep a notebook for ‘hostessing’, ‘travel’, ‘holidays’ - wherever your interests lie - in order to access that very particular productive you. Borrow her Herculean magic using your own words for increased performance when the successive time comes and you are *stumped or *frustrated - inevitably my vibe before birthdays, travel, holiday etc. !!! LISTS - ‘gifts’, ’paint colors’, ‘buffet table setting’, ‘long car ride’, ‘weather in Telluride’ - are especially supportive.

**A note on resistance — we are most apt to create friction and repel those undertakings and engagements that give us the most satisfaction as the pressure to perform in something we are passionate about, skilled or talented at, is immense. 🔥 🎭 

Observe

 

Malasana - Garland Pose starry ⭐️ bubbly 🫧 lovey 💕 dovey 🕊️ 

Malasana - Garland Pose

Sit back and watch the frenzied, delirious world do its thing whilst you do peaceful, casual yours. 

Buttermilk snow bunnies gone disco crazy 🐰 🪩 

Jingle all the way 🔔 

Hands like work

 

Virasana - Hero Pose

How do we quiet the mind and open the heart? By moving the hands. 

A weighty question has been pulling me down and dragging me back, but I found respite and lightness this morning by: unpacking our suitcases, setting up the advent, calling an artist to collaborate, writing checks, designing and sending an invitation, decorating a small tree, cooking a nourishing dinner… 🎄 

Mystical magical

 

Ardha Purvottanasana - Reverse Tabletop Pose

RECLAMATION: Not a destination. An ongoing, thrilling, pleasurable, amusing, surprising, magical, life-long process.

Privacy

 

Pincha Mayurasana - Forearm Stand with stag legs 

Some poses are better practiced at home. 

The hospitality rubber band has been stretched to its maximum and must now snap back; after a many-weeks-long, very social streak for our household, mom and dad are enforcing nuclear family time, just the six of us (plus the pup). 

Avert burnout 💥

 

Parsva Bakasana - Side Crow Pose

Some days (weeks?) are No Guest Days (no play dates, neighbors, workmen, dinner crashers, carpools…)  Determine the duration and spread the word. 

🐭

🍂🧡🎃💛🌻

- 💚BAKE zucchini bread. 

- 💛Light a CANDLE at dinner.

- 🧡Autumnify the NATURE TABLE. 

- ❤️UNEARTH the winter socks. (And pants, and hats, and mittens…)

- 💜CRAFT in the common family area.

Make do 🍋🐑🥥

Weekends are for using it up or chucking it out! Clean out the fridge + actually clean the fridge = resourceful foods for the famille and a fit kitchen for the week ahead. 🛒

Lemon Mousse from lemon curd left-overs and on-hand whipping cream.

Remaining cup of sheep’s yogurt into Brownies 🐑

Coconut milk revives last week’s rice 🙀

💋It’s always the sweets that seem to get photographed. 🤷‍♀️

Bolognese with 🍰 & photos

Marjaryasana - Cat pose / Adho Mukha Svanasana - Downward Facing Dog Pose

 “I KNOW we didn’t have dinner! Because I DON’T remember sitting down together !”  

The family sit-down dinner is steadily back in fashion as baby gets increasingly older. And the children very much rely on this ritual. 

You can find us at home cooking (and eating). Alfresco. 

Schweet

Sukhasana - Easy Pose, Sirsasana II - Tripod Headstand 

Homemaking is love - giving the gift of beauty, comfort, fun, happiness, health, hope, joy, magic, safety, security, success to those in your home. And this life-styling is modeling a concrete methodology for your kith and kin to recreate inner peace and outer beauty for themselves and others anywhere, anytime. 

Home schweet home. 

Housedressy

 

I ❤️💛💜 Housedress 

Not sheer, past the knees, poitrine concealed. 

Natural in fiber, of course.

The best Housedress is the one you can answer the door, grab the mail, chat with neighbor, and maybe even walk the dog in (if you live in the sticks like me). 

Beacon

 

Light bright beacon of artistic imagination. 

I have leaned heavily into the Mother role - which has physically manifested family-friendly, practical, durable, colorful, grounding and compounding clothes, foods and shelters. But there is a lighter, brighter, ASCETIC aspect of myself I’m turning more and more towards (without eschewing my foremost family-first ethos).

Close and Click

Aparigraha - Yama of non-possessiveness, non-greed, non-attachment 

It’s finally here. Mommy’s ‘off’-season. No birthdays or holidays in this home until October and I’m giddy. I sat at the coffee shop this morning practically levitating; Easter was my final hoorah and it’s behind me. 

Of course, there will still be endless playdates, gatherings and pool parties in our near future, but those parlous (albeit winnowed* and well organized!) DECORATION BINS are now clicked shut and closed up in the cupboards — for nary half the year !!!!! 🥂 

*Some sizable, substantial decorations have only lived with me through 2 years, 2 rounds of celebrating, but were a mistake that must be acknowledged and their donation pick-up is scheduled. I hope it’s not too inconvenient to pass along life-size trick-or-treating statues, giant glowing snowflakes, glitter encrusted cranberry wreaths, golden light-up nutcrackers, and stoic German Santa Clauses in May…

SUPERficial

The Material World is frivolous and should delight. If it’s weighing us down, we must rethink our approach. 

ATMOSPHERE

Xmas flowerchild dress, jellyfish onesie (on bébé), ‘tartlet’ (so says my brother) ruby and diamond earrings, pink and green tourmaline ring, bows, bows, bows, and BARE FEET !!

Every holiday has its ambiance - decide on and GUIDE that quality, but when life inevitably throws its curveball - just GO WITH IT. Our Christmas turned out sickly and stormy, but it was also curiously easygoing, exceptionally intimate and required a remarkable combined effort - an ESPRIT DE CORPS !!!

Atmosphere - ‘vapor’ ‘globe’

Just add PINK

Christmas BITS & BOBS AWAY !! But maybe not all of it ??

The intersection of Christmas and Valentine’s Day (DECOR):

- RED

- green

- greenery 

- little trees

- BOWS

- pompoms

- bells

- BIRDS

- deer

- squirrels etc.

- snowmen

- snowflakes, icicles 

- LIGHTS - red, pink, white mode

- tinsel & shine

- CRYSTALS

- candles

- LOVE - hearts, peace

- chocolate 

… Just ADD lots of HEARTS & gobs of PINK !!

 

Lay it down

THEME Themis - goddess of law and justice “that which is laid down or established”

Numerous trips, imminent holidayS and a berserk number of school proceedings, ceremonies, volunteer opportunities… 

Waldorf education has a classic and constant natural, beautiful inherent theme and feel. I adore coloring within those traditional lines. The more confining the constraints, the more the creativity pours. 

Outside of establishments, though, the choices are maddeningly infinite.

So fix yourself upon a THEME

EG these weeks for me : 
“Sweater Weather - Eastcoaster style” for Cleveland with family
“Romantic, Intimate - Lingerie” for 40th Birthday
“Helpful Elfin” for everyday style & overall mood
“What would a French woman do?” for a couples jaunt to isle St Maarten
“Hershey’s Kiss” in the advent calendar 
“Vintage Niwot” for Christmas
“Fuck it” for family photo, it might just not happen this year ;)

The tighter the theme the better. Don’t you just love a party where the hostess takes you on a very specific journey? And expects you you to show-up primed for said experience!