celebrating four

thank you for all the happy birthday wishes the other day. we had a wonderful day, just the family and will be continuing the celebration over the weekend with family and friends. or maybe next weekend, as we are expecting heavy rain and thunderstorms this weekend, and we really want to have the party in the garden.

four years. amazing. everybody says it the fun age. so i am looking forward to a double-up happy hour (or year, who's counting?) in this house.

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i decorated our living room with garlands made out of their old paintings. not all, of course, but i have a bunch of paintings, very colorful. honestly, with the speed they produce paintings i must admit i don't feel a need to save them all. at all. especially since they usually seem indifferent to the finished product - it's the process that matters to them, the having fun. so, i cut them up and folded triangles, attached them to green cotton yarn, and voila! pretty and colorful garlands filled our living room. they are still there - we still have some celebration to do - but i am not sure if i will take them down just yet anyway. i really like them. and this is anyway our fun year, right?

corner view - water

:: before we are born we float in water. or actually, by the time we are born the water mainly consists of fetal urine, but it all begins as the amniotic sac fills with water only two weeks after fertilization.

(nothing calms me more than the sound of waves. or to watch the endless movement ofwater, looking toward the horizon. except maybe the sound of my babies breathing in their sleep at night. i love that i live so close to the sea, always have, that it's not more than a short drive away. it makes me feel at home.)

:: when a baby is born water makes up about 80% of the body weight, but as an adult, this has changed to something like 70%. when we feel thirsty it means we lost 1% of this water.

(most summer mornings i crave water so badly. the heat in central-coastal israel is overwhelming, with humidity reaching as much as 80-90% some days. it makes me feel like the skin of my body is covered in sweat, while my inside is dried out like a desert.)

:: 70-75% of the surface of the earth is covered in water, and the total amount of water on earth is something like 326 million cubic miles of water (which is too big a number for me to understand). the demand for clean water, whether it's caused by population growth, environment abuse and/or poor water management, plays a great part in hundreds of ongoing conflicts all over the world, including the conflict here in the middle east.

(every summer we see government sponsored campaigns in israel. we're urged to not use too much water, to understand the grave concern that is the sinking shores of the galilee sea, israel's main fresh water supply. but besides the fact that gardens turn yellow, you don't feel the problem much as a private individual. which is not the case for the palestinians. the water supply to the west bank and gaza is controlled by israel and the amount of water supplied to the palestinians vs israeli citizens is disproportionate: the average water consumption per palestinian is way below the average consumption per israeli. )

:: earth is a closed eco system, which means that it rarely loses or gains any extra matter. the water on earth today is the same water that existed on earth millions of years ago. the same that made up the oceans from where the first living cells were created, those cells that make up humans and all other living creatures on earth.

(they promised rain this week in israel. i like the rain, the smell of the rain, the sound of raindrops on the roof. i hope we will get more rain this winter. we need it. like so many other places on earth. i wish we would stop messing with earth's eco system.)

for more water, visit dana, who is hosting jane's corner view.

right before my eyes

cress. it grows extremely fast. it's almost like you can see it growing right before your eyes, but you can't. it's there all the time, but then in glimpse you realize it looks different, it has changed right there and then while you looked away for what only seemed like a second, but maybe it was and hour, a day, a month. you're not sure when it happened, but you see it now.

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my boys are turning four tomorrow. and i am getting awfully sentimental. even the cress in the kitchen makes me thoughtful and suddenly i find myself comparing the boys to cress. is that silly? maybe just weird... :)

anyway, we used cress a lot when i was a kid. i loved to grow it in different shapes. recently i discovered it again, mainly because i wanted to show it to the boys. but i really love the taste. and it is perfect in an egg salad.

cousins

they adore their two cousins in denmark. they love to play with them more than anything, and when we visit denmark they are together most of the time. i wish these beautiful and sweet girls could come and celebrate their birthday with us this week. they will be four...wow!

my brother is planning to visit in the spring. it's been a while he and his family were here last, and they never visited us in the new house. still a long time to go, but i am looking forward. it will be so much fun.

sunday is my monday, so my week already began. a week of birthday celebration and the week of a good friend's wedding.

wishing you a happy sunday.

cozy morning blanket

the heat wave has ended. finally! we're still in shorts and flip flops, but even if the days are still warm, the evenings and mornings are getting chillier. so i made us a morning snuggle blanket.

most mornings begin on the couch in the dining room. and we've been trying to snuggle under this tiny crochet blanket, but it's not really working.

the blanket is made from squares that are pretty random put together from scraps. the blue base, the plaided bias binding and the striped background are all made from old sheets. there's no padding inside, i just left the background sheet double and that's good enough. alas, cheapest blanket ever, but it looks and feels really cozy and comfy. a few degrees less and i can make pumpkin soup. and then a few more and i can pull out a woolen sweater and socks. not sure when exactly that will happen, but we'll get there.

wishing you a happy and cozy weekend.

corner view - dream

i dream of time. sometimes it's about more time, sometimes i want to fast forward. or stop it, just for a moment. make time to notice if the dreams came true, think of new, follow my dreams.

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if you have time, move on to dana, who is hosting jane's corner view this week

a beautiful day

thank you so much for your sweet and thoughtful comments to yesterday's post. i am feeling much better today. it really isn't that bad, N and J, our twins, just don't follow the ordinary road, but their situation is not ordinary (is anyone's really?), and so this is our road. and like any other road, it has bumps too.

i have new energy now. sometimes it helps just to talk about it. i got some advise, but most important - and like many of you mentioned - the thing is to love and support children as they are, where they are, right now.

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we're still in a heatwave, but since yesterday the air smells like rain. no sign of clouds on the blue sky though. not even pretty clouds like on that photo above. from denmark, clouds over oeresound, the water between sweden and denmark. what a beautiful day.