Five Things I Can See

from where I'm sitting in our living room:

• The red leather couch that Roger and I bought on a whim one Valentine's Day from one of our favorite furniture stores, Copenhagen West. It was marked several hundred dollars off, which made the whim much easier to rationalize.
• A small beautiful quilt that my friend Linda made in commemoration of a trip we took to San Francisco to see an exhibit of Gees Bend quilts. We keep it slung over the back of the rocking chair we used to feed Jack in the middle of the night when he was a baby. Linda put so much thought into the fabric selection and design, trying to capture her sense of who I am in pattern and color. It's a treasure on many levels.
• Glass jars of rocks and shells gathered during various family trips, the most recent a collection of smooth speckled rocks from our trip to Carlsbad and the beach last weekend. (Disclaimer: we stole this idea from our good friends Brad and Virlie.)
• A shelf full of books written by friends and family including a limited edition book written, illustrated, letterpress printed and hand bound by my friend Sally called True Turkey and Cat Stories. Warning: Some of the stories might turn your stomach. But the presentation is excellent.
• A series of three black and white photographs taken by Roger, our resident and fabulous photographer, at Lake Geneva: Dad sailing the MC, Jack climbing up on the raft, and Dad's cousins Jean and Jody--two of the matriarchs of the family--chatting on the pier.