baby style: a rant.

I am not a frou-frou baby boutique kind of girl.  Scottsdale had it's fair share of these shops and to be honest, they kind of made me want to gag.  I like my kids relatively unembellished.  I think babies look sweetest naked, or if necessary in a diaper, or again if necessary, in a plain white onesie. My aesthetic doesn't differ much as they age.  I like bare feet or a pair or two of quality shoes that can get them through the whole season.  I am a quality over quantity kind of person.  And definitely not the quality and quantity type.  I like letting kids be kids rather then coaxing them over to being little adults.  My mother tried to buy both of my children a wardrobe of "Strabsurg children-esque" clothing.  I asked her to choose one item, please.  I like cotton. Wash & dry.  Children are expensive enough without budgeting for their dry cleaning bill.

(Wow.  Not sure where all that came from.  Can you tell I haven't had my coffee yet?)

{image from wacky doodler}

caroline ingalls

I'm not quite sure when it happened. It was definitely later rather then earlier in life. My father grew up on a farm and with every visit we made there I have no recollection of anything stirring within me. Nope, the closest I can come to identifying a time and place was while we were living in Morocco watching Little House on the Prairie. For a year and a half of our lives our family had the amazing experience of living in North Africa. My second baby was born there, but I don't really want to remember that part. The part that I really remembering loving, was how much more our lives were simplified there. I loved going to the little market nearly every day. I loved learning how to cook from scratch. I loved walking more then driving. I loved not watching TV.

When entertainment called, it usually took the form of an imported season of Little House. And with each episode my heart was stirred. I wanted to simplify more. I wanted to learn all those 'inconveniences' that have so conveniently been replaces with 'modern convinces'. I want to grow our food. I want to cook our meals. I want to know how to knit and sew and many other things that I do not know how to do. In short, I would like to be Caroline Ingalls. But Caroline learned those things from her mother and my mother could not teach me them if she tried. She considered it a blessing to not have to know. I consider it a curse. And I'd like to be able to teach my daughter just in case she would like to know, too.

{image found at Laura Ingalls Wilder}

what's in a name?

If you don't already know, I chose the blog title from a Dixie Chicks song. The starting lines of the chorus have resonated with me for years: Wide open spaces. Room to make the big mistakes. I don't live on a large piece of land with lots of wide open space. Rather I am far closer to my neighbors then I am comfortable with. Though we are hoping to be in 'a more spacious place' sooner rather than later, to me, wide open space is a mindset more then a reality.

There is a certain appeal to living in the country as well as there are things about a big city that I crave. No matter the spot I am making my way back to that wide open space within me. I am de-cluttering: mind, soul & body. I am making room for the stuff I love and losing the stuff I've only picked up along the way.