friday present: from dreaming to loving.

Again, just a wee late as we jetted off to the Park to camp in the frozen clear night. It's been a pretty eventful week. I plan to keep my list simple and short, but we'll see what happens. This week's gratitude list unfolds a little like this...

vivid dreams of old friends.

{photo : unknown : please let me know if it's yours}

Beautiful friends from the past have been visiting my dreams. We're talking folks I haven't seen in a while, not the people I see daily here. Last time I was home for a visit was in October (not long, yet long enough), and I couldn't see everybody I wanted to hug. But I've seen everybody in the last two weeks. Wouldn't it be great to have a tea party with all the people you dream about in a week? I guess some weeks it might then be a party of one. Other weeks maybe even a nightmarish affair. But maybe tea parties are the answer for facing our lonelinesses and fears.

windless calm. 

{torres del paine, reflected}

Don't get me wrong. Icy cold still tenses our muscles considerably. Two nights ago the water in our Nalgene started to freeze while inside the tent. Every place has its characters. Were you to read or write a story about Patagonia, you'd find wind is always the main character. But, thankfully, winter gives us a wind reprieve. The lakes and lagoons, like glass, reflect the mountains, clouds and stars. Well, that is if said water isn't sheeted with ice or frozen straight through. There's a time for the exhilaration and fight contra el viento, and a time for deep breathing and peace. I'm diggin' the latter. Without the thrash of wind, birdsong and creek-trickle sing.

morning's lonesome grebe ebing for his lover.  

{swans, not grebes}

One of the pretty things you can wake up to here on calm days. Yesterday morning, one grebe V'd near the shore of a blue lagoon. I wondered where his mate was, and I'm pretty sure he was wondering the same thing. As we prepared our breakfast, a back and forth conversation quickened. Lonesome grebe found his mate, and they noisily chattered and sped the pace of their paddling. Where were you last night? I was worried sick.

warm sleeping beneath two down comforters. 

{photo}

This is especially wonderful after a cold fitful night's rest with muscles locked cold. I love backpacking, camping and being gone, disconnected. But I also love that hot shower, delicious food and warm bed waiting for me upon my return. This is turning into a calm post with a sleepy focus. So I'll leave you with this bedtime story...

guess how much I love you? 

We ordered some stuff from Amazon and sent it to my aunt, because they wouldn't ship it here directly. We have to do this fairly often, and I am so thankful that I have loving family and friends to mail us things! (THANK YOU!) 

She added this beautiful book to the package. Our first baby book. And still a bedtime favorite of her grandbabies, who are now all double-digit old now! (when did that happen!?) It's basically a conversation between Little Nutbrown Bear and Big Nutbrown Bear about how much they love one another. When LNB is so sleepy with measuring all the possibilities, he tells BNB: I love you to the moon. BNB tucks in sleeping LNB, and whispers. I love you to the moon and back. Jeez, it tears me up just to write this.

And why would she be sending us baby books? You guessed it! We're going to be first-time parents around mid-January. While I did eat a lot of cheesecake this week, it's baby Yalin who is really making his presence more and more obvious. 

Wish you all a restful weekend, full of big dreams and sweet ones!

{photos 2 +3 by serkan}