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For the Love of Flamingos

Okay, so it's November. Here in CT it's dreary and the days just all melt into one dark, "blah" day until the lights and anticipations of the Holidays come. But, still there's always room for a little pink, a little happiness in the form of Flamingos. Here's some of my favorite flamingo items to add a little pink to your life:

This cake is perfection! Check out\The Cake Blog to see how she made this amazing cake!

These are sooo cute I would have trouble with actually eating them!  Check out Style me Pretty for all the details to this Flamingo-themed birthday bash!

An A-Z Flamingo Card Round Up! I love all these.  Check out the details and where to buy at Oh So Beautiful Paper

What a cute and comfy pillow!! But it at Adairs

What a great and true saying! You can decorate your house with this pretty pink piece of empowerment at Farmhouse Chic Signs

This shirt is too cute!!  Sold at Skreened

Autumn: My Life in Pictures

I think Autumn is quite aesthetically pleasing, particularly in September and October. I do get depressed around this time of year - realizing how quick the passage of time is. When all the leaves fall, and it's stark and cold out, I feel depleted. But I'm trying to push through this and find the beauty and joy of the season by staying active and being outside as much as possible before it gets too cold.

I went to Rose Orchards in North Branford, CT. It was so fun picking out pumpkins and also so cute seeing moms take picture of their children with pumpkins. I love the colors of autumn: those deep reds, the varying shades of green, the bright oranges and the most fantastic yellows.

East Rock in New Haven is a great stop to hike and take in the beauty of the season. I love seeing the whole city of New Haven right below me and the pretty leaves and trees along the way.

I'm learning to enjoy autumn: enjoy each leaf for it's own unique vein-y beauty, each cup of coffee that tastes even better on a cold morning and each golden afternoon. 

(For more pictures, check out my instagram! I'm _courtneyjuliet. )

The Howl

I have half-read novels and shiny coffee mugs and stories I wrote down and stories I lived. There's even a story I started writing about you 2 years before you passed through earth into the sky. I never saw beauty and light be ravaged and extinguished as heart achingly fast in my life. I gave up trying to help you and had to close the curtains. Every night you were aching and restless I wish you stayed home. Every day you wanted to feel better, I wish you battled it out until you could walk in the sunlight without needing to get high, higher than 29 shiny yellow birthday balloons you'll never see. I'll never know why you left us in July but it was only now, in October, I feel close to tears every day. When I'm driving that stretch of highway to work I think about you. You really are gone. The finality of it all is stark and cold like standing alone on a stage with no audience, no script, no lights. You left when the hydrangeas were the most beautiful blue and now they are gone. Replaced by imperfect, veiny, red or yellow leaves on the ground. The outdoor patios of July are closed off, now. There's scarecrows and harvest moons and cold, dark nights. There's something about the howl of the Autumn night winds that remind you of past lives, loves, and losses. It'll remind you Summer was just a couple of sunny avenues away. But you wrote the end of your story sloppy and disjointed, closed the pretty ballerina jewelry box and left us with late season sunflowers and the howl of an Autumn wind.  

Slow Down Summer

{Me in a tree!  © Copyright Mark L. Johnson -photographyselect} 

Slow down Summer, there's still so many excursions to private beaches and gardens I have yet to go, I still have maxi dresses and flower crowns to wear, boats to ride under the flamingo pink and bruised tangerine sunsets in the sound, there's still rooftop bars in the electric city I need to go to, there's vineyards I haven't been to drink wine and laugh under the sunlight, fields of overgrown sunflowers and butterflies I haven't ran though, pool parties on lakes I haven't gone too enough. I still want to see the lights and the beaches of Block Island and escape to Cape Cod. There's only so many sunsets, perfect shade, azaleas that you have, so I'll ask you kindly to just go slow so I can try and experience as much as I can.

R.I.P. Aunt Mary Joy

Watching the snow fall thinking of angels, one of the sweetest genuinely good people I have ever met has passed away. A true angel on earth and now in heaven. She had such a pure heart. Rest easy Aunt Mary Joy. I am so blessed and better to have known you. 

Love,

Courtney

Of Blue Jays and Angels

Yesterday I went to the Peabody Museum in New Haven and once I got to the CT bird exhibit all I could think of was to find the blue jay. My grandfather bird watched a lot, and I remember especially as a kid going to my grandparents house at Ramblewood Drive and him spotting a blue jay and being excited (then being not so excited about the deer eating the grass haha). Once I spotted the blue jay, I had to take a picture of it. I later found out a dear friend Cindy's father Dave Parsons worked on that exhibit and made that bird. Not only was among the spirit of my poppy but also by Cindy's dad. No wonder I couldn't take my eyes off of it. Angels are amongst us, sometimes they take the shape of blue birds in museums!

Merry Christmas Poppy, Mr.Parsons to all our family and friends in heaven and earth.