Following

I have a like/like much less relationship with Instagram. I enjoy it for myself but have decidedly mixed feelings about it for my two older children. I'll save that discussion for another post.

Among those I follow on Instagram are photographers, lifestyle and fashion bloggers, several food stylists, many new mothers, a publisher of an online travel magazine, and one English farmer. What they all have in common is a wonderful way of looking at their world and sharing it with the rest of us. Here are four favorites:

@sundaysuppers

@tinyatlasquarterly

@mamawatters

@Benjaminhole

Snow

"One winter morning, Peter woke up and looked out the window.
Snow had fallen during the night.
It covered everything as far as he could see."
~ Ezra Jack Keats, The Snowy Day

Yesterday morning, we woke up to snow covering everything as far as the eye could see. The kids slept late and then spent the day outside, Clementine was in snow heaven, and we're expecting more on Sunday. We may not be as happy at the end of June, when school is still in session because of too many snow days, but for this moment, with a winter wonderland out our window, it's good.

And then to sleep.

Bits and pieces

Four things I'm loving right now:

This book and this book. "The One and Only Ivan" is written for children, but if you were to ask me for a very short list of favorite books, this would be on it. Meanwhile, "The Goldfinch" is keeping me up much too late at night.

This is not a painting (or, rather, a print of a painting) of my children, but it could be, and it makes me think of them every time I look at it. I bought it from this Etsy shop.

This spoon, made in a 6th grade woodworking class. Like Ivan, it's a one and only.

Pickup game

The email from my youngest daughter's soccer coach said practice this week would start a bit earlier and "go until dark." I wasn't sure how dark dark should be, but when I arrived, I had to look hard at the girls running up and down the field to find mine. Formal practice had ended, so the girls had divided themselves into teams and switched out a regular ball for one that glowed in the dark. Their ponytails were snarly and their cheeks pink from the cold, but no one wanted to stop. To them, it didn't matter that there was dinner waiting or homework to be finished. They just wanted to play. And so it goes.

It's these informal pickup games that my youngest loves best. At recess, after school, after practice, and between "real" games. All they need is a goal, a ball, and a few children. Age, gender, ability - none of that matters. They're happy when a parent or teacher joins in. Shoes (and shirts for the boys) are optional. I'm in love with this age, with these pickup games, with their snarly ponytails. I know that too soon the fields will freeze, the snow will fall, and these 8-year-olds will be 11- and 14- and 16-year-olds. I'd like to think they might still play this way, that it won't end.

In Brazil, home to next year's World Cup, it never ends. In an article from last Sunday's New York Times: "In Brazil, the ball is always moving. It moves on grass and on sand, on concrete and on cobblestones. Sometimes, during the rainy season, it even moves on water." There's the dream of fame and fortune, of course. According to the article, Brazil is annually among the nations exporting the most players to foreign professional leagues. But mostly, pickup soccer in Brazil is about escape, and about joy. It doesn't matter if the game is played on a strip of grass between highways, on a beach, in a cage, or in a parking garage. "This game ... this is where you go to be yourself," one boy said. True in Brazil, and true on a field behind an elementary school just down the street.

Lalo de Almeida for The New York Times

Good things online

Two new-to-me Web sites I'm loving, plus one not-as-new but always good:

A group of bloggers - writers, photographers, stylists - recently got together and started Clementine Daily. I love it for its name but also because it's like getting a favorite magazines in the mail - or email - every day. House tours, interviews, fashion, food, and a daily quote that I like most of all.

Have you heard of Tradesy? It's a site where you can sell clothing items - jackets, handbags, sweaters, etc. - you no longer need or want, and Tradesy will do all the work, including sending you a pre-paid shipping box once an item sells. You can go there to shop, too, of course, and I just spent more time than I should have looking through an assortment of size 10 shoes.

I've been reading Sweet Paul Magazine for some time now but always get excited when a new issue comes out - and a new issue just came out. The photography is gorgeous, and there's always something good - from recipes (salmon stir-fry for dogs!) to travel (Stockholm) to interesting kitchen finds. I think you'll enjoy.

Married

Last night a friend asked me how long I had been married, and I couldn't remember. I knew it was either 15 or 16 years, either 1996 or 1997 but not which one. I was fairly certain my husband wouldn't know, either. It wasn't until I sat down later with a calculator that I figured it out. My other option would have been to dig up our wedding invitation.

One of the things I do remember about that time is going to wedding after wedding after wedding. It seemed as though there was one every weekend, usually requiring road trips, hotel rooms, pedicures, new dresses, and reunions with friends. All those weddings took a bit of effort but were so worth it. They were that much fun.

After the wedding stage came the non-wedding stage, where I remain today. The non-wedding stage consists of one wedding every five years or so, if I'm lucky. Definitely not enough. Not enough beautiful brides and beautiful dresses; earnest, clean groomsmen; scene-stealing flower girls; moments that make you cry and many that make you laugh; that feeling of two people starting out on a great adventure.

I got a little bit of a wedding fix last night when I read C Magazine's fall wedding issue. I loved seeing the dresses, the table settings, the flowers, the brides. I was intrigued by an article about Greg Kalamar, an artist from Los Angeles who paints scenes from people's wedding celebrations in the likeness of a Degas or Monet painting. The image below is a painting he did of a reception inside San Francisco's Ferry Building.

Meanwhile, looking forward to my next wedding invitation. I'll try to be patient.

(All images from C California Style Magazine)

'Wet foot, dry foot. Low foot, high foot...' *

I won't tell you too much about my feet, because certainly no one needs to know that. I'll only say they're nothing like my 8-year-old's feet, or even my older children's, though I become less and less familiar with theirs as the years pass. But my 8-year-old still needs me to trim her nails, so I know those feet well. They're soft and smooth and wash off quickly and easily with soap and water, even when she has spent the large part of her day outside barefoot.

Part of the problem with my feet stems from my love of flip-flops. The fact that I wear flip-flops almost all the time in summer, even to walk the dog in the woods, certainly doesn't help. When my feet are grimy after a walk, they don't wash off quickly and easily with soap and water. So I was intrigued when I came across a recipe on Pinterest for a foot scrub and thought I'd try. It's so simple, with just two ingredients: liquid soap and granulated sugar. To make, pour half a cup or so of sugar into a bowl and mix with liquid soap until goopy. Then, using your fingers, rub the mixture all over your feet, concentrating on heels and toes, and rinse.

That's it. And the best part is, it works. It's the sort of DIY scrub my 13-year-old loves. After using it a few times and ending up with fairly clean, softer-than-when-I-started feet (though still not 8-year-old feet), I'm loving it, too.

*Dr. Seuss

Bits and pieces

It's been a bit of a crazy day (really just a crazy afternoon). But I'm looking forward to the weekend and hope you have something fun planned. After spending some time online yesterday, I came across two new-to-me stores you might like.

I went a little crazy buying sticky notes and pads of paper from Poppin. I even got a new wall clock for our laundry room. Love all the orange and white in particular.

I'm always running out of return-address labels, and though I could print my own, I fell for these personalized stamps from The Penny Paper Co. The store's owner, Lindsay Stephenson, also has a fun design blog called Little House Blog. 

Have a happy weekend!