cloistered away

“Our life is frittered away by detail…Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!” -Henry David Thoreau Walden 

By nature, I am not a simple person. I love details, even the ones that simply remain imaginative, and can easily involve myself with them in ways that no longer serve the original purpose for which I started. As Mark sometimes remarks, there are times that I can inexplicably “check-out” or occupy myself with something that is neither necessary nor pertinent to things that actually need to be done around me. Parenting has been invaluable to me even if only for this one reason: simplicity. For those of you who have children, I’m sure that you can attest to this as well. There are more demands made on my time than I could possibly meet; so, I am required to prioritize and shed the wanted, but unnecessary “stuff” to meet the immediate needs around me.  And so, I’ve created this blog. Funny? Maybe. I’m sure that it would disappoint Thoreau to see that in an effort to simplify my life, I have actually taken on another “affair.” But, I’m hoping that the simplicity will come by way of streamlining my thoughts, stories, and pictures into one venue that everyone/anyone outside of my little, immediate world can partake. Mark and I named it “Cloistered Away” because a) we live across the street from the Cloisters and b) in spite of having tons of interaction with people on any given week, there is in fact, still a seclusion or set-apart-ness that comes with having young children. For your part, at the very least you can expect to see pictures of the kids more than once every six months (!).  On that note, here’s our most recent family picture (June-eek!).