little things

This week was a tough one. My sweet granddaddy passed away early Thursday morning, and I would like nothing more than to be with my family right now. He was a quiet man who had grown even quieter in the last two years, but his most-often repeated phrase, said to us every time we packed up and left for Tennessee, "stay between the ditches," has been a quiet mantra in the back of my mind for as long as I can remember. A reminder to keep my eyes on the road and follow my path, even if I swerve a bit trying to stay there.

An unintentional theme this week - faces. Maybe because I'm missing all the ones of friends and family who are so dear to me, maybe because making good friends in a new city where you don't really know a soul is, as anticipated, tough shit. I've been lucky to meet several people - mostly friends of friends - who have been nothing but kind and helpful and fun, but I'm still feeling a little lonelier than I would like. Part of the reason I moved here was to get some space, but here's hoping I'll start a few friendships that feel a little more...effortless...soon. Cross your fingers?

In the meantime, five things that made my week a little sweeter:

I finally made it to Akazienkiez, one of the hipper districts in my neighborhood

springtime colors, wintertime temperatures

smiling cheese

mitte again...whoops

this little face, my favorite of all the faces

lullabies

As an au pair, I spend endless hours making a fool of myself to get a laugh out of my charge, Tilda. Thank God she is the easiest to entertain, happiest six month old I have ever met. When things get a little rough though, the only option is to sing until the crying stops (don't worry, you'll never see it) and I quickly realized that most lyrics for traditional lullabies aren't part of my memory bank. After making up my own, awful lyrics for a few days, I decided to shift to something I knew a little more about. During one particularly brutal teething session, I ended up singing most of My Morning Jacket's Circuital, to which I shockingly know most of the lyrics.  Crowd favorites include "Wonderful," "Holdin' On To Black Metal," and "Outta My System."

Baby T and I crank the tunes most mornings. Yo La Tengo's newest, Neil Young's Harvest, anything Bon Iver and this masterpiece from the world's greatest Beatle have been on repeat: