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five finds friday (the one about writing a book and my daughter going to college)
We’ve made it. Cheers and high fives because it’s been a long week. But look – wasn’t the beach beautiful? funny I’ve been working my way through a couple of boxes in the attic that are stuffed to overflowing with keepsakes and memories. And I keep finding gems like this. Behold the glory of ALL of our haircuts. What a family! flavorful Last week I ate dinner with Jo and Jason at a local restaurant – Hare & Field. It was delightful. (And the company was oh-so-fun.) I can never seem to stray from their Fish and Chips, which I love. But I also tried their parmesan gnocchi – my…
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weekend ramble. (a weekend both peaceful & productive)
You know you’re old when a little yard work on Saturday leaves you with aching muscles and tired shoulders on Sunday. Sometimes I think about owning a home with ten acres and a manicured lawn and four bathrooms and multiple levels. But then I think about all the work it takes to maintain all that. And I’m content with my single acre and my brick ranch after all. This weekend was a good one. Full of two things I wish every weekend could boast – both productivity AND rest. That’s a win for me. Saturday had us tidying the lawn and trimming back bushes that threatened to grow past the…
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weekend ramble (fly tying edition)
teens. parenting them.
just recounting a day . . .
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five finds friday (ukuleles & queso)
The task of motherhood is a full time one. Anyone who has been a parent and anyone who has been a child knows this. And yet, not any of us, stay at home parent nor 80 hour work week parent, actually has a full time schedule to commit to that one role – the role of parent. This has been a week of full on parenting tasks. Swinging back into school routine is painful for all of us. Add in lengthy allergy appointments and big teen discussions/decisions that always occur late into the evening and work deadlines and it’s a sweet little recipe for exhaustion and frustration. I thought I’d…
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Five Finds Friday (when kids dance for a star)
Every Friday I am a broken record. What? Where did the week go already? For our house it’s been a week of driving back and forth to theatre camp – goodness, a daily morning and afternoon commute requires a great deal of gas. (A truth which the rest of America already knows, I assume.) I believe I prefer staying at home most mornings. And afternoons. I had a great business week – can’t wait to share some stories about that next week. The weather was the best kind of weather the south has to offer. I got by this week with a little help from my friends. I tried…
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A little London then . . .
Every now and then I look into my archive of Posts I Forgot to Ever Publish. I’ve got journals filled with ideas and bits and pieces of article starts and story lines and sentences that go nowhere and words that have never seen the light of day. I fell across a sweet one tonight though. London is thirteen years old now. She has the recipe for her own specially curated potato soup inside of her head and she makes it spontaneously, no need to refer to to the original instructions any longer. She is capable of being an excellent map navigator and she is learning how to speak Spanish…
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Five Finds Friday (two videos & BBQ chicken & a full circle story)
At one point in this week I was like, “What?? It’s only Tuesday? No. I have lived more than two days already this week. It must be Friday.” So now here I am at Friday and I think this week took two weeks instead of one. What I’m saying is, friends, I don’t know how your house is faring, but it’s been a long week over at my house. I’m pulling into the weekend with an empty tank but hopeful for rest at the end of this week. FUNNY You might think I’m the funny one in my family. What? Someone might think that. I AM…
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Five Finds Friday (nothing here except Rod Stewart and rings that might fall off)
Happy Friday everyone. (It’s been a good week – and a long week. But a productive week. And a mostly stay-at-home week which pleases my Stay At Home child immensely.) FUNNY Sometime during an evening of games and soft trash talk and bad jokes, some kid said some thing that made some other kid say “Some guys have all the luck” to which I responded, in a sing-song voice, “Some guys have all the pain. Some guys do nothing but complain.” (Which both ages me, of course, by making a reference to a Rod Stewart song and makes me wonder what on earth else is hidden…
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scout. a poem to her.
She wears gray Chuck Taylors and dull colored hoodies. She’s always buttoned down and smoothed over and tidy, but she’s never showy, and the shiniest thing she’s ever owned are the brand new sparkling diamond earrings she’s only recently acquired. She laughs easily but seldom loudly or exuberantly. When you catch a glimpse of silly or tear-producing laughter from her, you know you’ve been handed a gift and if you’re wise, you’ll join in and embrace the joke. She’s deep and her thoughts are logical and creative and she’s beautiful in a pure and pleasing way. I’m so glad to call her Daughter. ___________________…
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A Love Poem About Birthdays, But Mostly About London Scout
This month I attended a really spectacular workshop on teaching poetry. Incredibly valuable and really inspiring actually. As attendees and students, we were walked through how we could teach our students poetry and we practiced all the games/ideas/talking points to help lead the kids to positive and meaningful experiences with poetry. (I hope to take this new knowledge and do something good with it this year.) In one exercise we ended up writing our own poem based on a famous poem by one of two poets. I chose Carl Sandburg, because he’s my guy you know. I was influenced by the birthday of London – thirteen. Such a significant…
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how do you do it?
A Reason for Handwriting: A Timberdoodle Review
… typing therapy …
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Five Fridays (nine)
FUNNY I sent this poem by Wendell Berry in a text to my dad the other day. Luckily he thought it was funny too. FASHIONABLE Undoubtedly, this is the hardest entry for me each week. What in the world do I know about fashion? Wait. I’ll tell you. Absolutely nothing. Recently hannaH told me that a friend of hers put me (and hannaH) and our chosen style of dressing in the category of Mary Poppins. I can’t even understand what that means but I feel confident that no one alive is thinking, “Who should I ask for fashion advice? I’ll ask Mary Poppins!” I’ll tell you what I do know,…
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the birthday day.
What a wonderfully sweet twelfth birthday London Eli enjoyed. And I am so tired, somehow. Maybe because of the early rising to bake monkey bread and sausage per the birthday girl’s request. And to bake that extra cake that just didn’t get baked earlier. And to whip up the frosting. It was both quietly satisfying to bake a cake before eight a.m. and highly unusual for me to be productive at that time of the morning. But hey, it’s a birthday morning. You gotta do what you gotta do. We opened presents and enjoyed a lovely breakfast together as a family. For a really long time London has been pondering…
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happy birthday my twelve year old lovely.
It was the eve of my thirtieth birthday. I was scared. Terrified – actually. Afraid of giving birth. But you can’t stop what nature has started and late that evening, an incredibly beautiful and tiny London Elizabeth Scout was born into this crooked world to hopelessly flawed parents. She was magnificent. She was itty bitty and brand spankin’ new and gloriously perfect in our eyes. It was after midnight and I found myself somehow entirely alone in a hospital room in my hometown in Virginia, cradling this swaddled, wrinkly, smooshy-foreheaded newborn in my amateur arms and singing a quiet little whispery birthday song to the both of us. “Happy birthday to us.…
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says London Eli Scout
“If I married a potato chip, my potato chip husband wouldn’t last very long. Neither would our potato chip children.”
