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the swing.
What childhood is not made better by the addition of a front yard swing?
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this morning’s struggle.
Have you ever just woken up under? Feeling somehow less than ready? Not just for what the day demands, but for what life demands? For me, that’s today. That’s this morning. A combination of bad mojo stacked against me. A coughing, weird-breathing London crawled into bed beside me and I was still wide awake at one o’clock in the morning, sleeping on about six inches of bed and having to fight to recover my share of the blankets. Already dressed in my running gear, I had to bail out on my 6 a.m. running date with my group because I knew my fatigue was too great . Crawled back into my…
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once upon a table
There once was a table. A red table. A table that used to be brown. A table that held years of roasted chickens, beans and cornbread, RC Colas, mashed potatoes and banana pudding. This table inspired poetry. This table served as a sideboard in my grandma’s living room because her kitchen was too tiny. It was the first kitchen table we placed London’s toddler booster seat up against. We used it until the booster seats outnumbered the grown up chairs. And then it became the extra table. The table I refused to give away despite Kevin’s truthful assertion that our home had no space for an extra kitchen table. Particularly…
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Outdoor Hour Challenge. XI.
We have not exactly been walking in step with the Outdoor Hour Challenge website these past two weeks. But that doesn’t mean we haven’t been outdoor-hour-challenging-it-up. In fact, we’ve been so pleasantly distracted by all things outdoor and green and blooming and beautiful that we’ve just been plowing our own ground, so to speak. (And I’m pretty sure that’s the point anyway.) A family of eastern bluebirds is nesting in the birdhouse Kevin and Hawkeye built. And for the past two weeks we have taken advantage of this mild, sweet weather and have hit the road for outdoor explorations. One week it was Carl Sandburg’s homestead. A place we are…
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me neither.
I do not understand how anyone can live without one small place of enchantment to turn to. – Marjorie K. Rawlings
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she’s still funny . . .
I should probably teach my four year old a little more about April Fool’s Day. (And the days of the week.) I guess she’s been mis-hearing the phrase for a couple of days. Tonight she walked up to me and said, “Hey Mommy. There’s a spider on your head.” Already cracking herself up, she added, “Happy Tuesday!”
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shadow boxes: reigning in the small stuff.
It seems that all of my life I have been collecting little things. Do-dads. What-cha-ma-call-its. Bric-a-brac. Knickknacks. Trinkets. Odds and ends. A myriad of items that are literally small in size. And sometimes those littles wind up on shelves improperly displayed. But more often, those tiny treasures are stashed in boxes with lids with nary a chance to be viewed and appreciated. Enter – our new house. A house with many extra walls, tall walls. This begins the story of my love affair with shadow boxes. I used empty Clementine crates for boxes next to each kid’s bed for their own personal treasures. (I already have hoarders for children –…
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haphazard. erratic. random.
How cute is this kid when he’s wearing only a pair of pants? I’ve been trying out a handful of recipes from my “cook this” Pinterest board. This weekend I made the recipe for Oatmeal Sandwich bread. I laughed when one commenter said, “Our family devoured this in three days.” Our family devoured this, warm from the oven, piled with butter and strawberry jam, in about eight minutes. It was the best bread recipe I’ve come across in a long time. (And another great way to use some of the fifty pounds of oatmeal I bought in bulk. Yeah – fifty pounds.) I also created our own taco seasoning. We’re having…
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I just can’t help myself.
This house has been all blessing. Despite the high cost of heating it this mild winter. Despite the plastic covering some of the windows, the paint chipping at every corner and the mismatched stairwells and moldings and door frames. Despite the one bath tub and the small hot water heater and the sloping floor in the dining room. Despite all that. Maybe it’s the spring talking. The incredible bursts of colors blooming in our yard that distract me from work and school. Or the pollen that has overtaken my senses. Made me all woozy and sentimental and I don’t know what else. (Kevin and I both cried while watching a…
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Groceries: Another Challenge for the Revolution.
Who wants to start a conversation about money? And food? If we were all seated together at a table somewhere it would either get really loud right now or uncomfortably quiet. It just depends on how you roll, I guess. Our family has been on the Low to No Revolution for manymanymany months now it seems. I haven’t been continually writing about it, but I have been continually living it. We’re still using that homemade laundry soap. It’s definitely cheaper. And I made our own hand soap and bath soap a while back and it’s super long-lasting and fragrant. As for the shampoo – well, I don’t know. I used it…
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yes, we did.
Yesterday we walked into our local tractor supply store. It’s one of the few stores in town where it seems perfectly acceptable to bring in your children wretched with filth after a day spent playing outside. Kevin and I wanted to see what types of chicken supplies the store had and to make a plan for acquiring a few full-grown chickens to begin our attempts at raising chickens once again. That’s all we were planning to do. A research and development expedition if you will. After entering the store, being surrounded by John Deere products and giant plastic buckets, we heard squeals of delight from our bevy our children.…
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Outdoor Hour Challenge X.
I don’t think I actually completed an outdoor challenge last week. At least not in an official way. But I know the kids spent so much real-time good hours upon hours of outside time. While our family was visiting we trimmed branches, built forts, made wreaths and frames out of grape vines and spent long hours in the rope swing. And I absolutely believe that time counts. Besides, in truth, a large portion of the reason I joined in the Outdoor Hour Challenge was to gain direction, focus and inspiration to promote consistency in our outdoor times as a school assignment. All that to say, I might not have recorded…
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yuck
Last week I was cleaning the back porch/laundry room. A large stack of dirty clothes was unearthed. Clothes that belonged to one six-year-old little boy that I know well. I summoned that young man in and required him to tidy up his apparently favorite changing space. He chuckled with gusto. (Because that’s what he does.) He cleaned up his mess. And then he left the scene of the crime. I kept cleaning. In my own personal cleaning frenzy I knocked over a bucket of mason jar lids. They bounced and slipped between the wall and the chest freezer. Reaching into that hidden space my hand touched an article of clothing. I dragged…
