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through the lens
It was so wonderful to have my brother and his family at our home for several days last week. We hadn’t all been together since my nephew graduated from high school last June. Fortunately the days were gloriously mild and we spent the majority of every day outside. And, for today, I’m letting the pictures do all the talking.
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leave a message after the beep . . .
Thank you for calling. We can’t come to the phone right now. We’re busy playing with Uncle Danny, Aunt Beckey, Cousin Max and their dog Zoe. We are wearing slap bracelets, running outside with Zoe and Ringo, crafting doll clothes at the dining room table with Aunt Beckey, watching movies with Max, riding on the shoulders of Uncle Danny, painting stripes of pink and purple in our hair and eating homemade chocolate chip cookies. We’ll be back soon. And we’ll be sure to bring more pictures.
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is it just me?
Do you know how I first learned that I was selfish? I got married. And do you know by what manner the dark depth of my ultimate selfishness was revealed to me? I had children. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Have anyone else’s eyes been opened in the same way?
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18.
I won’t bemoan what seems impossible. The passage of so much time for which I can barely account. It’s an endless theme. And I already wrote about it yesterday. (And probably a half dozen other yesterdays.) 18. Today marks eighteen years of a world with Riley. (That reality nearly makes me gasp.) I always feel a little extra robbed when I start talking about time and my oldest daughter. And when you don’t meet your own child until she is six years old – something does seem stolen. I know she wasn’t mine those first six years, I know. And I know without her first six years and all that…
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letting go . . .
There are moments when I feel as if I have somehow missed my children’s entire infancies. Like I can’t remember them crawling or nursing or being seven pounds little. When I see that wee baby in her mother’s arms at church and I cannot call to mind London that minuscule. What Piper Finn looked like at three months old feels like a mystery or how Hawkeye smelled after a bath when I held him in my arms wrapped in a towel. I can’t remember. And I think sometimes that I lean to bitterness, to regret, to shame. And I know I cannot give these thoughts a foothold, a place. Because…
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the earth laughs in flowers. (emerson)
Oh my goodness. Just stepping outside of this house lately is like Christmas morning. The flowers that are blooming and springing up all over the place are just incredible. Every day we are collecting flowers and filling jars full of them. We have to. It’s too irresistible. I am working hard to discover the names of each blooming thing in our yard, but I am running into serious roadblocks. It’s like looking up a word you don’t know how to spell to begin with. I sent Mosely out with a camera today and she snapped photos of whatever colorful treasures she could find. My favorite is a shrub that features…
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everything.
Yesterday we spent the entire afternoon at a friend’s house. The kids played peacefully the entire time. Inside. Outside. In the hammock. On the grass. On the floor. Reading books. Laughing. Exploring. Waffles. Strawberries. Sunshine. Popcorn. Frozen yogurt. Sun tea. It was just so darn pleasant. The little girls were princesses, played princesses, dressed princesses. Piper Finn wore the sweetest crown made just for her. Books were read. My friend Jo taught London and Mosely (and me) how to finger knit. And the girls are wild about their new skill. (They stayed in bed last night and created long long long strings of finger knitted doll scarves and garlands and…
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Outdoor Hour Challenge. IX.
With the completion of our last Outdoor Hour Challenge we have found ourselves caught up the weekly challenges presented on the Outdoor Hour Challenge website. This week we are looking at pansies. Because I actually read ahead and prepared for our Tuesday Nature Study I was able to be proactive and pick up a few potted pansies at Lowe’s on the way home from Riley’s soccer game Monday. (That’s the primary reason I love following along with the Outdoor Hour Challenge. It’s enables me to take a book I have had sitting on my shelf for all my years of homeschooling – a book I have been idealistic about but never…
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add more red. and use hot glue.
If I’m not teaching school or cooking some type of food for the hungry mouths at this house or sweeping the dirt-loving wood floors or staring aimlessly into space as I try to remember what I was doing to begin with, then I’m probably thinking about my next project. Sunday afternoon I found myself standing in the kitchen alone. All family members occupied in some form of play or amusement not requiring attention from me. And I started thinking about how the door in our kitchen leads to our laundry room/back porch. And about how that door has a large window in it. And how that large window often…
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uh-oh
Is that the problem entirely? Every dream we have for our children, every hope we place on their tiny backs, is actually all about us? Our idea for their future? Our idea for their life? Our hopes. Our dreams. What their life says about us? What their decisions reflect upon us? No wonder we raise such self-serving rebels. They are just like us. They are us.
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and in other news . .
Yesterday I had a streak of purple placed in my hair. Well, three streaks. I don’t know why. And I’m not really pleased with the photo, but I’m not really into photographing myself in front of a mirror so it’s the best I feel like doing right now. I woke up today and forgot about it until I looked in the mirror. Luckily, I still like it a lot. It’s the perfect mid-life (except I’m probably past mid-life) experiment for me. Not too committed. Not tattoo-forever permanent. Just spontaneous and a touch of funky. My mom would have thought it was silly. Mosely thinks it’s funny. Piper Finn thinks it’s…
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let them play
Sometimes I feel so guilty when I don’t “do” school. When hours creep by and we haven’t read a book, drawn imitation Picassos, blown up a volcano, mapped out the radius of the Mayflower in our front yard, explored geography, performed interpretive dance movements to Mozart’s compositions, crafted an afghan from the hair of goats .. . Ha – like we’re doing any of those things! But still, I feel guilty for all that I should be doing. (And sometimes it’s the exact right kind of guilt that I should feel. I know that.) But sometimes, sometimes, it’s not. And a friend reminded me, a friend who has seven lovely…
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those old windows
Hi. My name is Lacey and I like old windows and low-cost decorating ideas. And, not that it matters, but for some reason it sort of feels like it does to me even though I know it’s petty and silly, I just want the world to know that I liked old windows before I ever saw them used in a hundred various and clever ways on Pinterest. It is a great way to repurpose and recycle any old window frames that you have once that you have had brand new ones fitted by a reputable window company. After all, we are supposed to be doing what we can to help…
