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vanilla. vanilla beans. vodka.
This week I took my two-year-old son into a liquor store. (Or do people call them ABC stores?) I didn’t dare let the kid get out of my arms. Have you seen what they keep in that place? Like a bazillion glass bottles all stacked precariously high in tiny rows. It was the second time in my life that I have ever entered such a store. I was buying vodka. To make my own vanilla. Seriously – how cool is that? My friend Heather gave me the vanilla beans but I had to supply my own vodka. Mosely and I split the delicious-smelling beans in half and scooped out their…
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we weren’t just picking grapes.
We don’t live on a farm. But I used to. And even though I thought the cows smelled rotten and I vowed to never marry a dairy farmer living on a farm taught me a few things. I know where food comes from. That a cow has to die if I want a burger. And I know that people make the system work. Labor. Loads of labor. Hauling hay on a hot July afternoon means that the cows can eat on a cold January morning when snow covers the pasture. I know that eggs don’t originate from Styrofoam containers and it requires a real human hand to pick an apple.…
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at that point: the anniversary post.
Sometime near the end of summer camp it happened. Our marriage made it to Year Sixteen. Sixteen years in. We’re at that point in our years together that our wedding gifts are looking pretty battered. A decade and half of years will do that, you know. The couple of towels that are still remaining after all those years are shaggy and worn and are mostly used for cleaning up messes or protecting furniture when you move it. The dishes – they look pretty chipped. The sets are no longer all together. For every one whole piece another piece has been broken or chipped or cracked. I have more cracked dishes…
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impossible.
It would be impossible to sum up a week of Nothing and a week of Everything in one little blog post. I’m not even going to try. We stayed here. And it was fabulous. A mountain house in the woods of Georgia. Graciously loaned to us from some unbelievably kind friends. Enough beds for everyone. A private suite for Otto Fox. (Also known as a giant closet.) A screened-in back porch overlooking a creek. I need not say more. Throughout the week London learned to play chess under the tutelage of Grandpa and Daddy. She was such a good student, in fact, that by week’s end she had her moment…
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busy. busy. dreadfully busy.
The last few days have been busy. A good busy, but busy. Summer ending. Lesson plans being prepared. (Who knew teaching four high school classes to my daughter would take so much preparation? Oh, wait – I did.) Camp drawing to a close. Annual camp-ending traditions being observed and embraced. Oh – and raising six children who have ambitiously declared it their goal to make plans to swim every remaining day of summer. I have actually not sat down before this computer screen in three days. I have missed typing words. I have. But instead of typing I’ve been wrapped up with other agendas. Agendas that involve listening to this…
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indeed.
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these days
These are the types of days that you can’t manufacture. The days that I want to store up and stack up until they fall over. Teetering and towering on the edge. These are the days that quality time just doesn’t register and it all comes down to quantity time. It’s an abundance of time, plain and simple, that allowed these four heads to sit around and make up something to do. It was TV off, no chores assigned, afternoon free time that created this moment. I can’t fake that and I can’t conjure it up. And I don’t want to miss it. It’s so perfect and lovely in its innocence…
Keep Reading . . .
a thank you, thirty years later.
love. (for a concert and a band.)
this little moment.
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a tradition (apparently a year in the making)
Yesterday was just one of those days. The kind of days that are just fun and silly and one of the reasons why I enjoy living at a summer camp. Last summer after camp ended our friend Andrew sat over at our house one afternoon and had dreadlocks put in his hair by our friend Stacy. It seems that was the first of an annual tradition. Last night Taylor and Mitchell were the receivers of the dreads, once again put in by Stacy. Those boys both have a lot of hair. In fact, Mitchell’s dreads aren’t even finished yet. (But they will be.) But that’s not the point. The point…
Keep Reading . . .
hello out there.
Raising Girls: embracing help through Awaken
back to the grind . . .
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how I would like to appear.
I’m always seeing other moms out with their kids as my kids and I are running errands, grocery shopping and just living life. And some of these moms seem just plain miserable. Which makes me wonder, how many times do I appear the same way? What do I look like when someone catches that ten second glimpse of my life and sees me with my children? What do they see? Not that I’m trying to impress people or put up a good front. Goodness knows, I don’t have the energy for faking it. I just wonder if the sum of my moments with my children is more positive or more…
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Southern Nightlife
I love the kind of adventure that just sort of finds you. It has been way too long since my friend Mandy and I had taken a girls night out. So long, in fact, that we couldn’t even figure out where to go actually. We ended up in downtown Greer and decided to try out a local joint called The Mason Jar. Our waters were served in mason jars. Obviously. I think I must have lost a bit of my mind when ordering. Although we did stay away from the fried bologna on the menu. But I didn’t venture far from that delicacy, I’m afraid. Everything I consumed last night…
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beautiful boy.
Dear Bergen, I love how you cuddle with me. You push into my side with such fierce determination that I think you would allow yourself to be absorbed into my very skin if that was somehow possible. I love how you do nearly every thing with abandonment. Even eating chocolate ice cream. You are beautiful to me. And you are mine. (not forever.) For now. And I am sorry that there are days that I squander this gift. Days that my tone is sharp. Days that my hands push you to the side and I ask you to find another place to stand. Days that I disregard your legitimate concerns…
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little eyes.
I was sitting at the dinner table. Completely zoned out. Staring into space. London interrupted my intergalactic moment. “Why did you do that thing with your lip, Mommy?” “What thing?” I asked. I had no idea what I had been doing. “This thing – ” And she demonstrated. And then she explained, “That’s the thing you do with your lip when you’re angry.” Little eyes. Always watching.
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hodge podge
I can already hear them. My children. In the far future. Discussing me. Dissecting the way I do things. Analyzing why I wrote our meals on chalkboard cabinets and what my obsession with this blog was all about. And calling me a cheapskate. I know they will. I used to look at my mother as she gathered the remaining zip-loc baggies from our lunch leftovers each afternoon. How she dumped the crumbly contents in the trash and then rinsed each and every baggie for a future lunch. Yes. Rinsed her baggies. To me, then, that was right next to wearing black lipstick and piercing your nipples. It was crazy. And…
