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Times Four.
In the middle of all our annual July Fourth who-ha, our family had the absolute honor to be present for the wedding of our beloved friends – “Nake” and Laura. It was a ceremony as simple and precious and redemptive and hopeful as I have ever attended. And as I sat in the blazing July sun, grateful that I chose to wear black making my sweat less obvious, it was impossible to be seated at the wedding ceremony, impossible to listen to the words being said, impossible to watch a father walk down an aisle and hand his daughter to a young man, without looking at my own wedding companions. Without peering…
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Not over yet.
Day two sans internet. The guy from the place is supposed to arrive between 8 a.m. And 1 p.m. And we all know how that goes. Tonight Kevin and I have a date planned. The first one all summer I think. I don’t even care if we just sit in the parked car in a parking lot. Seriously. It seems as if it has been weeks since I have been alone with my own thoughts. Here’s what is overwhelming me lately: Trying to locate an Advanced Biology class for Riley for the fall. Facing the school year’s transportation needs with only two vehicles for three drivers that need to be…
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Forced Hiatus
Last night there was a storm. There was a loud snap. The lights went out. The kids screamed in their beds. Eventually they were comforted, eventually the power was restored. But the Internet was not. And that’s okay. Greetings from the iPhone. (Not my preferred typing method.) No photos. No insights. No italics or bold. (I haven’t figured those out yet.) Just today. I already held my little computer of a phone for far too long this morning in order to type the tiny keys extensively to fill out a registration form for the kids to be enrolled in this great local homeschool co-op. It was full until last week…
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tradition
tradition: a long-established custom that has been passed on. Yes. Perfect. I love tradition. I love events and details and activities that you do year after year, holiday after holiday, season after season. And I love July Fourth. Love it. Love the mad rush that leads up to the day. Love the kids helping decorate the porch so it looks all shades of blue, red and white festive. Love the tattoos that every kid chooses to slap across their cheeks. I think part of what I love is how you can try to make so many particulars the same – the food, the location, the order of events (guns, tubing,…
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Resurfacing.
Last week we were in Virginia. The Mother Land. My state of birth. The birth state of four of our six children. And she was beautiful. I know I will be dissecting last week for many posts and tossing out photos like candy on Halloween. Or like sparklers on July Fourth. It was wonderful to see the gang all lined up for our Camp Fourth week. And it was goodgoodgood to be in a landscape as familiar as the tops of my children’s heads. I’ve missed that. The dip and the curves of the back roads that lead to my parents’ former farm and my framily’s current farm. The willow…
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Camp Fourth
When you have ten kids in one farm house, you need a plan. Actually, forget the plan – you already have a camp. So you might as well embrace what you have going on. Which is what we are currently doing right now. “We” being Sally, Sarah, Emma and myself. Yes. You counted correctly (if you were counting). Ten kids. Four adults. Camp Fourth involves hikes, good intentions, multiple snack times, daily grocery store runs, periodic breakdowns, impromptu games of Red Rover and varied sleep stations. We’ve made crafts. Rock necklaces and bead art and painted rock bands.
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Road Rules
It seems the Keigley family’s wheels have been trucking along a highway or two (or twelve) the past few weeks. And we’re learning a few truths. (Seems the road always has a lesson or two for us.) Lessons like this . . . . 1. Knock Knock jokes have a rather limited appeal. 2. Our front left tire is slowly losing air and needs to be regularly refilled. 3. I don’t care for putting air in tires. 4. Hearing your two-year-old son cry your name for thirty-five minutes straight is neither endearing nor conducive to continued driver sanity. 5. The iPad is more than just a beautiful piece of technology – it…
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The New Game
This fall The School of Keigley has a transfer student arriving. And her name is Riley. She’s spent the last two years attending a local private school and is now heading home for her junior year. Which means, I have to do something I have never done before. Instruct a high school student. Actually, that’s not the truth. I spent six years teaching high school students. But most days that feels like another life. And, anyway, I have never actually been in charge of all aspects of teaching a high school student. So when a couple of women who lead a local homeschool co-op offered an evening class covering all…
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What King Solomon Sees: Take 3
I have actually been using my legitimate camera lately so King Solomon has not been seeing quite as much. But he has seen a few noteworthy items I would love to share with you. Like this. Hey guys, it’s a map. A bona fide, non GPS, locating device. It’s for real. And you can buy one in a store near you too. I unplugged our John Cleese-voiced TomTom and used this old baby on our recent adventure. It was refreshing. Yet another tooth from yet another Keigley kid mouth. London confessed that she saved her teeth to cash in with Daddy instead of me because Daddy offers a higher return.…
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An Open Letter to Keen
Dear Makers of the Shoe We Affectionately Call Keen, (Oh, wait – everyone calls these shoes Keen. My bad.) I have long loved your shoes. Their durability. Their versatility. Their wearability. (Did I just make up that word?) The first summer that we discovered these walking wonders we purchased a pair for my husband, a pair for me and a pair for our oldest daughter. The next summer we made the leap to the smaller feet in our home. (Who could resist the fun colors, the lack of zippers, the protected toe, the all-weather-ness?) This summer the sizes that could be passed down to younger siblings were. One pair was…
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copycat
My kids think that being a copycat is just about the worst crime you can commit. It’s a battle cry against injustice that I hear all day long. “Mosely copied my art project.” “Bergen’s Lego man looks just like mine. He’s copying.” “Piper – you can’t eat the same sandwich I am eating. You’re a copycat.” But I am pretty much okay with being a copycat. In fact, I love it. I call it imitation and I think it’s a high compliment. So when we visited my brother and his family at their home in North Carolina, I was overwhelmed with my desire to copycat everything from my sister-in-law’s home.…
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forty-two hours. full and worthwhile.
Last weekend. 42 hours. 14.5 of them spent in the confines of the Suburban. One graduation celebration for this sweet nephew. The kids all running around in the post-ten-o-clock dark, glow sticks waving, skin sticky from the Atlantic ocean wind, pine cones tossed in the fire pit and you ask yourself, “Why don’t we do this more often?” And you remember the six-turned-eight hour drive and the rearranging of work schedules and the packing of the past day and the laundry of the future day. But who really cares about any of that when a fire is blazing and your big brother is smoking clams on the grill and your…
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dunce cap.
I was tidying up the kitchen table after being inspired to do so by reading this blog post by my friend. Listening to The Cure. (Seriously – the iPod was on shuffle and before I knew what was happening I was singing along to “Pictures of You”.) Seriously. That’s true. This whole post is true. (all of my posts are true.) This is what my life looks like. I heard some cries from the girls’ bunk bed where they had been playing happily for over an hour. It had been a beautiful thing that I knew could not last. (The youngest boy was asleep in his crib. The biggest boy…
