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consider me blessed.
What could be better than a twisty-turny Sunday afternoon drive to see a stunning view? What more could I ask for than spoken words of love and affection delivered directly to my ears? What else could I desire besides beautiful handmade treasures crafted by sweet, small hands?
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speaking of . . .
Meet Finn. Still one of the funniest kids I know. Lately she has taken to spouting a phrase she has picked up somewhere. “Speaking of . . . “ She will start sentences with this phrase. Just toss it in there mid-conversation, before anything she feels she needs to announce. Sometimes it doesn’t really make any sense. Such as – “Speaking of corn, can I have breakfast now?” And sometimes the connection is a little clearer. “Speaking of peanut butter, can I lick some?” At times, it is straight-up comical. “Speaking of pants, where are mine?”
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good.
If life has taught me anything, it is this . . . Good days are not a guarantee. Therefore I make it a priority to recognize one when I see it. To hold it in my hands and tell myself, “This is a good one. Slow down. And be.” I took a long shower. Kevin fixed breakfast for the kids. Berg asked for the return of his mohawk. In red. Hannah and I picked four gallons of strawberries with all the Little Ones. Shelby instructed the girls in math so that I did not have to. I might have just purchased my last dozen grocery-store eggs. Hannah is building a…
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follow.
I had not even been in the car for ten minutes. The kids and I were traveling a back road with our destination being one of Riley’s soccer games. The directions to the game were already typed into the phone. The phone was resting within arm’s reach on my knee. I noticed, however, that my friends Greg and Leanne were in their car behind mine. Their destination was the same because their daughter plays on the same team. I dialed Leanne’s number and said, “Will you guys pass me so I can just drive where you are driving? I mean, I have the directions in my hand, but I don’t…
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What King Solomon Sees
Sometimes I use King Solomon more as a camera than a phone. It’s so much tinier and more portable than my regular camera and its multiple lenses. And sometimes King Solomon sees so much more than I ever have opportunity to share on this blog. So I decided to change that. By stealing an idea from my friend Tyler. Who knows, maybe he stole his idea from someone else too. There’s nothing new under the sun. And now you too shall see what King Solomon has seen over the past several days. A mini eagle has joined the flock. (What do you call a group of eagles? Do eagles ever…
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Don’t Leave The Path.
Can I just tell you a little story about poop? (I mean, it’s not as if I have never done that before – right?) Last Friday our home school Suburban headed to Pisgah Forest in North Carolina for a Stream Investigations Class. The class was great. The water was cold. I dressed the kids in matching tie-dyed Look Up Lodge shirts so that I could easily spot their wayward selves among the thirty other children. I am not normally a children-match-one-another kind of mom. But it worked out pretty perfectly, actually. Otto Fox stayed strapped to my back in his carrier most of the day. Sometimes he was happy about…
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and the winner is . . .
Last week I posted this cute photo taken by Emma. And you guys came up with cutlines. There were some pretty funny ones. (You can see them all listed on the post. Plus a few more were added on my facebook page.) It didn’t seem fair to let Kevin win and Raegan’s dad made a threatening comment or two toward my son, but all in all, I think I have chosen the one that made me laugh the most. The winning caption is . . . What does ‘arranged marriage’ mean? Thank you guys all for throwing your captions in. Congratulations Marion – I always knew you were funny. (Now…
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strawberry memories
Not a single spring has passed for the last fifteen years that has not found me creating strawberry jam just like I saw my mother make. Always in the same too-large bowl in which my mother used to make her strawberry jam. And this year, as well as the past three years, I cannot help but be reminded of my mother. It’s inevitable. First, there’s the bowl. And the act of jam-making by itself. The jam may taste sugary sweet sweet sweet but the experience is always more of the bittersweet variety. I don’t know how to live it any other way. When I stir in that powdery sure-jell from…
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words to the wise.
My boy Bergen, the one who just turned six, says some beautiful words. But earlier this week, while on a family nature hike, Bergen Hawkeye uttered a genuine nugget of wisdom. Words I would encourage all of our other children to follow closely. While attempting to climb high along a stack of rocks upon which he should not have been attempting to climb high, Berg turned around and seriously announced, “Never do what I do.”
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Book Review: Bird by Bird
It has been over a month or two since I have finished any book my hands have touched, not counting novels the children and I are reading for school. So it is with great enthusiasm that I announce, I have finally completed Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. This was a book that everyone in the world seemed to know about except me. And when I was amongst writing folk and mentioned that I had never read this work, I was treated as if I earned my degree from Sears Roebuck or from a dude named Cappy’s. After cracking this book open and spending the…
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cheers.
I met Beth through church. I forget how exactly. But I think it’s pretty possible that I started reading her blog before I actually met her face to face. Because that happens sometimes. Even when you live in the same town. And attend the same church. What I like about Beth in real life is what I like about Beth in blog-life. She’s funny. She’s regular. She’s real. She cares deeply about her family. She is passionate about seeking God in all things. And she knows what it’s like to home school one kid with a couple more under foot. Now we’re pretty new at our friendship – just a…
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to next week. may it be fuller. and may I be as well.
This week I have fallen asleep on the sofa twice. That seldom happens to me. I prefer my bed. And I’ve overslept basically every morning this entire week. Except Tuesday. (But we had friends over, so my motivation was a bit stronger.) We’ve done our school work. Mostly. But I haven’t folded a single bit of laundry. I have been dressing children from the rumpled tower of clean clothes by the dryer. I have re-washed the same load in the washer four times because I keep forgetting about day after day. And I’ve been wondering why I am dragging myself around so much this week. As far as weeks go,…
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Name This Photo. Win a Silly Prize.
Growing up, my parents used to always receive this farming magazine in the mail called Farm & Ranch Living. My brothers and I loved the pictures of other farms and of kids who kind of looked like us – wearing overalls and plowing fields and lifting hay bales and feeding calves. And there was this one well-known photograph that seemed to always be featured on their back cover. Man, that magazine exploited this photo to the extreme. There were mugs, hats, t-shirts, calendars, shellacked wood pieces, clocks, bed sheets and car wraps featuring these two little farmers. (Alright – I never saw a bed sheet. Or a car wrap. But…
