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My Friend Mary & The Beauty of Showing Up
I think Riley was in high school when our family met Mary. At that time, if I have my story straight, she was serving as a youth leader. Her love for the kids at our church and her compassion for my daughter drew me to her immediately. One very bizarre and unusual Thanksgiving, we even enjoyed a quiet and restorative meal together – just the two of us – due to highly unusual circumstances in both of our own lives. We attended a Bible study called Haven together. And, there’s likely more that I am forgetting. Here’s my point – she’s a truly lovely human, both inside and out (she’s…
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weekend ramble (the wrong date. the wrong time. the right pants.)
This weekend I . . . Spent a girls weekend with three of my daughters while my boys went fishing. Watched two movies about Jane Austen in some capacity. (Austenland and Becoming Jane. One was satisfyingly happy and one was real gloomy.) Took my girls shopping – with friends – and marveled at how much they enjoyed it. The times – they are a changing. Asked my friend if I could pull off pinkish/purpleish pants. She said yes. Purchased said pants. And two days later, wore said pants, deciding that even if I couldn’t wear them in some perfectly flattering way, that I didn’t even care because the color made…
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five finds friday (freckles, strawberries, plants)
The sunshine this week has been the actual best. funny I received this email from PayPal, the convenient way for you to receive and to pay money amongst friends, family and clients. Also the way to have a small percentage of that money disappear into the recesses of space via the service fee. I just thought it was hilarious that their response to you not agreeing to the changes they were imposing on your account was for you to close your account entirely. And then, you know, if you close your account – these changes won’t effect you. Uh, right. fashionable Today’s fashionable are my kid’s freckles. Aren’t…
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thoughts. on this fragile world.
We really live in the most frail of worlds – don’t we? Our own personal ecosystem is a mess. I’m not even talking about actual environmental problems. I just mean – things fall apart. It’s hard to maintain anything – your yard, your living room, your friendships. Recently my friend had a plumbing issue and her (new) floorboards had to be torn out and there was literal water just flowing under her house because it’s basically all a charade. A puppet show. Held together with glue and cardboard, propped up with sticks and strings and what on earth are we doing here? You know what I’m saying? We…
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A Reason for Handwriting: A Timberdoodle Review
This post is an affiliate post. In exchange for my personal and honest review, Timberdoodle sent me a free copy of this workbook. ____________________________________ It’s that time of year when every teacher and every parent is suddenly pulling out the calendar and counting down the days. Let’s just make it through, right? Finish strong and all that. But it’s also that time of year when most of us have to make decisions about our children’s education for next year. Ugh. Who designed this system? This systems that says – just when you’re real tired and over and out with the current school year, just when you have given up trying…
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five finds friday – (Congaree, more soup, another Otto saying & sunshine)
I really need to go to bed instead of writing this post. I don’t feel at all certain that I can think of Five items tonight. But, at the same time, I really want to do this. funny We went to see a play at local college with many of our friends. The lead role was performed by a friend we made through our stays at Lost Valley Ranch. I love that sort of connection and how that works out. It was Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew and, like every event of late in our home, the feelings about attending the show were mixed. (In fact, Bergen heaved a heavy…
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weekend ramble (the stillest of weekends)
This weekend had an Original Plan but got waylaid by a sick kid. Instead of heading out of town with our sweet friends, we all stayed at home. Where we hardly left the house and instead rested and recovered and tried to monitor all the ways in which we could keep any sickness from spreading throughout all of us. We watched some TV. This is the first year we’ve ever really fully embraced American Idol. The boys can’t stand it. The girls all love it. It’s sort of ridiculous how much I have enjoyed it this season. I just love seeing the judges be so encouraging to these young kids…
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five finds friday
This week in numbers. (Even though numbers are NOT my thing.) 3.5 hours at a testing facility for kids and school testing. 1 broken motor mount on my Yukon. 5 hours spent driving kids to cross country, soccer and errands on Tuesday afternoon. 10 kids at my house on Wednesday. 22 baked potatoes for a group dinner. 19 chocolate chip cookies stolen and devoured by Ryder. funny Our pup Talluah is a funny one. She adores sleeping curled up on a pillow. Preferably above someone’s head. And I know I share a lot of photos of this dog sleeping – but it’s what she does a lot. And –…
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messy
Today was a messy day. It was destined for a poor start the night before. I knew it, even as I raced the clock and stayed up later than I knew I should. I woke up at 5:30 am. Which is unacceptable to me. I contemplated being the sort of person who actually gets out of bed at that time. I tossed and turned. I thought about turning on the light. To read. To do work. To do something useful. But a wayward son had found his way into my room late last night and I didn’t want to rouse him at that unholy hour. I remember when I was…
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the dangers of dating as a single mom (or as a single dad, but you know – I write what I know)
There are so many directions this post could take. But I’m going to just head in one for today. Let’s talk about the drought problem. You know, when you have running water at your house, you don’t think about running water – right? When everything is as it should be and you take a shower in the morning, do you find yourself very grateful for that water? Eh. Maybe if you’re a really grateful kind of human – sure. But likely, you don’t think about it at all. You don’t praise God for tap water when you fill your coffee pot. You don’t lift up praise hands when the toilet…
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five finds friday (funny kids, garish sofas, filthy rocks, twinkling lights)
But seriously – Friday AGAIN? This week there were birthday parties, cross country conditioning, teenage tears, education a-happening, some genuine love expressed by some of my kids toward one another, meals of cereal, meals of hot dogs, meals of beef stew and meals of chicken and broccoli. There was a tad of single parent drama and a touch of divorced parent drama but we all survived and made it to the other side, if there is another side. You know. Life was lived. The sun was shining more than the sky was raining and I had next to no work meetings and I rearranged some furniture and tried to…
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Frankincense – a little educating (but not by me)
It’s been more than I year since I signed up with Young Living and started down a road of trying to proactively learn more about essential oils. Truthfully, in most ways I have done next to nothing to use Young Living as a way to earn money. But I have been building up my own collection, selling to a few friends, and learning more and more at the snail’s pace at which I learn anything new these days. And that’s a-okay with me. (I mean, hey – I’m not opposed to alternative revenue streams, right Dave Ramsey? But, I also know my own limitations on time and energy during this…
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sometimes the story is better than the reality
Is this only true for me? Those times/days/situations where something happens. In real life. In a regular day. And right away you know you’re going to turn it into a story. You know you’re going to share it later – for me, maybe on this blog – or, with a friend over tea or on a Voxer message or at your next dinner together. You know it’ll make a funny tale. You know you’ll revisit the story and it will take on a life of its own and you’ll be able to laugh about it and see it in a different light. It’s THAT kind of story. But the…
