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just a little more thanks giving before we switch holidays
I know no one wants to even think about Thanksgiving any longer. Even the most reluctant of us recognize the official Changing of the Holidays the weekend after Thanksgiving. So it’s all Christmas Christmas Christmas now. And I’m all in for Christmas. I really am. Yesterday we chopped down our tree from the great outdoors and propped it back up inside our house – a strange tradition that I love but have to wonder how it would appear to someone unfamiliar with the custom. I’ll jump right on that polar express to trees and ornaments and stockings and traditions and the red and the green. Tomorrow. Today I just want…
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happy holiday weekend friends!
This week it’s Holiday Holiday – right? (Don’t worry – “holiday holiday” doesn’t mean anything. I just made that up.) Today I made pimento cheese for the first time. Tomorrow London is making peanut butter pies – a Keigley Thanksgiving tradition – and Bergen is making Lemon Squares. That boy loves lemon desserts. We are celebrating Thanksgiving with half of the Eibert kids – maybe one day it will be all of the Eibert kids again. One can always hope. But we are thrilled to be reveling in family time and drinking mulled cider and eating Beckey’s sweet potato casserole and Danny and Max’s magical grilled turkey. I hope your…
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and the list of thanks is longer than the list of disappointments
It was a cold, rainy weekend. Just pretty much gross. One of my favorite pottery plates fell from the dishwasher as my young assistants were unloading the silverware tray. It shattered. This weekend at the exact moment when the cashier at Trader Joe’s said, “That will be $179” I became painfully and immediately aware of the fact that my wallet was in my blue bag and I was carrying my green one. Kevin and I had physicals recently for life insurance policies and when I saw my weight I let myself think it mattered so much more than it does. For days (no, honestly – for weeks) I’ve been dragging around a…
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end of story.
Kevin and I had the opportunity to listen to Dr. Ed Welch speak at a conference recently. Among the topics were mental illnesses and brain disorders and depression. Gray Matters was the title of the weekend conference, which I found a fitting name. There was an overflow of information and plenty to wade through for many a day. (Which we have been doing in big and small ways.) I was particularly struck by the manner in which Dr. Welch shared anecdotes. He’s been in counseling for nearly as many years as I have been alive so his real-life examples are vast. And in every story he shared he would stop talking…
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Home.
Do you know what is good? Home. You know – home. I just adore that ritual of every evening when the house is still the dishwasher is magically doing the dirty work and I pull off my shoes cozy up in a blanket and stretch out on the sofa beside Kevin. I unclip all the do-dads from my hair and I know it must be a tangly mess and I don’t care at all and my husband doesn’t care and I think that’s my favorite kind of love. We both sigh. Contented sighs that set the world straight again.
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The Right Word.
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Sunday Crock Pot Meals
I like a crock pot. She’s a genius. We’re kind of good buddies. Like me and Thrift Store and me and Colin Meloy. Almost every Sunday we employ Crock Pot’s clever magic. When we return from our weekly church-attending, grocery-shopping morning we enter our home and a meal awaits us. And although no one in our family minds eating the same meals over and over except me, I would love to garner some new tried and true recipes for Crock Pot to perform. So here’s what I thought I’d do. I’ll share some of our favorite Crock Pot Creations and you guys share some of your favorite recipes in the…
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Narnian Meals Morning and Night
This year we are reading our way through The Chronicles of Narnia. We are using a curriculum from the same Cadron Creek company that published our last year’s choice – Prairie Primer. It’s been a completely different journey thus far. For a lot of reasons I guess. I really like Narnia. I’m a fan of C.S. Lewis for certain. I have a confession to make, however. I have never actually read the entire series completely before. Not ever. I’ve read the first three or four books – some as a kid and some as a teacher – but never have I completed the entire series. Therefore – the incredible affection I…
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Rain Day.
A Conversation Between Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh That I Think Perfectly Fits This Rainy Day. I like when you just do nothing. Oh. How do you just do nothing? It’s what you do when grown ups ask, “What are you going to do?” and you say “Nothing” and then you go and do that. _____
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Christmas Gift Giving Guide
Thanksgiving talk yesterday. Christmas talk today. It’s about holidays this week for some reason. Of course you can purchase your gifts on Amazon. And I don’t want to discourage any excessive or extravagant Amazon purchases, you know. However. There is this glorious alternative to the machine that is Amazon. Handmade stuff by people I love. I’ve mentioned both of these before, but at a time like this – with holidays literally breathing down our necks – we could all appreciate a user-friendly all-in-one-location kind of list. And that’s just what I have for you: Lotions. Soaps. Scrubs. Beauty products. All hand created with fabulous ingredients by my lovely cousin…
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Leaves of Thanksgiving
Remember when I couldn’t remember if we had any Thanksgiving traditions? This fall we’ve completely acquired an idea from our friends – and probably dozens of other families too – A Thankful Tree. Or – more accurately – A Bunch of Thankful Sticks. It was easy to designate the task of securing branches to my boy – he took the assignment seriously. We stashed the sticks in a jar of chickpeas (because I had a jar of them and I do not recall the day I ever bought them which means they most certainly had long since expired). I cut out some leaves on autumn-colored paper and Otto Fox gleefully…
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make my heart believe
Singing with hundreds of others lined up in red-seated rows on an early Sunday morning. A song I’ve certainly heard before but I’ve never listened like this. In all my sorrows Jesus is better. Make my heart believe. And I felt like it was the gospel for me in three lines of music. In all my victories Jesus is better. Make my heart believe. There’s the knowledge – the truth. Jesus is better. And then there’s the rub. The struggle. Make my heart believe. I can know something but I need reminding. I can believe a truth even while I’m questioning it. I don’t know how this is possible. I…
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ordinary occurrences
On the laundry room floor a very large bag of acorns sits. Collected. Stored and being saved for currency at their friend’s house. In the living room there is a bright cheery yellow canvas bag loaded with rocks. And. A tap on the shoulder. A seven-year-old confession. “Momma. Otto’s bug catcher is empty now. But it wasn’t earlier. So. If you see some crawly lizard upstairs. Well. That’s why. I thought you should know.”
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decorating inspiration.
Oh – and another thing. DC was like the icing on the cake, really. The entire road trip was actually more inspired by our desire to visit my brother and his wife. The kids loved Aunt Beckey’s craft room where they were allowed to wade through fabric bits and felted bounty and were encouraged to create and craft to their heart’s content. There was no end – miniature sleeping bags and pillows for their Calico Critters, a soft fleece pillow for London, a doll dress for Piper – and fairy wings to match it. Mosely was allowed to use the real deal sewing machine and Piper took a whirl at…
