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That Time We Went Inside a World That First Started on a Page
I was late to the express train that is Harry Potter and JK Rowling and the entire universe of wizards and Hogwarts. I had my reasons. (One of which was that in 1997, when the first novel was released, I was a newlywed working for a newspaper writing sports articles (can you even imagine?) and helping to put my husband through college and I was volunteering at a local theatre and anyway, I just didn’t even pay any attention to the books. By the time Riley joined our home and her cousins were all about the Harry Potter books I was neck deep in teaching high school English and…
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it’s easy to love homeschool on a day like this.
One of the more challenging aspects of homeschooling five students at once in five different grades is that their needs and desires and skill sets, both educationally and otherwise, are so varied. When they were all younger, this seemed less dramatic. There seemed to be less of a division. Now London, in high school, can be rather tethered to giant books or a computer for her math program. Her science can take nearly an hour to wade through each day. Labor intensive. Much more so than elementary school. So the dreamy Little House on the Prairie days are fading and it’s certainly plausible that I am holding more tightly…
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Coming Soon to a Stage Near You
A goose. A maid’s daughter. A Persian man. A Hebrew woman. And soon an ant and a family living in communist Russia. These are the roles that my children have had in their years of stage experience with the Logos Theatre in Taylors. Our family first heard about The Academy of Arts and their theatre quite a few years ago when we saw an advertisement for auditions for their production of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. Finn auditioned back then and we went through months of rehearsals and held our breath and wondered what the final result would actually look like. It looked like magic.…
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Upon Turning 44
The sheets are gritty (even though it had only been a few days since their last wash). It’s the scum and the crud from little kid feet and I can make all the rules about socks in bed and showers before sleep and sleeping in your own bed where no one minds the sandy sheets but it all falls on deaf ears because my bed still possesses a gravitational pull and as much as it causes me discomfort now, it will cause me equal (or more) discomfort when the pull weakens and the kids cuddle less. I feel something rough against my toe. I retrieve it with said toe…
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kayak adventure
On Monday my friend Hannah and I checked off an item that has been sitting patiently on my wish list for years. (It was my birthday gift from Hannah — more on birthday later.) Go kayaking at Lake Jocassee. At first we had to wait out a storm on the lake. (We passed the time nicely with good conversation, salt and vinegar chips and dried mango. Nope – I’d never tried dried mango before either.) The storm cost us some floating time, but it was a solid and satisfying experience despite the delay. And Lake Jocassee is just fantastic. Unbelievably clear lake water.…
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farm, framily, feelings, photos
At the farm I didn’t write very much. I brought a couple of books to read, but I didn’t open them. I stayed up late every night, talking in the quiet hours with Emma and Sarah and Sally, with whomever stayed awake and was chatty. I didn’t rise exceptionally early because my kids are late sleepers and those of them who were not were capable of having a bowl of cereal downstairs with the other early risers. We saw rainbows more than once at the farm. Once, as the rain begin to chase us, we chased the rainbow’s end. It seemed so perfectly catchable. It…
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Beyond Wildwood: The Ranch (Tuesday)
Rereading my notes from the ranch is like diving into cool mountain water on a humid South Carolina afternoon. I’m enjoying it immensely and I sincerely appreciate your indulgence in allowing me to keep writing about our days out west. The processing is slow and long-winded and it’s likely I enjoy it more than y’all do. In regular life news it was a busy weekend – flag football and friends for dinner, editing a novel and cleaning house, ice cream contests and uplifting gatherings. It’s raining now and we’re all tucked inside in relative comfort and I’m pulling out my journal to see what Tuesday at Lost Valley looked…
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Beyond Wildwood: Notes from the Ranch (Arrival)
Traditions matter deeply to me. (Even traditions at their genesis.) Which means, on this day, on the way into the ranch, we would be stopping at The Donut Mill in Woodland Park, Colorado. This time my dad was able to join us for our adventures, making even these sticky sweet treats even sweeter. We all oohed and ahhed over their unnecessarily gigantic cinnamon roll (large enough for an entire family) and we all enjoyed our ice cream or our donuts. (My choice was a maple glazed donut. I just loves me the maple.) I asked again, the same as last year, “Hey guys – doesn’t this donut shop have…
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Beyond Wildwood: Notes from the Road
We’re becoming a well-oiled machine – these five companions and myself. At the gas station, for example. Two kids take trash patrol, one kid pumps gas, I pay for the gas, two kids clean the windows. Now, if only we could figure out how to help lower the cost of gas out here. It’s outrageous. I can’t recall our trip mileage at the moment, but I know we topped 2,000 several towns ago. Today was a pricey day. Probably about eight years ago I received a speeding ticket. The second in my life. (My first was around 17 years old.) Today, in a tiny town called Alma just…
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Beyond Wildwood: The Reunion (it begins)
I’ll tell you this – it feels a lot like my childhood felt. Brothers ribbing me endlessly, jokes flying over my head, loud laughter at all the wrong things, most comments resulting in some sort of physical violence, too many opinions, everyone is certain they are right and a general house volume of barely controlled chaos. One entire decade later, my three brothers and my father and I are all in the same house in the same state. It’s rowdy. It’s pretty fun too. It’s kind of out of control. Sometimes we each step away – to the porch, the stream, the fire pit, the…
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Beyond Wildwood: The Ranch (1)
We’ve crossed the Lost Valley Ranch cattle guard twice now on this journey – heading to the ranch and heading away from the ranch. One was infinitely more pleasing than the other. The stories (and there are plenty of ’em) will have to wait for a day or six, ya’ll. Not only am I sleepy, I am also only willing to tentatively put my feet back in the waters of typing and internet and social media because re-enrty is The Worst. I did write pages and pages of journal entries – with pen and paper – and I’ll wade through those and give you guys the highlights…
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Beyond Wildwood: The Way Out — good intentions vs. reality
Oh y’all. I had cute intentions of sitting in a hotel room or at my friend’s house and typing up a little overview of our days so far. Instead, we stopped to see a bevy of friends the first day (stops which were both planned and spontaneous and such a happy mix of it all) that I was too busy driving or hanging out to write anything. And that evening was too perfect to visit with Beth & Beth from the college days that I didn’t want to spend our limited time looking at the screen and typing words when I could be looking at their faces and speaking…
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Beyond Wildwood: The Routes We’ll Take
And so our Road Trip begins. It’s time to load the back of the vehicle with All The Stuff. This year I decided to put ALL of the shoes in one suitcase instead of having them in bags or floating in our car. There are just So Many Feet in our family. And – because we get to experience every single season on this one trip – we need a couple of shoes to match up with those needs. Cowboy boots, of course. Hiking shoes. Keens. (Or Chacos.) Last year it snowed on us as we hiked and some of the kids were wearing only their Keens. My plans…
