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Autumn Grove Giveaway. (And I threw in some photos of the boys room too!)
*** This post is sponsored by Grove Collaborative. The opinions and thoughts are absolutely my own. *** I can’t just spend my entire days hanging up pictures on the wall or making my bed or unpacking more boxes from the barn. Mama’s got stuff to do, y’all. (That’s funnier if you hear me say it in person because it’s a ridiculous reference to some old video from ages ago that made the kids and I laugh.) But for real. I have stuff to do. So. Much. Stuff. Like everyone else in the world, of course. We’ve all got stuff to do. And some of those things I…
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Get Your Grove On – it’s a giveaway this weekend
It’s been the busiest sort of summer and although it’s all been of the happy variety, it’s made our days feel a bit hurried. I should correct that to say it’s been a FULL summer – right? Well, whichever, it’s been both. When times are full and days are splitting wide open with things to do and places to go and people to see, I am even more grateful for systems and structures in place that take care of some of the ordinary for me that keeps this house running, even if it feels like it’s running on fumes and will power some weeks. With the modern blessings of…
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The Weekend Ramble
I’m going to stop using the word “busy”. (For real, you guys can help me. Call me out. But, you know, can you say it with gentle words when you do?) Instead I am going to use the word “full”. My life is full. And, like all lives, it is full of beautiful and beastly moments. Of good things I like doing and mediocre things I have to do and rotten things I must endure. This week we picked strawberries. I love picking our food from the ground or the tree or the whatever. (I mean, it’s fine to pick it from the grocery store shelf too and I…
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sing about it ….
I have never been an enthusiastic fan of Christmas carols or Christmas music in general. I don’t have any all consuming reason or compelling story to justify my feelings. It’s just the way it is. This year though, for reasons not entirely understood or analyzed on my part, I have been experiencing bouts of genuine affection for certain classic Christmas songs and hymns. I’ve been hearing and reading their lyrics with different ears and different eyes. Especially the really old songs. It’s kind of as if I have never heard these words before. One, written nearly three hundred years ago, has been on my mind and has been quick…
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Beyond Wildwood: Ranch Ramblings (On Hawkeye)
Deep calls to Deep. Wild calls to Wild. Where have I heard that? Did I read it somewhere? Did someone speak it to me? I’m sure I’m forgetting my source and not giving credit where it is due. Last year I wrote the same thoughts in some other version. When I say these words – Deep calls to Deep – I am thinking of my oldest son. It’s written all over Bergen Hawkeye’s face. His body language. His grin. His easy conversation with the folks at the ranch. This boy feels at ease here. Feels comfort and feels free to be wild. (Not rowdy-wild, free-wild.) And…
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pause.
Pausing doubt. I don’t even know how long ago the leaders at our church taught a sermon series about doubt. The ideas from that series have rattled around in my mind for months – maybe a year. Which means that by now it’s trickled into regular thoughts and both morphed and grown from what I originally heard. In other words, I won’t be quoting anyone but myself today because my memory is not that well versed in word for word accuracy. There is this idea of saying to doubt, “Wait right here. I’ll be back later.” You know – putting this fear – this unknown – the questions I…
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never and always . . . words on parenting
In one of their songs, the Wood Brothers sing a lyric that says, “Sometimes I feel like I’m never and always alone.” In some ways, I think that’s the anthem of motherhood, particularly for the mother of young children. You’re never actually alone. Fingertips are reaching under the door of the bathroom, for the love. And yet the early years of motherhood can be some of the loneliest years of a mom’s life. You remain unconvinced that anyone else really understands how hard it is to begin (and to lose) a battle with a toddler or to negotiate snack time or to change eighty bazillion diapers or to read…
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divorce diaries. entry 5.
I’ve almost forgotten what the routine Used To Be. Almost forgotten what it was like to grocery shop with a partner. The Divide and The Conquer. I’ve kind of grown accustomed to being The Only One. Some days it almost feels as if there never was a Before. (Some days.) Some days I just groove and strut along and forget I was not always in charge of every meal and all the yays and all the nays. And then some days it feels as if I am living with a severed limb. The ghost pains. The crushing weight of No One With Whom To Confer. Should this be allowed?…
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I didn’t miss the internet and I was glad to put my phone away.
One of my favorite parts of being at Lost Valley Ranch was the disconnectedness to regular life. And the lack of cell service. (That and my bed being made every day by someone besides myself.) For that one week I couldn’t see the growing number of e-mails I was missing. My phone was set on permanent airplane mode. Do they make a setting like that for all of my life? It was a sort of freedom, for sure. An intoxicating kind of freedom. Freedom from not only routine responsibility but from being inundated with the continual hard of the world in which we live. I didn’t watch any news or…
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Ice Pop Makers: A Review & A Giveaway
Ah summer. I know we think of summer as ending when the yellow buses start driving the roads and altering our schedules. But the calendar says summer isn’t over until mid September and the day time temperatures haven’t dipped into the 70’s yet so I think we can still treat these days like summer days in a couple of ways. Sure, the kids are back in school and the late nights have abruptly halted and the free flowing, free living, free thinking attitudes have been put to slumber and schedules and routines are rising back to the top of the pecking order. But – you guys – there are still…
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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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Choose Nothing
It’s 2 o’clock on a Saturday. The weather is precisely perfect. A brown dog lies next to my feet. I’m sitting on the porch. Our house is silently astir with quiet activity. Two big kids have succumbed to the call of the woods and I love that they are escaping together. I think they will emerge when they are hungry enough. There’s a creator kid with a cardboard box and a bevy of markers. She has an idea and the gift of time. Today is good. I don’t have to be anywhere or do anything. If it’s been too long since this has been true of you – you might…
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the answer for the long days and the hard ones.
You’re sure the kitchen will never be clean. The yard can never stay tidy. The laundry will always be dirty. The dirt on the floors will always return. The water dripping from the tub can never be controlled. The mold fights back harder than you. The taste of hopelessness. The smell of it heavy and lingering on your clothes, like the smell of burned chicken or a lone french fry lost in the bottom of your oven. It tastes bad and it seems to last and last. And the only hint of a cure I’ve ever found yet is sunshine, wind, grass and trees. A step outside and a look…
