HomeLife

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. - Annie Dillard

  • HomeLife

    What is there – and what isn’t. What we see and what we don’t.

      It’s a funny thing. Perception. What is real vs. what seems to be real. What is true vs. what feels true. What other people see and what is actually going on. What we think we said and what someone else thinks they heard. I’d wager a bet that perception is to blame for most all of our misunderstandings with these pesky things we call relationships from one human to another human.     It’s part of the reason why two people can watch an accident and have two different stories to tell after it has happened.  It’s part of the reason why two siblings can grow up in the…

  • HomeLife

    Five Finds Friday (actually four – lyrics misheard and ice cream plus chocolate)

      Man.  March is ending.  The last couple of weeks have been excessively occupied.  Here we go.  This is just the season currently.  (I just don’t want this to be the season permanently.)  Of course, if there is one thing the living of my life has taught me it’s that things don’t last.  Seasons don’t stay forever.  Stuff changes.  So what is full force occupying life right now will not be full force occupying life next year. I’m hanging in there – this wild ride.     funny   Misheard lyrics will always be top of the list funny to me. We’ve talked about them before but recently we came…

  • HomeLife

    don’t stop tucking them in

      “Wait,” she says, grabs my arm and pulls me toward her.  “Let’s lie here and look for the lightning.” It’s bedtime and the darkness has long enveloped the house and the rain is beating down again.     We watch in silence for a few minutes.  Then we talk about the movies she wants to see and why Hermione should get some new friends and about unibrows and how to avoid them. Previously, at Otto and PIper’s tuck ins, the conversations were sillier and baby voices were used and giggles erupted and I broke the hard news to Otto that the next day was a bath day. When I…

  • HomeLife

    Five Finds Friday (fanny packs. green goddess dressing. hats. mug rack. buddies.)

      I like sunshine.  I like snow too.  But the sunshine at the end of the week here has been everything I ever needed, standing right in front of me ….. (Oops.  I’m slipping into Greatest Showman songs.  It happens more often than you would care to know.) Today is Friday and even though this weekend holds an early Saturday morning away soccer game (which should probably be illegal – DO YOU HEAR ME, YMCA?) I’m still excited for the two days that start with an “S” and represent a change of the regular routine.     funny   If you live long enough every style circles back around. This…

  • HomeLife,  Product Review

    Grove Collaborative Giveaway: I’m Still a Fan

      I’m starting to think that everyone I know already uses Grove Collaborative. Which is cool.  And I don’t blame them.  I’ve been partnering with this convenient little company since before they were even called Grove.  I have loved it since I started working with them.  The kids have grown used to their products too.  I’m almost out of my dishwashing detergent – I usually use their Seventh Generation option or sometimes their Method tabs too.  We’ve used up our last Mrs. Meyer’s kitchen spray and although I often also make my own with essential oils – and I do like that too – there’s just something so pleasant about…

  • HomeLife

    weekend ramblings (wrinkle in time & soccer photos & business talk)

      It’s raining again and I can’t say I’m a fan. This weekend I spent Friday night finishing the sixth Harry Potter – by far my favorite and also the saddest and also just a satisfying read.  Friday night also found me folding gobs of laundry – this time all my own, guess I had been letting it slide – and catching up on the last two This Is Us episodes. It was a good weekend to finish some nagging to-do lists, to get a handle on ye olde family budget (yikes – that was no fun) and to make a solid game plan for finishing the last ten weeks…

  • HomeLife

    Five Finds Friday (NKOTB and words on a ring and butter mints)

      This week Mosely acquired a Wii.  Yep, we’re a handful of years behind on any technological advance.  Which is exactly the pace I prefer. So I have allowed more screen time than normal and have seen more Mario Cart and Just Dance than I’m comfortable with. But I’m grateful they are satisfied and enjoy the delayed entrance into video games and are not currently concerned with keeping up or having the best and the greatest.  It’ll hit us, I’m sure.  But just not this week.     funny   Talking about going back in time or not keeping up or something like that.  One night at dinner this week…

  • HomeLife,  Story

    all the good words (that y’all said)

      Man, when I asked earlier this week for you guys to share your lists of what does not get accomplished at your houses, at what waits for the “free time” that never comes, at what is on steady stand still around your place so that maybe I could feel better about the junk lists around my own house, y’all came through. I mean – for real – you DELIVERED. I had more Facebook comments than usual.  I got texts with random answers.  Emails even.  It was THE BEST.       And not just because you guys made me feel better.  Because it wasn’t actually better that you made…

  • Chaos,  HomeLife

    What Never Gets Done: My Partial List

      You guys.  Y’all. Whatever the right word is. I need a Time Management tool.  Or like one of those time turner things that Hermione uses in Hogwarts so she can attend more classes than she ought to.  That is EXACTLY what I need. How on earth do people work forty plus hours away from their home and then ever actually have a clean home when they just are not in it that much?  Today as I did laundry I thought, I could keep up with this if I had nothing else to do.  But I have everything else to do.  Like all of us. Does anyone else find the…

  • HomeLife

    five finds friday (but not really five, because it’s been a long week)

      It IS Friday – right? I don’t even know.  I for real don’t even know.  It’s been such a busy week and I haven’t had any time to write any words anywhere.  And I forgot how that usually affects me – the not writing words part.  Choosing to write routinely is really a pretty vital part of my keeping the sanity in check. So I’m feeling a lot off this week and it’s equal parts busy week and equal parts not writing. Also, my neck is stiff and I’m really very tired.  I’d pay good money for a neck and shoulder massage. Anyway, it’s Friday and I honestly don’t…

  • God's Pursuit of Me,  HomeLife

    weekend thoughts & ramblings like I do

      Looking through my recent photos all I really see for the past twenty shots or so are work-related.  A delicious dinner party at the new BBQ place.  An artist teaching a watercolor class for veterans.  Screenshots of kids I don’t know riding bikes on the Swamp Rabbit Trail.  Specialty drinks at Rocket Surgery.  A milkshake giveaway at our local ice cream shop.  A portrait of a local business owner and friend.  The sign welcoming people to TR.  The FFA group at the local high school meeting our state representative.  Dogwood tress in bloom downtown. The kids taking a terrarium class.     It’s not a bad gig I’ve got…

  • HomeLife

    five finds friday

      If you live inside my house, there is no better week than Break Week.  It’s. The. Best. Early on in the break week I sent a text to my friend and said, “Why can’t I just stay home and do no work and hang out with my kids all day?  Why isn’t that a thing?”  Everyone is so much more fun and relaxed when school is not involved.  My friend said, “You can – it’s called unschooling.”  (I know, I know.  Unschooling is legit to a lot of people and I know it works a little differently.  But I want to do Unworking and Unresponsible and Uncooking and Un…

  • HomeLife

    i like you . . .

      I like you.  A lot. I have been saying those words so routinely to my children for as long as they have been alive. And of course I am hoping that they are listening, hearing me. Knowing what I mean and how I mean it. But I seldom think about the idea that maybe other people are listening too. What a gift – more beautiful than words can describe – to hear a positive story about yourself where you do something right. In a life lived in the trenches, at the end of days filled with subtle insults from the twelve year old to the ten year old, with…