-
the swing.
What childhood is not made better by the addition of a front yard swing?
-
this morning’s struggle.
Have you ever just woken up under? Feeling somehow less than ready? Not just for what the day demands, but for what life demands? For me, that’s today. That’s this morning. A combination of bad mojo stacked against me. A coughing, weird-breathing London crawled into bed beside me and I was still wide awake at one o’clock in the morning, sleeping…
-
once upon a table
There once was a table. A red table. A table that used to be brown. A table that held years of roasted chickens, beans and cornbread, RC Colas, mashed potatoes and banana pudding. This table inspired poetry. This table served as a sideboard in my grandma’s living room because her kitchen was too tiny. It was the first kitchen table…
-
Outdoor Hour Challenge. XI.
We have not exactly been walking in step with the Outdoor Hour Challenge website these past two weeks. But that doesn’t mean we haven’t been outdoor-hour-challenging-it-up. In fact, we’ve been so pleasantly distracted by all things outdoor and green and blooming and beautiful that we’ve just been plowing our own ground, so to speak. (And I’m pretty sure that’s the…
-
me neither.
I do not understand how anyone can live without one small place of enchantment to turn to. – Marjorie K. Rawlings
-
she’s still funny . . .
I should probably teach my four year old a little more about April Fool’s Day. (And the days of the week.) I guess she’s been mis-hearing the phrase for a couple of days. Tonight she walked up to me and said, “Hey Mommy. There’s a spider on your head.” Already cracking herself up, she added, “Happy Tuesday!”
-
shadow boxes: reigning in the small stuff.
It seems that all of my life I have been collecting little things. Do-dads. What-cha-ma-call-its. Bric-a-brac. Knickknacks. Trinkets. Odds and ends. A myriad of items that are literally small in size. And sometimes those littles wind up on shelves improperly displayed. But more often, those tiny treasures are stashed in boxes with lids with nary a chance to be viewed…
-
haphazard. erratic. random.
How cute is this kid when he’s wearing only a pair of pants? I’ve been trying out a handful of recipes from my “cook this” Pinterest board. This weekend I made the recipe for Oatmeal Sandwich bread. I laughed when one commenter said, “Our family devoured this in three days.” Our family devoured this, warm from the oven, piled with butter…
-
I just can’t help myself.
This house has been all blessing. Despite the high cost of heating it this mild winter. Despite the plastic covering some of the windows, the paint chipping at every corner and the mismatched stairwells and moldings and door frames. Despite the one bath tub and the small hot water heater and the sloping floor in the dining room. Despite all…
-
Groceries: Another Challenge for the Revolution.
Who wants to start a conversation about money? And food? If we were all seated together at a table somewhere it would either get really loud right now or uncomfortably quiet. It just depends on how you roll, I guess. Our family has been on the Low to No Revolution for manymanymany months now it seems. I haven’t been continually…
-
yes, we did.
Yesterday we walked into our local tractor supply store. It’s one of the few stores in town where it seems perfectly acceptable to bring in your children wretched with filth after a day spent playing outside. Kevin and I wanted to see what types of chicken supplies the store had and to make a plan for acquiring a few full-grown…
-
Outdoor Hour Challenge X.
I don’t think I actually completed an outdoor challenge last week. At least not in an official way. But I know the kids spent so much real-time good hours upon hours of outside time. While our family was visiting we trimmed branches, built forts, made wreaths and frames out of grape vines and spent long hours in the rope swing.…
-
yuck
Last week I was cleaning the back porch/laundry room. A large stack of dirty clothes was unearthed. Clothes that belonged to one six-year-old little boy that I know well. I summoned that young man in and required him to tidy up his apparently favorite changing space. He chuckled with gusto. (Because that’s what he does.) He cleaned up his mess. And then…




































