So Every Day.

– embracing the ordinary –

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Ordinary work, which is what most of us do most of the time, is ordained by God every bit as much as is the extraordinary. All work done for God is spiritual work and therefore not merely a duty but a holy privilege.
- Elisabeth Elliot

Bergen Hawkeye, Field Trip, HomeLife, Otto Fox Wilder

Lake Jocassee with the Boys

For birthdays, I love to give experience gifts. And for some time now, it’s been a bit of a tradition for the birthday boy or girl to receive an envelope…

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HomeLife, Otto Fox Wilder

Five Finds Friday (a lot of Otto and a little about a pipe bursting, also a bit about grilled cheese sandwiches)

Sort of makes my stomach hurt when the calendar says it is already well into MARCH.   No.  Just – no. funny Otto has not yet learned to appreciate the…

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HomeLife

water. the gift & the cost.

It’s just not something we think about. We know we are privileged to have such free and easy access to it. But it’s not on our grateful radar all that…

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  • Chaos,  Mosely Ella Claiborne

    this week at Wildwood …..

    / October 16, 2013

    Friday afternoon brought new kittens. And these kittens brought about a new haircut for Mosely. How would newborn kittens require a haircut for a kid? Well. If you’re nine and it’s dark outside and you want to check out the welfare and health of the brand spankin’ new kittens and you think it would be harsh to shine a bright…

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    Keep Reading . . .

    … a new dinner option

    June 14, 2021

    Hey Clay: A Timberdoodle Review

    November 25, 2019

    Discipline of Gratitude

    February 12, 2019
  • Field Trip,  HomeLife

    Autumn’s Bounty

    / October 15, 2013

    Weekends in October in the foothills. They’re made for apple picking and BBQ eating. Good friends reclining on the porch. Boys with Nerf swords and whiffle balls crowding the yard. Catching up and checking in and stories of this and that. Sunshine and morning runs. Cinnamon rolls and chocolate cake. Potato soup and homemade salsa. Late nights and conversation and…

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    Keep Reading . . .

    Dear Child,

    July 20, 2020

    Chasing the Christmas Chain

    December 12, 2019

    you can’t call it a mid-life crisis.

    January 18, 2023
  • Otto Fox Wilder

    night song to my boy

    / October 14, 2013

    Lying in bed beside you. Your four-year-old hand resting in my forty-year-old one. Tiny voice. Tear-stained cheeks. And I love them both – voice and cheek. The door open to night breezes and stars glowing. You’re chattering. Pushing sleep with blinky eyes and your slow-down speech. And suddenly it’s quiet. Sleep has won. I close my eyes too. The stillness…

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    Keep Reading . . .

    in between. it’s hard to be a teen. (and a teen’s momma.)

    April 24, 2019

    weekend ramble. (a weekend both peaceful & productive)

    September 28, 2020

    Five Finds Friday (pumpkin bars, earrings (!) and my kids dressed like historical figures)

    October 25, 2019
  • Chaos,  HomeLife,  HomeSchooling

    better days.

    / October 9, 2013

    Monday was not a stellar homeschool day. I had a schedule. (I’ve always had a schedule, but this year I have a planner – a spiral bound, blank squares across a page – kind of planner.) And I stuck to the schedule. At all cost. We didn’t finish school until four p.m. I made certain every tiny pencil-drawn square on…

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    Keep Reading . . .

    here we go …

    February 3, 2023

    five finds friday: “as long as we’ve got each other”

    August 9, 2019

    thirty years of July Fourthing.

    July 31, 2019
  • HomeLife

    exactly.

    / October 8, 2013

    I am so glad to live in a world where there are Octobers. – Anne of Green Gables  

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    Keep Reading . . .

    the directions. and where our stories take us.

    July 15, 2020

    Songs for Singin’: A Long Winded Okee Dokee Brothers Review & Tribute

    May 26, 2020

    five finds friday: Dickens and Twists and a cake baker and a cuddler

    February 15, 2019
  • HomeLife

    conversing.

    / October 7, 2013

    You press your fingers hard against your eyes. Pushing the tears back. Ten year old attempts at Holding It All In. Baby. Daughter. My sweet girl. You do not need to resist The Tears. The sadness. The thick feeling in your throat and the crumbly tearing at your heart. Feel it. Just feel it all. Remember when we talked about…

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    Keep Reading . . .

    swimming in the deep end

    October 29, 2019

    Five Finds Friday (tiny bags of bacon & I need a grits recipe for the Instant Pot)

    July 17, 2020

    Five Finds Friday (meatballs, Scrabble, really odd names for kids)

    January 31, 2020
  • Chaos,  HomeLife,  HomeSchooling

    no. yes.

    / October 4, 2013

    Silence. Crickets chirping. Blank screen. It’s been a while, my friends. It’s been a while. I’m not exactly sure what’s going on with me and words of late. I’m tired. A touch of writer’s block, I suppose. Big things to think about – no time to process. We finally have two cars again.  That’s nice. Kevin is moving his office…

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    Keep Reading . . .

    parenting blues

    February 26, 2019

    Six Steps to Hiking & Adventuring With Kids

    July 3, 2019

    and there’s a video

    February 21, 2019
  • Story

    The Final Forty Joins Us. In Florida.

    / September 25, 2013

    It was a whirlwind drive. Florida to South Carolina Friday afternoon. (And back again in reverse Sunday afternoon.) And my phone’s battery died about an hour into the first morning and although we certainly had access to electricity, I had forgotten my charger and, frankly, I just didn’t want to carry my phone around. Page is a much better photographer…

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    Keep Reading . . .

    morning song: a poem

    April 25, 2019

    tick tock. a small choice.

    November 7, 2019

    and there’s a video

    February 21, 2019
  • HomeLife,  Story

    Here and there. A hodge podge.

    / September 20, 2013

    This week is ending? What? I feel like I should sing that song, “it’s closing time”. Although I can’t remember any of it except that one line about “every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end”. Honesty, I haven’t thought of that song in years, but this summer at our annual July Fourth Pigg River tubing trip, Maggie reminded…

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    Keep Reading . . .

    The Right Word.

    July 20, 2021

    five finds friday. (do you know what else starts with the letter f? flu.)

    March 6, 2020

    five finds friday (if, in fact, it actually IS friday)

    April 10, 2020
  • HomeLife,  Keiglets,  Piper Finn Willow

    cue the laugh track.

    / September 19, 2013

    Greetings from the Maybe She’s Our Funniest Kid files. “Hey, Mommy – doesn’t Otto look like Gerald?” Piper Finn called to me from the other room. “What?” I asked. “He looks like Gerald.”  She was pointing at Otto.  (Who, at the moment, looked like ……. Otto.) “Piper,” I asked.  “Who is Gerald?” Piper’s hand went to her hip. She looked…

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    Keep Reading . . .

    Five Finds Friday (pumpkin bars, earrings (!) and my kids dressed like historical figures)

    October 25, 2019

    what whole 30 taught me

    February 27, 2019

    returning …

    June 4, 2019
  • Bergen Hawkeye,  HomeSchooling

    little man words.

    / September 18, 2013

    One thing I love about kids in the mid-elementary school years …. their evolving, thinking brains. They’re just so clever and interesting. And they find the world around them new and intriguing. It’s all so glorious somehow. My nature-loving, full force, energetic eight-year-old boy came to me with a tiny piece of paper last week. He placed it in my…

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    Keep Reading . . .

    Five Finds Friday (this, that & the other, also blanket sweaters, food documentaries and college thoughts)

    January 18, 2019

    a little grief. how the time passes.

    September 18, 2019

    Losing Time: The Cost of Spontaneity This Week

    August 20, 2020
  • Field Trip,  HomeSchooling,  Prairie Primer Year

    Field Trip: The Carolina Honey Bee Company

    / September 17, 2013

    Our Prairie Primer curriculum this year lends itself well to field trips. For various reasons I have not chosen to pursue every suggested field trip option. However, there are several field trip ideas that are just so handy, so nearby and so convenient, that it would be crazy to pass up the opportunity. Like the maple syrup store the week…

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    Keep Reading . . .

    messy

    April 4, 2019

    a rearranging addiction: or a story of two trunks & a TV

    July 10, 2017

    what whole 30 taught me

    February 27, 2019
  • HomeLife,  Story

    and yet. all this stuff.

    / September 16, 2013

    Kevin spent the first two weeks of September in another country. Riley will be spending ten months in another country. All summer we all knew The Trip was coming. Our summer was consumed with packing and repacking and weighing bags to be certain they didn’t surpass the 50 pound limit. (And when they did, trying to decide which items mattered…

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    Keep Reading . . .

    Paris: Our Trip & Tips

    April 4, 2023

    spring madness. it has descended upon us.

    April 21, 2021

    camping with the boys: lake jocassee is a wonder, but what happened to the hammocks?

    August 12, 2020
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