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1.2.3. What will I carry from Lost Valley this year?
The first year it felt like freedom. It tasted like sunshine and sky. Lost Valley Ranch. A week uninterrupted by the regular. It was like breathing again after being held underwater just to the tip of suffocation, rubbing against the sharp edge of death, a Coming Up For Air. It had been a hard year and a half of loss and shift and pain and betrayal and brutal reclaiming of life. At the ranch I felt a coming clean, a washing off, a shaking down. I felt like someone I wanted to maybe get to know, like someone with a chance. I felt okay – and that…
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In Which I Share a Podcast I Am On
The request arrived in an email. “I’m starting this podcast and I’m telling stories and I’d like you to share yours.” It was from a friend and I knew I could trust him with my story. And also, I haven’t exactly chosen to keep it all under wraps, tidy and secure. I’ve been spilling my guts in a public forum for more than a decade. The telling of the story didn’t worry me as much as the other part of his message. “I’ll need to take some photos for the website if that’s okay.” Ugh. Let me say words all day, no problem. But to pose awkwardly for photos…
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The Weekend Ramble (but do you salt your watermelon?)
Why is it already a billion degrees inside this house for the love? I’m just not ready to turn on the air conditioning yet – I wanted a buffer month in my electric bill, you know. Can’t spring give me that? This weekend the kids put in a little farm labor at a local fruit and vegetable farm. It was just supposed to be the big kids but Piper was eager to work too and she found a job that fit her particular skill set beautifully – welcoming the berry pickers and instructing them where to pick their berries. (Truth be told, that ten year old had a dramatically…
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Five Finds Friday (a couple short finds and a funny video)
The weather this week has been spectacular. Blue skies and sunshine. And I’ve been so happy about that. The list of things to do this week has been regularly long – but starting with the mindset that my life is full and not busy has been surprisingly so helpful. Hasn’t changed the to-do list but it has shaped my attitude. Also – I can’t come up with all the fives this week. What can I say? I’ll give you what I’ve got and we’ll have to choose to be satisfied with that. funny Tripp and Tyler have a new video out and it makes me laugh.…
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Grove Collaborative – we’ve been friends for a while ….
Sometimes you jump on a bandwagon because other people are doing it and you want to see what all the hype is about. Sometimes your friend or your cousin or your sister convinces you to give her favorite new product a try so you go for it because you love that person. Some of those new products and new companies keep you along for the ride for a few weeks or a few months and then you try out the next thing that comes across your Facebook page or your email account. But, every now and then, something sticks – right? Sometimes some product or company stays around a…
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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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my ideals and my reality: they aren’t lining up
Today my dad stopped in for a short visit. It’s always good to see his smiling face. Last month on one of his pop overs he gave the kids an art assignment – they were to draw a picture inspired by a song he loved. It is a song that imagines what the Garden of Eden might have looked like before sin entered the world. (It’s called “When Dragon’s Hearts Were Good”, hence the dragon themed art it inspired.) The kids had a time period in which to complete their artwork and they all worked hard, to varying degrees. On this trip he swooped in and judged the contest…
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what’s a synonym for rambling thoughts?
I’ve come to enjoy the rhythms of Monday posts that are rambles as much as Friday posts that are structured. This weekend was full and crowded with stuff and things. Friday night I crossed an imaginary line. A tattoo line. I went from two small tattoos to just sky diving right off into a third much larger one. Maybe it’ll be a story for another day. Who knows? Saturday the girls played their last soccer game of the season. It was a really great experience for them all in different ways. Saturdays spent cheering them on were actually quite enjoyable. All the same, I’m grateful the season has ended.…
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five finds friday (it’s four this week but who’s counting?)
All the days. All the weeks. Same song. Same chorus. They go so quickly. funny We’re still laughing at Studio C. Sometimes they’re just amusing and sometimes they’re downright hilarious. Like this one …. fashionable I’ve long wanted one of these leather ottoman pouf chair type things. I don’t know what they’re supposed to be called. I think these are great! Shoot – just give me the entire room. Books that you can only reach by ladder equals my dream living space. faithful God just uses whatever He wants to use and whomever He wants to use some days doesn’t…
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walking the line
There are days when I think I’ve got a couple of things under control – a portion of bits and pieces working together alright. When I feel like the routine is serving us and I have meals pre-planned and the moments feel sort of in my grasp. And then there are other days. Moments here and there where tears surprise me – from worry or fear or exhaustion. A heavy weight settling first on my shoulders and then on my chest and landing somehow in my throat, squeezing so that just the smallest stream of air can flow in and out, clouding my mind and making my view a…
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farewell mr. potter.
Tonight I finished the seventh and final book in the Harry Potter series. I’m more than a decade late to the game I guess. I’d love nothing more than tossing my thoughts and theories and opinions all over this blog post to hear what you guys think too about the plot twists and the last line and the entire last chapter and Neville and Dumbledore and Dobby and everything else. But I imagine others are late to the game too and I don’t like spoiling good stories so I’ll wait to talk to you in person. It took me until Book Five to really feel engaged and…
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Little Ways to Save Money for Trips
I have five kids living in my house. Three of them are teenagers. The food consumption alone in this house is outrageous. Our house is over one hundred years old. The heating and cooling bill take a gigantic chunk of the pie every month. And pie – well, if we want that, we can’t even share just one any longer – we need two! This month my car needed a new oil sensor – whatever that really means. Its gas guzzling capacity rivals that of my son’s cereal eating capacity. Yesterday that car died in the parking lot of Wal-Mart. It has since been revived but there are no guarantees…
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He’s Thirteen.
I’ve been writing about this boy for his entire life. That time he brought me flowers in his grubby four year old hands. His obsession with soy lecithin and BHT that sent our entire family down a new food direction. The lessons he has always been teaching me. If I spend too much time reading back through old blog posts and looking at old videos and photos, I’m afraid my heart will implode and I’ll be a blubbering mess. From his first breath in this world to this very evening when I tucked him into his bed, his last night as a twelve year old boy, Bergen…
