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Puzzles. Why we love them.
Every holiday and on any vacation- especially a mountain cabin or a beach house sort of vacation – a puzzle is in mid-progress for our family. We’ve got out favorite brands but we’re not all that particular. Usually we pick a puzzle with more than 500 pieces and we like best the 1000 piece puzzles but we’ve tried all sorts – including a round globe puzzle that intimidated me but the kids whipped it together in no time and have now assembled it multiple times. One of the favorite puzzles the kids enjoyed was an educational life sized reversible floor puzzle of the human body – one side being…
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a story of a tradition gone south
Maybe this just isn’t the year for keeping things the same. I didn’t chose a word. I didn’t make our annual list of things to accomplish this year. I already told you guys all that. But we always take a hike on the first day of the new year – or a day really close to that. It’s not just a regular hike, it’s a hike designed to be about creating a little time for reflecting as a family and for looking forward as a family. We also always pack along a bottle of sparkling juice of some sort and our own small glasses. The best part of the…
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That Time We Went Inside a World That First Started on a Page
I was late to the express train that is Harry Potter and JK Rowling and the entire universe of wizards and Hogwarts. I had my reasons. (One of which was that in 1997, when the first novel was released, I was a newlywed working for a newspaper writing sports articles (can you even imagine?) and helping to put my husband through college and I was volunteering at a local theatre and anyway, I just didn’t even pay any attention to the books. By the time Riley joined our home and her cousins were all about the Harry Potter books I was neck deep in teaching high school English and…
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Grove Collaborative Giveaway: My Favorite Mrs. Meyers loot
It’s been a while since I’ve hosted a giveaway with Grove Collaborative but it’s only been about two hours since I’ve used a Grove Collaborative product. (Peppermint scented Mrs. Meyer’s dishwashing soap, if you’re curious. And also Method’s dishwashing tabs. Fun fact – Otto calls all of the Mrs. Meyer’s products Mrs. Myrtle Clean. Neither of us have any idea why.) This is one of my favorite Grove Collaborative giveaways because it’s all the good stuff. The stuff I use over and over and keep on my routine list of orders. I think the Mrs. Meyer’s products make great thank you gifts or whatnot too. (In fact, I may…
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the prayer of the every day
It’s not just a phrase or something to say. I say these literal words nearly every morning and almost every evening, lying in my bed before my feet hit the cold painted wooden floor and after I’ve reached up and turned out the lamp. “God, please rescue me from me.” That’s what I say. And this is what I mean: Rescue me from the knee jerk foolish decisions I make. Rescue me from the long pondered lists of pros and cons decisions I make. Rescue me from every time I’m convinced I know best and every time I’m certain I’ve made regrettable choices. Rescue me from me. There’s always…
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Five Finds Friday (quelf the game, oatmeal in the Instant Pot, kind words)
We’re back to school this week. It’s been good to be back to routine but it’s been painfully difficult to get out of bed on these cold mornings. It was also a four day school week and that has me thinking that ALL weeks should be four day school weeks. Can I start a utopian society where people only work for four days a week for about five hours each day? I think we’d all be more productive and just embrace working harder for a short time, knowing you had lots of free time coming. Who wants in on my future society? Happy Friday y’all. funny …
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2018 thoughts.
Looking backwards has always been standard procedure for me. Journaling. Reflecting. Keeping records and creating scrapbooks in their glory days. (And Chatbooks now.) Nature Notes that tell us what bird we saw on this day last year or six years ago and a daily family journal that reminds us that yes, we have completed a puzzle every December 26 for a decade. Looking back. It’s part of my DNA. So is looking forward I guess. I like “planning” the future too. I look ahead every Sunday and plot the week’s course. The kids and I call it our Sunday Meeting because they like to gauge their expectations for…
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wedding thoughts & musings.
We attended a wedding this weekend. A wedding we felt privileged to attend. (Remember our buddies who turned shaved ice and flavors into a career?) There was a giant field and a big open barn and a view of a mountain in the background. A hot cocoa and coffee bar was set up and a table full of candy and sweets and piled high with delicious cookies. Music was the dominant theme to the gathering. Well, more accurately, worship was the dominant theme. Worship of a holy and creative and imaginative God with a lot of people who loved two young adults plunging into a new life…
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Five Finds Friday (sweatshirts & cuddles & an easy soup recipe for your new Instant Pot)
You already know I love this holiday week. I wish all of life was like a holiday. No school. No pressure to rise early. No pressure to get to bed early. No pressure. That’s what I like. The unrealistic dream world of no pressure for anything. Ah. But we are grown ups here and we know that the in between weeks are not the main weeks and that holiday is not the standard fare. But – while it lasts, I sure do enjoy it. funny Riley and Aaron bought the boys a miniature foosball table for Christmas this year. It’s been a big hit. Also, Puck…
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Holiday Break: Everything I Love
I love the slush of days that lie between Christmas and New Year’s. I count them each as some sort of Non Day. My expectations for myself and for the kids are pretty much nil and that’s so ridiculously marvelous, I can’t even begin to tell you. It’s the best week to do nothing. It’s incredibly satisfying. I watched the movie Arrival with the girls one night. (You know, like two years after everyone else watched it I guess.) I want to talk about it with someone because I can’t say that I loved the film or found it even overly touching, but it did present a…
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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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seven random bits
1. This weekend I started and finished one of the books you guys recommended for me last week. Charles Martin’s Water for my Heart. Not so much because I had loads of free time, but because it turned out to be so compelling that I just needed to find out what was going to happen and how it was all going to work out in the end. 2. The temperature at night in our home rests at about 55 degrees. I don’t mind the cold so much while I am sleeping, but good day – that temperature makes it rather discouraging to get out of bed come…
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Five Finds Friday (maybe five, maybe four – I can’t guarantee anymore)
All of the weeks in December seem speedy beyond reason. It’s how the time works – right? But we’ve had marvelous quiet evenings home sitting in the living room near the tree’s twinkling lights and you could almost hear our collective sighs at the pleasantness of it. (Don’t worry – we’ve also had rush here and do this and why is the cat eating all of the string on our gifts moments too.) It’s Friday now and the weekend is basically here and I haven’t consumed enough fudge yet to call it a real holiday so I’ll get to work on that! I’ve also decided that some weeks I…
