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time & sleep & our own hard things . . .
It’s seldom about the words. (Although, occasionally it is.) The reason that I most frequently miss posting a blog on any given evening is (almost always) about time. There is simply never enough of it. Which, I know, is a silly thing to say. We all have the same amount of time. There’s twenty-four hours in everyone’s day. We can’t make time, but we can arrange time. Time keeps on slipping, slipping into the future. Time makes memories of us all. There’s always enough time to do what matters most. You make time for what matters. And so on. When I wrote this confessions post last week, it started…
Keep Reading . . .
Guatemala: Day One
These Is My Words: A Book Review
she’s right, he knows her name.
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Five Finds Friday (boots (what?), kettles & ice skates)
Every week, the feeling never changes. The week was both slow and fast. At the same time. Reminds me of a quote by Oscar Wilde – Does anyone ever realize life while they are living it? FUNNY Amazon Prime is not funny. It’s fabulous. And recently our family has met a new friend through Amazon Prime called the Firestick. It’s not funny either. No – it’s also fabulous. It’s probably been out for ages, what do I know about anything having to do with technology? The iCloud confounds me and I can never even find my charger cables, let alone download anything properly. How do I…
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confessions . . .
1. When the kids run out of soap in the bathroom, I might wait for weeks to refill their dispenser. I know they are just going to spill it anyway. 2. I’m not really concerned with whether my children wear matching socks or not. 3. If I have to pick between enforcing tooth brushing at either morning or night, I always choose night. 4. Some dinners I don’t include vegetables on the menu. Yes. Sometimes giant bowls of macaroni & cheese only are what’s for dinner. 5. I don’t always remember to purchase cat food. Even though we own two cats. 6. Showering daily is not a personal priority…
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January’s Grove Collaborative Giveaway – it’s a good one
I can’t believe I almost forgot about this post! I’ve been so busy with this and that, when I looked at my calendar for yesterday I noticed that I almost missed a really great Grove Collaborative Giveaway. This one is legitimately too good to let pass by, so I’ll just start right in with the specifics. Grove Collaborative is an online company – a store of sorts – that specifically carries home products, stuff for cleaning and washing and scrubbing and tending, you know. But also bath and beauty products too. (I guess the same tending and cleaning and scrubbing – but of your body and your…
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Motherhood – The Club.
When you become a mother you’re an instant member of this club. And you think it will be all inclusive. I mean – the only requirement is to have a child, right? It’s kind of like that. But then, um, not really. It’s a unique kind of club. A mixed bag of sorts. A mess, really. A club for certain. One that can make you feel accepted and understood and, at the same time, a club that can feel so exclusive and unfriendly that you’d consider revoking your card. As mothers we sometimes think our decisions are on display – seen through a transparent window,…
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snow days. 2017.
Even though there is a strictly enforced Wildwood Snow Policy, this weekend’s snow tried to sneak in on a weekend so that we still had a full week of school. That’s fine Snow, we don’t mind spending our weekends with you too. It was just beautiful. The first snow always is. I hope that’s a feeling I keep forever – the mystery and awe I feel at the first blanketing of snow of the season. (Sometime the only snow – when you live in the south.) And I know – it is precisely because we receive so few that we love snow days so deeply down here ya’ll. I…
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Five Finds Friday (beautiful notebooks & acts of kindness & beef stew)
Well, well, well. It’s Friday, you guys. I think I forgot to write this post last week. I was enjoying myself too much with Sara and didn’t want to spend that time writing down words. Besides, we were too busy saying all the words. FUNNY When we took our family’s annual trip to Grove Park Inn to see all of the gingerbread house competitors we dressed in fancy clothes (I use that term fancy loosely, very loosely) and we ate lunch at the elegant Grove Park Inn overlooking the incredible mountains. Lunch is a buffet and the kids adore the excessive nature of all…
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I’ll just leave this here ….
I keep half ways writing posts but not quite completing them. I’ve got a lot of spinning plates this week. I mean, ALL weeks. But particularly this week. It’s far too late to be wide awake in my dining room so I’m going to toss in the towel and not add “complete a new blog post” to my Reasons For Not Getting Enough Sleep list. But don’t worry friends. I won’t leave you empty-handed. I’ll just post this little video here. (Sent to me at just the right time of night to appeal to my sense of inane comedy.) It’s just enough nonsense to be funny at the time…
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after I’ve written, I see what I meant to say
The words just are not coming tonight. I mean, the words are, actually. Sort of. But they’re kind of All The Wrong Ones. I really enjoyed being out of school for two weeks and was quite content to not have the evening ritual of making the next day’s lists in the five colored notebooks stacked beside me right now. I know we need the structure and the routine, it’s good for our home, but I liked the break. My One Word for 2017 has not been firmly decided but I’m afraid I keep leaning toward a word like “discipline” and that just feels rotten and I’d rather…
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Raymie Nightingale: A Book Review
Kate DiCamillo. It’s a name in children’s literature that you can count on. So many of my favorites have been penned by her hand. (I read that DiCamillo faithfully writes five pages five days a week. I feel so undisciplined, Ive wasted forty three years already. How many pages would that have been? Someone do the math for me so I can feel worse about my unproductively.) Because of Winn-Dixie. The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. Flora and Ulysses. The Tale of Desperaux. The Magician’s Elephant. Tiger Rising. The Mercy Watson series. (You guys, have you read Edward Tulane? My word. It’s beautiful.) Raymie Nightingale was sitting on the…
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the end is not like the beginning: A God story
I don’t have a new year’s introspective look-back look-ahead kind of post inside me tonight. Not for this year. Not for the last year. Maybe next year? Who am I kidding? I can’t emotionally afford to think about New Year’s Day 2018 right now. I’m literally sitting at my kitchen table with zero plan of how this simple blog entry will even end in a few minutes, I certainly don’t have what it takes right now to envision an entire year looming in front of my face. To my right, my vanilla tea is hot. I’m thankful for that. The fridge is a wasted storage space for nothingness because…
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words for the parents.
Good grief. As soon as you write words, you have to prove them. The second they drop from your pen, an opportunity to see if you mean them is forced upon you. Or is that just me? Surely it’s not just me. And will I be a broken record for the rest of my life? The preaching to me all the live long day? I think that’s a real possibility. It feels true. And if your words aren’t mocking you from the page, they’re doing it from the mouths of the people you live with. “Mom, remember? You said if she did that again, the next time…
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Things to Say to a Dead Man: A Book Review
It probably wasn’t the best book to pick up post midnight when the sleeplessness was taking over. The name of the author had drawn me in when I saw the little collection of poems. Jane Yolen has been a favorite children’s author in our family for years. She’s written young adult historical fiction we have enjoyed – a book about the holocaust whose name is currently slipping my mind. She’s written dozens of children’s books we check out over and over again at the library. All of those great dinosaur books about manners, books about birds and so many more. I don’t think I was even aware…
