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gifts. all the big and the little ones.
Nine. He’s been our boy for nine of the speediest years I’ve ever lived. There are days when this boy cannot keep his bum in a seat for a single half hour math lesson. Days when he bumps, jumps and hops his way through every room of our house from rise to fall of the sun. Sometimes he doesn’t use the kind words to his sisters that I would prefer. But then there’s other times. Oh my word. The other times. The other times are just so overwhelming. The times that make my heart physically hurt, so profoundly that I fear it may burst. We were at our weekly Trader Joe’s…
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Elly: A Giveaway!
Remember the cousins I mentioned a few weeks ago? They were our comfortable starting point on our northern adventure and our soft landing spot on our winding journey back home again. The whole clan – the whole giant mess of them – are just fabulous humans. On the family tree they are my cousins through my father – his sister’s family. Growing up we spent Thanksgivings together on the farm. They were my favorite of the kid cousins. (Don’t worry Sherry – your spot is still safe too – but you were a grown up cousin!) I loved their visits – seeing their van or camper or whatever conveyance they…
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The Perplexus: A Review
We were on the road for more than 2,000 miles in March. I try to plan a handful of little surprises along our treks to make the time spent in the car more fun for everyone inside the maroon shuttle. When we reached the Tennessee border the kids were allowed to open a family gift. We’ve seen it in the hands of our friends for months. I’d never heard of this little sphere of entertainment until our friends introduced it to us. The perplexus. It’s about the size of a soccer ball and it’s plastic and it’s filled with brightly colored mazes and a small metal ball to traverse those…
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tight spots. tight ropes. walking the line.
I’m in this spot. Of sorts. Tired of me. Tired of wrestling with the same issues. An addiction to control. A desire to run the show. The thought that I’m the master of my own universe. A person unable to portion my time wisely. Unable to avoid poor time management decisions that cost both me and my family peace of mind and rest and all those things that actually matter to me. Night after night I’m surprised to see it’s nearly midnight and I didn’t find time all day long to read or to finish my list or to write a blog post or to pay a bill or to…
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good morning.
The morning is sitting quietly. My to-do list is longer than two pages. Pause. Pause. Pause. I wish I had a button to slow down the fast track of these years. It’s not a new thought. And I haven’t come any closer to figuring out how to slow down time now than I have in the past. One of my boys turns nine this week. My heart will not allow that number to be true. This week promises to be full too. And I want to wrap my arms wide around the sleeping heads and the little questions and the big thoughts that wake and sleep inside these walls.
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Five Minute Friday: Paint
The day is Friday. Time for the weekly challenge fellow writer Lisa-Jo Baker offers on her blog. She chooses a word – you write about that word for five minutes only. You share your five minutes of writing and you encourage others to try it too. The word this Friday is PAINT. ________________ The colors are thin. It’s so easy to add too much water. The blues are dripping and the greens are almost monotone and the picture lacks a vivacity that my real life certainly contains. Sometimes that’s how I think my words come out – too thin and too much water and too drippy. They don’t measure up.…
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Book Club: Homesick – My Own Journey
Monday night was Book Club night. This month we read Homesick: My Own Story by Jean Fritz. In this autobiographical work Jean Fritz tells about her experiences as an American growing up in China with parents who worked to bring the YMCA to China in the 1920’s. We happened to wait a little too late to snag the book from the library this month and I was forced to do what I rarely do – download the audio at a cost on iTunes. As it turned out, the audio book was a real treat because Jean Fritz herself was the narrator. Although I’m certain she wouldn’t qualify as a professional…
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Ten Ways To Know You Are The Parents of Big Kids
When we visited the beach a few years ago without pack and plays and booster seats, we knew we were ending an era. As I watched the last wee one morph from baby to toddler to little fella, I knew the inevitable passage had occurred. We are the parents of Big Kids. Are you in the club too? The Big Kid club? Here’s a little list of ten ways to tell you are now the parents of Big Kids. 1. You do not require the use of baby nail clippers for the trimming of tiny digits. In fact, half of the time the kids have handled all that fingernail and…
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On The Road: The Bruderhof Community
Until our trip to central New York I had never heard of the Bruderhof Communities. We went north because Kevin was going north. And Kevin was going north to do video work for the New York Maple Producers. Tim had made a connection with a Bruderhof Community that still tapped maple trees the old-fashioned way – using metal taps and not plastic hoses. When we arrived at a picturesque community after a short drive from the Highlights retreat center we were warmly welcomed. We arrived at lunch time and were cordially invited to join the community gathering for a group lunch in the school’s tidy cafeteria. It was a little unnerving…
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Farmer Boy – You May Change Us Yet
We’ve just started to read Farmer Boy in our Little House on the Prairie Year. Farmer Boy covers the life of Almanzo, Laura’s husband, and his growing up years on a farm in Malone, New York. In the official series it actually appears as about book three I think, but our Prairie Primer suggests reading it at this juncture – right after These Happy Golden Years about Laura and Almanzo’s courtship. It helps with the flow of following Laura’s life first, plus Laura probably heard most of the Almanzo-grows-up stories during their long courtship and marriage. I’ve been infatuated with Laura Ingalls and her life and her words for decades…
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Does your home speak of hospitality?
Hospitality: the friendly and generous reception and entertainment of guests, visitors, or strangers. I like hospitality. I think it’s a gift – and an often times overlooked gift in our current world. On our recent excursion north our family was able to be blessed multiple times by shows of incredible hospitality. I tell you, friends, there are still hospitable people out there. Just one of those times found us on the end of receiving a generous reception at a very old farmhouse in central New York state. (Older than our old farm house I’m sure.) Maybe it was the fact that the farmhouse was old that made me feel right at home. Maybe, but it was…
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Elijah of Buxton: A Book Review
We listen to a lot of audio books. In the car. In the living room. In the school room. On the front porch. We like words. Stories. Thoughts well-placed and well-spoken. I choose the books we listen to in a variety of ways. Often they are suggested by one of my favorite homeschooling websites – Ambleside. Sometimes a friend suggests a good read. Frequently, I simply look over the stockpile at the library whenever we visit and just pick the next interesting book that we haven’t listened to yet. Elijah of Buxton fell into our laps in that manner. I recognized the author’s name – Christopher Paul Curtis –…
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sunshine
And when you’re gone it’s all I notice. I stand in the beams of you. Absorbing you deep and steady and wishing I had a cup a suitcase an anything to store you, stash you. Collect the golden depths of you.
