Chaos
Where there is ruin, there is hope for a treasure. - Rumi
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the situation here.
Our green second car died last week. Really died. It was a 1995 passed-down-through-the-framily Buick something or other. I never really drove it anywhere. It was funny looking – with dents in the side, glued on mirrors that couldn’t move and bullet hole stickers on the door. Riley tried to “cool-it-up” by affixing a half dozen trendy stickers for products she likes – shoes, gear, schools. You know – teenage signs of importance. I don’t actually miss the car – although Riley seems to. But goodness I missed what it provided. The obvious – transportation. Because Riley needs to attend school and Kevin needs to attend work, any priority I…
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have you ever had that kind of day?
You know what I’m talking about? That kind of day. The kind of day where you have expectations, like every day. Not unreasonable expectations. Not bake six-dozen-beautifully-frosted-like-a-magazine cookies. Not sew new curtains for the living room from an idea you saw on Pinterest. Not finish the entire year’s worth of math curriculum in one afternoon. Not those kind of expectations. Just reasonable, normal, run of the mill type expectations. Eat breakfast together as a family. Complete a regular amount of school work. Have lunch. Spend a good afternoon finishing up assignments and taking down the tent out of the yard since it had been set up for a full two…
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Oh hi. It’s me.
hello out there.
according to the schedule, there’s no space for that
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Today I Lived
Today I . . . Heard about cookie butter for the second time but have yet to actually see the food product. Forgot to bring the laundry in again after two days of rain showers. I think I saw a towel in the lawn but I just don’t want to walk over there and deal with it. Put off making applesauce with my bushel of apples for yet another day. Failed to have the girls clean their bedroom. Noticed mold growing on a book on our shelf. (This is the dampest house ever!) Wept with my husband over the heavy burden we feel to parent these sons and daughters tenderly…
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How To Celebrate Five With About That Many Dollars
1. Allow your daughter the rare (first in her lifetime actually) privilege of choosing three friends to invite over for an evening of fun. 2. Instruct the girls to all wear dress-up princess attire. 3. Have big sisters paint finger nails and toe nails, brush hair, apply sparkle lip gloss and show the girls their reflections in a handheld mirror. 4. Spread a cache of beads and girly-colored pipe cleaners on the table and create necklaces and bracelets galore. 5. Eat miniature snacks served in muffin tins. (Pizza bites. Baked mozzarella sticks. Broccoli and hummus. Apples with dip. Chocolate cupcakes with pink icing.) 6. Permit the princesses to run around…
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this train of thought ….
a little this, a little that
water. the gift & the cost.
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then. now. next.
Vividly, I remember it all. (Sort of.) But so clearly, so recently, it was true, that I often brace myself for the reality of it right now before I look around me and am reminded that time has escaped our clinging grasp and changed our present as it is wont to do. There was a time when our house was overrun by littles. A bevy of tinies we had. A stir. A commotion. An entrance – we made one everywhere we went. Five children under the age of six. That was our reality. Two toddlers six months apart. A newborn when those two were not even three. Diapers for a…
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a long-winded build up to some Fourth photos. that’s all.
Yesterday was what London calls a “home day”. It’s just like what it sounds like – a day where we spend every waking hour at home. These are her absolute favorite type of days. We stayed home primarily because we had no access to a car. Which was fine. To be fair, the kids stayed home all day. Kevin and I actually enjoyed a now-rare date night. The kids and I had plans to attend a library event in the afternoon but both cars were occupied so we skipped out on the library event. Which was fine also, except now our library books are overdue. Again. (I’ve made a basic…
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Coming Home, Being Thankful
I drove to Virginia early last week with just the kids. It’s been a tradition for many years for the moms and the kids to gather the week before our annual July Fourth party and spend time prepping for the party, corralling small children and laughing at nonsensical things. The husbands generally join us later in the week as soon as their jobs make it possible. So it was this week. And for the ride home Riley is staying with Emma a few extra days and driving the car Kevin drove up home. Which is why we were driving home Sunday with six kids instead of one and two grown…
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more explaining. or catching up. or sharing my brand of crazy.
It’s summer, but it doesn’t really feel like it. That is, if summer is supposed to feel like relaxing, lazy days and free time galore. Maybe that’s not what summer feels like once you hit – uh – twenty-two or something. For our family, for this house, for me, summer has been constant. Steady. Sort of swamped. Busier than the school year somehow. I’m feeling a little overwhelmed and out of time and it’s hard to pinpoint exactly why. Some of it is as simple as daily swim lessons at three o-clock in the afternoon. (I chose the worst time imaginable. What was I thinking? Well. I signed up several…
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One for the Finn Files
Our family eats meat. We likes us some chicken. But, despite the fact that I was raised on a farm, I don’t care for discussing the bones of the creature that I am eating whilst chewing. Our dinner table last night featured a roasted chicken. (Yes, I finally remembered to put it in the crock pot. And it was roasted with rosemary that we grew in a pot on our front steps! I can’t believe I haven’t killed the rosemary.) Piper Finn and London both ended up with a chicken leg. Finn kept pulling out the bone and holding it in the air for us to marvel with her. “Look…
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the several days of silence.
Writing this blog plays weird tricks on my brain sometimes. I don’t feel a slave to it, but I do feel an obligation to it. Or something like that. A completely self-imposed obligation, but an obligation nonetheless. And since I usually write a post every day of the week, when I do not, I feel kind of off-balance. Again, all my own off-balance problems. Brought on by myself. Not by some vast and wide array of readers who are double clicking their mouse(s) (mice?) in a rage and cursing under their breath, muttering to themselves, “Where is Lacey? Why hasn’t she written anything today?”. That doesn’t actually happen. At least,…
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because we need more crazy . . .
Introducing – (it’s not a Keigley baby, but it’s kind of named like one) Secret Agent Pilgrim.
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Once Upon A Saturday: A Chicken Story
This weekend these chickens moved into their larger, more luxurious accommodations. This weekend this chicken smoked us out of our accommodations. The end.
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this weekend’s miracle.
Last Friday a miracle occurred. A real live miracle. A miracle five years in the making. Or, more like, sixteen years in the making and five years in the un-making. In fact, it is the un-making that is the actual miracle. Over sixteen years ago two goofballs with no life experience got married in a cow field in Virginia. And then those goofballs had the good fortune to each acquire a decent job with two decent salaries. This good fortune lasted for a few years. Then a move to another state, two less-than-stellar paying jobs and the cash flow abruptly ended. But the two goofballs, despite a few years of…
