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Five Finds Friday (some photos & what Otto thinks about fruit cups)
This week has been full. But you already know that. And here we are again —- Friday! FUNNY First, from a former “funny” entry, I’ve had such a good time hearing your thoughts and comments about my brother Danny’s fishing video. My framily member Maggie said her two year old son is addicted to watching Danny catch that big one. He has a new video up here and he’ll probably have a few more this week. He got a little distracted this week from fishing videos because he became a GRANDPA! What? How can the majority of my siblings and I be grandparents already?? Now, on…
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Five Finds Friday (why I can’t share all the funny things & merino wool)
It’s Friday. It’s also feeling like winter here. And by here, I mean inside my own house. The kids and I keep wondering, “Will our next home be warm?” And who knows? It might. FUNNY It’s about that time. My kids are about at that age. That age where what they say is inordinately hilarious. Where I laugh without reserve frequently at our conversations. But also at that age. That age where I can no longer share every hysterically funny comment they make. They’re getting older. Their access to the internet is still incredibly limited so they’re not necessarily ever reading my blog. But the tween…
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less words, more pictures
Did you guys forget it was Friday too because I wasn’t on my space here publishing a Five Finds Friday post? No? That’s fine. Me neither. It’s been a busy handful of days and my computer was here at my house – as was my dog and my friend Amy – but myself and my kids were not here. We’ve been a lot of places, actually. In the car. At the farm. At the beach. In the car. In the car. (Mostly that was me – all the extra “in the car”s.) There’s a lot to say and I’ll say it mostly later but it was an effort to…
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Five Finds Friday (photo booths gone wrong, Filipino food & fabulous people)
FUNNY The boys and I had a little afternoon excitement recently on a belated birthday date together at a local fun park. You know – one of those places where you ride go carts and step into the batting cages and play gigantic video games. I don’t mind admitting that I’m a sucker for photo booths. There was a giant one there and the boys were kind enough to oblige me since I had just treated them to lunch and batting cages and go carts and super intense air hockey games and some kind of gigantic fruit ninja video ridiculousness. The photo booth was sort of weird and…
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returning to real life: post farm realities
Leaving Virginia is never easy. The kids say exactly what I feel when they say, “I want to be at our home, but I don’t want to ever leave the farm.” No matter what, when you pull into that glorious driveway at Gray Mountain Farm, you enter a different dimension somehow. I’ve written about it before. Time moves differently out there in the green grassy fields in the shadow of Chestnut Mountain. You begin your stay thinking you have all the time in the world. You end your stay wondering where on earth the days went. No one goes to bed early and when you wake up, there’s still…
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July Fourth Shenanigans
If you know me, you know that my favorite holiday is July Fourth. It’s the family and it’s the food. It’s the farm and the fun. It’s being together and it’s tradition and it’s years stacked on years of celebrating a summer day and lives and family and friends. July Fourth on the Farm is the best. It was Ryder’s first July Fourth. That dog legitimately loves the farm. (And spends his days racing to the pond and collecting briars in his thick coat and harboring dirt and mud all over his legs and just in general being a happy go lucky mess. The food is plentiful at the…
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snow matters.
All I’ve got today is this …. Snow is my favorite. Not my favorite as in I-Want-To-Live-In-A-State-Where-Winter-Means-A-Weekly-Snow-Storm-And-My-Face-Always-Feels-Frozen. More like my favorite as in Once-Or-Thrice-A-Winter-A-Good-Snow-Storm-That-Shuts-Life-Down. I love that kind of snow. I love the finality and the theatrics with which the south treats snow flakes. Lock down and stay home and eat soup and drink hot chocolate and serve up seven heaping bowls of snow cream in two days. Play games and build snow men (and snow families complete with kitty cats and snow babies) and build forts and sled down hills and don’t go to work and don’t do school and just be alive with the people you love. That’s…
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night time at the farm.
There’s always a part of every July Fourth that leaves me feeling more whole than broken, more established than misplaced. The fireworks lighting up the sky. The sameness of tradition and wonder. The lovely simplicity of this beautiful porch where the only view is green and trees and a river’s edge. And then there are the quiet quiet moments. Long after dark has settled on the green and I step outside to let go of all my breath and I stand beneath the stars and the haze and the clouds and the Virginia moon breaking through it all. I’m standing on the bottom porch steps, a little in love with…
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jiggety jig
The Virginia mountains were in my rearview mirror all day today. The sun was shining. The clouds were white. The sky was bright. It was a good day for a drive. A couple of the kids were glad to be home. A couple wanted to stay in Virginia forever. I guess I am glad to have predictable internet back, but I have to admit, I kind of appreciated the forced social media break. It’s the end of the week and it’s the end of a long day and it’s the end of a favorite family holiday and I am at the end of my energy level. I loved seeing so many…
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bewildered in the best sort of way.
Daniel Boone is quoted as saying, I have never been lost, but I was bewildered once for three days. I hear you Dan’l. I hear you. Virginia. She’s a beauty. But she’ll rip a hole in your schedule and shift your plans and change your days. And all you’ll do is ride the wave and adjust accordingly. (And not even feel that she’s a burden. You’ll sing her praises and start looking at your calendar for days when you can return to the Motherland.)
Keep Reading . . .
Five Finds Friday (teen drivers. the first egg.)
Grill. Master.
teens. parenting them.
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Gray Mountain Farm
You guys. We are at the farm. The beautiful lovely Virginia farm. Where the mountains ensconce you and the framily embraces you and the mosquitoes bite you and the wireless signal evades you and the Internet still doesn’t trespass onto the property. So I just can’t easily share the good life we are living on these gorgeous acres across the wires on this blog. And that is alright. Just picture us all tubing down a muddy river. Working on endless food prep in a continual prep-cook-serve-eat-clean cycle all the day long. Going on little hikes and gator rides. Feasting on different people’s specialty meals and desserts. Sharing long held, over…
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As You Wish
No more rhymes now, I mean it. Anybody want a peanut? I’m not a movie person per se. But I have an emotional attachment to a handful of films. One in particular. The Princess Bride. This attachment is based perhaps on my one hundred plus times viewing this film one summer in the the late 1980’s. I blame it on my framily. We watched it on VHS on a television that was placed on the floor. I think we watched it every day for one entire summer. (Not exactly watched so much as had it on for background noise.) We acted it out, dressed up as the characters, rolled down…
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July Fourth – Another Beautiful One on Record
July Fourth on The Farm. It seemed to last a blink of an eye this year. There were still people I didn’t get to really chat with and I think there was dessert I didn’t get to spoon onto my plate. It’s always a bounty of good times. A bevy of conversations to have. A moving from here to there to this to that, tubing down the river and consuming copious amounts of food and then trying to settle all that food down quickly enough to tackle the annual kickball game and then suddenly it’s almost dark and we need to find our spots on the blanket for the best…
