HomeLife
How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. - Annie Dillard
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the flip side.
When I have an afternoon (or a day or a week or a . . . you know) that I camp out in the Feeling Small Acres here at this home place I sometimes let my mind wander to all the jobs I could be doing instead. Teaching high school. Writing for a newspaper. Raising goats. And all the other places I could be instead. On a mountain in Colorado. At the beach. Canada. (Eh?) And, thankfully, it is usually at those very precise moments God gives me eyes to see exactly where I am sitting. Most recently, I was sitting at our kitchen table. With a kid eating a…
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small.
I don’t like deboning chicken. Who does? (I don’t even think “deboning” should be a word, let alone a verb.) But I like to ease the pain a little by telling myself, with every slippery touch of the gnarly chicken bones, this is love. This is love. This is what love looks like. (It’s a mantra. On rerun in my brain.) But there are days. Oh, there are days when although I still believe that this is what love looks like doing the small things with great love (thank you Mother Theresa) I still feel that maybe no one is listening. No one is watching. I feel small. Unimportant. Forgotten.…
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I’ll buy that.
There something else about that whole Webkinz debacle that I didn’t mention in my last post. (Because who would have kept reading as long as it was anyway?) Little does London know – and never needs to know I guess – that at that moment in that overly-lit store, I would have purchased that kid nearly anything she asked for. Seriously. And here’s why. London, my own ever-changing seven-year-old mini-me, held the orange and black stuffed alley cat of her choice up to me and said, “Look, I have to choose this one – her eyebrows look sad and I think if she comes home with me I can make…
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Is this funny yet?
This story I am about to share actually happened last week. I had to wait that long to tell this story so that I could find it funny. I don’t know if it’s been long enough yet for me to think this day was all that humorous – but I’ll give it a shot. The scene: Two or three days in to a week where Kev was at an out of state conference. The set up: 1. Two kids with a total combined savings of $11.00 and a burning desire to purchase a Webkinz. (Webkinz = Marketing scheme designed to rob parents of cash cleverly disguised as a cute stuffed…
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the christmas chain
Every family has something like this – don’t they? You know . . . some count-down-the-days-until-Christmas-arrives sort of system. I’ve seen exquisitely decorated ones, numbered do-dads with a series of intricate doors and surprises, and even a chocolate for every day of December one. They all look good to me. But I’m pretty sure the appearance is not the point. Or at least I hope so. Because this year our family took the basic route. The classic old paper chain – one link for every day until Christmas day. (The great thing about having primarily younger children is that even old ideas are new to them. Which is why slap…
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I’d Really Like To Know
There are a few questions to which I would love to hear the answers. Why are we constantly out of toilet paper at this house? Is the tooth fairy’s going rate for lost teeth really $3 these days? Why is our trash can perpetually overflowing? Can we really not find one winter jacket to fit Mosely in our entire home? Why is every pencil I find unsharpened? Where is the pencil sharpener? Why can’t I spread peanut butter on crackers without getting peanut butter on my hands? Why can’t I make peanut butter crackers without sampling a peanut butter cracker? What is it about self check out lanes at the…
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sighing. in words.
Completing errands this afternoon, I drove by tidy homes with twinkling lights and coordinating bows. Swept front steps and well-groomed lawns. Cars parked in order from small to large and color coordinated with the shutters. And I thought of our own sloppy yard. Two broken logs on our fence. The shanty town the kids are constructing in our front field with sticks and cardboard and blankets and apparently a living room pillow that has been MIA for a week now. Mushy leaf piles. A hammock with its cottony stuffing protruding, evidence of Magnus’ last jail break. My yard seems messier somehow than everyone else I know and everyone else I…
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Hello Holidays.
This weekend we finally opened our doors to the season surrounding us. (We’re a little slow like that sometimes.) We dug out the fake tree. Again. This year the result of our Fake Tree vs. Real Tree debate has nothing to do with travel plans. Instead, it has lots more to do with the logic presented by a seven year old. London somehow fell on the Fake Tree side of the argument. And she presented three very reasonable arguments for her cause. She articulately stated . . . 1. We already own a fake tree. It’s in the storage shed. It’s already free. 2. You have to water…
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Drum roll please . . .
So many monumental events happening on this blog this week. The first ever give away. And the first ever video. (And the first Saturday post in a really long time.) Pretty exciting stuff. Seriously, this give away was so much fun, I feel sure I will be doing it again. Maybe I’ll do another give away to celebrate my first advertiser. (But I’d have to get one of those before I could celebrate that. You know.) Anyway – the winner is . . . . (Here is when you hum a drum roll in your mind.) That’s Sew U Giveaway from Lacey Keigley on Vimeo. Congratulations Amanda! Please e-mail me…
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not from envy.
Apparently we’ve been seeing a bit of green around our house lately. But not from envy. Nope. That would be easier to wash out I think. The funny truth is – I was probably not even fifteen feet away from The Incident As It Occurred. (What does that say about me?) Awww. Shucks. I guess it says that I have more than one kid. That one of those kids left the magic markers out again. And that another one of those kids decided it would be beneficial to her younger brother if he were to receive a tattoo. Because, as she stated, he wanted it. In green. All over his…
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Shameless Plug – It’s My First One. But You Get Something Great Out Of This Too.
I have this framily. You’ve read about them – right? And they all have many talents. But in this post I just want to point you in one particular direction. Sarah’s new Etsy site – That’s Sew U. It’s adorable. (Just like her son Rowan. That’s him up there wearing his sweet little hat and sharing his wide little grin.) She makes the cutest stinkin’ hats you have ever seen. (She made a pretty stinkin’ cute baby boy too – didn’t she?) And, if you order before Christmas, you don’t even have to pay shipping. Which we all know is pretty great. What I also love is the fact that…
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Date Night
Our lunch table. Any day of the week. Normal. Wilder crying about something. Anything. Conversation about Legos and puppies being tossed back and forth and requests for more milk and another sandwich and do I have to eat all of this banana? Kevin trying to finish a story about his morning at work. Me ignoring milk pooling up around my ankle from a leaky sippee cup or something. Kevin just stops talking, takes a bite, then sighs and looks me earnestly in the eyes, “I love date nights.” And I get up from my end of the table (why do we sit at the heads?) and I walk over and…
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shema (sh əˈmä)
A while ago we had our children memorize the shema. We say it together as a family before dinner each evening. With our pinkies upraised. Which serves as a handy visual reminder of the strength God has even in His smallest finger. (Exodus 8:19) (And also – it’s just pretty cute to see Willow’s little pinkie upright and Otto’s two-inch fist as he tries to imitate us nightly.) The shema is no Hebrew mystery. It’s no magic incantation. The shema is just two verses from the Bible that Jesus declared sum up the whole book pretty accurately. Hear O Israel. The Lord is your God. The Lord alone. Love the…
