HomeLife
How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. - Annie Dillard
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a stage, a microphone & no notes allowed
Last week I stood on a stage in front of a room filled (mostly) with strangers. There was a microphone and people who bought actual tickets with real money to see this event. But let me go back a little farther than last week. It was maybe two months ago. Ish? Six weeks? Through my work Instagram account I responded to a post by a local representative for the Greenville News looking for stories for an upcoming project. A conversation started and progressed and led to that microphone and me and no notes or paper on which to rely. Like so many situations in my life, I…
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the weekend ramble (I need a high five and you should see my darling dining room now)
I have ALL of the words. And NONE of the time. That’s just the way it is right now, more than ever, it seems. The list of blog post ideas fills a page – but the time to write here is increasingly harder to find. And I miss that. Writing out my thoughts, processing my life through this medium, is an important part of creating space in my head and heart to stay mostly sane despite the chaos of my days. I’m working on healthy balance and all that jazz, but it’s just a hard time to be managing the show here for five distinctly different humans and to…
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101 Doodle Definitions: A Timberdoodle Review
This is a sponsored post by Timberdoodle. All of the opinions are my own. __________________________________ This year our homeschool has been a bit more streamlined than it ever has before. Less fluid and more structured. Some this has to do with life circumstances. I need the schedule to be more predictable so I can arrange meetings and work hours around what is known and planned. Some of this has to do with the ages and grades of my children. Older students have greater demands on their school days, a larger amount of studying is required for say, Chemistry, versus a nature walk for a second grader. Some of…
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the weekend ramble (for a weekend that did anything but ramble)
This weekend hasn’t rambled at all. In fact, not an ounce of my life has been slow lately. Or quiet. Our house has been a cacophony of hammers and drills and walls coming down and decks going up and progress. It’s all very exciting and all very exhausting. I’m so grateful for the wide range of talents my friends have. And for their incredible generosity in sharing those talents with me and my family. Early on, my friend Hannah said she’d love to help me rebuild our deck when we moved in. I knew it would need repair before long and I really wanted a larger deck if possible.…
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accepting it with grace
I was lying in bed, reading a few chapters of The Book Thief before bed recently. Focusing on the words on the page seemed impossibly hard. And not because of poor lighting or minuscule print or the late hour. It was my eyes. At some point this past year I purchased some reading glasses and then only used them a few times. I knew right where they were. Maybe it was time to revisit the glasses again. Okay. Fine. I left my cozy covers and brought the glasses back. I put them on. And. Miracle of miracles. Shocking. They worked. The words appeared larger. Readable. Helpful. I could continue…
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The Weekend Ramble: coconut milk and screen time
It sure does not feel like autumn anywhere locally. I see photos of friends who live in Colorado and they are drinking hot cocoa and wearing their base layers already. Why do I live in the south anyway? (Bergen and I lament this weekly, at least.) Queen Tallulah is ridiculously teddy-bear adorable. And I don’t want to jinx our good fortune but we must have hit some sort of jackpot or something because she sleeps in her crate at night without whining. Dear old Ryder did NOT come to us in the same manner. Their big and littleness together though is too irresistible. The boys had a…
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instead of Five Finds Friday, there’s this . . . (but she’s cute)
We interrupt this regularly scheduled Five Finds Friday post to talk about a little something else that’s happening in our house this Friday. You know we love our dog Ryder. He’s a legit family member – all of his rug like self. He’s loyal and faithful and funny. He’s a smart guy who almost never poops in the yard but takes to the woods and he defends us and sleeps across the threshold to be certain no one can get to us without his knowing about it. He loves car rides (but only in theory). He wants to go everywhere with us but without a little peppermint or ginger,…
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break week !
When you take one giant portion off your plate, the whole load lightens up immeasurably. This is Break Week at Wildwood Halls of Ivy. It’s so much easier to get all the things done when all the things is a much shorter list. Which begs the question, why am I even doing school? No, not really. That’s not the actual question. At least not one I allow myself to ask currently. (Because I have already asked it, answered it and chosen my path for this year.) But whatever, break week is still great. This morning we could sleep in. Not that we did. Ryder let us know…
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A List of Things We’re Into Lately
Dried apples. Who knew they would suddenly taste so good and crispy? Turns out – on this Whole 30 journey – I miss chips. And popcorn. Crunchy things. I like food textures apparently and a carrot has a crunch but it still lacks something I like about a chip. Anyway. Currently dried apples are working out pretty well. But they cost more than chips. Lame. That Whole 30 Energy Boost Phase. A pleasant surprise – days 14, 15 and 16 have been all amped up. I feel like I can DO THINGS. Lots of things. Give me things to do – I’ll do them. Is this energy boost enough…
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five finds friday (or maybe four. help me pick out curtains please.)
This week my brain has been on food far too much. It’s one side effect I am not enjoying about Whole 30 – I feel as if all I’m thinking about is food – when to make it, what I can have, what I cannot have. At this point, London and I are going to attempt to finish the 30 days based almost entirely on the fact that we want to prove to ourselves that we can. That’s it. funny We’re not at cell phone level yet (ugh, but I know the time is coming) but the big kids use email and whenever they have to email…
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routines. chore lists. schedules. I share a few and I’d love to hear from you.
We’ve been extra diligent about getting up on time and starting school on time. This year. And yet – school is taking a loooong time lately. I mean, that’s normal. It’s fine. I have two high school students and one middle schooler and two elementary students and that all just equals a lot of educating and computer sharing and mom-help-needing. Add in work and teaching at Meadowlark and I don’t know how to manage it all mostly. I was laughing with a couple other families after church on Sunday about busy schedules and meals in the car between karate and soccer practices and whatever it is your family is…
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the weekend ramble (a poor showing at Staples and an incident at TJ Maxx)
The kids and I spent some time on Saturday doing a little yard work and building up some bricks around our fire pit – can’t wait to inaugurate that on a cool autumn evening. We had a few limbs and branches down from the bits of wind we experienced so we gathered those and have them all stacked and ready. Maybe I’ll wait till I’m finished with this Whole 30 though so I can enjoy a roasted marshmallow. I guess in the mean time I could have a roasted …. potato? Of course, I also spent some time chopping vegetables and prepping food, but that was actually alright. I…
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Five Finds Friday (photoshop silliness and good finds)
It’s been good to begin to establish our family rhythms again. At least in part. With both teenagers and young kids at home, the rhythm maintains a steady pace of change. Change IS the rhythm some days. Plus, five kids. I mean – we scaled back from what lots of families do, in terms of after school activities and extracurricular – and still, five kids means a lot of different directions at times. This season I actually said no to almost every outside the norm sort of activity. We just had to for our family’s sanity. But we have said yes to an art class and to volunteering at…
