HomeLife
How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. - Annie Dillard
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Family Values
The idea stemmed from a conversation, a comment to a conversation really. (You never know when what you say will be the seed of an idea or the catalyst for change.) This friend mentioned having a set of family values – a list of what matters in your house. A core. I loved that idea. I’d like to think our family has always had a standard, a set of ideas and theories guiding our actions. But the thought of actually taking the time to verbalize what those are, to write those down, really appealed to me. The kids and I gathered in the library. (That’s what I like to…
Keep Reading . . .
share the good
parenting blues
Taking Them on an Adventure: The Literature Odyssey
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love languages and being thankful for the gifts given
It’s something that all mothers are inherently provided with ample opportunity to learn. But all of humanity gets its share of readily available lessons too. Love comes in different forms. And you need to accept it in whatever form it takes. Learn to see love in its many varied shapes and sizes. And welcome it with open arms. Sometimes, when you’re the mother of lots of littles, love feels sticky and usually is covered in both jam and magic marker. Sometimes love looks like your spouse taking the kids to play outside or waking up early one morning so you can sleep in. Love might look like your five-year…
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Five Finds Friday (boys up to no good & can you help my family pick a dinner?)
This week has felt a day short. Monday – path of totality day – appeared like a holiday, therefore the week soared along. We had a bit of sickness too that shifted our gears and a field trip and a backseat car disaster involving said sickness. In other random and irrelevant news, I started reading Steinbeck’s East of Eden. The big kids are in a play next week. I still haven’t seen The Glass Castle in theaters but I’m really looking forward to that. Otto still hasn’t really acquired a taste for third grade. The only subject he does without complaint is math. (I’m not sure his genetics are…
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on shapes …… of houses and lives
On the way to soccer practice we drive through a tidy neighborhood. It’s cute. Full of squares. Lots of squares. Square houses. Square screened-in back porches. Square lawns. Manicured lawns. Lawns with the grass cut at an angle and a criss-cross pattern that just politely declares tidy. Men younger than me are standing in their garages, near their garages, in their driveways in front of their garages. In front of their tidy square garages. Garages lined across the back with rectangular shelves housing square storage containers stacked high and in order, full of the organized stuff of their organized lives. Stuff they Don’t Need Right Now. Christmas decorations. Autumn…
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Five Finds Friday (funny lyrics & tea & feather earrings)
It’s been a full week. Sometimes you can judge my busyness by the number of blog posts that I am able to send out. This week I think I only wrote two. Of course, sometimes the opposite is true. Sometimes I take the time to write a blog post instead of doing laundry or sweeping the floor or planning school or going to bed on time. So – basically what I’m saying is – no one knows. You can’t tell anything. It’s all a guess. I’m not even sure myself. What does it even matter, really? Besides, it’s Friday and so here we are. funny Misquoted…
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all of the questions. none of the solutions.
Yes, they’re hilarious and often times they are cute and occasionally they bake delicious cookies. But seriously – nothing is flawless, am I right? I mean, why – for the love of all things holy – can we not have ONE SINGLE FLAT SURFACE IN OUR HOME THAT IS NOT COVERED WITH RANDOM AND SUNDRY ITEMS? I’m talking the stuff that comes out of kids’ pockets. The things they “create” and then don’t know what to do with themselves. The kite made out of construction paper The rocks from a hike that have zero interesting things about them but if I dare to throw said plain rocks…
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keep looking up.
He probably said it two dozen times. Actually, I’m sure it was said more often than that. Keep looking up. The words one of my friends said to me, to the kids, to our friend circle, when times were dark and The Ending was beginning. Keep looking up. Sometimes I don’t even think I had a clue what he meant. And sometimes I understood it perfectly. Last week the kids and I and some dear friends went hiking in North Carolina. (Oh it was a gorgeous spot. One that has long been on my list of places to visit and will now be on my list of places to…
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Five Finds Friday (fries and hevel and gray hair)
This week has been pleasant – good weather, school progressing along nicely, the promise of the weekend on the horizon. All good things. And now it’s Friday. funny Honestly, just living in this house with five kids who are becoming genuinely funny humans in their own rights has been so incredibly enjoyable. We laugh. A lot. They’re just so comical. I forget to write a lot of it down any longer. (And I should work on that, I know.) This week Piper Finn has been packing a lunch all week for her attendance at theatre camp. One evening as she was filling her little bags with…
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a list of …… stuff
This post is going to be more like a Public Service Announcement. Or something. Probably not Public Service Announcement at all. Probably more random and less beneficial than a Public Service Announcement. 1. On the Travelers Rest Here Instagram there is currently a contest taking place. It’s a fun one and I meant to tell you guys about it earlier but I forgot. Because I forget things. A lot of things. I forget a lot of things. Anyway. Find this picture on our Instagram feed and follow the instructions and do all of that – right away – because I’m drawing the winner tonight and I think it would…
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the unpleasant unexpected.
Like all the grieving I have ever waded through, it’s the stages that take me by surprise. Some of my hard has looked like this: Giant to-another-state moves where our family left one sort of life to live another sort. Raising one child to an adult. Close friends moving away from our circle. The loss of my mother. The death of my marriage. It’s all been a path more jagged than straight. A good morning followed by a bad afternoon on the heels of a beautiful evening smashed up against a weepy week. Unpredictable and often unexpected. A storm on a calm sea. A rain shower on a sunny…
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Five Finds Friday (there’s jam and a johnny cash shirt)
I told you we “officially” started school this week. And we did. But we also hiked Black Balsam in North Carolina (or what I like to call Middle Earth or the mountains in the Sound of Music or what my friend Sarah who hiked with us called Darcy’s land from Pride and Prejudice. The point is – it was other-world pretty.) and we also spent a day swimming at the ever-satisfying Lake Jocassee. So, yes – we did school. But we also saw some magical spots and I was reminded that, although I dream sometimes of living somewhere else, where I actually reside is full of beauty and charm. Anyway…
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Day One School Thoughts
School started back for us today. Hello Wildwood Halls of Ivy. I have a high school daughter again. And two middle schoolers. My “baby” is in third grade. He feels super unexcited to be required to do school again. Today it was difficult to stay on track for all of us, but I think over all we did alright. High school curriculum is not cheap, let me tell you. Our Latin curriculum has yet to arrive but I like the first couple of days to be a slow start anyway so we don’t hit all the subjects all the days. Latin is new for us…
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More than a day camp – but also a day camp (and also a break for you local mamas)
Maybe it was three summers ago. That’s sounding about right. My friend told me about a day camp that her daughter started a handful of years earlier with several of her friends. Back then the three girls were not that much older than the campers themselves but they were creative and they were clever and they were ambitious. Bekah, Maggie and Bonnie were looking for a way to help out their friends’ families, for something to do during the summer and for a way to earn a little extra money. They offered a three day camp meeting at one of their homes. Three days where parents could…
