HomeLife
How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. - Annie Dillard
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chipped nails and stacks of mail and practicing my mom skills all over again
Those are two things that bother me. Stacked mail.Chipped fingernail polish. The mail, staring at me and demanding that I take action, makes me feel like I’m running behind and will never catch up. As I type and I see the bits of pink and bits of gray on my fingernails because I thought – this time, this time – I will paint my own nails and keep up with their maintenance. It’s difficult to keep it all together, even in the summer when keeping it all together is less structured and requires less effort. May and June were busy little months, full of trips and drives and graduations and…
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… a new dinner option
May was a blur. Finishing up school for five kids Wrapping up teaching at Meadowlark. Graduation. A wedding in Texas. A drive to the ranch and back. The ranch itself. And I guess now it’s time to get serious about All The Other Parts of My Life. So it’s Monday and I’m plowing along, digging out of a hefty influx of emails in my inbox, fighting the urge to only do Fun Summer Things and resisting the desire to Read All Day Long. I’m still struggling through the ins and outs of this silly Mailchimp Subscribe situation – but I think I’m getting close to solving it. (Thank you for…
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afterwards.
Well who even knows where to start? A whole bunch of a lot of stuff happened in the last few weeks. I’m sitting on my porch, enjoying the new and improved twinkly lights that accompanied graduation on this porch a few Fridays ago. Our school year is complete. I homeschooled a sixth grader, a seventh grader, a sophomore, a junior and a senior. My teaching at Meadowlark is done, for now. I finished my third year as a Writing and Literature teacher. I’m going to sincerely and deeply miss my students but next year I won’t be in the classroom. I’m not finished with education. I’ll still be on the…
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five finds friday (shower curtains, carnitas, earrings and how I’m either denying reality or crying – so little in between)
This season has been like a tilt-a-whirl of emotions. For everyone at my house. We’re tired. We’re emotional. We’re wrapping up a few things and it kind of feels like May wants to smother us slowly and there’s so much celebration and good planned but it’s also tangled up with bittersweet and uncertainty and sadness and what does feel a bit like the universe shifting for some of the people I love and live with. funny This week Mosely came out of the bathroom and said, “Your shower curtain fell down.” And she was right. It had. At some point I assigned the fixing of that situation to Bergen. When…
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a couple things …
I just finished reading Jane Eyre for the 19th time. (At least.) I just adore the novel. Every single time I read it something new strikes me. I see it with different eyes. Remember the cool Literature Odyssey I was planning to take my students on last year? The one that was canceled when everything for everyone was cancelled? We’re reinventing it a little bit. It’s a teeny bit less literary (because so many of our spots in Massachusetts are still closed) and that hurts my literary-loving heart. But it’s also still really fun and (Lord willing) will take place in June and involves seeing wild ponies. I’m just excited…
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spring madness. it has descended upon us.
Distracted. Unable to complete tasks I begin. Unmotivated. Moving from one space to the next. I remember feeling this way at the end of my senior year of college. (Probably my senior year of high school too but that’s so very long ago.) This is what spring and right now looks like at my house. We’re all just barely holding on. This is a picture of my car. It is where I sit sometimes when I want to be alone or have a private conversation. I call it my office. I’m ready to pull the plug on assignments and what difference does any of it make anyway and it’s getting…
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Q Bitz Solo: A Timberdoodle Review
This is a review post. Timberdoodle graciously sent me a free product in exchange for a review. A review that is always my own, honest and hopefully helpful. _________________________________________ Not everyone in my home loves games as much as Otto and I do. (This is a genetic tragedy I am still trying to get over.) (He and I have been playing Monopoly Deal steadily since Christmas. We’ve kept a running tab and so far he has beat me 34 times.) Because of this flaw in our family dynamic, often I look for games that can be played both with siblings or solo. Q Bitz fits that bill. (I mean, it…
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evening thoughts or why I can’t get it together this month
Two weeks before Christmas I started a bathroom remodel project. It was supposed to take two weeks. Maybe even finished before Christmas. The mirrors were hung this week and the towel hooks are in place and it’s April. So goes everything in my life. (Side note: I adore the finished product and couldn’t be happier with the whole shebang. It was worth the wait.) Last week was Break Week and I didn’t even come close to finishing my long list of MUST DO items. I think the only mantra in our house lately has been the one that has all of us looking at a clock and exclaiming, “Are you…
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parenting advice: for you & me
Get help. What does this mean? I don’t even know. And, it’s too vague to be actually helpful. But also. Get help. We cannot solve all of the problems our children have. I mean, we aren’t supposed to exactly be solving their problems anyway – but sometimes that lands in our laps as well. It’s more like I can’t meet all the needs. Why on earth do we think we should be able to do that? We can’t do it in any other area of our lives, why would this be different? We outsource all kinds of resources for our jobs and our lives. I happily hire folks to haul…
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Five Finds Friday (a song & a rug & senior photos)
It’s been a week of RAIN and work and heavy lifting in the parenting realm. But here we all are – Friday. Happy to have made it this far. funny I walked into my bedroom. Waiting for me on the table was this character. I said to my grinning son, “Where did this come from? Why is he on my table?” Bergen laughed. “Oh, you know. I thought he looked like Jason Sudeikis.” fashionable I feel intimidated by rugs. I love them in other people’s homes. I want them. But I have zero idea how to pick one out, how to know if it fits the space, how to commit…
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U.S. 4D Map Puzzle: A Timberdoodle Review
_____________________________________________ This is a review post. Timberdoodle graciously sent me a free product in exchange for a review. A review that is always my own, honest and truthful, and hopefully helpful. _____________________________________________ Every March a homeschool conference takes place in our town. People drive from miles away, they stay for several days, they attend lectures and listen to experts and shop for new school curriculum and seek out advice and opinions and new ideas for their own homeschools. This annual event happened just last week. Although I didn’t attend the actual conference this year, I did head over to the exhibit hall for the free evening of perusing the curriculum…
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five finds friday (oatmeal cream pies & a little explaining about “that” photo)
You think those baby and toddler years FLY by? Good grief, so do these high school ones. Everything I see is in fast forward. funny Laughing is my favorite hobby. Bergen is especially funny of late. And thank goodness, because life is so overflowing with NOT funny things that I need some daily doses of humor. Our TV and movie viewing has shifted dramatically from the days of Veggie Tales and Little People. (Remember that tune, “Discovering Michael, discovering you. Discovering there’s room for everyone …”? No? Just me? Okay.) A quick Google search helped me find this memory — But that’s not even what I was planning to share…
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cliff’s edges.
There are a lot of ways to fall off a cliff. Metaphorically speaking. (I guess literally too.) Some days I get dangerously close. (I’m rolling with the metaphorical version of the cliff jumping today.) The thoughts in my mind are strong and demanding. And they take many forms. Lately, the thought that has me dangling my legs on the cliff’s edge is the death of my mother . . . far too soonwhen she was far too youngwhen I still wanted so much more timeand I was too young myself to recognize how badly I would need more time because there was just so much I never knew I would…
