HomeLife
How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. - Annie Dillard
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Five Finds Friday (when kids dance for a star)
Every Friday I am a broken record. What? Where did the week go already? For our house it’s been a week of driving back and forth to theatre camp – goodness, a daily morning and afternoon commute requires a great deal of gas. (A truth which the rest of America already knows, I assume.) I believe I prefer staying at home most mornings. And afternoons. I had a great business week – can’t wait to share some stories about that next week. The weather was the best kind of weather the south has to offer. I got by this week with a little help from my friends. I tried…
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mid-week round up of not much really.
Since purchasing the Travelers Rest Here website I have been writing more frequently and editing more regularly and attending meetings more often and Doing Stuff. (See how professional sounding business ownership has made me?) I love what I get to do and it’s been in so many ways an easy transition as I have been naturally promoting TR (for free) since we moved here a decade ago. Now I just get to try to make it profitable. The hard part is the balancing act, of course. The merging of my homeschool with my job with my relationships with my blogging here with my preparing dinner with my sleeping. You…
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The Story of Redemption at Radius this Friday
For the past several years, on Good Friday before Easter weekend, the kids and I have visited a unique and moving experience that takes place at Radius in downtown Greenville. It’s called The Story of Redemption. My words are sure to be inadequate in describing the experience because it’s far more authentic and visceral than I will have the language to capture. Each year the dynamics of the experience are varied, but the idea is the same. Guests arrive and enter in the small group they came with, or individually. Essentially, you are taking a guided “walk” through the story of God’s redemption of mankind, through…
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Five Finds Friday (hulling strawberries & bird posters & Netflix)
Well, hello there Friday. We’ve been on our “spring break” this week, which actually has not been spring break at all, but just our regular six weeks of school, one week off routine. I love our week off. I like not setting an alarm clock and having casual meals all week and just doing a little of whatever we want. It’s nice to purposely NOT plan an adventure or a trip on this week too (even though I am frequently tempted to adventure out anyway). Sometimes you just need a week at home with no real plans. I had seriously contemplated a day drive to the coast because –…
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A little London then . . .
Every now and then I look into my archive of Posts I Forgot to Ever Publish. I’ve got journals filled with ideas and bits and pieces of article starts and story lines and sentences that go nowhere and words that have never seen the light of day. I fell across a sweet one tonight though. London is thirteen years old now. She has the recipe for her own specially curated potato soup inside of her head and she makes it spontaneously, no need to refer to to the original instructions any longer. She is capable of being an excellent map navigator and she is learning how to speak Spanish…
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watching the hawkeye shed his skin
I watch my children. I study them. Like it’s my job. Because, I think it is. For the past few years I’ve noticed a trait in my oldest son. Possibly it’s hereditary. Or circumstantial. Or both. I’m not sure that it matters which. I just know, I’ve seen it on my boy. I have seen it on him like you would see a heavy cloak – or a bathrobe – or if he decided to play dress up in a grown man’s oversized dress shirt. Fear. It’s dangly and uncomfortable and it doesn’t really fit his form. It’s hindering him at every single step and he is certainly…
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What I used to think, when I used to think this —- How I Pictured My Life With Children
This weekend I had eight children at my home for the afternoon and evening. They played intense and well-orchestrated games of a Nerf gun version of Capture the Flag. I took them out to dinner at one of our favorite local restaurants in town. Those magical kind of lights hung across the restaurant’s deck, live music was playing, a bubble machine was going wild for all the younger guests’ entertainment. (And mine too, actually.) The weather was dreamy. The night clear. The stars bright. Afterwards those same eight kids and I bounced on over to a giant field of freshly plowed dirt with a series of white…
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Five Finds Friday (peanut butter eggs & t-shirts & ads & funny songs)
It’s been a good week. A full week. A week where my eyes did not shut frequently enough. So Friday is here already all over again, like it does. Thursday’s rain was slow and welcoming, except for when the dog spent his day getting soaked outside and then dreamed of still sleeping in my bed. That’s unacceptable Ryder. FUNNY I did see this really fantastically awful music video that my friends Tom and Erica showed me. Parts of me really want to share it, but parts of me really feel kinda sorry for the misunderstood gent who is performing his heart out. So, I’m not going…
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roll the windows down. spring wants to come in.
I like spring. And I’m welcoming the sunshine with open arms and an open sunroof. Today I made a labor intensive meal and it was pretty delicious. In our science lesson today we talked about barometric pressure. (Well, the author of the book “talked” about barometric pressure because my brain hardly comprehends how barometric pressure operates or what it actually is.) Anyway, there was a part of the lesson that spoke about the physical effects weather can have on people and I’m telling you, from personal experience, weather does change me. That’s for certain. I love the promises of spring. Of blooming flowers and afternoons in the…
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Five Finds Friday (Minty Timmy & Tuna. Not an appetizing combination.)
This week has been a catch up and refocus week. How is it that just one week off of your regular routine can really blast that routine into smithereens? It was ONE week, people. Hey kids, remember, we have a schedule? Apparently it only takes one week to forget everything we worked on ALL year. But, regardless, here we are Friday. How are ya’? FUNNY Here are some funny things: The writer Roald Dahl. The movie Holes. My children. FASHIONABLE Wouldn’t you know it? Earrings again. I don’t even know what Stella & Dot is but I’m guessing it’s another LuLaRoe, Pampered Chef, Norwex,…
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you might need a prescription for this sort of whiplash
The table was loaded with the wreckage of the birthday breakfast. It. Was. A. Mess. Cold leftover scrambled eggs on several plates. Sticky syrup, half empty juice cups, chairs pushed back, cloth napkins scattered across the table top. My life felt exactly like that table. It was a crystal clear moment. This table is my life. A gigantic mess that I am left alone to clean up. _______________________ I think that’s a picture of what loneliness can feel like sometimes, you know. And while most of us are living lives that don’t stay in the lonely all of the time, I’m pretty certain we’ve all lived a…
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Five Finds Friday (blurry faces and making it to Friday)
This was supposed to be a full week. But mostly things were delayed, postponed, cancelled, skipped or finished halfway. I’ve been pretty “under the weather” for most of the days. We’ve watched a record number of movies this week. I tried to make one of them about Aaron Copland, this term’s composer, and about St. Patrick’s Day and movies based on novels we’ve read, but it’s still been too much TV. So, I’ve limped and hopped and here I come, dragging myself right into Friday anyway. FUNNY Last night I was at a homeschool conference. Where I practiced my particular skill set – Awkward. I’ve got…
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when the day takes control of you
Is it possible for a day to just want to sabotage you? No? Days don’t have the ability to act themselves? Fine. Alright. But a week – it has the power – doesn’t it? Because I’m thinking that the evidence of my life is sort of proving my point. Actually, this is all pretty tongue in check (as if my writing needs that sort of obvious disclaimer), as I know that the reality of my life (and of this week) is truly a picture of blessing and provision. This weekend Otto and I slept under the shark tank at an aquarium with his Trail Life group. It…
