HomeLife
How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. - Annie Dillard
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Five Finds Friday (two)
Is it seriously already Friday? Because that went by fast – didn’t it? Let’s just be real, friends. I love ideas. But the follow through? I love it so much less. However. Today I will follow through. I will. So — with as much follow through as I can muster —- it’s time for Five Finds Friday. FUNNY My name has been misspelled so many times in so many ways. Lacie. Lacy. Lacee. Okay. Maybe just so many times in three ways. But last week I found a whole new misspelling for my first name. (Which was also my mother’s middle name and my grandmother’s maiden name.) FASHIONABLE I just…
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there is no time machine
Being at Allume a few weekends ago, being there around so many women, their conversations were peppered with what is true in their lives. Words like “And then I discussed this with my husband…” or “My husband told me I should …..” “And that’s when my husband looked and at me and suggested …” And I don’t know these people. I don’t know their stories. I don’t know if this is their sixteenth husband – or their first – I don’t know if they are truthful women or liars. I don’t know. It doesn’t even matter. But, if I am being honest, it hurt to hear all that talk. It…
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what started as liner notes from a sermon but turned into thoughts on dying well and a tribute to my momma, who, in fact, did just that
Death. It is the absolute only guarantee in our lives. And that sounds morbid to some. But it’s also true. Last Sunday’s sermon centered on dying well. And the idea that the ability to die well is a direct result of having lived well. Immediately I started writing around the margins of my notes. (It’s funny how you can sometimes hear your own sermon while everyone in the room is hearing another one.) When I think of death, there’s just this one person I think of. Of course. My mother. My momma. A woman who suffered so well. Which is a terribly odd and kind of painful statement to make.…
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Five Finds Friday. (one)
When I finally got over myself at that writing conference a few weekends ago, I met a handful of fun and interesting women. Two of the ladies (Women? Girls? People? What do we want to be called anyways?) who I enjoyed getting to know the most were probably both young enough to be my daughters. (Dude. I am feeling so old lately. Maybe it’s the wrinkles. Or the steady exhaustion. The insomnia. Or the fact that the cashier at Trader Joe’s last week told me I reminded him of his mother. OF HIS MOTHER!) At any rate – I sat down at a table with Taylor and Holly and we…
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oh, the questions.
Why is there a pumpkin in the hall? Where did the number 11 on our steps vanish to? Why is Otto wearing gun range quality ear muffs while high step walking up the stairs? Whose ear pieces are those anyway? Why do my children insist on running the window unit AC in October? Why do the children’s feet still stink two minutes post shower? Where does that single mismatched sock under Bergen’s bed keep coming from?
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cute dresses and sparkly skin.
Sometimes I put on sparkly lotion. (I don’t care if that was a style in 1980 and not in 2015.) I feel under dressed without my earrings. My bracelets dangling and stacked and clinking together on my wrist is a little joy to me. I dress this way because I want to dress this way. I wear my favorite black dress on a day I don’t even plan to leave my house. It’s what I do. And some days – it’s not what I do. Some days I wear the same running skirt all day long that I fell asleep wearing the night before. It’s how it is. (And I hadn’t…
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words after dark . . .
My mind never rests. There’s no at-ease button. I lay down the book I am reading to review for a Book Club choice and it is as if I hear an audible click in my brain: Now. I should first – fill the diffuser with eucalyptus oil and run it in the bedroom where Otto and Piper and I are sleeping to combat the chest cold/cough thing we’re fighting against next – I should write this week’s meals on the menu board then – I should walk Ryder and after that – should I try to submit another article or take a break and watch a show? I hear sounds…
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know this my sons & daughters
There are so many many things I want my children to know. (Jesus’ saving love. The parts of speech. How to look people in the eyes when they speak. The times tables. Their family’s history. What makes a work of literature great. How to climb a tree. The love of a good dog.) But. In its simplest form, I want my kids to know that I like them. That I really truly genuinely like them. I’m glad they exist. They are not, never have been, will never be a burden to me. I want them to remember more days of laughter than tears. More days of sunshine than gloom. But…
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surprise & delight
About five or six years ago Kevin and I attended a conference in Chicago. (It remains one of my favorite memories of he and I. I don’t know how that part of my mind is supposed to work. I refuse to toss out the beautiful with the ugly.) The conference was cool and shifted my thoughts in lots of arenas, but one bit of magic that I took from there and have applied practically to where I am is a little term called surprise & delight. At the conference the surprise & delight was a part of the conference founder’s philosophy. In particular, that weekend, he used it as a guide to create…
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Game Night: Apples to Apples
I’ve been a little MIA this past week I guess. And it was good. But I’m back now and it looks like the sun is back too and I am incredibly grateful to see blue sky. (Rainy weather. It always gets me down.) Last week I taught the kids how to play Apples to Apples. We’ve been trying to learn new games together and I love introducing them to other games that they are just now old enough to enjoy. I guess I forgot how outdated Apples to Apples is. And how little old school pop culture my children actually know. (Which is a lack of knowledge I am perfectly happy to…
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breaking routine …
I like writing every day. (And my general routine is to write after the kids are in bed and asleep. I’ve never been one to keep clear and lucid thoughts at the early rising time so it’s night words for me.) But tonight. Tonight I want to eat the frozen Snickers bar I placed in the freezer earlier for this very moment. I want to watch addicting television shows of my choice while eating said frozen dessert. So, you guys. That is exactly what I am going to do. However. I won’t leave you completely empty handed. I have a couple of lucky little images from today that I want…
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beautiful & terrible
Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid. Frederick Buechner I live in a farmhouse that is over one hundred years old. Things fall apart. Ancient dirt rises from the splintery wooden floors. What starts out as white, seldom stays white. But in this dusty home abide five of the most interesting humans I have ever known. There is a six-year-old with his filthy boy feet resting right on top of my clean pillow. He stops me, mid-sentence, all the day long to profess his love for me. Not even an hour usually passes without kisses and hugs and back pats from my Wilde…
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…..
Tonight I sent my friend this text: What is happening? My life is moving so very fast. And so incredibly slow. I can’t stand the task of cleaning. Particularly bathrooms. I spent an hour cleaning our bathroom recently. And yet. Today it looks wrecked again. Wet towels on the floor. (Sure, it’s hard to hang the towels up when the hooks are so high and half of our house residents are not tall enough to reach them.) Bathroom rug needs shaking. Again. Feels pretty pointless – the cleaning up routine. I’ll awake with incredible purpose and drive and ambition. You know – all high hopes and rise and shine and…
