HomeLife
How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. - Annie Dillard
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five finds friday (the one about writing a book and my daughter going to college)
We’ve made it. Cheers and high fives because it’s been a long week. But look – wasn’t the beach beautiful? funny I’ve been working my way through a couple of boxes in the attic that are stuffed to overflowing with keepsakes and memories. And I keep finding gems like this. Behold the glory of ALL of our haircuts. What a family! flavorful Last week I ate dinner with Jo and Jason at a local restaurant – Hare & Field. It was delightful. (And the company was oh-so-fun.) I can never seem to stray from their Fish and Chips, which I love. But I also tried their parmesan gnocchi – my…
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The Things That We Keep Doing
It doesn’t matter if I am suffering from writer’s block or insomnia, if the laundry gets finished or the meals are full of protein and vitamin-rich choices. Whether those things happen or those things don’t happen, Life Keeps Marching Along. Last weekend Saylor turned one. We celebrated with cake and streamers and sunshine. We drove to the beach for a day with Hannah because she’s moving to Kentucky next week. (I found my first sand dollar and the waves were the calmest I’ve ever seen.) I convinced Beth to finally get the Marco Polo app so we could keep up more quickly. The beautiful mural in our town is officially…
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motivation. can you locate it?
When the kids were little, they used to love to repeat certain phrases. Usually these would be some combination of words they had heard on a show or in a book, words they had made up and lyrics from a song. Generally the combination ended up being nonsensical to adult ears, but completely understandable in their kid language. One phrase I recall clearly hearing them say over and over never made much sense to me then – and still doesn’t really. They’d look seriously at one another, eyes locked, and say, in a slow, monotone voice that sounded like they were entering a trance, “Motivating. Staring.” Like I said, it…
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Five Finds Friday (a whole lot of photos)
Remember these? It seems that Friday is here – and so am I. And I’ve got a bunch of cute photos so I might overstuff this post with them. You’ve been warned. funny There was a lot of funny to choose from this week. Halloween brought some clever costumes. But no costume anywhere beats the one that my friend Katie wore when she came over last Saturday night. With the help of one of my daughters, she snagged my Colorado hat and came dressed as ………….. me. fashionable I’m going to stick with the Halloween theme here. I think we’d all agree at my house that the most fashionable Halloween…
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I’m over here …
Our power went out last week. (Like more than a hundred thousand other folks.) This website went down last week. (I didn’t have the time or ability to address the situation until today.) I spent some time this weekend being sad about a handful of things and life is just like that, right? Today I read this old post about Otto’s first sentence and goodness, I’m glad I wrote that down because I had no actual memory of that moment until I reread it here. It’s November and this entire year has been like the B side of some cassette tape. I’d say it’s been no one’s favorite. I’m trying…
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I just want to do it all.
And also. I want to do nothing. Is this the human condition? Or is this just the working mom condition? Or the pandemic year condition? It’s a painfully beautiful afternoon and I’m sitting on my deck and I have my lists spread out around me and those lists have sublists (but NOT outlines, I hate those suckers) and my kids are spread out across the globe (and by globe I mean our town) and I should be checking off items but I’m writing this. I told you about The Book. And it’s progressing. Slowly. Ruth is a pretty fabulous instructor and a stellar editor. But this writing schtick takes TIME…
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a little this, a little that
I wouldn’t actually want to live a life that went in a steady straight line. Steady straight lines aren’t really my thing. But this month – this past week – I’ve been bumping and trotting along a hundred little paths. Here are some of those paths and where they’ve been leading: I’m working with two very talented local artists to create a mural on the side of a building in Travelers Rest. I’ve long wanted to bring some new art to the streets of TR. I’m no artist and actually painting a mural would not register in my skillset. But organizing and promoting and gathering the right folks together –…
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weekend ramble. (a weekend both peaceful & productive)
You know you’re old when a little yard work on Saturday leaves you with aching muscles and tired shoulders on Sunday. Sometimes I think about owning a home with ten acres and a manicured lawn and four bathrooms and multiple levels. But then I think about all the work it takes to maintain all that. And I’m content with my single acre and my brick ranch after all. This weekend was a good one. Full of two things I wish every weekend could boast – both productivity AND rest. That’s a win for me. Saturday had us tidying the lawn and trimming back bushes that threatened to grow past the…
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five finds friday (avett. curl cream. views.)
This week I used one of my favorite pens until it actually ran out of ink. I didn’t lose it. I just actually used it to its very literal potential and capacity and now it’s gone. What a good run. Shockingly enough, I also used up an entire tube of chapstick in the exact same week. As in, I felt the need for chapstick. I opened up the tube of chapstick only to discover that it was absolutely empty and every bit of its grapefruitness self had been used by one application at a time over the entire summer. Will you look at that? What a big week – right?…
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That Movie Viewing List
Sometime recently I mentioned that once a week the kids and I have a movie night featuring a movie (or sometimes a show) that I want the kids to watch. These are not the usual just-for-fun films that we find ourselves watching too often. These are movies that serve some other purpose. Many of you emailed or commented that you’d like to see my list. Your wish is my command. (When it’s this easy, that is.) What I have here is a wildly random list of movies and TV shows that have been recommended to me, that I have gathered from other sources, that I’ve occasionally seen that I would…
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Five Finds Friday (Saylor’s reading and Ryder got a haircut)
We’re beginning to find a rhythm to school and to work again. Which, you know, means that some glitch will happen soon. When my kids were babies, it always seemed like as soon as you figured out a good sleep schedule or as soon as baby learned to nap routinely, then a growth spurt happened or we took a trip that threw them out of sync again. It’s really no different with teens and big kids either. But we’ve all made it to Friday so congratulate yourself. funny Saylor has some big plans to shape her life from an early age. flavorful Watermelons at the end of the season are…
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my social dilemma
These kids I live with always want to watch movies. Always. But the movies they choose are primarily veneer, shiny, high dollar sort of films. On their own, it seems they seldom click the documentaries, the historical films, the movies that grow their empathy or their understanding. So I started a family movie night (weekly-ish) where the movies are all entirely chosen by ME. (I have a list. Of course I do. And I’m just working my way right through it.) Last night the list got a new contender and I bumped The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind in favor of The Social Dilemma. (Don’t worry – we’ll make our…
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Five Finds Friday (face cream, Community and Carlos)
The days have been too full and the time has felt too short and I’m beginning to feel familiar again with that line from The Hobbit (I think) about feeling like butter spread too thin over toast. Or something like that. This week I’ll make this list short and sweet because I am currently feeling ambivalent about writing. A word that was a vocabulary word this week for my class. And a word that I always thought meant that you felt indifferent about something. Turns out, the actual meaning is having both positive AND negative feelings about something. (Precision of language, right?) funny Maybe I’ve already mentioned it. But London…
