HomeLife
How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. - Annie Dillard
-
more than lunch.
Last week, or something like that, I was approached by London and asked my favorite question of my every day – “What’s for lunch?” I didn’t answer with my standard full of love and kindness response. (Which, by the way, is a monosyllabic delivery of the word “food”.) Nope. I said something else. I said, “Why don’t you decide what’s for lunch. Would you and Mosely like to fix lunch?” I said it to be funny. I was laughing to myself. But London replied, “Yes! Please don’t come in the kitchen.” So I did my part. Which was nothing. And I did it like a champ too, I’ll have you know. When…
-
in the meantime.
She’s nineteen. To me, that’s sort of grown. To everyone else, that’s certainly grown. It’s surprisingly difficult to have two basically grown up women living in one home. She wants to be boss and I want to be boss. Some of our days seem spent in a barely veiled power struggle. When she’s hard to understand and when she pushes and withdraws and when I feel my heart bend toward her and pull back from her as the hour hand shifts positions, I think about my own momma. About the time I was nineteen and she was not and we survived one another. I feel robbed for about the thirteenth…
-
surprise! forty feels fine.
I spent half of Year 39 thinking about Birthday 40. That number seemed so daunting. So definitive. So half way. So big. My thoughts were primarily focused on actually turning the corner on that milestone. Sitting at that iconic number. Four. Zero. But I did give a few thoughts to the actual day. July 23. I like birthdays. I always have. And I struggle with expectations. Now that’s a dangerous combination. It’s not that I expect people to do amazing things for me. And this is a difficult confession to share so I’m trusting you won’t judge me too harshly. But I have allowed myself to be a victim of…
-
swimming.
I don’t know where to start. When I’ve been away from my computer for as long as I’ve been away here – it’s a little overwhelming to put fingers to keyboard. I cannot possibly recap every moment of this super fleeting month of July, although I’d love to try. I think I’ll just say the following things: London Scout has reached the Double Digits. Ten. It’s too much for my heart. I am forty. Also too much for my heart. Actually – that’s not true. It’s really pretty okay. Forty, I mean. At least – Day Two of 40 feels fine. My birthday was wonderful. Expectations more than met. You…
-
Hi.
Hi. I’m still here. And by here – I think I just mean on Planet Earth. Actually, I’m here at my own home now too. I’ve been in Virginia quite a lot this summer. On farms with no cellular service and at camps with no cellular service. And now I’m home. With service. But still with very little time. I’ll be back to share about the good times – family camp and birthdays and dinners out and the homeland and Thomas Jefferson – and the less than good times – 23 days of rain and broken washers and broken dryers and owning only one car again. But for now I…
-
a wrinkle in time
Time passes differently out here on this beautiful piece of Virginia land. At home I feel as if my days run to this rhythm: Breakfast. Let’s do chores/errands/games/crafts/school. Wait – what? It’s lunch already? Okay, now let’s play/create/read/clean. Oh goodness, why haven’t I started dinner yet? Want to play a game/take a walk/feed the pets? Good grief, it’s already past bed time. Where did this day go? Cresting the slight hill and pulling into this sloping long-laned driveway must allow you to descend somehow into a wrinkle in time. Here the days move to a rhythm more like this: Waking to the sun. Alarms (all six) turned off. Slow breakfast…
-
what was I saying?
Oh yes. While our freezer was dying and our washer was waning, we were on a road trip. To that sweet land of Virginia to celebrate a kind and generous and hilariously fun family that I like to call my cousins. Amber was getting married. And my Piper Finnian was the flower girl to Amber. Amber. A grown up who was once a kid who once wore a white dress and served as the flower girl at my wedding nearly eighteen years ago. Me. A grown up who was once a kid who once wore a white dress and served as flower girl at Amber’s mother’s wedding about thirty years…
-
hello. my name is Lacey and this has been my day.
This is a true story. We interrupt the planned post of wedding hoopla and gobs of cute pictures to share the following true-life events …… (You cannot make this stuff up.) Monday Night 11:30 p.m. – Arrive home, road weary and sleepy. Children crawl into bed dirty and wearing the clothes they’ve been sporting all day. 11:40 p.m. – London reminds Kevin that her throat feels a little funny. He flashes a light in her mouth and sees the tell-tale signs of white streaks on her tonsils. Tuesday Morning 8:00 a.m. – Drive Kevin into work because we are still a one-car family for now. (Mentally plan to shower when…
-
Again From The Dark
When you read this, I imagine I’ll be in a car with seven other people, trekking through one state to reach another. Whirlwind days. Sunshine and rain. Beach walk and icy cold water. Night swimming and late sleeping. Wedding rehearsal and wedding the real deal. Cousins. Family. Friends. Kids dressed up so sweetly I almost couldn’t bear to look. But of course I did. When I return home and have all the wonderful photos that Riley took this weekend at my disposal, I’ll share lots more. Tonight, however, I’m typing again in the dark at my brother’s house in my nephew’s bedroom and I’m too sleepy and too in-the-middle-of-it-all to…
-
driving. riding. typing in the dark.
This is a post typed on my phone well after midnight in a darkened bedroom with five of our children sleeping soundly on the floor around us at my cousin’s home in Virginia after an eight hour drive that didn’t even get started until after four o’clock in the afternoon and I’m thinking about letting it be one giant run-on sentence. Or maybe not. It’s a wedding weekend. Amber plus Daniel equals love, a nautically themed wedding near the ocean, an opportunity to see so many relatives that I love and a long drive across the entire state of North Carolina – the state which tries to separate me from…
-
a little something something
Did a little front porch rearranging recently. (I like to shift what I already own so I trick myself into thinking I have something different than I had before.) I had Kevin draw an artsy chalkboard sign for me. I strung it up with a swath of red burlap. I grabbed an old favorite hand-me-down enamel basin, a star crafted by my mom from tobacco sticks from the farm, a collection of shells from our beach trips, a wooden pulley, fresh flowers in a Coke bottle and a small bar of soap. Added a broken down chair that’s been around our house for a decade. (Kevin said I needed…
-
natural to the core, or to the pit.
We’re drinking raw milk at our house. (I’ve been drinking it most of my life actually, thanks to that dairy farm upbringing.) With Bergen’s encouragement we’ve learned about the dangers of a plethora of initials from BHT to GMO to MSG. High fructose corn syrup rarely sneaks its way into our meals or on our shelves. Two rabbits are living in hutches at our house and twelve chickens have free range of our yard. The word “natural” is not foreign here. But for a long time there was one area that I just didn’t want to listen to the reports or hear the arguments against or for. It was the…
-
I think I’ll title this – Untitled.
Car Number Two is dead. See you later. Hasta la vista. Riley and I ride together early Monday morning to have Car Number One – The Last Surviving Great Maroon Hope Running Vehicle – serviced before our next road trip. Kevin is back at home with five children waiting to meet an HVAC repairman who might fulfill this fantasy of ours of having an air conditioned home. (Did I mention the dryer has been defunct and unplugged since January?) The smiling/grimacing mechanic steps out from the garage. “How many people are in your family?” he asks. “Uh. Eight,” I respond, wondering what the number of bodies the suburban carries has…
