HomeLife
How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. - Annie Dillard
-
at the table.
Sometimes I just love simple beauty the best. A wooden farm table. Big enough to fit our family of eight and some friends too. Scratches and fork marks particularly noticeable on the corner that has seated every Keigley kid plopped in the blue and white booster seat. A green bowl. Bought for me by my mother when I was back in high school and she believed her daughter should have a hope chest. A literal chest filled with dishes and cloth napkins and crystal pitchers. Yellow lemons. A yellow only God could make. Too bright and too much like sunshine to be shaped into a Crayola cylinder. And waiting to…
-
treasures, surprises: the makings of a childhood
It’s been too rainy to be outside most days this week. So when the sun finally came shining through, the kids did not find it a difficult task to convince me to let them play outside. Despite the fact that we all knew (although none of us spoke of it) that outside play would probably end in mud and mess and varying degrees of wet and/or ruined shoes and clothes. And it was a messy adventure. And a Keen shoe is M.I.A. And the path in front of our house is covered in crumpled wet clothes that were required to be shed pre-entry into our home. And the area beside…
-
Oh Finn. You Never Stop Being Funny.
I’m sorry. I try to represent all six of the kids (mostly) equally here. But that’s pretty tricky. Okay. It’s basically impossible. And here I am again. Sharing a Piper-Finn-said-this story. Please accept my humble apologies. A few days ago, at the sink, having not seen a ladybug nor while having a conversation about anything remotely related to insects in general, Piper says: “Mandy is right – ladybugs are good luck.” Still at the sink, washing hands, face covered in chocolate chunk muffin Mosely just made by herself, Piper announces: “Mom, I’m not afraid of hair anymore. I am only afraid of talking toilet paper and walking underwear.”
Keep Reading . . .
you’re worth it.
this day. this life. some sort of a mood.
just recounting a day . . .
-
baggage
We’ve all got baggage – right? Actually, I’m not even talking about the emotional type. (Remember those little red wagons?) I mean, to be people who live and breathe and eat and drink and to care for other people who live and breathe and eat and drink, requires a lot of stuff. It was definitely worse back in the days when Mosely and London were both toddlers and Berg was a newborn. I might as well have hoisted one of those gigantic plastic carrying cases for your car’s roof top onto my shoulders and carried the pack and play and the changing table and the vast array of toys and…
-
Over The Weekend
This weekend was rainy. Which resulted in a lot of extra inside time. There were a lot of forts made of blankets built over the last few days. (Which means the floor is still currently littered with those blankets along with the random paraphernalia stacked on the tables to hold those blankets together.) And the Lego spaceships and houses and twelve-person cars created have been legendary. (Which means that the floor in Bergen’s room is now a carpet of Lego bricks. Painful, sharp Lego bricks.) These girls were invited for a sleepover at the Boone house. Riley had some friends over to watch movies and eat popcorn. I played with…
-
Not Too Early
March has literally just begun. We’re talking – the earliest of the single digits of the month. Spring has not officially started. Does that mean that it is too early to drive over to Lowe’s and buy five of the cutest little green resin Adirondack-style lawn chairs? Is it too early to let my adorable toddler son lounge in the lawn chairs set up semi-circle in the front lawn for a windy breakfast of a warm bowl of oatmeal? Or to hang out in the warm afternoon sun with Bergen and take a long series of silly, mostly unusable camera shots? Tell me, is the beginning of March too early…
-
Try This At Home
At heart, I want to be a no television, live in the woods, everybody drink from a shared tin cup we dip in the stream outside of our door, type of family. Or so I like to imagine. But I married this guy and he likes movies and big televisions and gadgets. And, uh, I sort of have found that I love gadgets too. Plus, as much as I love the idea of a Laura Ingalls Wilder existence, (and I do love the idea – I mean, I named a kid after the Wilder family so that should prove something) I know that I would soon grow weary of an outhouse…
-
“(insert expletive) yes, I am.”
This weekend I went running again. It was maybe the first or second time I laced up my grey running shoes since November. Seems like it was always too cold or too busy or too many kids to teach or too many Cadbury eggs to eat. But the sun had been shining for too many days to ignore and the winter blahs had been dragging me down for too many months and I didn’t have bronchitis and no child was sick and it was a Saturday and not a duty in the world was urgently calling my name. So I ran. A few yards down the trail, despite the Avett…
-
Let Them Eat History
First copyright – 1931. Newspaper clippings of Paul Harvey articles slid between the thick, yellowed pages. A postcard dated 1969 and addressed to my mother before her last name was the same that mine used to be. The Searchlight Recipe Book. The binding is almost off the black and red cover and the paper tabs denoting recipe categories are torn and rugged. This was first my grandmother’s cookbook. And then it was my mother’s. And now it is mine. “Who will get this cookbook next in our family, Momma?” London asked. “I guess you’ll have to take turns with it,” I answered, hopeful that one day my girls would want…
-
Why I Am Not Writing Tonight
I write my blog posts at night. Kids are asleep. (Mostly.) House is quiet. I can snack on what I want without sharing. Messes are easier to ignore in the dimly lit house. Mornings are not good writing times for me. I like sleep. Some kid hears me and wakes up extra early. Dirty counters look more obvious in the morning light. But tonight? Tonight I am struggling to write anything. It’s not writer’s block. (My little brown moleskin is bursting with ideas.) It’s not the kitchen table that needs to be wiped down from the cookie crumbs after tonight’s family Needletip making event. (I have a high tolerance for…
-
Mosely: Defender of Truth, Lover of Justice
I attended a writer’s conference this weekend. I’m still mulling over my take-away thoughts scrawled in blue ink in my brown moleskin. One of the topics was about discovering your passion as a writer. The key speaker, Marybeth Whalen, advised us to think about what brought us joy as children. “What were you passionate about at six?” she challenged us to consider. And she shared a simple story about a friend of hers who is about to begin a business/ministry targeted to women, using fashion as the hook. And how this woman has a photo of her first grade class where she is a mini fashionista amid the casually dressed…
-
I’m No Videographer or Further Evidence I Need an iPhone or Further Evidence I Need a Nanny
You know, by the mere fact that I post words and seldom post videos, that I am no film maker. You know, by the copious number of times that I have mentioned my desire for an iPhone, that my current cell phone camera is essentially lame, and that, therefore, my videos will not be stellar quality. You know, by all of my previous set-up statements, that I am about to share a sub-par video. My piles of laundry are revealed. My voice sounds quaky. My parenting skills might be questioned. But the funny factor outweighs all of that. The stage is set like thus . . . Bath time for…
-
Yesterday
Yesterday London wore a shirt that was a size 8 for the first time. I bought $24 worth of groceries for $8 at Harris Teeter’s super doubles sale. A large rectangular glass cutting board was sitting on the stove top. Kevin turned on the wrong burner. The glass cutting board slowly heated up. Until it exploded in a million miniature shards all over the kitchen. Piper said, “I cannot let anyone else use my swing outside. It is fragile.” To which Mosely replied, “Actually, Piper, ‘fragile’ means easily broken, which your swing is not.” I drove forty minutes to Asheville to visit a huge consignment pre-sale. Upon entering the…
