Riley Amber
Not all those who wander are lost. - J.R.R. Tolkien
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the definition.
A graduate of high school now lives in our home. Which makes three of us, I suppose. When Riley was just a little kid, seven or eight, she asked me a question. “What does bittersweet mean?” And so we talked about it. About bittersweet. The rising joy and the crushing sorrow. The tinge of grey skies around all the bright yellow sunshine. The Amy Tan quote I read years earlier about happy and sad sometimes being from the same thing. She was only a kid. A squirt. A curious and forgetful sprite. But even little kids understand big truths. For months, maybe even years, after that conversation Riley would be…
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The walk down that infamous lane called Memory
Of course she’s been on my mind lately. Nineteen. Graduation from high school about to be in the rearview mirror. So much change about to be her world. Having nine years between child number one and child number the rest has always been a heart-wrenching way to raise a family. That age gap has allowed an obvious opportunity to watch time pass. And my, how the time has passed. Graduation is barely a week away. So maybe you’ll humor me a little as I share a handful of little Riley pictures. The little Former Rileys who make up the Now Riley. When she let me pick out her clothes and…
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along with the age, the birthday meals have changed.
Nineteen. The number takes my breath away. (Every year – it always does.) She’s nineteen today. Last night we all enjoyed Riley’s birthday dinner of choice. (Long standing tradition in our family. Probably in loads of other families. Birthday person picks the meal. No matter what it is. We eat it. No matter what it is.) Steak! (Yeah – who does this girl think she is? A grown up? Steak.) Mashed potatoes. (I made ten pounds. In retrospect – that was too many mashed potatoes. But can you ever have too many mashed potatoes?) Peas. (Easiest side dish ever. Always been her favorite veggie.) Rolls. (Not homemade. But, in her…
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Bergen Hawkeye, HomeLife, Keiglets, London Eli Scout, Mosely Ella Claiborne, Otto Fox Wilder, Piper Finn Willow, Riley Amber
What They’ve Been Up To Lately
Scrambling eggs. Becoming increasingly obsessed with The Lord of the Rings. (Despite the fact that none of our children have ever watched even one of the films.) Saying “happy new year” after every sentence, regardless of appropriateness to the conversation. Speed reading through The Hobbit. Taking her first college level science class, complete with weekly three hour lab. Painting drumsticks red without anyone’s permission. Wearing a Snow White costume on top of her normal clothes. Reading food labels and researching soy lecithin. Attempting to stop sucking her thumb every morning and forgetting about the challenge every evening. Baking Aunt E’s Famous Pizza Dough recipe solo. Creating miniature paper cutouts of…
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pointing at myself.
I have sixty-eight drafts resting in the unknown regions of my blog’s set-up pages. There are so many ideas I want to write about, explore and share but sometimes I just type out the words but never press “publish”. I am finding it more and more difficult every day to balance the type of mother to a teenage daughter that I wish I could be with the type of mother to a teenage daughter that I actually am being. This is unbelievably hard work. We have been in the beginning stages of forming a new Shepherding Group with some fellow church-attenders. It’s been a desire of mine and Kevin’s for…
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when you don’t see the point.
On the road that leads to the field where Mosely plays soccer every week there stands a solitary stop sign. It is not located where a stop sign should be located. There is no apparent rhyme nor reason for this stop sign. No traffic could possibly come from any other direction and it is simply placed in the curve of a road. I don’t know why. I think about that stop sign twice every week. Once when we drive to her game and once when we drive to her practice. I usually come to the classic rolling stop. Silly stop sign. I don’t see the point. There it is –…
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matters of the heart
Well. We are in a new phase of parenting. Smack in the middle. Our oldest daughter is – gasp – dating a boy. Now, aside from the feeling of impossibility of that much time being allowed to pass, there’s some other issues this rite of passage is stirring up in Kevin and I. And I can just go ahead and give this disclaimer in writing right now, although I’d assume that every one of you already knows this. We’re pretty much not perfect parents. We are probably making parenting mistakes even as I type this post. And we will make more. Loads more, I imagine, if the Lord is gracious…
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Times Four.
In the middle of all our annual July Fourth who-ha, our family had the absolute honor to be present for the wedding of our beloved friends – “Nake” and Laura. It was a ceremony as simple and precious and redemptive and hopeful as I have ever attended. And as I sat in the blazing July sun, grateful that I chose to wear black making my sweat less obvious, it was impossible to be seated at the wedding ceremony, impossible to listen to the words being said, impossible to watch a father walk down an aisle and hand his daughter to a young man, without looking at my own wedding companions. Without peering…
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The New Game
This fall The School of Keigley has a transfer student arriving. And her name is Riley. She’s spent the last two years attending a local private school and is now heading home for her junior year. Which means, I have to do something I have never done before. Instruct a high school student. Actually, that’s not the truth. I spent six years teaching high school students. But most days that feels like another life. And, anyway, I have never actually been in charge of all aspects of teaching a high school student. So when a couple of women who lead a local homeschool co-op offered an evening class covering all…
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never satisfied
There is no end to my selfishness. I am sitting in a Starbucks right now. (Which should be miracle enough.) I just drank a Strawberries and Cream thing-a-ma-gig and ate a vanilla bean scone. (Which I did not share with anyone as I am here all alone.) I am typing on an iPad. Which was so graciously given to us by dear, kind and generous friends. (More miracles.) And my time here is almost up because I need to go pick up my children from Art Camp. And all I can really think is, “I want more. More time. More quiet. More vanilla bean scone.” Why? Why is it so…
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17.
Seventeen. This kid who was once six and Southern-sounding as all get out. This girl who changed her own name when she was nine and politely insisted that her third grade class refer to her as “Riley” henceforth. This waif who won my momma’s heart from the first hug as she wrapped her teeny arms around my mother’s neck as soon as they met. This team player who agreed to don full Little House on the Prairie clothes and enter a Laura Ingalls Look-Alike contest. This mini-athlete who wore a series of ill-fitting jerseys through every season of rec. league soccer with her daddy as her coach. This new teen…
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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…
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Date Night: From the Home Front
Last night was Date Night. No guns or alcohol this time. A rather low-budget evening. Carrabba’s for dinner. (Only because we had a gift card, thanks to Look Up’s annual Christmas party.) Mid-dinner, a text arrived from Riley, our evening’s official babysitter. It was a photo of Magnus, perched like royalty on an old chair in our sunroom. When we returned home, Riley gave us the evening’s breakdown . . . photojournalist-style. (I guess my parents never had that luxury with their babysitters -eh?) First, there was music. And costumes. And dancing. And then, as is so often the case, music led to art. (Apparently Berg was drawing drums. To…