Story
One can bear anything if one can put it in a story. - Isak Dinesen
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good words II.
the littlest birds sing the prettiest songs.
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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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tradition
tradition: a long-established custom that has been passed on. Yes. Perfect. I love tradition. I love events and details and activities that you do year after year, holiday after holiday, season after season. And I love July Fourth. Love it. Love the mad rush that leads up to the day. Love the kids helping decorate the porch so it looks all shades of blue, red and white festive. Love the tattoos that every kid chooses to slap across their cheeks. I think part of what I love is how you can try to make so many particulars the same – the food, the location, the order of events (guns, tubing,…
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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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copycat
My kids think that being a copycat is just about the worst crime you can commit. It’s a battle cry against injustice that I hear all day long. “Mosely copied my art project.” “Bergen’s Lego man looks just like mine. He’s copying.” “Piper – you can’t eat the same sandwich I am eating. You’re a copycat.” But I am pretty much okay with being a copycat. In fact, I love it. I call it imitation and I think it’s a high compliment. So when we visited my brother and his family at their home in North Carolina, I was overwhelmed with my desire to copycat everything from my sister-in-law’s home.…
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forty-two hours. full and worthwhile.
Last weekend. 42 hours. 14.5 of them spent in the confines of the Suburban. One graduation celebration for this sweet nephew. The kids all running around in the post-ten-o-clock dark, glow sticks waving, skin sticky from the Atlantic ocean wind, pine cones tossed in the fire pit and you ask yourself, “Why don’t we do this more often?” And you remember the six-turned-eight hour drive and the rearranging of work schedules and the packing of the past day and the laundry of the future day. But who really cares about any of that when a fire is blazing and your big brother is smoking clams on the grill and your…
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homesick
I dropped Riley off for a going away party for a friend one night recently. I had no idea what I was about to drive through on my way home. The driveway was long. Gravel. Winding around a few trees and some lovely fields. Passing a garden. Up a ridge. Mountains in the background. The recent rain had left everything that deep shade of green you cannot get any other time. Clouds were hanging low. It looked like a scene straight out of one of the old Civil War movies my dad would make us watch on lazy Sunday afternoons. (The only day TV was allowed during daylight hours at…
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where we stand. currently.
And this is what we’ve decided. (And I say “we” because this is not a decision I desire to make alone and I am gratfeulgratefulgrateful that my husband and I are able to discuss this together and to make a decision for our family from a united stand point. More miracle and grace than we deserve.) You don’t have to agree with me. And I hope I can express this plainly. The truth is . . . I love writing this blog. I love the literal process of reflecting on my day each evening and tip-tap-typing my way through all that did and did not happen. I love having moments…
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That word.
Remember our word? Have you thought about yours in a while? I think about mine sometimes in the ebb and in the flow. Free. And I have tried to kick fear’s rear so many times in my past. I’ve written about it. I’ve cried about it. I’ve tried. I’ve succeeded. I’ve failed. I’ve been round and round with it. And I am struggling again. Fear. That dirty dirty word. I have been reading through a Beth Moore book entitled So Long Insecurity for about six months now. And she says she believes all insecurity is based in fear. When you meet insecurity in yourself just ask, “What am I afraid…
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I don’t know.
I don’t actually feel like writing this post. Do you ever have topics like that? Ideas you know you need to discuss, but would prefer to avoid? Problems you know exist, but it would be so much simpler to bury your head in the sand and hope that while you’re down there, the problem would disappear? That’s how I feel right now. Although I’ve been writing on this little blog for a long time now, I am still not particularly blog savvy. Especially in the area of web traffic and search engines and self-promotion. I don’t really stress a lot about that or pay a lot of attention to those…
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Nothing Short of Grateful
(Thanks Avett Brothers for allowing me to once again steal a song title of yours for a post title of mine.) I owe more people favors than I could ever repay. My debt of gratitude overflows and runs amok. Pretty sure I could never even list all the people and all the ways my days and my life have been blessed by the kindness of others. Friends. Strangers. Family. Framily. You name it. I stand overwhelmed. Just in the past week alone . . . Jamal babysat five of our children so Kevin and I could attend a sports banquet with Riley. He washed the dishes. He fed the children.…
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the beauty of the years.
Last week on a date night we tried baked brie. It was incredible. The next day I told my friend Mandy about how delicious it was. She said, “You know that you can make that at home?” No. I did not know that I could make that at home. I mean, I guess I knew. Sort of. Can’t you make anything at home? In theory – right? So I bought the brie. I bought the pastry shell thing. I baked it at home. It was delicious. I was giddy from making my $9 appetizer for only $5.00 at home. That was cool. Last night was our weekly Wednesday Gathering. I…
Keep Reading . . .
here we go ….
weekend ramble (the stillest of weekends)
tick tock. a small choice.
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good.
If life has taught me anything, it is this . . . Good days are not a guarantee. Therefore I make it a priority to recognize one when I see it. To hold it in my hands and tell myself, “This is a good one. Slow down. And be.” I took a long shower. Kevin fixed breakfast for the kids. Berg asked for the return of his mohawk. In red. Hannah and I picked four gallons of strawberries with all the Little Ones. Shelby instructed the girls in math so that I did not have to. I might have just purchased my last dozen grocery-store eggs. Hannah is building a…
