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keep looking up.
He probably said it two dozen times. Actually, I’m sure it was said more often than that. Keep looking up. The words one of my friends said to me, to the kids, to our friend circle, when times were dark and The Ending was beginning. Keep looking up. Sometimes I don’t even think I had a clue what he…
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Five Finds Friday (fries and hevel and gray hair)
This week has been pleasant – good weather, school progressing along nicely, the promise of the weekend on the horizon. All good things. And now it’s Friday. funny Honestly, just living in this house with five kids who are becoming genuinely funny humans in their own rights has been so incredibly enjoyable. We laugh. A lot.…
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a list of …… stuff
This post is going to be more like a Public Service Announcement. Or something. Probably not Public Service Announcement at all. Probably more random and less beneficial than a Public Service Announcement. 1. On the Travelers Rest Here Instagram there is currently a contest taking place. It’s a fun one and I meant to tell you guys about it…
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Burt’s Bees Meets The Grove And Some of It Can Be Yours
Way back when I had more babies than teenagers I found out about Burt’s Bees. I loved their products before I was on the Facebook and the Instagram and before I was writing blog posts and when I was living on a sweet farm in the Virginia mountains. I was using Burt’s Bees products back when I…
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the unpleasant unexpected.
Like all the grieving I have ever waded through, it’s the stages that take me by surprise. Some of my hard has looked like this: Giant to-another-state moves where our family left one sort of life to live another sort. Raising one child to an adult. Close friends moving away from our circle. The loss of my mother. The…
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Five Finds Friday (there’s jam and a johnny cash shirt)
I told you we “officially” started school this week. And we did. But we also hiked Black Balsam in North Carolina (or what I like to call Middle Earth or the mountains in the Sound of Music or what my friend Sarah who hiked with us called Darcy’s land from Pride and Prejudice. The point is – it was other-world…
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Day One School Thoughts
School started back for us today. Hello Wildwood Halls of Ivy. I have a high school daughter again. And two middle schoolers. My “baby” is in third grade. He feels super unexcited to be required to do school again. Today it was difficult to stay on track for all of us, but I think over…
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More than a day camp – but also a day camp (and also a break for you local mamas)
Maybe it was three summers ago. That’s sounding about right. My friend told me about a day camp that her daughter started a handful of years earlier with several of her friends. Back then the three girls were not that much older than the campers themselves but they were creative and they were clever and they were ambitious. Bekah,…
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Five Finds Friday (jam & friendship & adventure – oh, and a fan)
The last Friday in July? That’s just wrong. funny After the kids attended Camp Wexford – have I told you about that? Okay, I will – they came home wanting to make their own versions of slime or oobleck or goop, whatever you want to call it. (It’s the ooey stuff kids love where you basically…
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Coming Soon to a Stage Near You
A goose. A maid’s daughter. A Persian man. A Hebrew woman. And soon an ant and a family living in communist Russia. These are the roles that my children have had in their years of stage experience with the Logos Theatre in Taylors. Our family first heard about The Academy of Arts and their theatre quite a…
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Upon Turning 44
The sheets are gritty (even though it had only been a few days since their last wash). It’s the scum and the crud from little kid feet and I can make all the rules about socks in bed and showers before sleep and sleeping in your own bed where no one minds the sandy sheets but it all falls…
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Five Finds Friday (haircuts & surprises)
This week felt slow and fast. Camp took up all the driving times. The experiences were great for the kids. But I’m sort of glad they’re done. funny I couldn’t find the laundry detergent. It was a recent purchase so I knew it wasn’t empty. Yet. I looked around the laundry room. Questioned the house residents.…
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kayak adventure
On Monday my friend Hannah and I checked off an item that has been sitting patiently on my wish list for years. (It was my birthday gift from Hannah — more on birthday later.) Go kayaking at Lake Jocassee. At first we had to wait out a storm on the lake. (We passed the time…
