Sharing the inspiring and/or convicting things I have read and bookmarked lately. This was a catch up weekend. Much needed. This fiery cloud caught my eye just before sunrise the other day. It happened after a stormy night when there was a break in the clouds over the moutains behind us. The sun peeked through just for a moment and lit up this bit of the sky. By the time I set the camera down in the house again it was past and gray/blue skies prevailed again. Glad to have looked up. Always pays to look up. : )
I can rarely get my um, stuff, together to do a proper Pinterest worthy tute. We were happy enough with the new centerpiece to at least share though. It's so simple you can sort of figure it out.
One thing I miss terribly about Europe is fresh flowers. They do have them here but they cost so much more to have on the table regularly. Since we really prefer natural, when I saw the bunches of wheat at Walmart I grabbed two ($4 each) thinking I would figure something out. This is what I figured out.
Grab the two bunches into one big bunch and wrap with a rubber band. Then shove an empty can inside to beef it up and stabilize. Give a slight twist. Wrap tightly with leftover Christmas ribbon because it matches the $1 gold charger you bought ten years ago and haven't used. Ok, maybe this isn't a universally applicable tute. ; ) But you get the idea. So for $8 we have a nice natural centerpiece for fall.
If you were here and looking left you'd see the fireplace wall. It was a major selling point for us. Major. I love this brick wall. Currently it holds my copper collection.
Copper was a fixture of British kitchens. I was gifted with some vintage pieces at our going away party. Goodwill locally netted the teapot, sugar, and creamer at the far end.
The pullback below. The china cabinet is dressed in blue in this house. (staging shelves is not my strong suit) Top right is the delft plate I stuffed in my suitcase when I came back from the Netherlands as a student. The dining chairs are still covered in nasty old green upholstery. It's on the list of home improvement projects. Til then, cropped out. Voila. : D
The vintage pictures to the left have hung someplace in my house since I found them in my Grams attic and finally persuaded her to let me have it. She found it in her century old farmhouse attic when they moved in in the 60's. We don't know who they are but when I suggested replacing them with our own old family portraits everyone freaked out. Actually it's rather wonderful now to honor whomever they are. They are family after all these years.
The quilt rack was a gift from my late Grampa when he was on a woodworking kick in retirement. It needs a quilt. Or some linen. Still thinking on that.
The little girls daily schedule is very gentle and undercommitted. (thank goodness!) Instead of a fixed list of activities we try to do a 'fun day' on a regular basis. This week we took them to the State Fair. It has been years since our last visit and they have no recall at all.
This was a perfect iconic fair day. Animals, exhibits, rides, and fair food. Fabulous break for all of us.
Thats my guy. Nope, you volunteered. You're stuck now. ; )
Starting very early when the phone rings in the bedroom. It is Teen Son confirming we have his 6am practice on the radar and one of us is in fact coming down to drive him there. "Of course!" I say as I come to and negotiate with husband.
Clearly my rock-paper-scissors skills need some work because here I am at "6 o'clock Lights." It's like Friday Night Lights except you know, 6am. Sheesh. Tired. Upside was seeing the moon over the canyon just before sunrise.
Home for breakfast. I drink green lemonade channeling my best High Desert Susan except I am not tall and lean and blonde but short and vein-y and age spotty but hey. I am drinking vegs for breakfast and there should be points for that right?
After feeding folks and passing them to a big person I drive Moira to work. On the way there I politely listen as the Civil Wars wail or Taylor Swift sings about her boyfriends. Then I pull out of her workplace drive and hit 80s on 8…
It gets loud. When I am alone in the car I am this guy y'all. Totally.
So by the time I hit the house again I am caffeinated and have cleared my lungs by singing at the top of them. Jumped, shouted, and let it all out. Inside of my head I am now 16 and feeling the noise, thinking about dancing at the rec center on Friday nights with this boy I ended up marrying. 80s. Hair bands. Sigh. And then giggle. Because I have this flashback to Dana Carvey spoofing our favorite bands. So I walk in the house and download this and make the teens listen. After trying to explain who Dana Carvey is. Was. Sigh again.
I apologize for the ear worm : ) So anyway. I move back to grown up mode and we spend the mornings doing lessons. Here they are very psyched about new binders and new books.
We have a new bag of library books. I took a picture because the base library has no online computer system for us to track them. It's a little twilight zone-y since it's so much like it was when we lived here in the 90s and hasn't been since.
This is my new read…
And we have a new piano teacher who is all kinds of awesome. She worked with us to alternate girl and boy lessons each week. It saves us money and frankly it gives me extra time to ensure everyone has mastered their homework pieces before the next lesson.
She also has a beautifully landscaped yard full of raised bed gardens which were overflowing. After we got Tess all settled she handed Abbie and I baskets and gave us the tour telling us to please thin out the veggies. This is pretty fabulous considering my garden now finally has exactly two tomatoes and three tiny rock hard green peppers. Not my forte. As in, if we had to live on what I could grow our little clan would have died of starvation long ago. BUT we have piano teacher/gardener extraordinaire now so we bag enough tomatoes to make a vat of salsa.
Or rather, hand off the tomatoes for Alannah to make salsa. Me? I am surfing for this…
…because it is game time for two boys. One is a home game, one meets the bus, and a third comes to a game in practice gear to be dropped off to his team at halftime.
A glance at the dining room recently. Because dinner happens. Sometimes super late. It's the one constant. Besides my singing in the car.
More often than not the doorbell will ring just after dinner and they will run around with the neighbor girl for "just a couple minutes please!" I asked if Archie could run with them instead of tipping the garbage can over while we do dishes. They say sure. He can be "it." Wanna bet who wins?
This day ends with rosary on the deck and the smoke from a distant fire. (sorry, couldn't resist. Still tuned into oldies radio) There is a lot on my goals list not happening lately. I stopped looking at the list because pretty much if it doesn't start with school, football, food, or work/carpool it probably isn't going to happen just yet so there's no point. Trying not to stress over that. (too much) The kids are happy and the stuff will get done eventually. If you come to my house I will feed you salsa while sticking to this story should you notice my growing list.
Ok super late again. I will regret this tomorrow but wanted to snapshot life right now. What does life look like right now in your world? If you do a phone snap day do link!
We are back to school officially and I am LOVING it. Now if I just had about 4 or 5 more hours in every day or if sleep were more optional than it is for me life would be pretty ideal. As it is, I make notes and compose posts that never see the screen because yeah…. sleep. Food. Sports.
Since I am this far behind I figured I could just roll all those unpublished summer posts into the ubiquitous back-to-school essay theme this week. The Badlands trip was incredible. Temperature and timing came together to make for a perfect visit that started out nicely enough and got better by the hour.
I was going to share geography books and I will. However you will humor me, please, because I just finished another book that will be right up near the top of my list of books-I-pray-my-daughters-and-close-friends-read.
I just finished.
Sigh.
I had to save those last 20pages for alone time because it was pretty certain to be a big emotional event. It was. I locked myself in the guest bath until composed enough to reenter society. Whew.
The book? Oh yes. That would help. It was Mrs. Mike, a semi-biographical novel about a young Irish-American woman who leaves Boston for a Canadian outpost around 1900. It's a thrifted paperback copy we've had forever and it didn't give me so much as a hint as to how compelling it would end up being all those years it sat on my shelves. It read like a quick romance, initially, which meant you arrived at the gut-socking parts completely unprepared for the thinking and mourning and thinking some more that you would do.
To me, there are significant similarities to Strangers and Sojournersby Michael O'Brien. If you've read one and not the other I am telling you now you should. Pain, strength, and beauty are all illustrated in such a way that it makes you feel braver, more grateful, and less concerned with petty things. You realize, "When little things perspectiare so important, it's because there aren't any big ones."
Sometimes a novel can make you think more deeply about faith and family than a theology volume can. This was one of those for me. I pray the perspective embeds deeply in my heart.
While in my head I am still vicariously wandering through northern forests and gliding around crystal lakes tonight I'm pulling out pictures of one of the most idyllic places we passed through this summer. Part of Black Hills National Park. Breathtaking.
This is me saying, "Hey," sort of wistfully in passing. When my Gram was flustered she would say she didn't know if she was coming or going. We've got that goin' on all over right now with football practices and kids' jobs and college. After some strategy-by-text (ie: I am off work in five minutes. Where are you and which direction am I heading?) we divided up the late afternoon/early evening runs today.
Do I love this? No. Do I think kids need to run around this much? No, again. But it is what we have collectively decided was right for this particular season. We are all healthy and the sun is shining and this is NOT a bad way to suffer – as I remind myself when I pass my husband on the road.
We will all end up at the same place by day's end after all. Life is good.
A walking tour of Salt Lake City is what some of us decided on for Saturday. We haven't explored downtown much since we moved back and not by foot much at all. It's been on the list of things to get to. The forecast was 90s for highs so we headed out late afternoon to avoid the worst of the heat. (Yes it's a "dry heat" but hey, that's hot)
The tour commenced in the car whilst the driver (aka me) wandered around downtown looking for a place to park. This took a long time. Imagine a long, long time of me making discouraging comments about my ability to locate such a spot, the other drivers, and the unfortunate placement of detour signs. I am so not the person for that job. I can't spot the spots until I am right up past them. Easily overstimulated. Poor sense of direction. Just not my strong suit all around. So the parking part was not fun.
The walking with the camera part was more fun. It always is. : ) We started from west Temple Square.
Checking directions and where to find the Apple Store and dinner.
We spent some time shopping at City Creek which is about as lovely as it gets. Feels way more like a European market town than an outdoor mall. BUT it has West Elm and Anthropologie. Win, win. I found two books we are going to talk about more this week at Anthropologie of all places. I am a little obsessed with them. More to follow.
Walking towards the Salt Palace.
The Capitol Theater is being reno'd and the sidewalk opposite was as well unfortunately. Such a fabulous facade even if I can only share a peek of it. It was just cotton candy colored wonderfulness. Like a vintage carousel on a wall.
Oldest and youngest sons : )
We stopped for dinner and then walked back to the van. It was absolutely ideal weather by then. Balmy without a hint of breeze. That meant the reflecting pool at Temple Square was able to do its job nicely. After waiting for it to settle again after a certain 10yo tossed a pebble in. ; D
There is never enough time when you see your adult kids. This is the pain of this stage of life as opposed to the sheer exhaustion of the early years of parenting. It's what causes old moms to say all those annoying things about cherish the moment and these days are over too fast and blahblahblah. We know it's annoying. We can't stop ourselves. The words tumble out of our mouths even while our inner younger mom selves remember exactly how exasperating those comments were. But for real, y'all. You become greedy with these moments that once seemed to defy all laws of time passage.
These were my moments this weekend. They are over now but they were wonderful.
“ To the outside world we all grow old. But not to brothers and sisters. We know each other as we always were. We know each other’s hearts. We share private family jokes. We remember family feuds and secrets, family griefs and joys. We live outside the touch of time.”
– Clara Ortega
This picture popped up when I was uploading and spoke to me immediately. It wasn't the best of the lot, technically. It's grainy and the children are wild haired and breathless and held still for about the two seconds it took to snap this. And yet in those seconds it caught that deep peace and devotion between them. That absolute adoration.
I needed that today. We tend to evaluate our progress from one increment in time to another. Sometimes we have pretty good reason to feel like the whole thing is going awry. What we are building here, though, is bigger than our days - the good and the bad ones.
Starry Sky Journal 