That is what I do most evenings. We usually have some sidekicks along but this is our time together, walking, talking, my outside girl and I. The other night I brought my camera because it is just breathtakingly beautiful walking through the woods in the early evening. When I got home I was completely without words for what we had captured. Moira, suspended, ever so briefly, in this place between child and woman.
Queen Anne, Queen Anne, has washed her lace
(She chose a summer's day)
And hung it in a grassy place
To whiten, if it may.
Queen Anne, Queen Anne, has left it there,
And slept the dewy night;
Then waked, to find the sunshine fair,
And all the meadows white.
Queen Anne, Queen Anne, is dead and gone
(She died a summer's day),
But left her lace to whiten in
Each weed-entangled way!
Mary Leslie Newton
FOR TODAY… Aug 9, 2010
Outside my window… dark, cool, clear, perfect. It's almost not Monday anymore but there is a lot of Monday left points west of here so I will keep typing. The funniest thing outside my window the past couple days was bovine. The farmer rotated pastures and up at our back fence was…
Never in my dreams did expect to move around the world and still gaze out my window at cattle. I love that.
I am hearing… nothing but the clacking of the keyboard, the fridge humming, and the soft breathing of Abbie Rose as she dozes back to sleep on my lap.
I am thinking… that I could have called Rebecca after all if I wasn't going to be sleeping. Insomnia more often than not lately. We got into a night owl sleep cycle when we first arrived early summer and one of us has not broken it.
Pondering these words:
"Make new friends,
but keep the old,
one is silver,
and the other gold."
I am thankful for… courage and peace.
From the learning rooms… curriculum planning…by Dad. There is a happy turn of events. Dad-turned-curriculum planner has been comparing and contrasting programs and lesson plans. I am so good with that and it's very cool to talk shop together when he really does know exactly what I am talking about. He knows exactly what he wants for his kids and is setting out to make it happen. Have at it. ; )
From the kitchen… There is a new edition of Julia Child's original cookbook waiting to be broken in. Jen's parting gift to the girls and I. I can't wait to try it. We can cover a lot of ground if we just make one recipe each week. It is about that for me. Like a grand adventure in fairly uncharted waters.
In other food news, we need to eat more produce. Like a LOT more produce. I am not sure if it is the fridge, the humidity or the age of the produce from the commissary but salad greens do not last long at all.
I am wearing…brown capris, light lime green sweater, brown mules. Or I was. The shoes were kicked off a long time ago.
I am creating… pictures, soon to be albums. New lens = lots of new pics.
I am going… to France! The Metz flea market is coming up and I am making plans to get there. France. Me. Metz-metz-metz-METZ!!!!
There. I feel better. : )
I am reading… speaking of France we are reading Anni's Diary of France and now there are a whole bunch of other places there I want to go. Truly delightful picture book packed with info. Aidan is packing now I think lol. Aidan is still plowing through Hardy Boys at a pretty good clip. Kieran found his Marco Polo biography. But the best reading is happening up in his room in the evenings as he has taken to reading stories to Brendan and Tess before bed. I sat in the hallway listening to his eight year old voice changing with the different characters the other night.
Around the house… school room awaits some shelves. I am ambivalent about the crochet valances on the main floor. Picked up an awesome desk and bankers chair off the German craigslist equivalent for next to nothing.
One of my favorite things… foam hand soap. I used to think it was an unnecessary expense but wow are the sinks a lot less sloppy now.
Here is picture for thought I am sharing…
Our neighbors' nod to Notre Dame. Or something. Not sure how many times we walked past this stone wall before one child gasped and said, "Look Mom!" Now every time we pass we look up. Yep. Still there. As if he would go somewhere. It's a little creepy.
If there was one thing I did not foresee it was that I would become a frisbee mom this summer. And yet, that is where I have found myself on a regular basis. The girls began playing on Sunday afternoons after we got here. Then midweek games were added. Addictive this is, apparently. The last day of frisbee for Jen's girls was last Sunday Tuesday Thursday. Suffice it to say, a good deal of frisbee has been played.
The little ones and I usually run errands but eventually end up back on the steps watching and waiting and enjoying the shade.
drinking in every drop of summer
Big girls fuss over the babies, calling their friends to, "Look at her hair!" or making them repeat the sweet things they say with their imperfect pronunciation. Which is all good because that is how I would be passing my time anyway. ; )
We watch, we cheer.
We laugh.
We play. We run.
It has been a very good summer.
" because friends are friends forever,
if the Lord, is Lord of them,
and a friend will not say never,
'cause the welcome will not end..
though it's hard to let you go,
in the Father's hands we know,
that a lifetime's not too long
to live as friends."
This is the second time God sent Jen to me. The first time was in 1994. We had just moved across the country to Texas. Like this move, it had come after many years in one place and was a huge transition. I got a call from my neighbor back in Ohio shortly after we arrived. She said she had another friend who had moved there and I had to meet her. "Really, Kim, call her."
So I did.
And so began a friendship that would eventually cover several continents, a couple decades, and nine more babies between us.
We had not planned on coming here. She had not expected to be here when we did. But the stars aligned somehow (we know how!) and their assignment was delayed just a bit. Ours moved up just a bit. And it happened again, this gift of friendship brought together in one place. Enough time to catch up, reconnect and introduce our kids. We have spent the past month in and out of each other's homes just like in the old days. But the time came once again and she is winging her way across the Atlantic this afternoon.
My friend Linda said years ago, "God doesn't want us all bunched up together in one place. I know that is His plan. He wants to spread us out and show His love all over." She told me this as she was moving her family and I really argued with God over that arrangement. But she was right, and God doesn't want Jen's light hidden under a basket either. I get that. I was good with it.
I was good with it last month knowing it was coming. I was even good with it at dinner Thursday. It was her last words to our new mutual friends that made me cry,
"Take care of the Fry's!"
Because I know that was what was on her mind when she had plenty else to think of. And I love her for that.
God go with you to the Pacific, dear friend. We are good. : )
"Kiiiiiidds, t'mon! Dinnerrrrrr's readyyy!" a very hungry toddler beckoned to her brothers and sisters last night. My baby. Did I blink? How have we come here so soon? You are verbal, vocal, and on the move.
Your mama is not ready, Baby Girl. Not ready.
"This is the first lesson for the Christian wife and mother today: to let go of what may once have been – and under other circumstanes might now be – a recollected self, and take on, with both hands, the plan of God. Indeed it is the lesson for every Christian in every age:
it is the gospel of dying on one plane in order to live in another."
– Dom Hubert Von Zeller, Holiness for Housewives
I found this over a break midday today, book in hand, mug nearby, and this pottery before me. There is rest to be found in letting go of what might have been and embracing what is. What is, is very good.
"Home is the wallpaper above the bed, the family dinner table, the church bells in the morning, the bruised shins of the playground, the small fears that come with dusk, the streets and squares and monuments that constitutes one's first universe."
– Henry Anatole Grunwald
more daybooks at Peggy's
For today, August 2nd, 2010
Outside my window… overcast but the sun appears to getting the upper hand. It is Germany and this battle is waged more or less daily.
I am wearing… note to self, go buy yourself some new workout clothes so you don't have to tell them you are in the same grey pants again Kim…. I won't leave the house this way I promise but I have not worked out since the movers came and am feeling it.
I am hearing… little boys waking up and noticing the toy I unearthed from a box this am. Aidan nearby in the kitchen trying to decipher the pancake mix directions. And Tess wandering in saying, "Mama," more like a statement than a request. Abbie follows with the same declaration. Mama? Check. Therefore we conclude that the universe is still spinning in its proper rotation. We may carry on with our day.
From the kitchen… Moira made Alannah a fondant cake for her party Friday. Huge cake. All day project. The Cake Boss, I am not. It is really impressive what a 13yo can do however.
I am creating… got most of the art up on the main floor and hung curtains.
From the learning rooms… curriculum planning. We are so ready to be back to school. Ok, those of us younger than 13 and older than 16 anyway!
Pondering these words…
"I don't want to make any mistakes, Gerry.
Well, you are in the wrong species, luv,
be a duck."
said with the perfect Irish accent – you know like "be a dook" (rhymes with book) which has some kind of freaky, hypnotic, Pied Piper effect on the women in this family. Must be genetic! Must. go. to. Ireland.
From last night's movie PS I Love You. I cried through the ENTIRE movie. I took a break to take dh's call then resumed weeping right where I left off. I so don't like making mistakes. I so make them. I am so trying to relax and embrace change.
a few plans for the rest of the week… park day and unpacking boxes which seem to have vomited volumes of craft supplies in my basement.
From my picture journal:
(new living room)
Starry Sky Journal 