Ryan walked through the door with Elsie and Asher. Miles and I had fed and watered the chickens and cleaned up the house. I’d been writing and Miles was playing something on the iPad. He’s now off the iPad for fighting with his brother over it. It was Friday. It was supposed to just be movie night and pizza and popcorn night. I held Asher and Elsie close, just like I had squeezed Miles after school. Ryan put an arm around me and I bit back tears because I wasn’t ready to answer “why are you crying, Mommy?” So instead I asked Ryan to start a fire in the fireplace and the kids stayed right there because fires are so cool and good unless you get too close and get burned. We watched over their distance from the danger from our chairs and took in the warmth. We shared time just thinking and […]
My feet won’t warm up. Today I learned how to make a water warmer for the chicken coop; a thing to set under the water so it doesn’t freeze. Now I just need to actually make the water warmer for the chicken coop. It looks so easy and the post even said it takes less than ten minutes. It’s getting so cold, the water freezes too fast. I’m in and out, trudging across the backyard with my puffy coat on, hood up, to bring fresh warm water that will freeze in about an hour. But I keep doing it, because chickens get thirsty too. So back and forth I go. We went to buy a warmer in the store yesterday but it just felt like there were so many hurdles. The price, the kids asking questions and going into other aisles and then wanting suckers. The farm store always has them asking for […]
That’s right, friends! The FIRST 50 COMMENTERS receive a coupon code for making your very own beautiful BLURB BOOK! Just leave a comment! Please include your email address so I can get the code to you! If you’re here and the 50 comments have already been surpassed, don’t despair because Blurb is giving you 25% off your order TODAY only! All you have to do is head on over to Blurb and make your book! Perhaps you’d like to feature your favorite Instagrams or blog posts or facebook photos…or, you can make a calendar or a notebook or even a magazine. There are so many great ways to feature your favorites. ::::: On Friday I shared that I created a book of my favorite Just Write posts from the past year. The ebook is available for iOS devices (you know, Apple products), but it’s also going to be available as a hardcover book very […]
As you may know, I haven’t been terribly good at promoting my own wares or tooting my horn or whathaveyou. I just don’t want to come across as all ego driven or somesuchthing. It’s only taken me five years of blogging and meeting smart and savvy women writers/creators online to learn it’s not BAD to share what you do with the world. It’s actually quite good! So, here I am, telling you that I made my favorite Just Write posts from this past year (YES! It’s been over a year!) into an ebook. When I was in Chicago at BBC, I had the pleasure of meeting Samantha from Blurb, and listening to her speak. I got (overly) excited hearing about all the ways a person can utilize Blurb, and when I got home, I got right to working on this book and another Instagram one: This #JustWrite ebook is currently available for $9.99 and […]
About a week ago, we were at a family gathering and I was talking to my brother and sister in law. They asked about the projects I’m working on and when they asked what I speak about when I go around speaking, I said it varies. I added that it’s sometimes about blogging, but mostly it’s about writing in general, or about how I see life…and my voice trailed off when I said that last part and I felt all weird because I can’t figure out how to describe what I mean about that without sounding ridiculous. So I said, You know, like how everything is…so…magical. ahem. Well. If that doesn’t sound kind of made up or trite or silly, I don’t know what does. But maybe the simplest happy thoughts are the best kind to have. I’m not good at simple happy thoughts, but my heart is? I think? My head prefers […]
This morning we tag-teamed the routine. Has she had breakfast? Where are the boots? On Saturday it was 65 degrees and this morning there was snow on the ground. Still is. I’ll take Miles to school, you take Asher and Elsie to daycare. I’ll start the van. I tromped down the walk to the van with my boots unzipped, slipping too much at my heels but you hurry in Minnesota, to start the car and rush back in. Asher was suddenly behind me. It’s not time to go, honey. You need to go back in, it’s too cold. I’m just starting the van to warm it up. I know! He loves snow so much. Okay then. Please go inside. I have everything I need, Mommy. He said this while his Spiderman boots flicked snow up on the cuffs of his pants. I have mittens and a hat and boots, so that’s all I […]
I had been away from Thursday to Sunday and it felt terribly long this time. Too many hours were strung together without the sights and smells and really-loud-sounds of home. I told the attendees of BBC Chicago that the chaos of my life breeds my creativity. I stood behind a podium and told my story. I said that without my family, the daily grind, the work of life, I would not write. I would not create. My life and all of its messes, it is the reason I am inspired to allow something artful to flow from me when I can. So on this night I tucked them in and then I climbed up the bunk bed ladder and lay down with Asher. I held the book out in front of him so he could see the occasional pictures. Miles ended up coming up the ladder and climbing in with us. It’s only […]
Do what you love. Don’t leap before grace. Clear eyes. Full hearts. Can’t lose. I have these sayings up around my office. They’ve been there so long, I don’t notice them. It’s funny, how we hang up words that we want to live by and then they become background to living, invisible. I hardly even see them anymore, but every once and a while, I sit and look around and they pull me back to my core, center me and remind me of a few things my spirit knows. Invisible doesn’t have to mean gone. I’m working on a post for tomorrow. It will be up at A Deeper Family. It’s about my grandparents, mostly. It’s part of our story. It’s largely about faith and how they lived it and how I live it the same and differently. It’s mostly God’s story and I wish we could all see that our spiritual paths […]
I’ve probably had too much coffee. I was walking around the bedroom, our bedroom, stepping over dirty clothes and wondering why I went in there. I decided to go down and switch the laundry because the laundry on the floor reminded me. I did that, but I forgot to take the laundry from the floor with me. There’s an anxious pit in my stomach and I’ve never known life without that. Sometimes I remember to stop and ask it why it’s there and much of the time there’s no reason. It just is. Most of the time, I forget about it because it’s all I know. I don’t know what peaceful insides feel like. Please don’t tell me to meditate or pray or take breaks or think differently. I know and do those things, sometimes, and I don’t know, it’s hard to figure and then get a part of yourself out while the […]
My husband comes through the door, shuffling in his slippers. He asks me what I’m still doing up. I’m normally an “early to bed, early to rise” kind of sleeper. I don’t know. I was looking at houses for sale and it’s addicting. I let the iPad fall from my hands to the covers on my belly and yawn while he climbs in and puts his CPAP machine over his goatee, mouth and nose. I giggle. I always do, I can’t help it. I feel like I’m sleeping with a robot or a character out of Star Trek. He has to sort of yell from under the mask for me to hear his seemingly far-away voice… Stop it! Suddenly we’re these parents of three kids and we’re nearing 40 and he has a sleep machine and my favorite thing to do is online real estate searching. I love it. It’s getting too […]
I have a plan, she says. Oh good, I love plans. What is it? I’m going to be an arm chair psychic and have my own television show. I know I’m psychic because I was thinking of a friend and then he called me. We laughed a lot, at this. Yes, yes. Another great plan. Go for it. When people ask how you know you’re psychic, you have SO much proof. No problem! We talked about knowing things. About looking back on the past and celebrating the times we did not get what we thought we wanted. She said, I was going to move to Minneapolis and become a graphic designer. I mean, obviously, if you’re from small town Minnesota, that’s what you do, you strive to move to the Twin Cities. Many of us, anyway. I never did get to Minneapolis, but I’ve had a really interesting life. I got all choked […]
Ask for help. She said, But how? How do you do that? It’s not supposed to be comfortable, you have to be in the discomfort. Let it be uncomfortable. Hi, how are you? Can you help me? Ask that person, the one who loves you so much and so purely that helping you is just fine with them or even better than fine. Like going to a movie or watching fireworks. That’s how people feel about it, you know. They like helping. It’s not pretend and they aren’t lying. Except those that are and if they’ve tricked you before and taken it back or acted put out, they were wrong and you were not. You were strong because it’s weak to carry it all alone. Sorry, but it is. It’s also weak to pretend you like helping if you don’t. I’m not sorry for saying that. We all need to remember that. Me […]
It’s after nine and Asher is still up. Normally, he’s zonked out by 8. He had a nap at daycare today. I can hear him up there on his top bunk, whispering to himself or maybe to God or maybe to a stuffed animal. He climbed down the ladder without waking his brother about ten minutes ago, went to the bathroom and climbed back up. His hair is spiked up on one side from pressing it against a pillow while it was still wet. He looks a little like a cross between a parrot and Jef with one f from the last Bachelorette. We are all exceptionally tired over here, fighting colds and an overly busy weekend. Daddy is gone for work Monday through Wednesday and I’m gone Thursday through Sunday. Time is playing one of its tricks and zooming past us while we trip around trying to keep too many things in […]
Our house has two walls that are all windows. So I guess they aren’t really walls, they’re windows, but you know what I mean. The light is good by those windows. Elsie was standing in front of one of them, between two pulled back curtains, with her blue eyes shining in that light. She had her little dress pulled up and she was pushing her little finger on her little chubby outie belly button. She caught me staring and she giggled. I giggled back and lifted my shirt just a little and let my not so little belly that has housed three not so little babies stick out just enough to show my mother belly button, all stretched out for them. She giggled more. I put my finger on my belly button and she rushed toward me with her finger still on hers and something pulled from my insides like she was going […]
His hair is getting so long because he wants it that way. He’s going for a cross between an 80’s hair band and a skater dude, but he doesn’t really know that’s what he’s going for. He just wants his hair long like two of his cousins. With his brother and sister in daycare two times a week, I pick him up before Daddy picks them up. It’s just the two of us for two whole hours on Mondays and Fridays. It’s Miles and Mommy Time. That’s what we call it, like it’s a book or a movie, all caps. Today we went to the grocery store and he picked out his snack. Cashews from the bulk bins and a bottle of water. Well, he tried for an orange soda after he had gone to get a water but when he held it up to ask without words and I shook my head, […]
My feet are probably making a thwap thwap thwap sound, but I can’t hear it because my ear buds are full of Mumford and Sons. I will wait, I will wait, I will wait… and it’s hard not to sing out loud at the top of my lungs. I still throw my arms out sometimes, to the beat. Like I’m a drummer. A thirty-seven year old mother and wife from Minnesota, on a run on a tar path, air drumming. Sometimes I jump up to touch a leaf on a low branch, for that little zing of energy that trees give away for free. My head is full of anticipation and some angst, but I will wait, I will wait, I will wait. I’m tired of pushing My Way up a hill like I can control a boulder. I want to be pulled by a way that isn’t mine but is the best […]
Our cupboards are bare. Not of food and pots and pans and a crock pot and vases. There is plenty on the shelves, but we’ve taken all the doors off and pulled all the drawers out. We began a project that seems simple enough until you actually do all the things it takes to do the thing. We need to sand first, but even before that, we’re marking each door and drawer so we remember where they came from. Otherwise it gets to be kind of a puzzle and you have to keep trying each space until the drawer slides in easily or the two doors close up with out banging together. Miles was using the drill to unscrew the hardware and I was pulling the doors off when he’d get to the last screw. Asher was feeding us each one pretzel at a time, while Daddy wrote up a map and numbered […]
Asher passed me saying I can’t find my hair I fight back a giggle what do you mean, sweetie? The hair for my guy! he says it like it’s so obvious. Legos. Oh yes, the Lego hair. I find it later behind the bathroom door so I think it’s poop but it’s bright plastic brown hair. Asher’s hair is so blonde it’s white. He’s not home but I’ll tell him later. This morning he stood next to me feeling the tubing under his skin I said, do you know what that is? No, mommy. That’s the tube that goes up to your head to your shunt and it makes your body work right. His little growing less chubby hand rests there at the tube under his skin next to me on his neck. He looks deep in thought and I tell him that what’s under his skin makes him have tools of power […]
The house is growing dark around me. I just got the small people to bed after a busy day of re-entry, all of us home from time away. Ryan and the kids went Up North to stay with Auntie Janie and I was in NYC for BlogHer ’12. Ryan left this morning for a short work trip. He gets back on Wednesday and I leave Thursday for Kentucky. Life is normally not like this. We are not jet-setters. Well, I’m not while he is, but only because he works all over the place sometimes. Something about software. BlogHer ’12 was so beautifully exhausting. I roomed with Ellie and Maggie and I saw so many people I love like crazy and on Saturday night one of my favorites of them wrote on my skin with a big fat marker, “Go to the love.” I had heard this the night before from a new friend. […]
We woke up a little later than usual on Sunday. This only happens when our early bird alarm clock that goes by the name of Miles actually sleeps past 5:45. Oh yes, an early bird he has always been. To roll over to peer one-eyed at the clock and find the first number is a 7 is a true gift. I made coffee and put my feet up, held the iPad and did pretty much nothing. Ryan shifted next to me, he’s always moving. Maybe boys never grow out of that. His newspaper was making those whispering and rustling sounds that only come from those good ol’ feather-light newsprint pages. Asher climbed up next to me and handed me “James and the Giant Peach”. He wanted to know what was going to happen next. Elsie took dominoes from their tin container, one by one, setting them scattered across the table and onto the […]
She toddle-followed me to the door, getting nervous. She always wants to go with me, through any door. She wants outside and me. She loves both a whole lot. Elsie Jane, my little but fierce follower. I was dropping her at daycare for the first time. She and her brothers will be there two days a week while I work. Write. Work. Write. Mother. Yes, I bit back tears when I drove away and no, they weren’t guilty tears. They were mother tears stripped of guilt because I’m learning it’s not so much about what I’m doing but what I’m thinking about what I’m doing. I could so easily ask myself if it’s wrong for my kids to be away from me when I’m not actually punching any type of clock, but I’m not. I’m a late bloomer, always so slow to grow up, fighting it. So I easily question myself, assuming I […]
The lake is my happy place. My home. I love the way the water catches the light and the way the spray feels coming up over the sides of the boat. I love the faint fish smell mixed with sunscreen and fresh air. On the 4th of July, I loved sitting in a tube with Ryan, bouncing and laughing like little girls. (Yes, my husband, he does go right ahead and laugh like a little girl. It’s actually more inspiring than it is disturbing, surprisingly.) We bounced and let the sun reflect off our white legs and our boys watched from the boat, timid. Then we swam and Miles’ face lit up when I dumped myself over the back of the tube in a backwards somersault. Lakes make you feel more alive and it’s been so hot that the water was warm, I swear. It kept us from feeling the 100 degrees. That’s […]
I’ve been writing nearly all afternoon. I can’t tell you how long it’s been since that was the case. Simple uninterrupted time is a beautiful thing. And now I can’t wait for Ryan and the kids to walk back in that door. Asher will be sure to say something funny and Miles will lean into my side to hug me. Elsie will say Ma.Ma.Ma…over and over and over and come at my legs like hers have springs. Right now though, I love this time to just write. Before this afternoon it had been a couple of days since my fingertips had found their way or the time for a keyboard. When I sat down to log in and felt the familiar smooth indent of the keys and heard the clickety clack, I said, right out loud, OH I missed you! We had a combined birthday party for Miles and Asher this weekend and […]
There were older boys walking by and they took the boys’ soccer ball as they went and kept going. This was quickly reported back to the mother whose house our boys were playing in front of with friends. She told her oldest son to go get the ball. Just ask them if the ball is theirs, she said. So he did. He gathered courage and picked up his bike and hopped on to go find them and it was almost like he wanted the challenge–the adventure. He came back with the ball. My eyes were wide when she told me this, the way she encouraged her boy to figure it out. She told him, If they won’t give it back, just leave. It’s not worth fighting over. He came back with the ball. No big thing. He surprised them. He said they acted nervous and couldn’t answer his question. Is that your ball? […]
I was looking at pictures on facebook. Beautiful ocean Instagrams to be exact. The kind that make you feel the salt water on your skin and the wind blowing your hair all the way over here in Minnesota, where we are ocean-less but full of lakes. The truth is, the ocean terrifies me. It’s beautiful and epic and I love it and it terrifies me. There are so many parts of me like this. Like that Sara Groves song says, “I’ve got layers of lies that I don’t even know about yet.” I haven’t been lying about how I feel about the ocean, that’s not what I mean. It just takes me awhile to admit some things to myself and then out loud to be heard and either tossed or taken in. There are layers with truths because my fear of the ocean goes beyond a fear of drowning or being eaten by […]
A fluffy baby robin bounced around our patio door like a little plastic wind-up bird. I could hear that tick tick sound of the dial on his side even though it wasn’t actually there. I knew he was a boy because bright orange is pushing through the down on his chest. He click click hopped up on a chair and stared at me, head turned for his side-eye to get a good look. I nearly cried for him because I know where he came from, his mama’s nest is right outside my kitchen dishes-washing window. I ran over to see if his brother or sister (I can’t see the chest) was gone or if his mama was around to find him way on the other side of the house. There was his sibling, head held up high searching around peep peep peep. I wondered if the wind blew out our patio visitor because […]
Finally, I had time to sit with all of the submissions to the Use Your Words essay contest. With each and every one, my heart found touchpoints, the kind that mothers feel when we share our stories, the details of the beautiful mess. Reflections. She said, the lights were too bright in the hospital and she said she was scared on African soul, a new boy put in her arms, he’s yours now. What do I do with him? Where do I start? Who will tell me what to do? ::: She said she was scared on a hospital bed, arms spread out in the operating room. My life is over and begun. Every word and every line and every essay, a theme. We are all so scared at the start–that enormous engulfing fear, like lava, she said, how she flew over a volcano and saw Mother Earth spit it forth–covering and engulfing. […]
A robin was looking right back at me when I looked up. An orange breast just staring at me from a branch next to the kitchen window. I said HI out loud because when you live in the land of mostly cold weather, seeing a robin sends a flood of renewal through your toes and fingertips. I set down the dirty dish I was about to put in the dishwasher and I went out back to let out the chickens and then to watch them. There is heat in the morning air and there is a new kind of first light I wear flip flops or no shoes and see longer grass every morning. The boys are sprinkler jumping and bubble blowing and Elsie is sitting in the grass and taking it all in. She’s new here, to spring, and I think she likes it. Especially the grass and the chickens. The chickens […]
On Sunday morning Asher shouted, We have a leak! and I came down the stairs to see him standing barefoot, water up to his ankles, Legos floating by, plastic bobbing up and down and laughing at me in primary colors. RYAN!!! That was me, with the shouting this time and there came my husband to stand at the bottom of the stairs with me in disbelief. It had rained and rained the night before. So much that a big empty plastic bin that was sitting outside in the storm was full halfway up by morning. And this would be the night that our sump pump up and stopped working. I could write a million whining words about the mess, I really could. The sopping wet very large area rugs, the piles of soaked laundry, etc…but unusually, this became a day that I may even call good. There was panic at first and while […]
The weekends have been rolling through with paintbrush strokes lately. There have been many more bright yellows and reds where there had been a lot of darker things, like depression and colic. We are moving now, wheels turning down the road to places with familiar faces and isn’t it silly that I started to wonder if that would ever happen again? If we would always stand still? You do, you know? You start to believe that “it will always be this way” whatever that way is, but it never stays. We have that one constant, in counting on change. You would think I’d be sure of it by now but I still get scared sometimes when things are hard. I get scared they will only stay hard or get harder. But this weekend Miles had a play date and there was a pizza fundraiser and a huge indoor garage sale where I got […]
