1. So, that One Room at a Time thing? We’re still doing that, it’s just that it’s taking a really long time to do one room at a time. We’ve been working on the dining room for a while now. I still plan to do some Big Reveals complete with riveting before and after pictures, but stuff keeps getting in the way. Like life. Silly life. 2. I’m really excited to be starting something new here on the ol’ blog. I’m going to be interviewing people, about their life stories and then writing about them here. You know, like I’m a jouranlist of my own making or something. I’m actually interviewing my friend Jen this very day about her journey with breast cancer, starting in her early twenties. She’s absolutely beautiful and a complete rock star and I can’t wait for you to meet her. I want to call this series something but […]
I was sneaking up on it because it’s fragileit’s trying so hard It is one of fourFour flowering treesin our yardFour!These are pictures of oneand of my shadowand they are stretching together Me and the tree Hi little petals,just a moment agoyou were only tiny bumps on brown sticks But you’ve been stretchingand growing and I could kiss youYou are the kind of good thingthat appears out of nowhereovernight With a reaching andgloriousBOOM! BANG! POW!I love BOOM! BANG! POW! Oh and wait. There’s a bird’s nest with eggs tucked insideright outside my kitchen window? Oh, yes.Don’t worry, little fellaswhen I see those pesky squirrels sneaking up on youI will stop washing dishes and I will scare them with aknock on the windowWorks every timeBOOM! BANG! POW! {This post is a part of You Capture at I Should Be Folding Laundry} Thank you for allowing me to pop up in your inbox and for […]
I had to take deep breaths and put my head down, waiting for it to pass. I could feel it coming, the panic. The need. I thought about how I need to be stronger to handle this. I can’t do this, I thought. Who am I doing this for? I think I’d be drinking if I wasn’t worried about what people think. Ugh that’s awful, I thought of me. You’re so selfish, I said to me. You would drink even though you have these two boys who are being so good to you and this husband who patiently understands you. Really? Who are you doing this for if not for them and you and God? And you’re not. You’re doing this because you said you would and you don’t even want this. In that moment I hated me. And I put my head down and I was gasping for air and I just […]
I finished Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller on Friday. Then on Saturday I went to pick up his latest book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. As Anne Lamott says, “I love Donald Miller. He’s a man after my own heart.” I’m going to have to paraphrase a line from Blue Like Jazz because I’ve already given my copy of the book to a friend. There is no more powerful drug than the addiction to self. (Sorry, Don. I probably butchered that. That line I’m remembering was probably more poetic and profound and probably hilarious, because that’s just you.) Anyway. Of course I thought of this line on Saturday when there I was, with myself taking pictures of myself in the bathroom mirror for myself’s profile pictures on the world wide web. Ouch. The thing is, I wasn’t taking those pictures because I think I’m hot. Actually, it’s more that I […]
I saw him first through a small window on a wooden door. The living room full of people shouted RYAN! to the stocking capped and goatied man peeking. He ducked. I laughed. He popped up and then in and through, being tackled by old college buddies. He tackled back, to the floor, rolling and yelling. He was loud. I laughed. I knew hardly anyone at the party and I was feeling insecure in the not knowing and small talk. There were appetizers and only sodas to drink. No alcohol, my usual defense, the wall I would build between myself and my lacking self worth, to look at ease and confident. He sat down by the chips and salsa and he asked what I do. I told him that I was a social worker. He stammered a bit, trying to think of the next question. He said, what uh…what um… Population? I asked, thinking […]
It’s Wednesday and it’s 9pm and the last of my two restless children has given into sleep. Finally. Ryan is out of town for work, so friends, the days are very long and let me just say that I’m…well, exhausted. Already. And it’s Wednesday. Half-way. If you are a single parent, I honestly want to kiss your face right now and tell you what a freaking rock star you are. Just saying. I’m sitting here with my feet up and my computer on my lap and Idol Gives Back on the TV. I haven’t watched Idol even one time this season, but I’m always intrigued and softened and reminded by Idol Gives Back, and so I watch.I was thinking back on today and when I tried to think about the morning I absolutely could not believe that I was thinking back on the same day I’m living right now. The morning was such […]
The next morning I woke up to a small finger tap-tap-tapping my arm.Mommy, he said, Is it Mommy and Miles Day again? No sweetie, it’s our whole family’s day today, but that sure was fun, wasn’t it? Puppy dog eyes. And it was. It was so good. We boarded a bus in the morning and bounced our way to St. Paul for a day at the Children’s Museum with other families from Miles’ preschool. We even got to see Uncle K for a while. When Miles ran to hug him I thought, I haven’t seen him that excited in a really long time. He misses living by Uncle K. We explored inside the museum…always really quickly, from thing to thing to thing. I tried hard to fight the Mommy Fears, the ones that rear their ugly head and make me think of injuries and kidnapping. Seriously. Motherhood is hard on a girl’s brain, […]
Dear Fellow Mommyblogger,That title up there? Is that okay with you? Because it’s true. You know the Mary Kay lady stereotype well, right? The one a dear friend of mine deals with every day, since she’s a Mary Kay lady?Still makin’ people pretty? Do you drive a pink Cadillac? *wink wink* All the questions asked of her are tinged with that patronizing tone of humor, as if she’s pretending at something. As if she’s doing something cute and silly most likely because she can’t do anything else. My friend’s car is not pink but it did come from Mary Kay. She’s a total Mary Kay sell out. She doesn’t apologize for it, she loves it. She loves her job and the women she’s come to know because of it. She happens to care about moisturizing and color-matching and protecting skin from the sun. She happens to care about helping women feel just a […]
Say ‘chubby bunnies‘ I SAID, say ‘chubby bunnies‘ Disclaimer: No one was traumatized while squished cheeks were being coaxed to spill their chubby bunnies. There were no tears. There was no pain, no fits. Except for fits of the giggles. And then he said, I’m not just your average boy, Mommy. He’s not, you know. I haven’t met an average boy yet,especially mine. ~~~~~ I’ve been trying to write a post for a few days now. It’s a Very Important Post. Or something. Actually, I have about five posts working, saved as drafts, just a-sittin‘ there a-wishin‘ they were fishin‘. Or… a-finished. What? I don’t have any idea what that meant, but now here I am writing this nonsensical post off the top of my head instead of those other ones. It seems that any time I sit down to spend some time on the world wide web these days, something comes up. […]
He is not a kid on a table or a boy looking up at his Mommy for a hug.He is Snoopy and he’s on his dog house and he can’t wait to fly a plane with a cape.He is pawing at Charlie Brown, begging for a treat.I’m Charlie Brown. This is fitting because I have a really hard time figuring out how to grow up.I trust Lucy over and over and end up flat on my back while she laughs. I have the imagination of a child and sometimes, when I should sit up and learn something,it’s like my teacher is going ‘wa wa wa wa wa waaaa.’My brain is too busy to take these lessons to heart. I’m always thinking, just like that boy of mine, never taking things at face value,always digging deeper. And at the end of the day, we’re both terribly exhausted, the world finally dimming down, hiding at […]
I hung up the phone, cutting short a conversation that would have no end if we had our way, and sat in a happy and contented glow. I had been talking to my friend Ellie, and when I read her an excerpt from Kelly Corrigan’s book The Middle Place, I didn’t have to explain what I loved about it. She just knew, she got it, and that’s why I read it to her. I knew it would hit the same part of her heart-gut as mine. To someone else, maybe even my loving husband, the simple-but-poignant-to-me paragraph may have fallen flat. But that doesn’t happen with kindred spirits. Our souls high five at the recognition of the same things in the same way. We women do transcend, don’t we? We sit in moments together that smack of eternity and grace. We forgive each other our inevitable annoying quirks and mistakes. And as we […]
I took a trip to IKEA yesterday with some friends. We came across something I couldn’t leave there… I really don’t know why it says EO, but it’s on my office chair now. I’ll rest my back on it while I frequently visit my friend Lee’s brain child. You should too, it’s spot-on-smart and moving and funny and informative and good. I hope your Wednesday is the same. Thank you for allowing me to pop up in your inbox and for reading my words, silly or serious. I appreciate you. ~Heather
I was in church, for Easter, and I felt nothing. I have been feeling guilty for my lack of feeling in church my entire life. It isn’t that I don’t like church, at least not most of the time. It’s something else. My emotions over the things of faith aren’t triggered in a place of worship often. But as an aside, you should know that they are triggered here… Easter2, originally uploaded by Heather of the EO. In the changing landscape of a Midwestern spring. In the face of a boy I was once worried I may not keep. My soul wells up with hallelujahs on a daily basis, in the ordinary things of life. I carry those praises along in my heart and when we go to church, something happens to them. They go quiet. Sure, sometimes I have a moment, a certain song or words said at just the right time […]
I want to remember it all.How can we spend so many hours in a daytrying and then forget the vibrant colors,the details and sounds and smellsand all the minutes?I get sad over that. I’m left with bits and pieces,when I look backover just one year. There are only parts of picturesflashing through my mind,the whole erased with the addingof hundreds of long days. These days are too beautiful and messyand hard and goodto forget, but I will.I will only remember theparts that were the most feltand so I work on feeling. And then the shadows of all these things,dark and vibrant, light at the edges,will make a home in my heart.Even while the colors escape my mind. And I will know it allbecame a part of me.Of us. The way we spent our daystryingtogether.The long hours spentin the hard and the goodand the beautiful and the messy. The shadow of always belongingtucked there […]
