I’m sad. Which makes very little sense considering I’m excited and happy. I spent the day with my cousin and her groom on Saturday, taking pictures. Their wedding took place at a beautiful camp on a beautiful lake surrounded by beautiful fall leaves. My cousin, she is almost strangely similar to me. She’s creative and sensitive, giggly and anxious, friendly and maybe a little scared. Her eyes are the brightest blue; they matched the lake in the background. She is many years younger than I, and her youth shines from her skin and her smile and her hair is the most beautiful blonde flowy hair. When I was her age, I downed Dr. Pepper like it was water and furiously chewed the left over ice cubes. Amby does the exact same thing. I’m working on editing some of the pictures from her day so I can send them to she and Michael before […]
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 […]
{all the photos in this post came from google images after searching “Father of the Bride” house and “mid-century modern homes”} ::::: Hi, my name is Heather and I am an OnlineHouseHuntingAholic. Since we’re sort of kind of planning to move, I have been spending a lot of time on the web, surfing through homes, putting in my criteria and then refining the searches. It’s like smoking, only you don’t get cancer. Unless we find out that too much time on the computer gives you cancer, which we probably will…but I digress. That’s depressing. Looking at houses is not, so let’s do that: Realtor.com (hat tip to Erin) – Realtor.com also has an excellent app for your smart phone. This helps while you’re out and about, in finding homes for sale near you. Despite too many ads on the website, Realtor.com is clean and easy to use. TheMLSonline.com (hat tip to […]
Maybe there’s a word for this nesting place. This place where perhaps we’re nexting, looking on to the Next Big Thing, finally, for the right reasons and at the same time, we’re right here. We are right here and open to NOWAYYOUARENOTCHANGINGATHING if that’s the message we receive. And we will still tantrum like the children we sometimes are because we’re not getting our way but then we’ll sit in the morning light and talk it out and let it go. Whatever will be, will be. We’re in flux and in the middle and ahead and behind and not any of those things all at once. We’re planning (sort of but not really because planning isn’t even the right word when you’re content with whatever) a move back to the Twin Cities. We’re working hard on our house, the house we absolutely adore, to make it ready to sell. Our hearts get heavy […]
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 […]
About one hundred years ago I shared our office before and after photos. I said I was starting a series called one room at a time and then I never brought it up again. I think that was about two and a half years ago. So I guess this is going to be a really long series. Actually, we’ve gotten a lot more done on our house in the past few months than in the entire time we’ve lived here. So maybe I’ll get to show you before and after photos room by room much faster now. Or maybe not. You never know. What I do know, is that I’m able to show you the dining room now because it’s done! One whole completely done room! Go us! Here are some photos to give you an idea of what it looked like when we first moved in: So now, because of that totally […]
Dec, 2008 I typed in the title of this post and then got all shaky and had that limbs going numb kind of nervous feeling that comes from your core. Every time I even talk about Asher’s hydrocephalus it can turn into this. I’m okay, but I’m not okay, and that’s okay. That’s true for Asher, too. Over the last three years, I’ve slowly started to dip my feet in a deeper hydrocephalus knowledge pool, not by googling (THANK GOD) but by asking Dr. P. the hardest questions and thinking all the way through things rather than pushing away uncomfortable possibilities. Hydrocephalus is not a death sentence, but the reality is that it can be. 50% of shunts malfunction within two years. That percentage rises as more years go by, and malfunctions are too often deadly. You know what? That scares the hell out of me. I know I can’t sit forever in […]
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, […]
I was rushing to get out the door to pick up Asher at preschool at one end of town and then get his brother in the middle of town and then drive out the other end of town to get Elsie. I wanted candy. I grabbed an apple. GO ME! (I didn’t have any candy.) I was driving with one hand and chomping CRUNCH my green apple in the other and the stem came off. It reminded me of when I was a kid and my friends and I would play the ABC game while twisting the stem. Whatever letter you were on when the stem broke loose was the first letter of your future husband’s name. Of course, we worked hard to pull the stem free at the first letter of the name of the boy we were “going with” at the time. Then we’d play M.A.S.H. on the bus or at […]
When Ryan is out of town for work, we sometimes get time to talk on the phone at some point during the day, but mostly we don’t get that time. He’s super busy with teaching some sort of software thingys to people and I’m busy…yeah, busy. Three kids + one of them being a very demanding and quite feisty little lovely creature + the start of school + working + All THE THINGS = a very tired and forgetful mommy. I was talking to Ellie yesterday and she knows how much I love Elsie Jane, how grateful I am for her. So I can vent and say that sometimes, when Elsie is especially…spirited…I feel like I might explode or like my insides are just going to turn to mush and then I’ll fold over and be stuck like that for a few days. Which doesn’t sound so bad, actually. As long as I […]
I’m so honored to tell you that I’m now a contributing writer at A Deeper Story’s sister site, A Deeper Family. I’ve been a subscriber of A Deeper Story for a long time, and I’m just plain excited to be a part of the Deeper Family Family. Heh. I don’t speak a lot of Christianese here at The EO. It’s not a secret that I’m a Christian, but I’m, in all honesty, quite uncomfortable with one word labels. I own my faith with no regret or shame, but I walk around with it quite differently than a lot of people with the same label. We all do. We’re all so much more than one word and we all put on all of our descriptors in different ways. I get terribly itchy around Christians, that’s just the honest truth. This is understandable since I’ve been trying to shake off some hurtful things for many […]
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 […]
