passing through a town near you...

I shall sign off for a while. Will you miss me? I will most certainly miss all of you.

We have packed and repacked and repacked some more. Less is more I keep chanting in my head. The kids and I are driving to New England, we are excited to be home visiting family and friends. I am excited to be near the seaweedy, greenish, grayish Connecticut coast. When I smell the tangy- salty- air and hear the gulls screeching about I will know it is summertime and we are home.

Perhaps I'll post once in a while but until then take care and enjoy your midsummer dear friends!

of course!

If you knew how much stuff I had to do this week you would roll on the floor in hysterics. It's quite funny. I am amusing myself with my list. If you are a mother you know very well the accomplishing chore list while kids are awake vs kids asleep ratio. That is to say any chores accomplished while children are awake and running full speed through the house can be accomplished in a quarter the time if they are sleeping. Therefore I type and stroll through the house like I have not a thing to do until 8:00pm. Then I turn into a mad woman on a mission. Maybe we should sew ourselves some superhero capes and unitards? With my luck my cape would get stuck in the washing machine agitator and I would sprain my neck and have to lie still for a week and read books and watch long documentaries about the wild west. I will seriously consider sewing myself a cape.

Am I annoying?

Sometimes I annoy myself to no end.

Shall I annoy you with one of the bookcases I bought recently?

I painted it with paint left over from the chicken coop--a kind of willowy green.

Bookcases are always welcome in this house. I added the old medicine cabinet from my grandparents which will most certainly attract a nerf football, because that is just the way things go.

By the way painting a bookcase wasn't on my list this week. Neither is organizing my fabric stash. Which maybe looks dorky? But it's convenient to see what all is there instead of digging through trunks.
We are leaving for vacation soon. So of course I would paint a bookcase and sort through piles of fabric. Isn't that the way things go?

a message

There is such a variety of Dads in the world. They are tall, short, skinny and big bellied. They have long hair, short hair, or even no hair (sorry Uncle Nick). They can be serious and bookish or funny and carefree. All the same most Dads are characters in the big picture of life. We need them to be characters, we would be lost without being able to yell at them about wearing plaids and stripes. And what would we laugh at if we couldn't watch them parade around the yard with their new chainsaw, cutting limbs every which way until the yard looks like a tornado went through it.

I shall share a message in honor of Father's Day because as you can guess he is the best Dad ever.





Love,

Our family is not a traditional one in the sense that you don't come home from work at 5:00 and yell "Honey, I'm home". You are not Ward Cleaver, you are you. When the sting of missing you catches up with our children you always provide just the words of wisdom and care they need. They can feel the glow of your love whether you are near or far. This is because you are a great Dad. Thank you for giving each one of our kids the spark in your eye, the zest to discover life and the ability to enjoy it.

They love you so very much--as do I.

The good and the bad

I'll start with the bad...my mother flies out today. She has been here a month. I think we drove her crazy.

The good...we leave for vacation next week and will see her there--so there is still plenty of time for more crazy antics.

The bad...we have a long drive to bring her to the airport today.

The good...While we are there we will pick up my father in law and brother in law. They will be taking care of our little ranch of sorts while we go on vacation. (The "of sorts" refers to a grumpy mini horse and a small flock of hens) Isn't that a very nice thing to do?

There is more good... Pops ordered these little peepers that arrived yesterday. He is a farm boy in every sense but now living in a condo in FL. I love that he will be here tinkering around and has 30 little chirpy friends to nurture.

Aren't they cute?

Can you guess what they are?

They are super tiny, but not bantams. In fact they aren't even chickens.

They're pheasants. Chirp chirp.

So really, as you can see it's really all good. The only bad around here is that I'm still in my pj's and didn't I say I have to drive to the airport???

*not true to scale

There was a big storm here last night. This made me edgy and fake smiley with the kids, it's our first tornado season in tornado alley. With no basement I can admit it makes me a little nervous. We weathered the storm playing a dozen games of Mad Libs and laughing at our adjectives and nouns that got rather vulgar. The storm passed and we were okay! I shall reenact what happened next, please note these are actors portraying the chain of events and certain items are not true to scale.

Most everyone was off to bed.

I tucked in the little ones.

I stepped outside to look for damage-- I saw a snake in the screen porch. I can't say I like snakes. They are creepy and look slimy and this one looked as if it would bite. I wasn't feeling very brave.

Sam and I used garden tools and a broom hoping to shoo it out. It wouldn't leave. I was feeling even less brave than before. Why do we look so happy?

Even though I love animals and gently let bugs out of the house to fly for freedom...I tried to shoot this snake. I used a BB gun which in reality is silly. I'm confident I could have used a rifle but didn't want to blast a hole in the wall of the house and have to live that down forever. But I did think about it many times. Notice Nana peering out of the door. We were all scared, she was going from window to window with a gallon of paint asking me to drop it on the snake. She has always been resourceful.

I finally called my helpful neighbor to save the day. And he did, catching the snake and taking it to the back of his property to slither away for freedom. Nana, Sam and I hugged and cheered.

Then we all went back in the house. You know all that talk about facing your fears? I think I am more afraid of snakes now. Every time I see a stick in the grass I jump with fear. Snakes are creepy!

Full Circle

Growing up on the bottom end of a large family certain books that were passed from each pair of little hands to the next pair gained not only well creased pages but a verbal history to go with it. By the time they reached my brother and I we heard from many sources which books were really and truly good.

One of these books was a nursery rhyme book by Gyo Fujikawa. I'm not sure where our tattered copy ended up but I felt that thrifted book euphoria (don't you get that?) when I saw this book at a teachers yard sale this morning. The first page I opened to immediately reminded me of the view from our front porch.

By the way the teacher's yard sale was a memorable one. She was retiring after many years, everything she had was in near mint condition. I could have stayed there until dark looking at each and every thing. It was also memorable because Maggie sneezed an enormous sneeze and her gum flew out of her mouth. She tried to act as ladylike as possible to retrieve it. I of course acted like I had never seen her before in my life. This child makes me laugh. Things just happen to her.

bit of sewing

Thanks for requested push to buy the table. But no... I didn't buy it. What a let down, I know. But it's all okay--this past weekend while yard saling in the teeniest, rural "town-wide" yard sale I found a few gems. No table, but two book cases worth their weight in love. I will save them for future project posts, if I pictured them now you would gag a little as they look so meager and humble sitting in the screen porch. Which is fancy talk for saying I'm too lazy to go out on this hot and humid day to take a picture.



June has brought a few troubles for us in this house. But nothing we can't manage. Hadley has been ill, the a/c broke....but it is a big deal as it was 100 degrees here yesterday! I am on the upside of a world famous headache. For a normal person it is just a bump in the road but when you are me--a big baby-- and only think of missing your husband these bumps turn into me, hunched over thinking how will I ever get through this?????? I don't like feeling down, who does? It's getting better, I think.



Anyhow let's be happy and think of happy things. My kids want to go to the water park! I say no way! That is like the last thing I would want to do today! I don't want to walk through the park with a bathing suit wedge and and cowlicky wet hair plastered to my forehead!



Let's talk about Heather Bailey. She always has inspiring thoughts. I saw this skirt and realized I had enough in my stash to make it. So I did.











I wish you each the very best Wednesday ever in the whole history of Wednesday's.

little girl's guide to egg collecting

It is an important job to be the designated egg collector. Think about the hard work each beautiful hen puts into one of those fragile brown wonders. Think of the cakes, cookies and custards that result from our flock. And what about that soft boiled/ salted wonderful morning egg sitting pretty in an egg cup? We love our eggs and our fussy hens.

That's why we hired this particular egg collector.

She's prompt- collecting the eggs like the cable guy from 12:00-7:00pm.

She's careful- only dropping the whole basket two times, which is good considering she spins the basket on her little wrist at 77mph.

She will tell you collecting the eggs is no trouble at all.

But after careful observation I will share two recommendations...

1. Wear blue shoes.

2. Wear a bikini.

Could I? Should I?

I cut this page out of a magazine many years ago because I love the table. Through endless yard sales, estate sales and junk shops I have looked for it. A couple times I have found a similar one but being a stubborn mule with little space to spare I leave empty handed.

But now in a little shop downtown there is this nearly exact table in great condition just begging me to buy it and paint a sweet bouquet of daisies on it. I have been in twice and looked it up, down and all around (that sounds a little odd, eh?). Why can't I just buy something without thinking about it so much? Why do I specifically drive back to the store and still not buy it? It's not an expensive antique. That's why I'm bringing it up here as I just know that though you are dear people you are just the bad influence I need to get the push that says you have to buy that even though there is no room for it.