no ones future to decide
July 30, 2007 | Filed Under ordinary | Leave a Comment
will it rain today? we don’t know as we look over the shoulders of the sun’s security guards for the occasional glimpse of something golden. i want to sleep the day away between books and the purr of the cat. it is not to be so. ernie is probably wishing harder for sleep, coming to bed after four last night, distracted from reading and fiddling with his camera. i don’t know how he makes it on four hours of sleep or less, but he does.
obsessing over the stitching of these for weeks, i finally gave them to annie for marshall whose feet will be born soon and can be dressed in flannel cuteness. heather bailey’s bitty bootie pattern has been in a stack of “to try” patterns for over a year and now that i’ve tried them i cannot stop. this morning i cut out three more pairs, two for new babies, one for my niece, whose fat feet will be the first girly booties i get to try. i’ve been making them all by hand instead of employing the machine because it’s a quiet project for nighttime when the idea of waking up a kid is not appealing at all.
i’ve found the perfect waffle recipe at last, one that has no sugar in the mix and is kind of eggy tasting so it’s really yummy and not too sweet with syrup. although, syrup is all that jude seems to care about when eating waffles, the pouring of it, the filling of every square, the licking and tasting. it’s a sticky disaster that ernie and i can hardly bear to watch.
i got the recipe for the waffles from a sadly unused cookbook my mother gave me a long time ago. i altered it a bit because i had less sour cream than i thought i had (just substituting milk) but it worked out just as well as i think it could have.
sour cream waffles (by someone named deanna brasch in iowa)
1c. flour
1t. ea. baking soda, baking powder, salt
2 eggs, separated and divided
1 c. sour cream
2/3-3/4c. milk
mix the dry. add egg yolks and sour cream. add milk until it’s a pancake-y consistency. beat egg whites until stiff and add to flour mixture. cook in greased waffle iron until golden brown. serve with syrup and big napkins.
she love some waffle house?
July 29, 2007 | Filed Under ordinary | Leave a Comment
the weekend disappearing, rain and gray and cloud spin together in webs over and beyond. towels on the clothesline were rained on three times before i could manage to take them down and start over in the washing machine. drowning laundry is depressing to see when driving around the house and into the drive, pelting into the house in five leaps and more little tiptoeing steps, glancing out of the dotted window, through glass and screen.
the rain brings jude’s morning glories to new heights and blooms, hypnotizing in purple as we stare at them from above. ernie cuts the grass in long strides, “just like i do, mom,” jude boasts of his thrifted yard machine with which he imitates his poppy.
friday, before the rain, we trekked around the paths of the zoo to see animals that weren’t bats or lions but were intriguing and imitative all the same. i brought home a cheetah (henry) and an alligator (jude) who walked on his hind legs looking for little boys to eat for dinner. we look at the pictures and jude tells me to “turn the elephant around so that i can see his trunk,” and “make ethan look at us instead of at the monkey.” too bad photographs don’t move around on screen and paper like they do in magical worlds.
speaking of, i was as sad as everyone else who looked forward to escaping from our own muggle worlds and dursley acquaintances to reach the end of the harry potter books. i do look forward to enjoying them with my children, but it won’t be the same the next time around.
yesterday we hired the Favorite Babysitter to come and play while we ran off alone and without supplies. jude cried when we came home. i would have left again had it not been ten thirty and had we not already paid the Favorite Babysitter a small fortune. we bought books and weird cold coffee drinks (blueberry? good, but what was i thinking? i was thirsty.), dinner, spent birthday gift cards on things for kids. and henry is now the proud owner of some kicking new vans that were only ten dollars. what? i thought it was a joke, but the very pierced girl chewed on one of the metals in her lip and told me that she wouldn’t joke around like that.
he leaps
July 27, 2007 | Filed Under ordinary | Leave a Comment
tireless, we send them in laps around the circle in the house, through the kitchen, the study, the dining room, the living room, the hall, and back into the bedroom where the adults read books and use a timer, calling out in cheers to keep them moving. they race backwards, crawling, in slow motion, speedy and screaming. they still burst in sparkler fountains and should be entered in triathlons for the energetic and young.
today we head to the zoo, where jude fears the unfolding of leathered bat wings and they both want pacing lions, large paws and manes, curling lips. i hope for a breeze and a lazy sunshine, but know better. hermit that i prefer to be, i make myself do these things, to leave the house, to converse with real people, to be busy about town. i can’t decide whether or not to wear the new! shoes! for my birthday! (thanks, mom!) for this excursion but even in my indecision i know that i won’t because they’re new! and the zoo doesn’t seem like a good starting point for shoes of new.
before 7, after 6
July 25, 2007 | Filed Under ordinary | 3 Comments
i wonder when it is that we turn from chirping birds in the morning into slow bodies moving heavily in squints from the bed, the bathroom, the kitchen, the coffee, the chair? clearly it isn’t by age five. we all start out as morning people, don’t we, the best of us before lunch, the worst to come after?
this morning we were picking up (mostly green) tomatoes that had fallen from the plants, inspecting half-eaten bugs and the ants parading to and from, chasing the escaping indoor cat through the yard, wielding swords, eating breakfast, fiddling with the camera, and cramming in a few more paragraphs (annoying to read it this way!) of potter adventures all before the coffee perked and sighed in the kitchen. i’m exhausted already and it’s only half past nine.
celebration weekend
July 23, 2007 | Filed Under ordinary | Leave a Comment
birthday good
50 millimetre surprise
food i didn’t cook, twice
coffee in various forms
grocery shopping alone
flowers, by henry
greene egg books!
cash
late night quiet
breezy saturday morning
wii with friends
cheesecake
tomatoes and corn
cello for church
harry potter, uninterrupted
presents that arrive late in the mail
birthday bad
way too early rising
awkward party (not for me) involving screaming man with cane and bored nine year olds
party throwers who don’t tip the entertainment
harry potter, interrupted
uncharged camera (?) unavailable for instant 50 mm exploration gratification
“a friend for the lonesome to talk to”
July 21, 2007 | Filed Under ordinary | Leave a Comment
it’s saturday morning and i’m not preparing myself for a morning of twirling about in a smile for families with small children that think i’m the greatest way to launch into a weekend. unless i’m surprised with a kindermusik class for the month of august, i won’t be teaching again until late january, when the babe has been born and swaddled and clucked at, when christmas surprised and sparkled for a month or so, and winter has sogged its way back into recollection.
it seems like a long time until then, with so many things to plan, to do, to photograph, to remember. a long time, and no time at all. i’m not sure i’m ready for another baby, some days i barely keep it together to get to bedtime, and this is with two kids who do many things independently. i see mothers doing things with their babies and i realize that i, too, will bounce through the house with a baby inconsolable, will be swishing diapers in the toilet, will smell of breastmilk and puke, will be ever more alert in the night, the naps, the constant. i know that it will be as it has been before, that birth and baby will become natural again, the terrain of our family moving upward and expanding will seem as though it is as it always has been and ever will be. i find it hard to picture this newness, though, at least tonight, and yesterday, and all too frequently these days of summer storm and heat.
a couple of weeks ago my brother and his family lost the baby they were expecting and growing, the baby that was to be born in november. he was a boy, perfect and tiny, birthed and held and loved. i try to attach words to my own grief, which is in no way equal to theirs, of course, and can’t seem to find any words at all. each time our baby swims and kicks and tosses in quivers inside me i think of stacie and clayton and their irreplaceable loss. i feel guilty for complaining about the fatness of my pregnant body, the impossibility of comfortable sleep. i wonder why God chooses to allow such things to happen to his children. if you think to pray for them, please do.
“a friend for the lonesome to talk to”
July 21, 2007 | Filed Under ordinary | Leave a Comment
it’s saturday morning and i’m not preparing myself for a morning of twirling about in a smile for families with small children that think i’m the greatest way to launch into a weekend. unless i’m surprised with a kindermusik class for the month of august, i won’t be teaching again until late january, when the babe has been born and swaddled and clucked at, when christmas surprised and sparkled for a month or so, and winter has sogged its way back into recollection.
it seems like a long time until then, with so many things to plan, to do, to photograph, to remember. a long time, and no time at all. i’m not sure i’m ready for another baby, some days i barely keep it together to get to bedtime, and this is with two kids who do many things independently. i see mothers doing things with their babies and i realize that i, too, will bounce through the house with a baby inconsolable, will be swishing diapers in the toilet, will smell of breastmilk and puke, will be ever more alert in the night, the naps, the constant. i know that it will be as it has been before, that birth and baby will become natural again, the terrain of our family moving upward and expanding will seem as though it is as it always has been and ever will be. i find it hard to picture this newness, though, at least tonight, and yesterday, and all too frequently these days of summer storm and heat.
a couple of weeks ago my brother and his family lost the baby they were expecting and growing, the baby that was to be born in november. he was a boy, perfect and tiny, birthed and held and loved. i try to attach words to my own grief, which is in no way equal to theirs, of course, and can’t seem to find any words at all. each time our baby swims and kicks and tosses in quivers inside me i think of stacie and clayton and their irreplaceable loss. i feel guilty for complaining about the fatness of my pregnant body, the impossibility of comfortable sleep. i wonder why God chooses to allow such things to happen to his children. if you think to pray for them, please do.
“i know you can, and you can”
July 20, 2007 | Filed Under ordinary | 1 Comment
windy, that air out there, blowing to remind us of itself. windy, but weedy and thick, like the place in the back that hasn’t been mown, tall, green, damp in the shade and humidity. windy, but hot, leaves stuck and sticky in a secret handshake tossed up and over.
free coffee today at a new drive through coffee place in greenville. it was seriously free, all of the coffee choices, and it was good coffee, which surprised me, because as much as i want to say goodbye to starbucks, other places just don’t compare and i end up paying close to four dollars for something that was gross. take a book and wait in the driveway and try new coffee today. crossing over wade hampton on pleasantburg as though you’re on your way to cherrydale, you’ll see the brick house coffee on your left. there are sweaty people waving their arms on the sidewalk, so it’s hard to miss. free coffee is always something for which to stop, stare, sip.
we’ve discovered a new way to enjoy long hours of sleep without little feet sneaking into our bed: having both boys co-sleep together tricks them into thinking that i am there to snuggle. when they wake up and reach out for someone else’s body heat, they find just that, only it’s not mine, and they don’t fully wake up enough to realize this fact as they roll over and find a snore to breathe. this is very fantastic, really, and would be even more fantastic if ernie and i actually slept during this very long stretch of quiet and rest, instead of prowling the night dark and late to find pieces of ourselves in books and music and grown-up television and paper and thread, pieces that only come out at night, the days much too bright with lightning boy voltage, beams and flickers and all.
our cat wakes me up too early each morning, wanting to be fed food from a can. i find it annoying that he can’t feed himself, big boy that he is, that he can’t understand that i want to sleep at least as long as our children. he scratches around the kitchen, meows at my feet, lunges at the door, claws at the furniture, all to lure me from dreams and pillow and into the kitchen. i’ve tried a variety of things to get him to leave me alone and stop with that wretched fake starvation meowing at six each morning, and yet he continues. suggestions, anyone? and nothing mean, please, as we get enough of those from ernie, whose affection for the cat has waned after having lived alone together for two weeks.
“i know you can, and you can”
July 20, 2007 | Filed Under ordinary | Leave a Comment
windy, that air out there, blowing to remind us of itself. windy, but weedy and thick, like the place in the back that hasn’t been mown, tall, green, damp in the shade and humidity. windy, but hot, leaves stuck and sticky in a secret handshake tossed up and over.
free coffee today at a new drive through coffee place in greenville. it was seriously free, all of the coffee choices, and it was good coffee, which surprised me, because as much as i want to say goodbye to starbucks, other places just don’t compare and i end up paying close to four dollars for something that was gross. take a book and wait in the driveway and try new coffee today. crossing over wade hampton on pleasantburg as though you’re on your way to cherrydale, you’ll see the brick house coffee on your left. there are sweaty people waving their arms on the sidewalk, so it’s hard to miss. free coffee is always something for which to stop, stare, sip.
we’ve discovered a new way to enjoy long hours of sleep without little feet sneaking into our bed: having both boys co-sleep together tricks them into thinking that i am there to snuggle. when they wake up and reach out for someone else’s body heat, they find just that, only it’s not mine, and they don’t fully wake up enough to realize this fact as they roll over and find a snore to breathe. this is very fantastic, really, and would be even more fantastic if ernie and i actually slept during this very long stretch of quiet and rest, instead of prowling the night dark and late to find pieces of ourselves in books and music and grown-up television and paper and thread, pieces that only come out at night, the days much too bright with lightning boy voltage, beams and flickers and all.
our cat wakes me up too early each morning, wanting to be fed food from a can. i find it annoying that he can’t feed himself, big boy that he is, that he can’t understand that i want to sleep at least as long as our children. he scratches around the kitchen, meows at my feet, lunges at the door, claws at the furniture, all to lure me from dreams and pillow and into the kitchen. i’ve tried a variety of things to get him to leave me alone and stop with that wretched fake starvation meowing at six each morning, and yet he continues. suggestions, anyone? and nothing mean, please, as we get enough of those from ernie, whose affection for the cat has waned after having lived alone together for two weeks.
most important
July 17, 2007 | Filed Under ordinary | Leave a Comment
i love this. (sent to me by ernie, of course, who finds the nicest things web-wise to send along). i love the dishes, the surfaces, the girl with the bird on her head, the ridiculous collection of wonderful eyeglasses, the crusty breads, he unabashed bowl of fruit-loops, those mystery bowls of something really white and smooth (what is this? must. know.), the expressions that say, “i should have more than coffee, i know, i know,” and “i’m sure you’re wondering how i have time to do breakfast properly.” most of all, i love the project itself, having it for breakfast the other morning (alongside my own pottage of coffee) when i should have been heating up the waffle iron and slicing summer fruit.