weekending
February 28, 2011 | Filed Under weekending | Leave a Comment
i suppose every weekend for everyone blows by too fast. but this one took with it february and i’m ever-so-glad to have the days of march lined up before us. there are daffodils in the yard and on the counter, and forsythia like burning bushes all over the winter brown landscape. the kids play outside longer and take more baths. there is now a thin thread of light just before dinner. sweaters are optional. open windows are required. open windows blowing green and stars through the house. tonight i can hear the long low whistle of the train, several trains in the space of several hours. in the morning the birds are anxious for the day, trees full of them. late this afternoon a storm, long and dark. and with the rain i can feel my worries and sorrows swirl away on a pool that sweeps down the pavement and into the gutter.
this weekend we had the last of the saturday basketball games and a picnic that followed involving cupcakes and certificates and a reasonable amount of running around. there was a nap, a late night or two, a movie night for girls only (i need to go to the movies more often, i do love it so). there were churchy opportunities, pictures hung on walls at last, a tidy house.
this week we will do our work, plant some things in the garden, list new things in the shop, finish up the orders that need finishing, and spend some long minutes in the sun, each of us there together for any space of time in the bright and the gold of it.
flag ribbons
February 23, 2011 | Filed Under extraordinary | 3 Comments
henry has his first performance today. he’s had a handful of lessons and is speeding through his books. it’s exactly what a musician hopes for when her kid starts an instrument. i try to not be david helfgott’s father when henry is practicing. it’s very tempting to shout and wave a metronome in his face but somehow we’re both saved from that.
ernie and i talk about how brilliant the wheels are that turn in the heads of our kids as they learn. this may be the greatest benefit to learning at home, watching the kids figure it out, seeing the person that was just recently a wee baby learn to lift his wrist perfectly off of the keys, repeat complicated rhythms, memorize each piece. most days we don’t have a blazing fire from heaven, endless bottles of oil, children risen from the dead. but when we’re looking we can find our own little miraculous things flitting overhead, flocks of ravens with bread as we wait by the water.
weekending
February 22, 2011 | Filed Under weekending | 1 Comment
basketball, almost the last of it. pizza party. working in the house, out of the house. extra sleep and a long nap under open windows. mobiles here and there. vacuuming. laundry. sunshine in pools and on the back of a wind, over and around us for the whole weekend and into this week. my stupid troubles and sorrows blown out in the white light of sun. there were missionaries at the church, flags and tables with wooden toys and woven clothes on display, worlds not like our own for the learning. another speaker preached but it wasn’t lame like it sometimes can be. also on sunday there was some old fashioned godzilla watching and some pumpernickel bread that was very good toast.
this week we’re keeping up with school, working in new math books, posting new things to the shop, baking cupcakes for a weekend party that requires cupcakes, sewing a valentine skirt for lola because it didn’t get done two weeks ago, watching our seedlings grow the tiniest bit each day, sleeping with open windows as many nights as we can, starting on pinewood derby cars, cleaning out the car, and giving the dusty dog and filthy children multiple, if not daily baths. spring is on the way. we’ve daffodils plucked with too-short stems in jars on the counter to prove it.
bright ships
February 16, 2011 | Filed Under ordinary | 2 Comments
bright, white in the sky, the moon bold faced and shining. far away, a distance i only know in numbers, but clear, valleys and summits in sharp gleaming gray inside the orb light of it.
here, the white bright moon, open and full overhead. here, a night that breathes like curtains in open windows, in, out again. here, a hope of spring in the corners of it, hope riding wings of mercy free, new. these are sharp and real and i have one of those small flashes of clarity right there in the driveway, looking up into the night. the day at my feet, a muddy day that for a splintering second is released, shot upward like a painted rocket with a fiery tail.
weekending (and then some)
February 16, 2011 | Filed Under weekending | Leave a Comment
kites two days in a row
boy basketball
three longish days and a little more of solo parenting
no clean laundry
lots of clean laundry in a heap
tacos, twice
an afternoon with a friend who overlooked the crabbiness of my kids
seeds in their pots
ice cream
valentines delivered
valentines opened
curry dinner with homemade naan success (greek yogurt makes the difference, or so it would seem)
mid-century coffee table as a surprise
flowers from my boys
flowers from my brother
sunshine by the bushel
a tidy backyard
a tidy boys’ room
a tidy dresser
lollipops
less time looking at my phone
more time looking around and about
i’ll come tomorrow, i believe, quite early
February 9, 2011 | Filed Under ordinary | 2 Comments
under the floor, down in the bottom parts of the house i can hear the exclamations and muffled commentary of a televised basketball game. down the hall and down the stairs in another room i can hear the deep of ernie’s voice talking, working on the telephone. he has just had a two hour nap on the couch to empower him to work the night through on projects he can’t finish in the day. he works hard and long but he’s sure to be here for dinner, for bedtime, for weekends, most of them anyway, here and listening to the strings of the simple things that are stretched tight in colored chevron patterns across the loom of our days. sometimes i search for something to tell him about that is more than i have on the edges of my mind and there’s just nothing there at all. it will not always be this way, it hasn’t always been this way.
they say it will snow again this week. jude is planning on freezing more snowballs in the basement freezer, sculpting a snow spider with branches and snow, making reptile feet to strap to his boots for mysterious tracks across the white and into the house. i feel myself pulled further into a february hole, a depression-blue water at the bottom of it, still, deep, cold. i’d like to pull the curtains tight and burrow under covers until the winter is over, seeing no one and doing nothing until narcissus spears up through the dirt in a purple surprise.
we’re feeding the birds, the nuthatches, the chickadees, the fat cardinal mother who dares stay a second longer than the others. the blacks on their wings and heads catch the sun. these are little, saving graces in feathers, shining eyes, the sharp peck of beak.
weekending
February 7, 2011 | Filed Under weekending | 3 Comments
campy bracelet making at a ladies church function
series of basketball games
dirty refereeing that makes us mad
obsessive coupon plotting
feeling depressed, friendless, and excruciatingly dull
dog destruction of toy pistol and other things belonging to jude
two afternoon naps, two days in a row
grocery shopping
late night documentary watching
kids up late, up early
jude wears vintage western shirt and declares he likes it, after all
early church
more depressed, dull feelings
mexican buffet of dreams
football snack food
kids slobbering all over ring pops
little party full of cream cheese laden foods with church people
kids to bed
finishing some mobiles in the dark and quiet
faint football cheering from the family room
possible migraine in the works
bone chewing dog
prayer and hope for perspective that can pull me from this sorry winter funk
cold, brown, february
and the lucky winner is . . .
February 5, 2011 | Filed Under royal buffet | 1 Comment
sarah yacoviello of comment number 23! thanks so much to everyone who entered. and if you aren’t sarah yacoviello, then there’s always next year, right? providing my hands don’t give out.