only a sunfish
April 29, 2011 | Filed Under extraordinary | Leave a Comment
late afternoon, five o’clock or so, the sun comes into every window in the same way, green, gold, catching on glass and flinging shards in rainbow whites on the wall, the floor. it’s the best time of day in the house in the spring, the earliest places of summer, a string of hope from the day. shades and long shadows leaning across the yard, reaching almost close enough to tuck the house in for night, almost, but not yet, a sun sigh, a last glow for the last of a day.
strong armed woman
April 27, 2011 | Filed Under ordinary | 3 Comments
,
sleeping late while the kids feed themselves and fight over legos, making coffee over last night’s dishes, doing the dishes, feed the pup and shoo him off the table, making second breakfasts, sitting down to schoolwork with boys while lola makes big messes in the next room, lunch a bit late, a nap for one or two, kids in the house, out of the house, dirt coming in, toys and blankets going out, reading this to someone, that to another, candyland with lola, an afternoon stretching until dinner, dog in the sun, running over grass fast for a ball, something on the tv, a room picked up here, laundry folded there, snacks, popsicles, drinks of water, an errand perhaps, beginner piano playing, uninspired dinners, a walk in the garden, water the garden, throw the ball for the dog, push the swing for the daughter, show enthusiasm for a sword fight between sons, baths, books, bed, out of bed, send back to bed, a word, two, three with my husband, kiss my husband, oceans of internet, fall asleep reading, fall asleep watching, brush teeth, to bed, to sleep, to sleep late again.
i feel a little lost in this kind of day, this series of days. i can feel the wooden board beneath the knife, the back of my hand. i can smell the cilantro, the lime. i can listen to my son, his young voice narrating the story. i can feel the window’s open air sweep across the back of my neck. i can see the pup, his waiting face at the door. there they are, right before me, noticed and respected and known. notice, respect, know, looking at it all on purpose, doing it to be aware and to be alive and to be thankful. i suppose it’s enough to have this at least, to know what’s going on, what happened, no matter how small. maybe awareness is enough, and maybe it’s okay to be lost in the strings of little things that tie the world together.
cheap as sunlight
April 26, 2011 | Filed Under extraordinary | Leave a Comment
wind, high in the trees, little waves of it coming down to us. the sun is hot on our heads already, the first sunburn of the year on my shoulders, repeated every year about this time. little repetitions in untidy rows, the days in my hands much the same as the days last year, the year before. it’s easy to feel tired of it, harder to know that doing things out of necessity and love can be great deeds in ways i can’t always see. necessity, love, necessity. i need you, i love you, you need me. i remind myself, i say mean things, remind again, mistakes again.
the trees are full green now, summer after summer they are a green forever, pulled back on the exhale, out and deep on the inhale. even when the sky is white with heat they are there, repetitions in leaf and branch, much the same as last year, the years before. in, out, up, over, pull of breeze and push of breeze, sun yellow through green, once and again, once, again.
weekending
April 25, 2011 | Filed Under weekending | Leave a Comment
spring break last week was a lazy one. i worked in the house, made some birds for a wedding, and let the kids play too much wii. this weekend we had dinner with friends on saturday night. the kids ran in the woods and painted eggs and ate pink cupcakes and too many jelly beans. on easter we went to church and celebrated the resurrection of jesus. henry wondered why we couldn’t just rejoice at home, which made me laugh. we could have, of course. it would have been easier for sure. we had a scavenger hunt for easter baskets that had little horse hooks inside them. (did i mention them before?) and later i made an easter feast that wasn’t especially exciting but was more than my usual sunday dinners. i just can’t do the old fashioned sunday dinner at noon or one. i don’t really want to do it, either, which may be the problem. an ideal sunday to me is sleeping in a bit, good coffee, church, a simple lunch, maybe tacos at the cheap mexican place we love with the endless chips and salsa. then a long nap, coffee and cooking a good dinner to eat late with friends, sitting outside until night is long underway. ideal sundays are hard to come by, but i guess ideal days are that way in general.
this week i’m going to try to blog more to gear up for an every-day-in-may posting routine. i feel out of it, just reading other blogs, scrolling through twitter, pinning to pinterest. i need to write more, to take pictures with a camera that isn’t on my phone. this week i’m also sewing some new clothes for lola and hoping to stumble across (this is so hopeful it’s ridiculous) a vintage mexican peasant blouse or dress or tunic, preferably in a darker color, like navy or maybe turquoise at the thrift. i know, completely ridiculous. it would be a miracle. if you see one and you don’t want it for yourself (i’m talking to you, annie) please call me immediately. or text. i’m here and will drop everything to go and pick one up.
weekending
April 18, 2011 | Filed Under ordinary | Leave a Comment
this weekend we stayed home and cleaned house. there was a small, yet mildly thrilling estate sale with annie involving piles and piles of crafting and sewing supplies from a ninety-something craft supply hoarder in a cute little 1950s brick house. there was some cooking outside, working outside, playing outside. my husband gave me the new paul simon album with his own birthday record store gift certificate. i finished the last royal buffet orders for a time. there was church and some community group time with waffles and grits and ice cream on the waffles and a long sunday evening outside on swings with kids running down the hill and up again and swinging high on good swings. it was good. but i didn’t really even take any pictures of it all.
this week we’re having little spring break with a some piano practice and a lot of reading. i’ve got a custom wedding order of birds to make and some baking plans and coffee plans and park plans and dinner plans speckled throughout. the house is shining, the floors worthy of bare feet. at least for now. there are tiny things popping up in the garden and i’m trying to muster the energy to dig up the other half of the space so that we can put tomatoes, peppers, herbs in tidy rows, flowers at the corners, raspberries to the side.
on a side note, i have a new-to-me indian rug that i’m obsessing over (long tassles!) and a neon light that works but is four feet tall and makes your head hurt when it’s on. it’s a lowercase ‘g’ and we got it from barb, who finds the best little surprises like that.
shout about my ears
April 15, 2011 | Filed Under ordinary | Leave a Comment
dogwoods turn green again, confetti white leaves on the grass in the back, the sand box full of little white petals. there is shade in the yard now, long stretching shadows of shade that almost reach the garden fence. lettuces, peas, tiny green yellow strawberries, the beginnings of raspberries that came up on their own.
seven weeks left of our school year. we barely get through the basics. they want to run outside, to sit for hours with legos. they know i’ll say yes if they ask for me to read to them while they build things. i wish i knew better how to manage the day well. i wish i knew better about many things, most things.
this weekend has little in it, no plans of which to speak. maybe some new things in the garden, maybe someone for dinner. palm sunday, my favorite one, hosanna in shouts at the Christ triumphant, palm branches in hands of children and adults alike. every year i love this day, since i was a child myself. i think it may have everything to do with those branches waving to celebrate the King coming to the people in peace, little green bits of joy in the air and underfoot.
weekending
April 12, 2011 | Filed Under weekending | Leave a Comment
this weekend was basically about making food, serving food, and eating food. on friday night the kids had a co-op end-of-the-year program where we saw jude’s artwork and were surprised by a giant folder of science work that henry had done all spring for his teacher (his usual assessment of the class is, “nothing, it was fine,” etc.). i made a cheese dip and brought most of it back home. on saturday we worked in the yard and made it as nice as possible without spending money on it. ernie cooked out and we ate our first dinner outside. summer is no good for outdoor eating in these parts, so the time to start is about a month ago. on sunday chris and annie came over for a chinese feast, the best part of which she brought with her, general tso’s chicken! amazing! wonderful! the only way a chicken should be eaten. except for maybe in a good pot pie. i always feel guilty talking about eating meat. i think my conscience would have a better time if i would just stay a vegetarian. it was good to see them, it had been a very long time since we’d done a whole meal together. moving to this house with big daddy makes it harder to see them since they are now twenty minutes away instead of two.
i closed up royal buffet on sunday (kind of sad!) for an indefinite break to work on some exciting new things and to just hang about and feel more gratitude for my loves here with me. i will still be taking custom orders, so send me a note if you need something, otherwise, you’ll have to wait until at least the end of summer!
this week we’re trudging along through our schoolbooks in hopes of summer, blue swimming pools, sunburns, cold floors underfoot. i planted some lettuces, flowers, resisted the many temptations at the plant store. i’m going on a hike with the elementary school girls from church tomorrow afternoon. lola is coming, too, and in her wild excitement about this excursion i have a faint idea of what she’ll be like when she’s a tween herself. she’s growing too fast and too wonderfully. i want to hold her here at three for a really long time.
now i run from you
April 8, 2011 | Filed Under ordinary | Leave a Comment
on the mind
dianthus
dogwoods
topknots
making a things-to-sew list
voyage of the dawn treader read aloud to lego building boys
chocolate stash
things in the garden
things to go in the garden
outside dinners
easter gifts, maybe some of these?
silver girl
April 5, 2011 | Filed Under royal buffet | Leave a Comment
i’m getting ready to close up shop at royal buffet for awhile to regroup, spend these long spring and summer hours with my family, and to work on other projects. starting this weekend i will only be taking custom orders for those who just have to have some royal buffet finery, but i won’t be listing anything on etsy for awhile. i feel a pull in too many directions lately and don’t want to be stressed out more than a mama has to be.
i read this post by liane (and you know, i only know her online but have this kindred feeling about her that makes it like she’s the awesome sister for whom i always wished but never had), and it really hit me in places that i’d been trying to ignore for awhile. i don’t want to spend too much time trudging along distracted by all of the stuff that’s out there. and while i do consider myself a person who is pretty much aware of how fleeting time is, how sacred it is to live, and who knows what’s up about what really matters, it’s pretty shocking how fast i can succumb to being a girl in sweatpants in front of some stupid tv show completely checked out with a handful of peanut butter cup wrappers crushed on the coffee table.
so, if there’s something you’ve been a hankering for in the shop, you need to get while the getting is good!
weekending
April 4, 2011 | Filed Under weekending | Leave a Comment
is it the green springing weather that is keeping me away from this blog? i don’t know. perhaps. i do know that the spring world is a better place since i’ve started taking claritin. i feel almost unstoppable. henry’s been taking it, too. i wish my parents had discovered such a victorious allergy drug when i was a child because i spent many a spring and summer sneezing and swollen and in itchy misery.
this weekend started out with a girls night that was simple and good and late into the starry night. when i was driving home i didn’t see one car the entire way. ernie had a wedding saturday so the day was kind of like the rest of our days, but sunny, and i let the boys play wii more than usual so that i could mop the kitchen floor and fold every article of clothing and towel that we own because apparently we dirtied them all last week. saturday night we made pizza, drank cherry coke, and the boys watched some basketball. on sunday my husband didn’t let anyone wake me up from a nap that ended up lasting almost four hours. i ate indian food and then went to sleep for a really long time. lola snuck in and woke me up or i’d probably still be sleeping even now. i wonder how long i could sleep without waking if i didn’t have people to wake me up? then ernie grilled outside and we ate a dinner that was, perhaps, too bohemian for big dad as it didn’t begin until well after nine o’clock. then, very late, ernie and i watched an actual movie. it pretty much would have been a perfect day (sandals!) had i not gotten a little bit crabby right before running out the door (late) for church in the morning.
today is another beautiful spring south carolina day. i love it here this time of year. i dug up some beds in the huge grassy, weedy garden space with a shovel this morning and planted kale, spinach, strawberries and peas. the tiller is broken (so frustrating, that) so i had to do it the hard way, but more than half of the thing is ready for plants, some things are in the ground, and that feels good. i’m not a great gardener, but, as often is the case, what i know will do, and what i don’t know i can find out.