the first

{pretty, funny, happy, real!!!} for me. (aka: the post wherein i overuse certain words. we’ll see if you can guess which ones.)

things i can relate to…hooray!!!

in fact…i had trouble narrowing it down…

so maybe i squeezed in two {pretty} shots.

but it’s summer.

and i tend to get a little obsessed with coreopsis in the summer.

in fact. not only is it {pretty}.

but…turns out it makes me {happy} too!

and so i may have turned yesterday’s art lesson into a sweat-shop-production-of-coreopsis-inspired-paintings-made-specially-for-mama…

luckily my daughter obliges my fanatical whims.

{funny}

it’s not {funny} that it’s thursday.

and neither is the fact the baby didn’t use a hyphen {funny}.

it’s just {funny} that we were commanded told to leave this there (magnetically attached to the kitchen door)”all day”.

maybe he just needs a reminder that it is indeed thursday!!!

and last.

but certainly not least…

{real}

a very {real} cup of coffee.

two {real} mama books from the library: she walks in beauty a woman’s journey through poems and woman food and God.

a {real} “flower” picked from our mint patch.

and i really played with the ISO on my camera this morning…

now shoo! (and i mean that in the nicest way)

go visit here for more {pretty, funny, happy, real}

(i couldn’t add the button to my blog for some reason…)

{happy} viewing!

ripe

in my grandmother’s garden there are: the sweetest berries. the juciest watermelons. the pinkest hollyhocks. and the bluest skies.

my only contribution: the darling little boy with a big appetite. curious hands and taste-buds. a missing tooth and a bit of a lisp.

that seems to be the only thing i am capable of growing these days!

exchanging nice-eties

thank you for all of your sweet birthday wishes! i really wish i had the time to write an individual note to every person that wished me well yesterday. just know you are in my thoughts and prayers.

it was a lovely day. the weather. the company. the homemade cards. birthday poem. and the two cakes. yes, there were two cakes. it’s as if the ones i love are trying to make me fatt-er. God bless them.

someone taught the baby to ride his bike sans training wheels yesterday. there should be rules against this sort of thing on mama’s birthday. i didn’t need to have a piece of my heart torn out.

“i am kind of a big boy now,” he told me. rubbing salt in the wound.

i realize that this same someone is just picking up where the biggest brother left off with him. this is something siblings do. helping each other to grow up. a concept completely foreign to me. the only child. the helping part. not the growing up.

i am, after all, a grown up now.

changing the subject a bit: my first japanese iris bloomed. how tall and graceful she is.

this is blooming too. i thought it was a hollyhock at first. but now i am not so sure. i would like to know though. i like to be on a first name basis with all of the members of my garden.

i’d like to know that gopher’s name too so i can yell at him to go bother someone else!

well, i’ll leave this space now. wishing you all blooming flowers. soft yarn. sticky baby kisses and cake. and any and all other nice-eties that your heart desires. it is still easter people. hooray!

but i have to get back to my spring cleaning.

except i never got to bleaching those sinks.

not yet anyway.

station keeping

daisy chains on lampshades. blooming flowers and marshmallow atoms. a few frivolities from this past week. things that didn’t go unnoticed by this tired mama.

i had a hundred things on my mind. but now as i sit here i can’t remember any of them.

i could brag about how clean my kitchen is and how i am caught up on my laundry. but i can’t take credit for such sweet successes. because those organizational feats, friends, are truly just the fruits from the power of praying the rosary. no matter how busy we were this week i made sure we fingered those beads every chance we got.

in fact i clung to them.

hanging on for dear life.

because there is peace of mind that comes from the gentle repetition of those prayers making the yoke easier and the burden lighter.

the spirit of those prayers is the same spirit that gave mary the grace and the strength to stand at the foot of the cross. her station keeping.

but not only did she stand there she walked. she prayed. she wept. she consoled her tender Child.

close to Him to the last.

lent is almost over and i don’t know if i am any closer to Jesus. there were certain habits of mine that i worked on. crushing my own will being one of them. and let me tell you, it’s not easy, this path to holiness thing. the consistency. the dedication.

but if sanctification through loads of laundry and piles of dishes is where i am to keep station, then who am i to complain?

i don’t deserve easter. i don’t deserve heaven either.

none of us do.

but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep trying.

and encouraging each other along the way.

veronica wipes the face of Jesus.

because all of it is easier said than done.

our crosses are often heavy.

simon helps Jesus carry His cross.

but we should never lose sight of those words…close to Jesus to the last.

that is definitely where i want to be.

otium sanctum

 

holy leisure.

devoting free time to a laudable purpose.

necessary to nurture spiritual interiority.

st. augustine writes about it in his confessions.

as mamas sometimes it is hard to find the time to find any free time. but with this lengthening of days i have found that the best place for me is outside. 

while i read or tend to the sweet little garden. which they sometimes help me with. they ride their bikes. dig in the dirt. play catch.

we all need free time. away from the schedules and constraints of life.

time to be so un-busy that you actually notice the first yellow swallowtail of the season. which is what we did today.

holy leisure. during this holy season of lent.

yes, friends, God is good.

happy first day of spring!

evening lingerings

“as he hurried along, the mole saw clearly he was an animal of field and hedgerow, the ploughed furrow, the frequented pasture, the lane of evening lingerings, the cultivated garden plot.” ~from the riverbank and other stories from the wind and the willows

i have to agree with mole. i, too, am an animal of the cultivated garden plot.

at least that is what i decided during my own evening lingerings.

drinking joy

pink leaves. the tail end of little black and yellow birdies in our elm tree. more pink leaves. eating breakfast outside. homemade whole wheat bread with wild blueberry jam. daffodil bulbs. great stories that inspire ideas for school like the color kittens. the possibilities of just red. blue. yellow. and white paint. and felt! it came today and i was so pleased.

i was especially pleased since yesterday was not such a great day. working out the kinks of having so many students with such different needs. figuring out how to teach high school the way that i love to teach while still fulfilling all the standards.

and then i had to crack the whip a bit. too many sick days made everyone around here think it was summer vacation again.

my absence in this space is because i have been really trying to be present to my children. (when i am not cracking that whip that is and even that is done with love). preparing lots of yummy food. mostly venison these days as their papa, my dad, got his deer. and then there is the reading of endless stories. snuggling. looking into their faces when they speak to me. sitting on the couch and doing lessons one on one with all. 4. kids. imagine that.

 and then there is the man who provides the necessities. working hard so i can  buy all that flour to bake bread. material. yarn. paints. and daffodils. i have been trying to sit still with him at the end of these short days. trying not to rush off to the computer. or to the myriad of tasks that call my name. needing to be done. promising me that they’ll multiply if i don’t tend to them. so i shut my door to quiet them. stealing a few pages from that book i am still reading on st. thomas more. until someone inevitably opens it. usually to ride scooters through my bedroom. into the jack and jill bathroom that goes into our daughter’s room and out into the front part of the house. round and round they go.  this really is a great house for riding scooters. and i know i keep talking about it, but i guess it is because every day it still amazes me that i can’t say no. the unadulterated joy on their faces as they whiz past me is something i’d like to bottle up and drink myself. that is if you could do such a thing as drink joy.

 but then again maybe that is what i am doing when i take pictures. it is my way of drinking in the joy that is present every single day. even on the bad days. because even on those bad days, it’s really not so bad.

ps. i did finish the advent calendar, but it doesn’t want to photograph very well for some reason. i’ll try again tomorrow  when the natural light is at its’ best in this old house. it couldn’t be that i just didn’t do that great of a job making it…