Open to Close

"You know, so many writers don't like to write. They must, they do it under the compulsion that makes any artist what he is... but they really don't enjoy trying to turn a thought into a reasonable sentence." -Harper Lee 1964

In the morning I open all of the blinds downstairs when the sun is just about to rise. I shuffle around and pick up, make the coffee.

At night I read a book by the light of the lamp clamped to the arm of an old wooden chair next to my bed, until my eyes are too heavy.

In between, I am maestro, conductor, the center of their gravity. I am steel.

I always write, I envision a whole chapter at the stoplight, how the green glow reflects up on the metal and how this needs to be recorded, so that I don't forget? So that I can make someone else feel what I feel? Because it's just plain beautiful? Lately it only stays in my head. And I think I'm finally comfortable there.

In between and into the beyond, I fill the hours with the things that need to be done, things I want to do, this moment to that moment,

turning the rod to close the blinds again.

Oh this day

Four out of twelve ears in our house have ear infections. Early morning ER visit. Pulled over for speeding. Late afternoon doctor visit for another. Friend's daughter has brain surgery. She is OK! I miss book club night and a glass of wine but I'm home. I'm where I need to be. I'm home.

Thanksgiving Retreat 2012

We are hosting my parents & Jeff's parents this week for Thanksgiving. It has been wonderful. We are eating the best food, sitting around relaxing and hanging out and visiting and watching movies, playing all sorts of card and board games, and eating more good food. I am so thankful we finally have a home to fit us all in and then some. This year we are overwhelmed with thankfulness. And I even got my Thanksgiving wish- late last night I checked my email and found out we had an offer on our house! 

Gray, watching Spongebob

This is so my Dad.

A Thanksgiving poem.

Carter, hard at work on his latest comic book.

Jeff, helping me stage our Christmas card photo (and talking to his imaginary friend?)...

Giving thanks and saying grace. We are so blessed beyond measure.

I envisioned my vision board.

We are finally starting to hang things on the walls here. I think I put it off because I thought we wouldn't be here very long, but the house (and woodland creatures) has totally grown on us and while we won't be buying it, it's making it very comfortable to wait for our next house. Also, I thought for sure our other house would be sold by now. Lots of interest and promises of an offer... but not yet. It's my Thanksgiving wish this year.

So I put off decorating because I kind of don't like whatever we used to have. And this house has way more wall space anyway. So we have to buy all new stuff for a rented house not knowing if it will "go" with our next home. Anyway, we have family coming to stay this week and I want something on the walls! One specific thing I knew for sure I wanted was a big bulletin board to hang my map. There's a perfect spot for it at the end of our main living room. But they are so expensive and even if I wanted to try to be DIY it would all add up. But it was the only thing I could see in that spot, I emailed a friend about it and worried about it and pretty much the very day Jeff and I were trying to figure out how we could do it while still looking nice enough for the living room- we decided to just postpone the idea for now and I had a feeling someday I'd find it thrifting. So I pouted off to Goodwill hoping to find a big mirror or some artwork. There was the bulletin board waiting for me as I was walking out of the store to leave. $10. Done.

After Listen To Your Mother I might phase out the map and turn it into an official vision board. I also might just add stuff to it now, too, like a picture of our house with a sold sign on it.

Listen To Your Mother 2013 (and me!) in Twenty Four Cities

Please don't mind my wrinkly map, but do look for all the tiny red dots- all 24 of them! 

One of the first things that came to my mind when we decided to move away was Listen To Your Mother. What will happen to Northwest Indiana's show? Well, I'm glad to say that it will go on.

And, so will I...

I am honored, still kind of in a dream-like state, to reveal that I am Listen To Your Mother's Online Content Manager. I've watched this show of Ann's grow from one to five to ten and now twenty-four?!

Honestly, I can see it in every state, pins all over that map. I am so thankful to have a part in all of this. I hope you'll consider coming along, too -- see below for how you can connect with us and find out when auditions and performances are coming near you. (My hope is to attend at least a few of the shows!)

You can subscribe here to be updated on all the latest Listen To Your Mother Show news, and keep up to date on Facebook and Twitter, and YouTube, too.

I had to include this pic- Ivy is quite intrigued by my new map and revealed that her "real family" washed away to Washington. This is a thing with her, and one day in the line at the grocery store she loudly declared about the woman in front of us, "I know her! She was my mom before I found you." 

Array

I finally completed this cowl I've been knitting for far too long. I could tell about halfway in that I wasn't going to like how it ends but I kept on anyway. The yarn was so expensive, there are so many flaws, and I don't like how it fits. But oddly I don't regret it, and I'm glad I finished. Take that for whatever it could mean!

I'll probably make Ivy wear it on cold days.

Now I am casting on tiny sweaters for a tiny sweetheart.

I made the mistake of sharing my Pandora with Noah on his iPod and he deleted all of my stations! Like, years' worth! So I started over. I give a thumbs up or down like it's my job. Also I can't get enough of Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young and The Allman Brothers. Some things never change.

I just checked out Where'd You Go, Bernadette from the library and am reading Falling Leaves for book club. · I get to update my bios this week because of something truly exciting. · I heard from our realtor this afternoon and we're getting closer to a sale, much closer! · Both of our parents are coming here for Thanksgiving next week and I'm so excited to have a reason to buy new dishes and furniture and toast to our new life here. (And hopefully celebrate a sold home! I can feel it!) · I am kind of stupid excited to show them Chippy and the squirrels. · No matter what I want to always remember having us all here, what it was like when we had to make two house payments, and that we were okay. · Big thankful.

stories

I save things like the newspaper after the election, and from the day the kids were born, and 9/11. Someday it will be something to look at maybe.

Stacks of folded towels are my bookends, at my sides, until I carry them up.

I wonder if I should write more things down, with my actual handwriting. They will have all my words, but will it mean the same. I don't know. Would they like to pull a book off the shelf and touch and see, she was here.

First Day of Preschool, Class of 2026

It was Ivy's very first day of preschool, my nest was to be empty for two whole hours! but then Gray was home sick with a fever. Wah wah.

Carter stood by the front door, coat and backpack on (all of my kids would stand there with their backpacks an hour before if I let them) and I decided to jump in the shower while I had time- his bus wouldn't be by for another ten minutes."I'm going to jump in the shower real quick before you go out for the bus!" and I ran up to my bathroom.

When I was finished I called downstairs to him to go get the newspaper because Ivy needed pictures of her favorite foods- first day of school and we're already slacking on homework- and he answered back from his bathroom upstairs, "Ok, mom! I'm just putting on my clothes!" 

I'm like, "You are what?! Your clothes? Why?"

"You told me to take a shower before I got on the bus!"

LOL ohmygosh bless his heart, that kid. He "listens" without ever questioning me. I had the best laugh, I swear it was a venti's worth, and it lasted me all day. Thankfully he got dressed in time to catch the bus. And was very clean.

Ivy had a great first day. There was play-doh and they read books and went outside and to a "gym place" and they have gerbils and two hamsters and a fish tank and babies and a kid liked her "too much" so she told her teacher he was ann-oy-ing her and she made him stop.

just write

November FOUR

We are getting closer to an offer on our house. Ivy starts preschool tomorrow, and the classroom is like the Wonder Pets- complete with gerbils and things in it that I remember when I was a little girl. I'm so glad for this. Her teacher has been teaching a long long time and has never had an Ivy in her class before. Also, she lives on Ivy St. But of course! 

I will have four kids at four different schools at the same time... I don't know what my heart will think, such a scatter, but I feel surprisingly okay about it.

We found a church we like, it's nice to have a place to land for the holidays, and hopefully beyond that.

Every other week since we moved we've been trying out new pizza places and breakfast spots and I love how confident and adventurous the kids (and okay me, too) are getting with their orders, and it all feels so splurgey, and it's super fun. 

I am really really thankful and happy right now, November 2012.

I used to take photos of my kids on the first of every month, now it's on the fourth. Four for four. (Here's November 2010 & 2011.) 

You can see all past monthly photos here.   

a little desk

One of my favorite things about recently moving is that I have a reason to shop for furniture to fill the empty spaces here. And where we live, everywhere you look there is a Goodwill, thrift store, resale shop, upcycling, antiques, shabby chic boutiques... it's awesome.

We stopped in Goodwill yesterday to look for winter coats for the boys and Ivy actually spotted this little desk for $5 and rocker for $8! 

Something Ivy said to me yesterday that I want to remember for-ever: "It makes me so so happy when you read me stories." 

Linking up with Small Style again, I just love this Baby Nay dress I bought at Zulily  It's so soft and warm, I hope to find more like it. Leggings & Emu boots are from Zulily, too.