Man, when the first shovel finally hits the ground at our house, do I have a story (stories) for you! Thanks for hanging tight here. I’m hoping the end of the story will be worth the arduous and ENDLESS first chapters.
In the meantime, enjoy a few pictures of the exterior maintenance / restoration project we’ve nearly completed on the front of the house. Many (many, many) more photos on Instagram with descriptions, if you’d like to follow along there.
Posted in general
Questionnaire
by Wendell Berry
1. How much poison are you willing
to eat for the success of the free
market and global trade? Please
name your preferred poisons.
2. For the sake of goodness, how much
evil are you willing to do?
Fill in the following blanks
with the names of your favorite
evils and acts of hatred.
3. What sacrifices are you prepared
to make for culture and civilization?
Please list the monuments, shrines,
and works of art you would
most willingly destroy.
4. In the name of patriotism and
the flag, how much of our beloved
land are you willing to desecrate?
List in the following spaces
the mountains, rivers, towns, farms
you could most readily do without.
5. State briefly the ideas, ideals, or hopes,
the energy sources, the kinds of security;
for which you would kill a child.
Name, please, the children whom
you would be willing to kill.
Posted in general
It’s been two weeks since I was last here, and I didn’t even realize that I missed last Saturday. I worked for two weeks straight, including the holiday and the weekend. I must have just moved into auto-pilot mode for awhile, and kept most of the processing of things in my own headspace.
I’m in a much better place than I was two weeks ago. My parents returned from an overseas trip, and I was able to fill them in on things and talk it out a bit. I met a friend for a walk in the garden, and that helped even more. M sent me little notes and photos and posts of things of interest to distract me and energize me. I tried to eat more. And sleep more. I failed at both, but it was worth a shot.
In the meantime I finished a big project at work, and advanced another, while holding down the fort on a couple more. I planned and executed a tenth birthday party to the exacting standards of said ten-year-old, and I tucked four small exhausted children into bed at just after midnight last night. The fifth not-so-small teenager put herself to bed with the door firmly shut long before the little ones.
I balanced all of the things for all of the minutes of all of the days, and only dropped a few of them. My head is tired, and needs a break. I found some of that in running today, and then cleaning. A little more of it in reminiscing about other birthday weekends as I cleaned and talked to the girls. A Friday afternoon party is sort of a logistical nightmare for an overworked mama, but the weekend unfolded this morning in a deliciously unstructured way, so no complaints on the flip side of it.
The little one is mad about an eight o’clock bedtime, but I’m standing firm. Sleep is a present, she just doesn’t realize that yet. It’s a gift I’d like to register for, thank you. She was so miffed she said she didn’t want me to read to her, so I left her to her own reading. She’s calling me now with an apology, she’s changed her mind, she’d like me to come back up and snuggle in. She’s still my little one, sleepy and warm in the crook of my arm.
