A Running Collection

Amelia loves to learn. She soaks up the opportunity to put her hands to work. Projects. She always wants a project. Lately she has completely wiped our popsicle sticks supply making the cutest little boxes. She rediscovered melty beads and in doing so found that you can make some serious patterns (thanks Sam Taylor) with the colors on the itty bitty rows of dots on each shape. She brought her love for birds into the deal and made a bird house on one. We got a new lawnmower! First thing she wants to do -- Learn how to mow the lawn. Clad in protective gear, she set to work. It is self propelled, but so is Amelia! Amelia finds flowers in the yard and bunches them together. Then she adds sticks and strands of grass and then weaves them together with a monkey grass piece or some other longish wild thing. They are beautiful. She sees such beauty in the pieces of her life. When we discovered a beautiful horse stable offering lessons just 3 miles down the road, we took Amelia stra...

Two weeks ago, my stomach started cutting flips and nausea struck and the like. Simultaneously, poison ivy grew in massive patches down my arms, on my belly, on my face. Neither improved for a week. I started getting really weak, losing weight, feeling like the world was collapsing. Ten days passed. No improvement. To just check, even though I was sure it wasn't the case, I took a pregnancy test. Of course that would not explain the horrible case of poison ivy, but maybe the nausea. I am definitely not pregnant. I went to the doctor. She didn't have a lot of answers. I must of looked pretty rough because she wanted to do a CT scan. We decided that perhaps we should not jump straight to that. I called around for some advice. Several suggested Ghiardia. So I had the proper tests run. Yep. Ghiardia. It feels good to have a diagnosis and some antibiotics. We are having to do some serious timing of meds and pumping and dumping for William, but much better than hospital stays o...

 People adore shores. People covet shoes. People collect shoes. People invest in shoes. People fix their feet for shoes! Not our family. Well, not so much. We don't exactly do shoes very well. I don't find them very comfortable, so anytime I walk in the door or jump in the car, off they go. Amelia doesn't favor them at all. She would prefer to be barefoot at all times. It is very difficult to find any shoes that fit her properly. We seem to have ordeals over shoes and where they are and if we even have shoes with us. It is a big decision to buy shoes around here because there are going to be around awhile as they are not on  feet very often. My favorite pair of Chacos are still rockin 11 years later! Now I do have to regularly invest in running shoes and there is a very specific way that this works. They are only worn for running. They come off immediately after a run and are kept away from mud and dirt. Once I get a new pair, the former (not old) pair becomes...

An afternoon storm took out the power and it has just returned. We cooked spaghetti on the turkey frier and George boiled water for some coffee with his camp stove equipment while the children watched wide eyed. A science lesson I suppose. We've gone through candles since we've moved. Our emergency candle collection nearly didn't make the trip to Florida because we've never used it, and George was sure it was good to have. Good to have and glad to have it! This last week has been so wonderfully full. We started out last week meeting some new friends for a swim. Swimming is crucial here. We are still always looking for swimming holes! Wednesday I took the children on a quick a trip to Columbus, Georgia to visit with my dear friend Clare and her family. We soaked in boat rides, tea parties, art projects, animal visits, sand piles at the site where they are building their new home, great food, more boat trips, dirt digging . . . Clare is filled with project ideas. She ...

Dads. A few nights ago, the children asked me to tell them a story. They rolled off my tongue. Stories of Dad. They wanted wild animal stories. I asked if fish counted. They did. I told the story of one of many fishing outings with Dad. He took Jessica and I fishing. We both had a pack of gum and a SunDrop. I now know that was to keep us occupied. We fished and chewed gum and drank SunDrop. Jessica had JuicyFruit. I had Big Red. A five pack. We fished, chewed gum, drank SunDrop. These were forbidden fruits and delectable. We loved it. We sat and fished for what seemed like hours on end. I have a picture in my mind of Jessica next to me sitting. We caught a few and took them home to clean and eat. Dad gave us a spoon to get the scales off. We helped (watched) him fillet. The stomach was always cool. He saw a bump. We opened the stomach of Jessica's fish. There it was, a piece of her Juicy Fruit she had tossed out that very afternoon!One of many Dad stories. We were on our way home...

If anyone asked me if I liked my life right now, my first response would be "No!" This morning I realized I wasn't writing because I was waiting until I had something I felt something that made me feel all warm and fuzzy to write about. The truth is that there are plenty of glorious pieces of this life to write about and I find myself focusing on the not so great pieces and I get blue and frustrated and lonely and don't want to write or say I like life.  The truth is I'm dreadfully lonely. I long for my home and community in Athens and Gainesville (which includes all the tight spaces, roaches, dirt, broken things, friends stopping by, garden, lavender, rosemary, oregano, bleating sheep, etc. Here, we feel very alone, but it means we have to find another gear. We have to get creative. And we do. George is so good at this. So very good. I focus on yuck, but when I get over it and wipe the tears and look around, there is such adventure here for us.  We ar...