I'm Gonna Put A Rock on Your Head...

My Dad used to tell me when I was little, "I'm gonna have to put a rock on your head soon."

"Why are you gonna do that?" I'd ask.

"To keep you from growing up any bigger."

"Ohhhh," I'd say, grinning with pride at the growing up I must have been doing that caused my Dad to make such a statement.

Dad and I would continue to have this conversation many times over my growing up years until eventually my growing up stopped at a modest five feet, four inches.  Always after I wondered, why, if my Mom and Dad were working so hard to "raise me" and my sisters, did my Dad wish to hinder progress by putting a rock on my head?

I'm still five feet, four inches tall, but I'm no longer wondering about that old conversation with my Dad...

October 17, 2010

January 18, 2011

February 27, 2011

April 4, 2011

April 24, 2011

Last week...

To review...

June 2010

June 2011

Does anyone know where I can find a big ROCK?

A Sense of Accomplishment

Way back when my Man and I bought our first home, we spent a lot of time outside in the yard working in the shrubbery beds and planting trees and planting gardens. Well, ONCE I planted a garden, but it took over the yard and it had fire ants and mosquitos and I planted 14 times the amount of things that I should have for the space, some of which included among other things pumpkins and watermelons.

I was not a success at gardening. Someday I hope to make another attempt, but this still soft voice that sounds strangely like my husband's, keeps whispering in my ear, "Remember the pumpkins..." and so, my hopes of a future of gardening are all I have to this point. Unfortunately, a HOPE sandwich isn't nearly as satisfying as a juicy, homegrown tomato sandwich.

The kids and I discovered something last week that was possibly even more satisfying and definitely longer lasting than a juicy tomato sandwich. It was something much like what propelled my Man and I to toil long and hard in the steamy North Carolina summers to keep our little starter home looking neat and tidy inside and out...a sense of accomplishment.

For the last few seasons our spring home-tending practices turned into baseball practices which led into swimming lessons which ended just before it was time to pack for vacation which happened to be close to the beginning of vacation bible school which, before we realized it lead right back into the new school year thus leaving our spring home-tending practices woefully untended.  

This summer has been declared the summer of home improvement by circumstances well beyond our control so we've decided to jump into the spirit of the whole thing with both feet...each...which adds up to a lot of feet around here.  A lot of feet is a good thing when there is much work to be accomplished and so are a lot of hands, both of which we have in abundance! 

Our front shrubbery bed has long been in a condition we can gently refer to as au naturale which translates loosely from the French as "we've been ignoring it and hoping some lawn and garden elves would show up and do the work." 

Since the elves hadn't shown up after our repeated attempts at not doing their jobs for them, I decided to assemble my own crew of lawn and garden elves and tackle the job.

You will, of course, remember the supervisor from our bathroom remodel of last winter.  She still takes her job very seriously.

Somewhere along the way, we discovered shrubbery in our shrubbery bed! 

You'll have things like that happen when you are working with a crack lawn and garden crew like this one!

It was at about this point in our task that we began to feel a wave of emotion sweep through the crew...

...it was a sense of accomplishment. See it all over those dirty faces?

In just a bit more than three hours, our au naturale jungle...

...became a trophy of hard work for four children whose feet travel these stones time and again each summer day as they play outside. I suspect that when they pass by this bit of ground, they experience a little jolt of memory and think, "Wow! Look what I helped to accomplish."

We learned well the old saying, "First a thing is impossible, then it's difficult, then it's done." I hope we learned it well, and I hope that the fresh sense of accomplishment is a bit addictive because...

...au naturale THE SEQUAL awaits us this week!

Surely it will be no match for this crew!

"Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all." ~Sam Ewig

Book Resource:

Created for Work: Practical Insights for Young Men: It's an easy read full of stories from author Bob Schultz's life and experience doing construction work. The lessons taught are practical, and easy enough for this mom to remember and refer to throughout the day both for the benefit of her children and especially for herself! 

From the back cover: "In Created for Work Bob Schultz applies his engaging homespun wisdom, with stories from real life, to teach young men (and boys) what it means to be good workers....Created for Work inspires young men and offers the tools and encouragement they need to embrace God's ways and always give an honest day's work."

Goin' Nowhere Fast...

My last few weeks have played out much like Molly on her giraffe-- I've gone nowhere fast but I've used up a lot of energy getting there! Actually, The Wright gang has been many places lately and we've gotten to most of them by driving forward and not pedaling backward!

Our days have been full of endings, beginnings, construction, deconstruction, tons and tons of baseball and softball, a birthday party or two, a trip with some very happenin' and adorable folks, some pet sitting, and a graduation celebration.

As summer whispers its possibilities in our ears, we look toward time with family and friends, time in the pool, time playing flash light tag until way past bedtime, time reading on our back porch, time gathering lightening bugs, time spent exploring, and maybe, just maybe, some time spent in a tent. Mostly what we are looking forward to is time spent together!

"Then followed that beautiful season...Summer....
Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; 
   and the landscape
Lay as if new created in all the freshness of childhood."
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

From a Friend...

I have a friend who moved far, far away yet still has the ability to make me laugh...hard. Usually she accomplishes this with a simple one-line email with a link to something she thinks I should check out. Sometimes these links are to share with my family and are very educational, like the time when she sent me a link to a live camera in Africa where we watched all kinds of animals come and go for days on end. Recently, she sent me to a site where eagles were hatching from their eggs in real time.

Once, just after moving far, far away, my friend whom I had up until that moment, relied upon to keep my gang in the know regarding summer activities and cool places to discover about town, sent me a link to my own town's activity calendar after I sorrowfully mentioned that now I'd have to be responsible for my own kids' summer survival. She's just that kind of gal.

When I arrived home this evening (did she remember that perhaps I'd be a bit down after celebrating a milestone with my oldest tonight?), this bit-o-funny, a tribute to a cherished beverage I grew rather fond of during our family's "Southern Years," was waiting in my email box...



Thanks Lori!!!

(For more laughs, you can visit this funny lady on her website: www.AnitaRenfroe.com or on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYukEAmoMCQ )

Proverbs 31:25 "...and she laughs at the time to come."

Havin' a Great Day Here...

If you were to call my home today, I'd probably answer, "Hello, we're havin' a great day here at Sam's!" And...if you called my home today and I answered the phone like that, you'd probably wonder why I thought I was at Sam's Club.

I don't think I'm at Sam's Club at all, I'm just having a super day, but I really do like how the Sam's Club folks answer the phone when you call them to ask a question. They say (or at least they used to say when telephones and not computers, were used to acquire pertinent information) "Hello, we're havin' a great day here at Sam's Club, how can we help you?" It makes me want to go on down to Sam's and see what those crazy employees are up to and maybe buy a 5 pound tub of peanut butter while I'm there.

Early last week, when I was having a great day, I answered the phone with my Sam's Club greeting. I felt very safe doing so because the caller ID on my home phone indicated that it was none other than my Mom calling.

"Hi, we're having a great day here at Sam's!" said I cheerily.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize you were shopping! I'll call you back later."

"Mom...I'm not really at Sam's. I'm at home, where you called me," I explained quickly.

"Why did you say you were at Sam's?"

"Because I'm having a great day!"

"Oh, okaaaaay..."

And on went our conversation, which included me relating why my day was great.  Today is a great one too, for lots of reasons, the main one being that my kids have been outside playing for most of the day.

There are three wonderful things about that last sentence:

My kids - I love 'em. I'm glad they're mine and I'm glad they are still kids.  They'll always be mine, but they won't always be kids.

outside playing - I've been doing a gob of reading lately on the topic of "living intentionally." Sounds kind of weighty I know, but the subject is fascinating to me.  Part of what I've been reading has really gotten my attention about how little time children these days, mine included, enjoy unstructured times of play especially outdoors. 

In her book Organized Simplicity, Tsh Oxenreider quotes another author, Richard Louv who says, "It takes time--loose, unstructured dreamtime--to experience nature in a meaningful way. Unless parents are vigilant, such time becomes a scarce resource, because time is consumed by multiple invisible forces; because our culture currently places so little value on natural play." 

Mr. Louv goes on to report that between 1981 and 2003, children have lost nine hours of unstructured time per week. I'd like to hand my gang back a few of those hours this summer!

most of the day -after listening to a few chapters of a book on tape and helping me with a few chores this morning, the kids were released into the wilds of our backyard, and have been out there ever since. I've got to call them in soon to get ready for our evening activities, the structured kind alas. They are sweaty and stinky and dirty, but what a super time in the fresh air and sunshine they've had.

Other reasons for this great day include, but are not at all limited to:

A small nagging project that has been accomplished.

A major project that is well on it's way to completion.

Molly in this shirt and these shoes. 

She calls the shirt "my thunny thirt" (sunny shirt) and she lives in the hot pink shoes. 

What's not to love?

Megan's summer freckles are reappearing and I adore them, and her!

Molly took a killer nap and woke up calling for me and smelling so much like a baby again, I loved the walk sniff down memory lane.

I thrilled my outside kids with strawberry smoothies and since I already had the blender out...

I found a recipe for a cold coffee drink recipe that kept me cool while, from inside, I watched the children get pink and sweaty. I'm planning on spending many a summer afternoon with it.

Here's the recipe which I only tweaked a little...

FIRST, send your kids outside to play. Then...

Into a blender place:

5 or 6 ice cubes

1 cup of the left over coffee that remains in the pot after you've reached your morning limit

1 cup of cold milk, the colder the better

1 1/2 TABLESPOONS of Splenda (or sugar, but if you use sugar, you should probably dissolve it into    

      rewarmed coffee first)

Blend thoroughly and enjoy!

Book Notes:
Organized Simplicity: The Clutter-Free Approach to Intentional Living
I'm reading this one and loving it. In one word...inspiring.

Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder
This one is next on my list to read. It's been quoted by two very different books I've been reading.