It was a good plan. It was a simple, doable, good plan.

Step 1:  Clean, organize and paint the boys’ bedrooms while they were away at camp.

Step 2: Finish outlining our homeschooling plans for the year.

Step 3: On July 5^th, walk together, hand in hand, into a new year of learning.

Right.

“Everyone has plans… until they get hit.”

-Mike Tyson

Around the time the ink was drying on my freshly made plans, my husband, dear man, picked up a hammer and smashed them to pieces…

I’m blogging over at Simple Homeschool today. Click here to read the rest of the story!

So, um…..

Hi!

How’s things? I brought you a flower. It’s a coneflower. It’s special because it’s my signature flower. It’s hardy, resilient, old fashioned. It’s does its best work under pressure and while it seems a little rough around the edges it can actually be quite soothing and helpful when you’re in need. Do you like it? I grew it myself.

Yeah, um…. so, you know how when you haven’t talked to someone in a really long time, you think about calling her up, but you know that you will have so much to say, and right now you really need to round up the kids and get to piano lessons, so maybe you’ll call after, but then you have to make dinner so maybe you’ll call after that, but then there’s dishes and bath time and “mama will you read to me?” and then it’s just too late, so maybe tomorrow, but then tomorrow comes and you wake up late so you’re behind all day and then…  you look up and it’s been weeks and weeks and then you don’t call because you know you’ll never have time to properly catch up and so you kind of drift apart but you think about her lots and wonder how she is and so finally you just email and say, “Hey, I just wanted to tell you I was thinking of you,” but you wish it was more, because she’s your friend and you love her and you’d like to tell her all your stories and you’d like to hear all of her stories, but right now you’re doing your very best to just keep swimming, so you just think, “some day soon I’ll call” and you hope she’s not mad, but you know she’s probably not because she’s a real friend, a good friend, and she knows how it is. She knows how YOU are.

You know?

It’s been like that.

Sorry.

I’ve missed you.

I’ve thought about you.

I hope you’re well.

Here’s the Spark Notes version, so that we can move on, and act like this long and awkward absence never happened:

1. There was a trip to Granny’s and it was fabulous. We ate from our garden and you just can’t beat that feeling.

2. Granny got to come home with us for a week, which was awesome, but it didn’t go according to plan at all. Two of my guys came down with strep while she was here, so pretty much all she got to see of “the big city” was the biggo mess we call home.

3. I sent TWO of my boys off to sleep away camp (one more than last year). While they were gone I had the silly idea that I would paint their bedrooms and surprise them with new (to them) beds. And that, friends, is when all hell broke loose.

One thing led to another and, before I knew what hit me, everything I own was in my garage coated in a layer of concrete dust. We moved in with my parents and began an all out house remodel on the scale of Extreme Home Makeovers.

Only… um… without the speedy timeline, budget, talent and expertise.

We’re back home now, but still dealing with some major chaos. We have no doors, no table, no couches, no stove top, one working bathroom.. or at least it WAS working up until yesterday at  around about the time that the Jamaican Olympian arrived.

You think I’m kidding, don’t you?

I assure you, I’m not, and the Jamaican Olympian is why I can’t stick around and talk any longer, much as I’d like to. I have to get in the shower (with a jug of water and a rag, thanks) before he wakes up. Did I mention that we have no doors?

Anyhow, I promise, I’ll tell you the rest of the story and show you pictures soon.

For now, just know that I’m here and I’ve missed you and I’m looking forward to hearing all about your summer too!

Hey y’all!

Been kinda quiet here this week, huh?

That’s because we’ve been slaves to our books. If you could peek into our windows you’d probably come away thinking we were the laziest bunch of good for nothings this side of the Mississippi. Well, all accept for Papa. He’s busy filming documentaries about bees and top secret military robots. But the rest of us have been shamelessly lazy and lost in the pages of our books.

Even the dog.

We do hereby declare it the Summer of the Flashlight Tale and we have made it our mission to seek and find all the very best, can’t put it down, stay up late and read until  your eyes forcibly shut themselves of their own accord, books.

First up, The Hunger Games and its sequel Catching Fire.

Over the weekend my sweet sister in law, Leah, told me that I had to read these books. Now, given their premise I never, EVER, would have picked them up if anyone else had said to, but I trust her opinion implicitly.  I’m hoping that you’ll afford me the same trust.  I know, they really do sound… well… odd, to say the very least. They are so far outside of  my normal book fare.

Basically they are about a government, some time in the future, who keeps its thumb on its citizens by holding a blood chilling annual reality show. Two children (12-18 years old), a boy and a girl, are chosen  from each of the 12 districts. Then they are forced to play in this sort of Survivor-like game. Only you don’t get voted off, you get killed.

I will tell you this : the story is insanely compelling. I got the first book, The Hunger Games, on Sunday evening. I started reading and could. not. stop. I kept promising myself that I’d read, “just one more chapter.” Then I looked up and can you guess what time it was? 3:30.

AM!

And I still kept reading for another half hour!

I told my sister in law, and do you know what that crazy lady did? She brought me a frozen coffee concoction and the second book, Catching Fire.

I love her. I really really do. She makes killer desserts too, but that’s another story.

I tried to control myself. I tried to put off reading Catching Fire until the kids had gone to bed, but I only lasted about an hour. Just like before,  I just couldn’t put it down. She brought it yesterday afternoon and I’ve already finished it.  Now I’m just biding my time, chewing my fingernails and waiting anxiously for August, when book three comes out.

You have to read them. You just do.

A couple of things:

These books are meant for about age 12 and up. So, even given the basic plot, it’s not really as gory as you might imagine. One reviewer described it so well saying, “…rather than being repellent, the violence is strangely hypnotic. It’s fairy-tale violence, Brothers Grimm violence–not a cheap thrill but a symbol of something deeper”

That’s kind of what makes this tale so interesting. No one wants to kill exactly. They just want to stay alive. Its an impossible situation which is probably why it sucks you in. You just keep wondering how, how on earth can this be resolved?

It’s also, in some ways, a love story, but it’s not at all the normal gooey, shallow teen love affair. It’s all very chaste and more about the implications of love than act of it.

It’s set in the future but it’s not futuristic in a Star Wars sense. While I guess technically it is “Sci Fi,” the label seems too limiting.

So, grab the books and your flashlight. Turn your ringer off and block out a couple of days. You’ll thank me. I know it.

Maybe it’s because the beach is such a completely different landscape from the one we call home. Maybe it’s the legendary lure of the sea. Whatever the reason, some of our greatest learning adventures have happened with sand in between our toes and salty wind in our hair.

For those of you looking forward to some oceanside days this summer, we’d like to share our favorite ways to make your beach blanket the best classroom ever.

Read the rest of this post over at Simple Homeschool….

Hey y’all!

The mercury is rising at an alarming rate around here and I’m determined to put on my Steel Magnolia face.  I will greet the season with determined grace. I will not give in to whining about the heat. I will not.

Well… not right away anyhow.

Phase one of my “beat the heat” plan is to pull out all the many many games that we own.  I’m going to retrieve them from their varying cubby holes and find a good accessible way to store them all together. That way, when we’re huddled under the air conditioning vent together we’ll have something with which to pass the (5 long months of) summer.

While I’m at it, I thought that from time to time I’d share some of our favorite games here.

First up… checkers. We got our big oversized rug board at the Cracker Barrel. You can also find it online here.

I know. I know. Everyone knows about checkers. But did you know how many fun variations there are? I didn’t. Turns out, there’s at least 24 Games You Can Play on A Checkerboard.

I think our favorite is Giveaway Checkers, which is the exact opposite of regular checkers. The goal is be the first to lose all your pieces.  We’ve had a lot of  fun learning the different games that we can play with just one board, and considering the giant pile of games that are adding up to a major storage dilemma around here, a board that can multitask is well appreciated.

Some of my favorite summertime memories were lazy days spent across a game board from my great grandma. So I think if we throw in some popsicles and some summer of 69 music from Pandora, we just might have ourselves a summer to remember.

Thank you all, sincerely, for the well wishes. I am, ever so very dang slowly, recovering I think. Maybe. Kind of.

Anyhoooooooo…..

I thought you  might like to hear the final chapter in our Eastern Screech Owl story. Last week I was walking the path from our house to Daddy’s office out back. It was dark, probably 10:30 or so, and I heard this funny little chittering sound in the trees. It’s the sound I’ve come to recognize as hungry baby owls demanding food or fussing at each other for a look out the nest hole.

This sound though, it wasn’t coming from the direction of the nest.

I ran inside for the binoculars and flashlight, and soon found them, high up in a tree fighting over some feathered snack. Two little grey fluff balls, out on a branch for all the night to witness, like it wasn’t anything at all. Mom and Dad owl were nearby, and one poor fella was still in the nest, chittering and bellowing to his siblings. How clearly he wanted to take up his part in the fray!

I scanned the trees all the next day for the babies, but found only the parents. Then that night, all three of the babies were in a new tree, noisily greeting this new expanded existence. It had just gotten dark, so the boys were still awake and got to come out to see the babies. We were all so proud, watching them bob along the branches. We felt like we could take just a little bit of credit for there being three brand new owls in the world.

Then, just like that, the next day they were gone. Vanished. All of them, even the parents. We haven’t seen them again since.

That same day, one of our caterpillars (one of seven that we’ve been feeding and cleaning up after for days now) hung from his branch and formed his chrysalis. His brothers and sisters are growing fat and threatening to follow him into newness.

And these boys of mine? They are doing their part to push the wheel of time forward too. They woke up this morning a full day older, limbs stretching overnight. They laugh, sing, and run toward their futures at top speed, without reservation, while their Mama and Papa chase after, snapping photos and calling out, “Not so fast, dear! Not so fast.”

***********************************

If you haven’t already, you should definitely check out Molly’s sweet baby birds! The video is just magic.

The Dark Side: I’m now on day four of the worst cough that I ever remember having. Bone shaking, eye-watering, can’t catch your breath, feels like you swallowed a handful of chicken feathers, just. cant. stop. coughing.

The Bright Side: It’s a killer work out. Every muscle in my body is sore. I’m sure I’ll emerge from this totally bikini-ready.

Or not.

The Dark Side: Mr. Blue Yonder has been on a film shoot (blessedly due back this evening) for days and so it has been just me and my partner the Cough here to hold down the fort and raise up the young ‘uns.

The Bright Side: Said young ‘uns are old enough now to pour themselves bowls of cereal, flip on the streaming Netflix and consider Mama’s Nyquil stupor an unexpected 3 day vacation. Not ideal, mind you, and my house may never fully recover, but we are surviving, and that’s something. Right?

The Dark Side: I had to miss my boy’s karate belt test. I hate that. I hate not being there for something that’s important to them.

The Bright Side: He has grandparents willing to drop everything and stand in the gap. He has grandparents who will  sit for hours on a Saturday morning, trying to make out Korean commands. He has grandparents that will cheer even when they don’t know what they’re cheering for.

The Dark Side: I can’t speak above a whisper. Vocal chords are completely fried.

The Bright Side: I have learned that in a house full of boys you really don’t have to raise your voice to be heard. You just have to whisper and look so very near to end and that they can’t help but pity you. They will in fact listen carefully, lest you strain yourself, die and totally ruin their sugar buzz.

The Dark Side: I have no energy at all and the smallest little thing like showering and running to the corner store for more milk seems like a monumental task.

The Bright Side: It doesn’t take vocal chords or energy to download a book to your phone and lay yourself in bed reading all day long. And y’all? You should definitely read The Forgotten Garden. It’s hands down the best twisty, turny, delicious, intricate, suck you straight into another world tale that I’ve read in a long long time.

The Dark Side: The walls are closing in. Four days cooped up in a dark room, swirling in and out of a desperate fog, sleeping and waking at all the wrong times, has me feeling so isolated and lonely.

The Bright Side: The doorbell rang. I brushed down my frazzled hair, pulled the robe tighter and blinked against the sunlight as I opened the door. Behind it I found the sweetest sweetest surprise. An old friend, a dear dear friend, sent me a summer sunset – -  the most beautiful flowers that a vase ever held, and the dearest note. Just like that, the darkness was chased away and the light poured in. It’s the best kind of medicine, knowing that you have a friend in the world.

The Dark Side: I’m doing better today, slowly but surely recovering. That means that I’m going to have to call an end to all this chaotic, sugar eating, TV watching, lying about and reading all day mess that we’ve gotten ourselves into. It’s going to be a long haul, working our way out of this hole.

The Bright Side: I’m doing better today, slowly but surely recovering.  My sweet Mr. Blue Yonder is on his way home. That means that soon, very soon, all will be right once more.

On the occasion of turning 8, my middle man had one request: that we “do something cool.”

I thought long and I thought hard and then it came to me…. rollerskating.

My boys have never been, but I felt pretty certain that flashing lights, loud music and the entirely new sensation of gliding across a smooth floor would qualify as not just cool, but super cool to my little rocker.

My goodness it brought back so many great memories.

It turns out that the snack bar is still serving up nasty nachos, Sweet Tarts and “Soda Suicide” (all the flavors mixed together).

The Limbo and the Hokey Pokey are still going strong.

The Village People are still singing “YMCA,” Jenny’s number is still 867-5309 and that poor sap is still in love with “Jessie’s Girl.”

There’s still that clump of giggling girls huddled at the dark end of the rink.

There’s still that pack of boys emptying their pockets of change into the pinball machine.

It’s nice to know that there are little pockets in the world where time ceases to exist.

The Blue Yonder boys did just great for their first experience on wheels. They were terribly frustrated at the start. There were tears. As it turns out, rollerskating is a lot harder than it looks. By the end of our time though, they were all going strong and already asking when we can go back.

And y’all? Just so we’re clear? This mama’s still got it! I can still spin around and skate backwards, much to the complete astonishment of my men. I think that if they’d played “Material Girl” or “Girls just Wanna Have Fun” I might have even been able to throw down a few of my old dance moves. Thankfully my boys are net yet horrified by this sort of thing. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time. Until then though, you can find me doing couples skates with the cutest boys at the rink.

Our very first Shakespeare experience was….

… fried chicken, blueberries and cherries, brownies, popcorn and the rare and wonderful treat of a cold, fizzy drink.

It was a too small blanket, itchy legs, sticky bodies and smiles anyhow.

It was a girl in madras shorts and pink Converse hi-tops passing out programs while the band played  Purple Haze. (My young guitar man insisting all the while that it’s only REALLY a Jimi Hendrix song if it’s played left handed – otherwise it’s just a cheap copy)

It was big kids, kicking off shoes, making new friends, climbing trees before the show begins.

It was mamas and papas, arms outstretched, chasing wobbly toddlers down a grassy hill. They were spraying chubby legs with bug repellant and  no doubt wondering if they should have brought the sunscreen afterall.

It was teenagers, who clearly put some care into their careless dress – - teenagers who probably noticed nothing all night but the electricity passing between their own hands and the hands that they held onto.

It was college kids in tight knit circles  discussing their finals and beginnings, feeling their freedom,  the whole wide world unfolding before them.

It was empty nesters  drinking white wine from plastic cups and feeling their freedom too… a different kind of freedom – - the kind that comes from knowing that the best piece of that wide world has been claimed and is now wrapped in tissue paper, safely tucked away in a breast pocket.

It was glittery fairy wings and kartwheels under a sliver of a moon.

It was fireflies and music notes hung like stars in the night sky.

It was a little boy of mine feeling a little star struck as he shook Puck’s hand at intermission.

It was a hillside of people holding their breath, leaning in, laughing, cheering, each one amazed that 400 years later  Mr. Shakespeare can still move us.

It was carrying basket and blanket and a sleepy little man to the car with two more walking slowly, heavily behind.

It was a long quiet ride home, a whispered request, and promise that yes, we can do it again.

*********

Austinites – DREAM! (a free 60s rock rendition of Midsummer Night’s Dream presented at Zilker Park) will show this weekend and next. I wasn’t sure how we’d do with Shakespeare, but we all really loved it and can’t wait for their next production!

The play is presented in the original language, so if you plan to take your young folks you might consider familiarizing them with the story beforehand. Great resources for this? Jim Weiss and a book called Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare for Children.

Looking for more about how to introduce children to Shakespeare? Look no further.

Happy weekending, friends!

We’ve had our little Jasper dog for 8 months now. None of us can remember what on earth we did without him.

He’s smart. He’s loveable. He’s funny.

Sometimes when the boys play their instruments he sings along.

He’s great at playing catch and (when it’s time to go in his crate) hide and seek.

He hates dog treats but loves Wheat Thins.

Whenever we hug the boys in the morning and pat their backs or rear ends, he jumps up, runs across the room, and mock bites at our hands as though he’s protecting them from a terrible beating.

He lays under the table at supper time and waits (somewhat) patiently for his turn.

He lays by the front window to warn all passersby that he is here and he means business.

He crawls onto the foot of the bed in the morning and waits, motionless, for my eyes to open.

He stays off the bed at all other times.

He is morally opposed to squirrels, flies and socked feet.

He considers all laps his for the taking.

If ever anyone cries or feels sick, he curls up beside them. It’s like he knows that a little extra lovin’ is needed.

He is, in short, one of us. He’s part of the pack.

So it’s okay really that he’s not such a great fishing partner. It’s alright that he thinks casting is an elaborate game of catch. We’ll forgive him for the fact that he bounds after the bait, thereby scaring off all the fish.

He’s the best catch anyhow…. a real keeper.

A diamond with a flaw is better than
a common stone that is perfect.

Chinese Proverb