And a good time was had by all.
Wherever you are, I hope you're safe, warm and happy. And if you can, get outside and play!
P.S. Lest you think we forgot her, Baby Willa was warm, safe, and asleep inside. We'll get her out today.
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Snow Day!
It finally snowed! All hail the snow!
And a good time was had by all.
Wherever you are, I hope you're safe, warm and happy. And if you can, get outside and play!
P.S. Lest you think we forgot her, Baby Willa was warm, safe, and asleep inside. We'll get her out today.
And a good time was had by all.
Wherever you are, I hope you're safe, warm and happy. And if you can, get outside and play!
P.S. Lest you think we forgot her, Baby Willa was warm, safe, and asleep inside. We'll get her out today.
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
A Little Steel Magnolias for Your Thanksgiving
So, it's Thanksgiving Week. A time for gratefulness. A time for family. A time for laughing at (I mean with!) family.
One of my favorite movie "families" has to be the cast of ladies from Steel Magnolias.
Without a doubt, some of the movie world's best one-liners come from that iconic Southern movie.
Allow me to share:
"He so confused, he doesn't know whether to scratch his watch or wind his butt."
"The only thing that separates us from the animals is our ability to accessorize."
"Miss Truvy, I promise that my personal tragedy will not interfere with my ability to do good hair."
"The nicest thing I can say about her is that all her tattoos are spelled correctly."
"Men. You can't live with 'em, and you can't shoot 'em."
And those, my friends, are only a few. Nearly every line of that movie is perfection. Not to mention populated by some of the finest, most talented actresses around, including the incomparable Dolly Parton.
I was reminded of Steel Magnolias yesterday, when I finally had a moment to dip into my December/January issue of Garden & Gun magazine. I love this magazine. I've mentioned this before. Mostly, it's because of the writing.
Page 33 immediately caught my eye. "Man of Steel: The untold story of Steel Magnolias," read the title, and after noticing the byline was the wry Julia Reed's, I read on.
It's a fabulous interview, full of Harling's anecdotes about filming, about the actors (he and Dolly apparently rode around town in search of the best fried okra). But what I found most incredible are Harling's observations on the Southern women in his life, on whom the play was based. It's totally worth checking out.
I advise buying the whole issue. But thankfully, Garden & Gun has posted the interview in its entirety online:
http://gardenandgun.com/article/interview-robert-harling
So as we all head out to be with our own crazy, wonderful families this week--or, heavens to Betsy, have them come to us--here's a chance to laugh. Laugh and be thankful that we've got each other.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Advice from Peter Pan
Over the weekend, my daughter turned three years old and was baptized. Three years old. I'm more in awe of this fact than I am that she didn't turn to the congregation during the baptism and announce that she was going to get "big girl underwear" when she starts "tee-teeing and poo-pooing in the potty." I was sure it was going to either be that or, "Mama? Who are all these people? Why's that man putting water on my head?"
And no, she's still not potty trained. I know. I don't want to talk about it right now.
Everything, however, went off mostly without a hitch. We hosted a "pirate ship party"--per her exact instructions--at the Pink Beds Picnic Area of the Pisgah National Forest, had gorgeous weather, hung out with cool people, ate cake, and drank mimosas. It was a fabulous morning.
Yes, we drank mimosas. Not sure if this is legal in the national forest or not. My husband and I decided there needed to adult beverages to celebrate our reaching the 3-years-of-parenthood point. Like how I slipped that in there, don't you?
She was baptized at the United Methodist Church in our town. Her bear, Baloo, was also baptized. My Mom saved the day with an emergency purse sucker. And, we officially joined the church we've been visiting for a while now. Here we are before heading into church. See how neat and tidy we look? We didn't look quite like this afterwards.
All in all, a dang good weekend.
This morning, I turned to my calendar--which I have positioned on the wall, at eye level, next to my pristine and beautifully bare desk. (Cough.) But that calendar, egads! It said today is July 31! This should come as no surprise to me, really, since my daughter's birthday is July 29. And still, I am flummoxed.
What happened to the summer?
When I was a kid, my parents told me that this would happen. They said, "Life will only go by faster the older you get." They also said, "The nerdy boys will turn out to be the real catches, so appreciate them," "You'll regret it if you don't spend that summer in Alaska," and "Marry someone you can have fun with for the rest of your life."
Gems, pure gems. I, like most people, realized my parents were brilliant the moment I turned 21.
But this life-speeding-by-thing. Man, that's a kick in the pants.
On of my favorite writers, J.M. Barrie--the Scottish playwright who wrote Peter Pan--offers a little wisdom on this front, and I like to try to remember it.
On May 3, 1922, Barrie addressed the graduating class at St. Andrews University in Scotland. His speech was very much about courage--about how to walk through your life as a good person, and how to make sense of it.
(On a side note, his address is incredible, and Barrie seems a bit of the soothsayer. Consider this challenge he issues to the graduates before him, and remember that this was 1922:
"I want you to take up this position: That youth have for too long left exclusively in our hands the decisions in national matters that are more vital to them than to us. Things about the next war, for instance, and why the last one ever had a beginning. I use the word fight because it must, I think, begin with a challenge; but the aim is the reverse of antagonism, it is partnership. I want you to hold that the time has arrived for youth to demand that partnership, and to demand it courageously."
Wow.)
The whole speech is incredible, truly, and worth reading. But it's what he says about time that stands out for me, especially in these quickly passing summer days when I've got ten different roles I need to play--and be good at--and a million things to do. On a larger scale, I think it speaks to our desperate need as modern Americans to slow ourselves, to calm our brains, to put away the (mostly electronic) nonsense--even temporarily--and to remember what it's like to be human, corporeal and flawed, flesh and blood and bone with only a limited time on this planet.
Barrie said: "You must have been warned against letting the golden hours slip by. Yes, but some of them are golden only because we let them slip."
All summer, I've been trying to let "the golden hours" slip. I've written about it here. Most of what I write about here, it seems, are my aspirations. Sometimes I reach them, but mostly I fall short. And even as I write the first sentence in this paragraph, I realize I'm sort of lying to myself.
So, as July moves into August, and we're faced with truly terrifying calendars and the threat of a busy Fall to come, here's to letting "the golden hours slip by."
I think we could all benefit from a little advice from Peter Pan.
 |
| Witness our desperation. We call this shot, "Waiting for the Tee-Tee" |
Everything, however, went off mostly without a hitch. We hosted a "pirate ship party"--per her exact instructions--at the Pink Beds Picnic Area of the Pisgah National Forest, had gorgeous weather, hung out with cool people, ate cake, and drank mimosas. It was a fabulous morning.
Yes, we drank mimosas. Not sure if this is legal in the national forest or not. My husband and I decided there needed to adult beverages to celebrate our reaching the 3-years-of-parenthood point. Like how I slipped that in there, don't you?
She was baptized at the United Methodist Church in our town. Her bear, Baloo, was also baptized. My Mom saved the day with an emergency purse sucker. And, we officially joined the church we've been visiting for a while now. Here we are before heading into church. See how neat and tidy we look? We didn't look quite like this afterwards.
All in all, a dang good weekend.
This morning, I turned to my calendar--which I have positioned on the wall, at eye level, next to my pristine and beautifully bare desk. (Cough.) But that calendar, egads! It said today is July 31! This should come as no surprise to me, really, since my daughter's birthday is July 29. And still, I am flummoxed.
What happened to the summer?
When I was a kid, my parents told me that this would happen. They said, "Life will only go by faster the older you get." They also said, "The nerdy boys will turn out to be the real catches, so appreciate them," "You'll regret it if you don't spend that summer in Alaska," and "Marry someone you can have fun with for the rest of your life."
Gems, pure gems. I, like most people, realized my parents were brilliant the moment I turned 21.
But this life-speeding-by-thing. Man, that's a kick in the pants.
 |
| J.M. Barrie Photo credit: www.biography.com |
On May 3, 1922, Barrie addressed the graduating class at St. Andrews University in Scotland. His speech was very much about courage--about how to walk through your life as a good person, and how to make sense of it.
(On a side note, his address is incredible, and Barrie seems a bit of the soothsayer. Consider this challenge he issues to the graduates before him, and remember that this was 1922:
"I want you to take up this position: That youth have for too long left exclusively in our hands the decisions in national matters that are more vital to them than to us. Things about the next war, for instance, and why the last one ever had a beginning. I use the word fight because it must, I think, begin with a challenge; but the aim is the reverse of antagonism, it is partnership. I want you to hold that the time has arrived for youth to demand that partnership, and to demand it courageously."
Wow.)
The whole speech is incredible, truly, and worth reading. But it's what he says about time that stands out for me, especially in these quickly passing summer days when I've got ten different roles I need to play--and be good at--and a million things to do. On a larger scale, I think it speaks to our desperate need as modern Americans to slow ourselves, to calm our brains, to put away the (mostly electronic) nonsense--even temporarily--and to remember what it's like to be human, corporeal and flawed, flesh and blood and bone with only a limited time on this planet.
Barrie said: "You must have been warned against letting the golden hours slip by. Yes, but some of them are golden only because we let them slip."
All summer, I've been trying to let "the golden hours" slip. I've written about it here. Most of what I write about here, it seems, are my aspirations. Sometimes I reach them, but mostly I fall short. And even as I write the first sentence in this paragraph, I realize I'm sort of lying to myself.
So, as July moves into August, and we're faced with truly terrifying calendars and the threat of a busy Fall to come, here's to letting "the golden hours slip by."
I think we could all benefit from a little advice from Peter Pan.
 |
| Photo credit: www.en.wikipedia.com |
Monday, January 16, 2012
Back in the Saddle
First residency at the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA in Writing program completed: Check.
Back home and procrastinating like the champion pro-cras-ti-NAY-TOR that I am: Check check.
It's 3:06 in the afternoon, and I'm still wearing my pajamas. Granted, they're whimsical, black and white, Fair Isle-patterned, Victoria Secret long underwear pajamas, but it's after 8 a.m., and I'm still wearin' 'em. The gas logs are blazing, my black lab is snoring on her Christmas-present new dog bed, and my toddler is napping. Finally.
It's not that I've been lazing about, as my husband likes to say, "eating Bon Bons." (What ARE Bon Bons, by the way? They sound like something French and dirty.) So far today, I've fed my dog and child, helped my husband find his wallet, made up a grading calendar and graded assignments for an online writing class I'm teaching, checked both of my work email accounts, washed several loads of laundry, finished a novel assigned by my faculty advisor at Vermont College, and prepped and started a big, fat crockpot of turkey chili for tonight's supper. Yet, I'm still in my pajamas. If Publisher's Clearing House arrives at the door--like I'm sure they will since I've been filling out those daggum envelopes for years--I will be That Woman. You know, the one in her housecoat with the greasy hair, covering her face and shouting, "Oh, law, I can't believe I'm on T.V. like this!" Of course, I'll be in my cute Fair Isle pajamas.
This is all to say that in spite of each of the aforementioned tasks being important, I'm still procrastinating. Here's why:
I arrived home from Montpelier, Vermont and VCFA on Sunday, January 8, exhausted from travel and desperately happy to see my family. At the airport in Greenville, South Carolina, where I last landed, my two year-old towhead of a daughter broke from her father and sprinted through a crowd of people heading toward baggage claim, and leapt into my arms. My God--what a life! Two days after returning home, two of our best friends in the world and their twin 16 month-olds arrived at our tiny house in the mountains, and we had a wonderful few days together, eating and drinking and chasing kiddos and laughing with more friends. Then, my parents came to visit for the day before leaving on one of their many jaunts about the globe (they've been burning up the mountain highway to our house for, oh, the past 2 1/2 years). Then my husband and I poohed out a bit over the weekend. Sure, we went grocery shopping and cleaned up and played with our daughter and hiked with friends and I began cleaning my Jabba the Hut of a desk, but we poohed out.
Which brings us to today. I gave myself last week, as a gift, to regroup after the residency and to enjoy time with friends. But now it's time for the heavy lifting. For the work on the many, many pages of creative and critical writing I'm to mail to my advisor in three weeks. But I find myself, home again, willing to do anything else that needs doing in my house, other than write. Because writing is hard. And I'm a big, stinkin' mess of procrastination. The Pro-Crass-ti-nay-TOR: able to avoid the-thing-she-loves-doing-most in a single bound. More on this at a later date. (See: I'm sneaky.)
The residency itself was a good one, my first with Vermont College. The campus was snow-covered and lovely, the lectures for the most part interesting and helpful--some downright inspiring. The new friends, especially, a joy. Writers are a ridiculous, wonderful, ego-centric, odd, irreverent bunch, and it's always nice to be in the company of my people. Even the dorm room I stayed in--though some may disagree--wasn't so bad. Though I did feel, upon entering, a swift urge to paper the walls with Matthew McConaughey posters and blast the Dave Matthews Band. And order pizza at 3 a.m. And wear flip-flops. And go to breakfast wearing the same clothes I'd worn the night before. But I digress.
See, the dorm:
Not so bad, right? Bigger than my freshman year dorm room at Clemson. (On a side note, I slept like a rock in Vermont, woke each day bright-eyed at 6:30 a.m. Wierd.)
And the campus, small and lovely:
And Montpelier, the state capitol, only a ten minute's walk down the hill from the College. I spent quite a bit of time there with new friends and alone, dining and shopping and wandering:
across foot bridges...
It was heaven, that time in the woods. Even though I slipped on the ice and thought I fractured my elbow. But I digress.
So now I'm home, trying like all heck to organize my life, my work, my writing, my schooling, my family into one neat, color-coordinated schedule. I'm trying to figure out how I can do it all, and do it well.
I may give myself one more week....
Back home and procrastinating like the champion pro-cras-ti-NAY-TOR that I am: Check check.
It's 3:06 in the afternoon, and I'm still wearing my pajamas. Granted, they're whimsical, black and white, Fair Isle-patterned, Victoria Secret long underwear pajamas, but it's after 8 a.m., and I'm still wearin' 'em. The gas logs are blazing, my black lab is snoring on her Christmas-present new dog bed, and my toddler is napping. Finally.
It's not that I've been lazing about, as my husband likes to say, "eating Bon Bons." (What ARE Bon Bons, by the way? They sound like something French and dirty.) So far today, I've fed my dog and child, helped my husband find his wallet, made up a grading calendar and graded assignments for an online writing class I'm teaching, checked both of my work email accounts, washed several loads of laundry, finished a novel assigned by my faculty advisor at Vermont College, and prepped and started a big, fat crockpot of turkey chili for tonight's supper. Yet, I'm still in my pajamas. If Publisher's Clearing House arrives at the door--like I'm sure they will since I've been filling out those daggum envelopes for years--I will be That Woman. You know, the one in her housecoat with the greasy hair, covering her face and shouting, "Oh, law, I can't believe I'm on T.V. like this!" Of course, I'll be in my cute Fair Isle pajamas.
This is all to say that in spite of each of the aforementioned tasks being important, I'm still procrastinating. Here's why:
I arrived home from Montpelier, Vermont and VCFA on Sunday, January 8, exhausted from travel and desperately happy to see my family. At the airport in Greenville, South Carolina, where I last landed, my two year-old towhead of a daughter broke from her father and sprinted through a crowd of people heading toward baggage claim, and leapt into my arms. My God--what a life! Two days after returning home, two of our best friends in the world and their twin 16 month-olds arrived at our tiny house in the mountains, and we had a wonderful few days together, eating and drinking and chasing kiddos and laughing with more friends. Then, my parents came to visit for the day before leaving on one of their many jaunts about the globe (they've been burning up the mountain highway to our house for, oh, the past 2 1/2 years). Then my husband and I poohed out a bit over the weekend. Sure, we went grocery shopping and cleaned up and played with our daughter and hiked with friends and I began cleaning my Jabba the Hut of a desk, but we poohed out.
Which brings us to today. I gave myself last week, as a gift, to regroup after the residency and to enjoy time with friends. But now it's time for the heavy lifting. For the work on the many, many pages of creative and critical writing I'm to mail to my advisor in three weeks. But I find myself, home again, willing to do anything else that needs doing in my house, other than write. Because writing is hard. And I'm a big, stinkin' mess of procrastination. The Pro-Crass-ti-nay-TOR: able to avoid the-thing-she-loves-doing-most in a single bound. More on this at a later date. (See: I'm sneaky.)
The residency itself was a good one, my first with Vermont College. The campus was snow-covered and lovely, the lectures for the most part interesting and helpful--some downright inspiring. The new friends, especially, a joy. Writers are a ridiculous, wonderful, ego-centric, odd, irreverent bunch, and it's always nice to be in the company of my people. Even the dorm room I stayed in--though some may disagree--wasn't so bad. Though I did feel, upon entering, a swift urge to paper the walls with Matthew McConaughey posters and blast the Dave Matthews Band. And order pizza at 3 a.m. And wear flip-flops. And go to breakfast wearing the same clothes I'd worn the night before. But I digress.
See, the dorm:
Not so bad, right? Bigger than my freshman year dorm room at Clemson. (On a side note, I slept like a rock in Vermont, woke each day bright-eyed at 6:30 a.m. Wierd.)
And the campus, small and lovely:
And Montpelier, the state capitol, only a ten minute's walk down the hill from the College. I spent quite a bit of time there with new friends and alone, dining and shopping and wandering:
Around the State House...
across foot bridges...
at the oft-frequented Postive Pie 2, our unofficial residency hangout, with new writer-friends Rachel and Kim ...
through the streets of town...
wandering neighborhoods, admiring the old Victorian homes and added-upon cottages... watching the Winooski River slowly freeze at its edges, despite the unseasonably warm weather...
hiking in icy Hubbard Park, with my new friend, writer Amy Wallen...
climbing the old tower there...
utilizing the Port-o-Potty (cutest I've ever seen... and yes, I've seen a few Port-o-Potties)...
It was heaven, that time in the woods. Even though I slipped on the ice and thought I fractured my elbow. But I digress.
So now I'm home, trying like all heck to organize my life, my work, my writing, my schooling, my family into one neat, color-coordinated schedule. I'm trying to figure out how I can do it all, and do it well.
I may give myself one more week....
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Repeat the Sounding Joy
Usually, I become a deep thinker at Christmas time. A ponderer. A sponge for the lovely, bittersweet, joyous and sometimes maudlin emotions winging out from most December souls. I can't help it: I'm a born empathizer. But at times, I even annoy myself.
This December, the season has been especially busy. I realize that I alone am not suffering under the hectic pace of the holidays, but for some reason I'm feeling it this year a bit more than usual. I've been trying to kick the feeling, and it's beginning to budge.
Last night, after my husband had returned from work and taken over toddler duty, I made a trip out for last-minute teacher gifts and groceries. My town was fairly empty, and the white lights lacing the trees on Main Street, the huge Christmas tree at the courthouse, the snowflakes on the power poles, they all glowed, dripping with rain. The grocery store was fairly calm, and I moved beneath the florescent lights from aisle to aisle in a bit of an exhausted trance. I didn't see anyone I knew, and this was a bit of a gift. It was nice to be alone.
On my way home, I couldn't help but drive slowly down my street, looking at the lights. Candles lit the windows of so many houses, and it seemed like even the most humble of apartment-dwellers had given in to the season, stringing a lone strand of fat colored bulbs up one railing. It made me smile. The glowing Santa statuette on my neighbor's lawn, these lights, my own, seemed suddenly a small reach for joy.
Yesterday before the evening store run, I'd put my toddler down for a nap like I always do, and had collapsed on the couch, quite literally unable to keep my eyes open. My limbs felt heavy, and welcoming blackness engulfed me. I may not have emerged for hours later, save for the incessent ringing of my cell phone and my daughter's wails over the monitor. I woke groggy, still caught by sleep, and stumbled to her room. It had been as if my body and my brain shook on it, and decided to take me by force.
My husband insists that this was my stress--work, home, motherhood, impending trip, Christmas business--having its way with me. He may be right, but it still feels strange. Stress? I have a great family, a home, an avocation, my health, and a Christmas tree. What do I truly have to be stressed about?
I think I just needed a nap. This is odd for me, as I'm a pretty peppy person. But I believe if I lie down, even now, I might sleep until Spring.
So, no nap. A shift, refocus. On Christmas--that most mysterious time, that awakening. Here's my recipe, if you will, for a return to Christmas cheer. (I cannot guaruntee this will work for you, should you be filled with Christmas ennui... but it does for me):
1. Throw off plans. If you need to order out for supper, do it. Ask for the Christmas burrito.
2. Sit in front of the fireplace until your back burns.
3. Read Christmas stories, to your kid(s), your significant other, your friends, heck--even the dog. I suggest Van Allsburg's The Polar Express. It doesn't get more magical than train of children chugging through a snow-filled forest, wolves pacing beneath the Christmas moon.
4. Eavesdrop at a small-town post office. Standing in line earlier this week I heard lovely Christmas greetings between friends old and new. There's nothing like a big, fat smile on a wrinkled face. Pure magic.
5. Watch Christmas movies, lots of them, whenever you can. Even if it's after midnight. I suggest: White Christmas, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, The Family Stone, Love Actually, and, of course, It's a Wonderful Life. Forgo any sarcastic thought, any lingering of cheese. It's Christmas.
6. Step outside. Breathe deeply. Consider the sky: starry or dark, it's the same sky looked upon by the ancients, the holy, the sinner and the saint. It is full of Mystery. And that's okay.
Wishing all of you joy in this season of Light,
K
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