• the quotidian (5.28.12)

    May 28, 2012
    Quotidian: daily, usual or customary; 
    everyday; ordinary; commonplace 

    The kids constantly fight over who gets to hold her. And then when she falls asleep they cry because they can’t hold her anymore…except for the one who put her to sleep, lucky bum.

    He tilled for an hour while his papa followed along, picking up rocks. 

    Carving branches into sharp pointy sticks is all the rage these days.

    We’ve been eating an awful lot of store-bought bread and lunch meat these days. These particular sandwiches were for a picnic lunch at the park after a morning of running errands: library, barber shop (for shaggy boy—see top picture), a visit to the cat shelter (for petting purposes only), the pharmacy, etc. We topped it all off with DQ cones. The kids couldn’t believe their good fortune.

    I took my afternoon coffee on the deck so I could keep my eye on the weather—it was threatening to rain and there was laundry on the line.

    I’m not sure what to say about this picture. It appeared on my camera. (And yes, the kids aren’t allowed to use my camera without permission, but when stuff like this shows up, I have a hard time being mad.)

    Sparkle: a new (for us) kind of strawberry. I’m conflicted about them. The flavor is excellent, but they go all squishy mushy super easy and don’t keep well at all. I doubt I’ll plant them again. (We’re getting ready to plant a huge, new patch. Any suggestions on what kind of berries to choose?)

    Grape arbor monkey.
    He’s not allowed up there—the whole time I was taking pictures, 
    I was telling him to get down.
    Which wasn’t effective at all.

    Grape arbor house. 

    Chillin’ with G-daddy.

    Grandmommy came, and she brought squash pie. Two of them. (And the fans went wild.) 

    This same time, years previous: making art, Aunt Valerie’s blueberry bars, asparagus, goat cheese, and lemon pasta, questions and carrots, chicken butchering, a cake for Wayne, one dead mouse, strawberry ideas, the ways we play

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  • the reason why

    May 24, 2012

    This play has sucked up all my creative juices. It’s also sucked up lots of my waking hours and a bunch of my sleeping ones, too. I am no longer writing or cooking or even thinking about those things.

    It’s not that I don’t have time to write, because I do, but my energy levels are low. It’s like I’m in hibernation, just drifting through the day, half-heartedly maintaining the household, hoarding all my energy so I’ll have enough to make it through the practices.

    Also, I never realized how much of the writing process happens before I ever type out a single word. All those hours that I’m flitting about doing my predictable stuff, I’m pondering, musing, thinking. Then when I have a free hour to write, I can put out, bam.

    I never even knew that’s what was going on with my head.

    But now with five hours of my day spent in rehearsals, I’ve lost all that routine thinking time. My mind is fully absorbed. In fact, I have trouble carrying on a regular conversation and slip into running my lines at the drop of the hat. Example: when Nickel asked me a question during Sunday’s church service, I stared at him blankly, busily lost in working out a scene in my head, until my husband elbow-jabbed me and hissed, “Answer him!”

    The other reason I’m not writing is because being in a play is too new. I need time to process my experiences into a shareable format. If I were to write about it now, there would be far too much angst.

    I’m taking notes, though. You will (eventually) get the behind-the-scenes rundown. Promise.

    P.S. I talked a little about the play (and biscuits) in the latest Kitchen Chronicles.

    This same time, years previous: savoring Saturday’s sun, through my daughter’s eyes, Ranch dressing

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  • the quotidian (5.21.12)

    May 21, 2012
    Quotidian: daily, usual or customary; 
     everyday; ordinary; commonplace

    bedhead

    lettuce, o beautiful lettuce

    basking

    the face of luuuv
    (and the reason I flinch when anyone puckers up in my general direction)

    fork-feeding the chickens

    I had high hopes for this pineapple mango salsa, 
    but my husband and I both thought it a little flat. 
    I probably did it wrong.

    My husband looked out the window and this is what he saw: the kids had turned the porch swing around so it faced out into the front yard and were happily sailing over the forsythia.
    Yee-haw.

    white shirts for kids = the stupidest idea ever

    I set my script on the roof of the car while I dug in my bag for my keys with one hand 
    and shoved a cupcake into my mouth with the other. 
    “You are going to forget you put it there,” I warned myself. 
    And then I proceeded to do just that. 
    Not until I was pulling out of the parking lot did it come crashing down 
    and completely burst apart on the pavement. 
    I was laughing so hard I could hardly pick up the papers. 
    The end.

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