sweeter than the sweetest tea

Norah likes her mama!

Wednesday Katie & Kari brought all the littles by for the afternoon.  I like to think they just love to spend time with me, but truth be told they were in it for the poppy seed chicken.

Whatever. 
I'm not proud...I'll take what I can get :)

Noodle likes her Doc McStuffins!

It was a really nice day.  The kids were all overtired and overdone what with their holiday hangovers, miscellaneous maladies, and the previous night's sleepover with Kate.  Kari kept apologizing for the mayhem but honestly I just laughed my way through it. 

What else is one to do when you have toddlers marching around announcing to anyone who will listen that there will be NO HUGS - or manners (ha!), naptime accidents in Naynay's bed, multiple episodes of spitting up coupled with at least one wretchedly foul-smelling diaper situation, in the course of one innocent afternoon?

They ALL really like making messes!

Well.  I say you too would laugh your way through the madness, you know you would.

Peyton likes...everything!

Sadie likes her paci!

  

And if you ever doubted the day was a success,
when your daughter tells your grandchild that it's time to go home, you might just overhear her say, ever so wistfully, "I just wish we could stay here forever and ever and ever."

Audrey likes making eggs!  After rejecting lunch!

 ....and then, just for sheer fun & comic relief, a few hours later it's possible you'll receive an urgent Facetime invite from the nearly-two-year old, who is tragically and hilariously calling Naynay to tattle mightily on his mama, who has made an unacceptable pronouncement of no sweet tea before bed. (The horror!)

Apparently Norah now likes falling asleep in the middle of bedlam!

...and as you fall asleep that night, you'll thank God for every minute of this life that is oh. so. sweet.

xoxo

beautiful words I didn't write

Donna left a few minutes ago, and I'm oh-so-glad she was here with me this weekend.  Sometimes when the sad is so big you don't want to be by yourself, even if you're me and often revel in Alone.


I thought maybe I'd catch up with you a bit, but my heart is still in Connecticut with those 20 mamas, and I guess it's just too soon for me to go on and on about Pepsi and cookies and the joyous drivel that often fills my days.


I did, however, want to share with you a few lovely reads I've found over the last couple of days. They might fill your heart up just a little bit, as they surely have mine.  
Each and every one of them is full of beautiful, glorious Hope.  (Thank you, Jesus!)
 
 
Lisa-Jo's When Parents Have Nightmares

Jamie lives in Newtown and shares here:  Newtown as I Know It

...and oh my! how Ann Voskamp brings it all home in  The Truth About Sandy Hook- Where is God When Bad Things Happen



Finally, as someone who loves so many of you sweet girls personally, might I gently suggest you join me in stepping away from the neverending onslaught of (miserable) media and embrace some quiet time praying for those 20 mamas today?



I love you and I'm not even kidding,

 

happiness is...

...Audrey always remembering that my favorite color is blue.


...Owen lying still-as-a-statue in my bed, with his blanket tucked under his chin, for a little "Super Readers" (aka Super Why).


...Peyton, big smile covering his face, crawling fast as he can to get scooped up in my hug. 


...every glorious word of Luke 2.  "For unto you is born this day..."


...a little Sixpence None the Richer, Holiday on Pandora.


...my friends' names popping up on my caller ID or their voices on my voice mail.


...opening that first Christmas card of the season.


...reading our Christmas books with them nestled under my arm.
 

...exploring a brand-new (to us!) shopping mall.


...pandemonium with a side of mayhem, family style!
 

...A Charlie Brown Christmas with Noodle for the very first time.  
("That Snoopy is sooo silly!") 


...a warm sugar cookie straight from the oven :)

 

Happiness is slowing down and breathing in all the wonderful



What makes you happy?

the (very green) greenway

Elijah and I have started taking a daily constitutional on our local hiking/biking trail.

It meanders around the city for miles & miles... and miles.

Sometimes he's really excited about it and sometimes he throws a fit and proceeds to share in a loud voice how exhausting it is to be seven.

I've been known to ignore said bellyaching and drag him along in his jammies.

I'm not known around these parts as Aunt Meanie for nothing, ya know.

These pictures were all taken during a 30-minute stretch along the trail last week.

Country living in the middle of the city.

Pretty terrific :)

Happy Wednesday!

feeling blue? ticked off? discouraged? maybe just a little icky?

Source: gritandglory.com via Renee on Pinterest

If we have Jesus, we have...everything.



Joy.  

It's ours for the choosing :)



Happy Friday!

there's a lot of attitude in those beady little eyes

So I was going to share pictures of the puppy with you today but I can't stop being distracted by the SHEER TERROR.

It turns out that moving into zillion-year-old houses that have been empty for, like, ever, tend to have a plethora of, let's just say challenges.

As I sit on my sofa with my feet up off the floor, with every light on around me (which has proven useless), and a broom by my side, which I periodically smack around on the floor just to prove I'm bigger, I'm highly agitated.  and disturbed.  and AGITATED.  There may have been both palpitations and diaphoresis.  (Look it up, girls.)

I knew he was here when I started hearing him crunching on my personal possessions over the sound of the television.

CRUNCHING.  

OVER THE TELEVISION.

He then proceeded to scamper straight across my floor twice.  Once he turned around and gave me this look that I found to be quite insulting and condescending.  

He made me mad and mostly scared me to death.  

Now I'm trying to convince myself to sleep in spite of the furniture crunching.

Seriously how does one catch a mouse in the middle of the night?  Will he crawl up into personal spaces like, you know, beds? or is he content to scamper and glower at me from the floor?  Is it safe to go to sleep?  These are the questions keeping me up tonight.

Well that and my nostalgia for my rodent-free townhouse.

I'll keep you posted on how things progress, and if I survive the night I'll try to share our new puppy with ya on Friday.

Heaven help me is all I'm saying.

 

something of an update

(Warning!  In editing this I've discovered I sound cranky & whiny, but who has the time to change midstream?  Please bear in mind that moving-fatigue is a bonafide condition that is reported to be quite temporary.  Carry on.)

So I'd be happy to share a few pictures of mostly crazy to brighten your day and give you a sense of perspective, but I still have no idea where the cord is. 

So I won't.

I'm a little horrified to realize I moved exactly one week ago and I still don't know where my camera cord is.  Or my razor (yikes!) (don't judge).  Or the tops to my favorite, use-'em-every-day water bottles.

Or my equilibrium.

The boxes are slowly dwindling and I have, in fact, found both my underwear and the floor, but there are still piles and lists and some more piles.

There is also a geriatric dog who's unofficially on hospice, whose current activity is primarily wandering to a different spot on the floor and upchucking, and then napping some more.

And a puppy who is really sweet and not barking so much.  But still.  PUPPY.

And to make our day complete, I'm sitting around waiting for the cable guy to come back again.  We had planned to pretend life was not in complete disarray and flee to the pool, but you know, CABLE GUY sometime between 10 and 12.  (It's 11:29.  Good thing I rushed that razor-less shower!)  I'd be cranky but they're bringing me a DVR and I'm intrigued.  I plan to record all manner of irrelevance and watch it at my leisure.

Which I predict to be late October-ish ;)

Later gators!

sigh

You wouldn't think that scrubbing and cleaning a house that is no longer a home would evoke such an odd sense of grief.

Yet here I sit.

As is my style, I've tossed and sold and given away and packed...and lugged and carted and moved my things, with a pragmatism that keeps tears-induced headaches to a minimum.  

But for some inexplicable reason, pulling the nails from the walls of what used to be Kari's room, the room where Hector lived and her wedding dress hung, has rendered me all weepy.

I only lived here for five years.  I didn't actually raise my children here.

But it is, you know, "Naynay's House."

It was home, and there was much loving here.

I guess it's all fun and games until you erase the last of the living from the walls, huh.

No worries though, I'm taking all the loving with me.

but i'll carry you in my heart like the melodramatic fool that I am

Lucky boys.  Someone else lugs their stuff around and likely cleans under the fridge for 'em too.

Okay Peeps, so this is me saying I'm just one oldish crazy lady who is incapable of getting it all done.

Moving Day is looming.

There are some borderline moods going on around here and mainly I'm teetering on the edge of a lovely combination of HYSTERIA mixed with a touch of NOT CARING AT ALL.  

It's a sight to behold, is what it is.

I'm surrounded by clutter and chaos and messy floors to the point where I'm starting to twitch.  

...and seeing as how I can't really not do my job, and I can't not pack my stuff, and it would be wrong to not look after E - and I definitely can't not put shelf paper on any-and-every shelf I find in a certain new residence, my options are limited.

So it appears the one thing I can, you know, not do is Ye Old Blog.

So we can call the next few days a hiatus, or a vacation, or even that-time-Renee-ran-away-to-parts-unknown... 

...but whatever ya want to call it one thing is sure, I probably won't be posting any new drivel until after said move is complete.

I know.  You're welcome.

Have a great week, y'all - and don't forget to be thankful that you aren't moving all of your worldly possessions across town this week cause IT AIN'T SO MUCH FUN.

Catch ya on the flip side  :)

nothing to prove

Well I threw it all away.

I've been going through the house and purging like nobody's business.  It seems the right thing to do given all the changes coming with The Move that's looming in the near future.

I haven't even blinked during most of the trashing of my former treasures.  It's fascinating how something can seem un-lose-able one day and a few years later it holds virtually no value at all.  I imagine there's a life lesson or deep insight there somewhere, but I'm kind've into skimming across the top of things right now.

One doesn't trash her former treasures without doing a fair amount of skimming.

Anyway, I've been trashing willy-nilly for weeks now, but today seemed just a bit different.  I knew it was there somewhere, and had already decided its fate, but didn't come across it until now.  I had considered not even looking inside and just tossing it straight out, but fear of losing something still valuable forced me to peek inside.  

It was all there.  The details likely wouldn't matter so much to you, but the not-so-great memories evoked by mere glimpses still take my breath clean away.  

(Interesting, isn't it, our ability to be transported to another place by snippets.)  

I tried to stick close to the surface and not dive straight in, and resolutely I continued to chuck things in the ever-growing pile of the discarded.

But still...

Somehow in a way that's difficult to explain, this bit of no-longer-relevant continues to have some manner of value to me.

I'm reasonably sure it isn't a healthy value (is that possible...unhealthy value?) but it still stung.  

Today I threw away evidence of a storm that was real and hard and terrible, and also full, and rich, and productive.

Today I threw away "proof" that it was just as big as I thought at the time and that I was as sincere as I believe myself to have been.  

Validation, if you will.

Somehow it feels terribly dangerous to just. let. it. go.

What if I need to prove something to myself some day?  

What will I do then?

I suppose I'll just have to remind myself that with God's grace I have nothing at all to prove, and then leave it all where it belongs...

Long-gone, with all of the other out-of-date, no-longer-treasured treasures.

Life is for the living, after all, 

and apparently, for today, God has some living left for me to do.

(A Thousand Gifts #1190-1199)


projected breaks in miserable heat & promises of raindrops

freedom from what was 

sweet new pictures

growing piles of the no-longer-necessary

easy access to effective meds

just...sitting, all together

little boys falling asleep in the middle of the visiting

the delicious peace that comes with realizing there's simply no proof required :)

Happy Monday!

Full

What a pretty pretty morning here in Virginia.  As I type I'm sitting on my needs-a-spring-face-lift-but-I'm-okay-with-that back porch with bare feet and a semi decent attitude :)  

I hear a a lawnmower working hard a few lawns away and at least 200 birds singing.  Maybe a thousand, it's hard to tell.

If I had to guess I'd say it's probably about 70 degrees and things are thoroughly green and...settled looking.  Most of blooms are long-gone and the trees and bushes have settled in for what is shaping up to be a long summer.  It looks like it's at least the end of May already in my little corner of the world, which leaves me confused and oddly pleased... 

The last couple of months have my weather senses seriously askew, but I don't care because did I mention all THE GREEN? 

We're gearing up around these parts to celebrate in a SUPER BIG way tomorrow, for our Jeremy is GRADUATING COLLEGE after six long years of school and jobs and a wife and two new babies.  There are no words to describe the busting-out-inside kind of happy for him we are right now.  Seriously, no words.  I'm not even going to try today, but take my word for it, HAPPY.

This week is all about what are we going to wear? and Mom-can-you-bring? and where on earth is the recipe for that dip?  There's also a side order of first grade and gainful employment and touching up the roots (yikes!).  Mix all that up with healthy dose of Peyton and gratitude and anticipation of a full two-day weekend and I'm officially filled up :)

I feel like I should tie all this meandering up with a pretty, red-and-white polka dot bow, pull my thoughts together in tidy presentation, and then offer them to you with a smile and a hug, but after sitting here in my creaky glider for a full twelve minutes just...listening, I find myself right where I started.

Surrounded by birdy serenades and copious amounts of green pulling my eyes away from my words.

The lawnmower has stopped.  I guess my neighbor is all finished...but just this minute another one is starting up down the street.  

I predict this to be quite the productive, full-of-life sort of day.

My very favorite kind.

favorite reads: "please don't miss it"

The more my online horizons, so to speak, expand, the more astounded I am at the variety of ways God uses us right where we are.  I can't even believe how many gifted writers there are floating around in cyberspace, and personally it just might be my favorite thing about the Internet. 

I do love me some words. 

And some kindness. 

And some funny.

And some people who love Jesus.

 

Last night during the (in)RL conference they shared a beautiful video full of conversation about how Sarah Frankel touched so many lives while being confined to her own four walls. It reminded me of one of my favorite blog posts ever.  She died back in September and wrote these sweet words of encouragement on her last birthday before joining Jesus. 


When I think of all the bloggy offerings I've read over the last couple of years this one always comes to mind.  I think it's the perfect choice to share with y'all for my first "favorite read."


You can click right here to read her post entitled Please Don't Miss It, written on May 13, 2011.


******

And now, after spending a shocking amount of time tearing up during (in)RL, I'm off to thoroughly enjoy a little silly time and taco soup with Donna - have a great night!

clean slates and remembering what He's done

(A Thousand Gifts #1096-1115)

new helpings of peace, and grace, and forgiveness, and humor, and hope... 

                                                                     ...and the understanding that it is only because of Jesus

                                                                                                                                always sweet Jesus

a day quiet enough to hear my racing thoughts

the familiarity of the potato salad with the ham

visiting while he naps on my shoulder (both the visiting...and the napping :)

the comfort (and freedom!) in knowing I don't have to have all the answers

time set apart

clean slates, and moving on

searching out all my favorites via the internet, a soundtrack of goodness for my weekend

open windows for the briefest time

knowing His voice and recognizing what needs to be

pictures of their day to lessen the missing

remembering

                           ...who He is, 

                                                 ...and what He has done, 

                                                                                          ...and what He has offered to do through me