And So the Summer Begins ...

The path through the Spring Point Preserve on Ocracoke Island, NC 

I know for a lot of people summer began a few weeks ago when school ended, and for the more literal-minded among us, summer began on June 21st, the summer solstice. But for me, summer begins now. My calendar is clear. I've been on vacation, prepared for my week-long creative writing workshop, taught my workshop, recovered from my workshop ... and for the next five weeks, I ain't doing nothing. 

Okay, so that's not true. I'll be revising a novel, tending a garden, bossing around boys, driving around boys, hopefully making a quilt and putting in some serious housekeeping time. But I'm not going anywhere until the second week of August, when we head to Kentucky for a family reunion, and I don't have much on my calendar except for minor appointments and the like.

It has been a long, long time since I've posted, so let me catch you up on what's been going on or is about to go on:

1. Jack starts behind-the-wheel driver's ed today. He's totally ready. I am totally not.

2. Will has caught World Cup fever. His life currently revolves around the games, especially if the U.S. is playing. I don't understand why the U.S. is still playing. It seems to take a lot to get eliminated from the World Cup. I mean, like you have to lose fifteen times or something. I wonder if everyone gets a trophy at the end, like they do here in Pee Wee soccer?

3. We spent last week on Ocracoke Island, which is part of North Carolina's Outer Banks. Would you like to see some pictures? Of course you would!

The house we rent every year. It's called the Mary Frances, 

and it was built in 1920.

The edge of Springer's Point, the nature preserve on the island. The pirate Black Beard hung out here back in the day and is said to haunt the area, but so far I haven't run into him.

One of the ancient live oaks on the nature preserve. 

I walked here every day of our vacation. 

When I asked the Man if he thought the preserve was enchanted (the trees have a very enchanted feel to them), he said, "No, but it's complex on an astral plane."

 I thought that summed things up quite nicely.

Stacks of netted clam shells on the edge of the Point. I've been reading a wonderful book called The Old Ways by Robert McFarlane, which is in part about walking on old roads and pathways in the UK, and these shells made me think of the cairns that he sometimes found marking trails.

We had a very nice vacation, in fact probably the best family vacation we've had. Usually we're all a little tired of each other by the end of the week, a little surly and rundown, but for some reason that didn't happen this year.

Oh, I wanted to tell you about an author I discovered this vacation! Her name is Alice Taylor, and she's Irish. By chance, I picked up her book The Village, a memoir about village life in the early 1960s, at the library, and I found it absolutely charming. Now I want to read her book about growing up in the country, To School Through the Fields. I'll let you know how it is.

 4. The garden is growing! Get ready for more pictures!

 Butternut squash to the left, black beans to the right.

More beans.

The world's tiniest cornfield.

Echinacea.

We are starting to get tomatoes, and there are peppers on the pepper plants, but it may take awhile for them to turn yellow and red. Lots of cukes, lots of green beans.  The watermelon plants are not growing vigorously, nor are the zucchini. It has been a dry summer so far, and I fear they haven't gotten enough water.

5. Big news: I got my braces off! I will end this post with the before and after pictures:

Before (as in about an hour before the braces came off)

And after ...

 Now I am all grown up.

More soon!

Now I Am 50

Doesn't it look like the tree on the left is hugging the tree on the right?

So I turned 50 on Friday. It wasn't so bad. It was a little strange to wake up and think, "I'm 50." The idea was a little more weighty than I anticipated. But by the end of the day it felt very normal to be 50. Isn't everyone?

On Saturday we had a birthday party with forty of our nearest and dearest, and I enjoyed it very much, much to my amazement. Of course, being the hostess, I spent most of the evening running around making sure everyone had someone to talk to and that the introverts weren't suffering too much. We ate barbecue pork and hush puppies and banana pudding, and my friend Doug the fiddle player and his friend Rick the guitar player played Old Time music out by the garage.

The Man and I have decided we like throwing parties more than we think we do. The introverts among you will understand what we mean.

***

School is out. As usual, we have very little planned. Drivers Ed and some volunteer work for Jack, a few camps for Will, a week at the beach for all of us, a trip to Kentucky to see my parents before school starts again. Other than that, it's the pool for Will and the garden and writing for me and texting his friends for Jack.

***

Will's baseball team has a game on Saturday. If they win, they will be League champions. If they lose, they will play one more game, and the winner of that game will be champions. I have no idea how Will's team got in the position of being one game out from league champs. His team last year was full of stars (including Will, naturally). This year? Will is a standout fielder a good pitcher and a consistent hitter, Luke can hit like a champ, and Leo is a great pitcher if he doesn't get psyched out, and Alec is an inconsistently good pitcher. Sam is growing into first base, and Henry is steady at third. Maybe that's all it takes? A couple good pitchers, a solid infield, and one or two go-to hitters? I guess.

But I have to say, I'm ready for the season to be over. I get too nervous watching the games. I don't even know why. Will always plays well, and he doesn't fall apart if they lose. He doesn't take it too hard. And I don't take it too hard if they lose, either. But in the heat of the game, I'm absolutely miserable from nerves. I try to be zen about it; I knit, I practice mindful breathing. I remind myself that in the scheme of things, this game matters very little. None of it helps.

***

Here's what we have planted in the garden: Lots of flowers and a wide variety of tomatoes, French breakfast radishes, yellow squash, zucchini squash, sugar-baby watermelons, eggplant, red peppers, yellow peppers, pimento peppers, corn, green beans, french filet green beans, lima beans, black beans, Mother Stallard pole beans, Jacob's Cattle beans, butternut squash, cucumbers, lettuce (in its last days), okra, and one sweet potato plant.

I bought six sweet potato slips through the mail, but only one is doing anything. I don't know if I didn't get them in the ground quickly enough, or if I didn't get good slips. Next year I'm buying plants from the garden store.

Anyway, the weather has been cool and dry, which is lovely for living, but my plants want warm dirt and lots of rain. So the garden is pretty, but it's behind. Which is okay. We'll be here when it catches up.

Stewardship and Accountability

Me & Will after the 5th grade poetry reading. Aren't my teeth straight? Isn't Will a goofball?

I feel like I haven't been a good steward of this blog lately, stewardship being a theme of this household right now, for reasons I may or may not go into today, but probably will later. Now, the fact is, everything has its season, and it simply may not be the season for blogging. I have taught quite a bit this spring, and maybe this is a teaching season, not a blogging season.

This blog is a repository for almost seven years of my domestic life, and I want to continue with it. The other day I was feeling sort of sad because I hadn't spent enough time documenting Jack and Will's lives, and then suddenly occurred to me: I had documented them here! I read over some entries from back in the day and discovered things I'd completely forgotten about, like the time Will asked what Travis was going to be when he grew up. I'm so glad I wrote that down.

I keep a journal, intensively at times, other times (like now) more sporadically, but unless one of the boys is in some sort of crisis, mostly the journal is about me and my feelings. I use the journal to vent and obsess and release anxiety. So it's here, on this blog, that I document. I'm not much of a photographer--I lack talent and don't have much desire to take pictures, which I realize is odd in this age of the phone camera--but writing here has forced me to take pictures for illustration purposes, and I'm glad for that. It's been lovely especially, to see how our backyard garden has developed and changed over the years.

Does this mean I'll be blogging more? I don't know. Maybe. Maybe later. I think if I remember that years from now I'll want to remember, I'll do a better job. We shall see.

***

A quilting friend of mine and I are currently holding each other accountable for tracking our calories and steps every day. We've been doing this for over a week, and I've lost three pounds (she's lost four, but she's taller, which I think matters somehow). We each have goals we share in our daily emails; yesterday, Kristin added she wanted to quilt for fifteen minutes a day, and I added that to my goal list, too. I'm going to add one more goal, which is spot clean for fifteen minutes a day. In a few weeks, we're having a big party for my 50th birthday, and every day I've focused on a very small area of the house to clean. It keeps me from feeling overwhelmed.

I find the psychology here interesting. If I fail to record what I eat, then not only do I let myself down, I sort of let Kristin down, too. I feel responsible for doing what I said I'll do, because I think it will help her do what she said she'll do. 

Do you have an accountability pact with someone? What do you want to be held accountable for in your life?

Today's List

1. Baseball season has started. My life belongs to Little League.

2. It is 3:35 on a Saturday afternoon. I have spent all day working in the garden and in the garage.

3. I turn 50 at the end of the month.

4. It is possible I'm too old to spend all day working in the garden and the garage.

5. I am very tired.

6. I mean deeply, down to the marrow of my bones tired.

7. Once again I ask: Where are my children?

8. Will and I found an old horseshoe set in the garage. With real horseshoes.

9. I am pretty dang good at horseshoes, in case you were wondering.

10. Every year I repeat the profound truth that Danielle pronounced several years ago: May is the new December.

11. Have you noticed that a lot of people have been putting pink or blue or magenta streaks in their hair? I mean, everyone--little kids, teenagers, grandmothers.

12. I have been putting tiny little gray streaks into my hair. It's very chic.

13. We have tomatoes on some of our tomato plants. You know what that means.

14. Tomato sandwiches!

15. In July.

16. I plan on sitting around a lot in July.

17. July is the new July.

18. It's also the old July.

19. Now I'm just being silly.

20. Enjoy your weekend!

A List

What could it be? Why, fabric of course!

1. My house needs a good, deep and thorough cleaning.

2. I wish I had enough money to pay someone to give my house a good, deep and thorough cleaning.

3. I would be so happy if my house were clean.

4. Why won't my children clean my house for me?

5. Last night I worked in my garden until dark. I love working in my garden. But it has taken me three weeks of fairly good weather to get motivated to work in my garden.

6. I have been very lazy lately.

7. I am of the opinion that a bowl of cereal makes an excellent supper.

8. I wish other people in my family liked a good tofu-broccoli-barley stir-fried curry. Or anything with feta cheese mixed in. Tabouli. I'm pretty sure I could live on Mideastern, Mediterranean and Indian food.

9. Unfortunately, everyone else my family would starve if we ate only what I wanted to eat.

10. Time to make another meatloaf.

11. Do you ever get tired of doing the grocery shopping? I shop every Friday afternoon, and every Friday afternoon, I think, 'Really? I have to do this again?'

12. Time to do an online grocery order! Let the grocery do the shopping for me!

13. If you want to read a really good history book about, say, the Civil Rights Movement or Thomas Jefferson, may I recommend you look for your book in the children's section of your library? You get all the interesting stuff without having to wade through whose grandmother was born on what day.

14. I have yet to step into Target in the year 2014.

15. I'm embarrassed by how much this has lessened my monthly spending as compared to 2013.

16. I could write this list forever, but I need to go not clean my house.

17. Hope all is well with you! What's on your list?

Another Very Late & Very, Very Short Pause in Lent (#6)

It is Holy Week. Last night I walked Travis and came across this license plate. I think it is the perfect license plate to contemplate as we round the bend to Easter Sunday.

(A Very Late)(and Very Short) Pause in Lent #5

I have been traveling, traveling, traveling. Last week I was smack dab in the middle of Missouri. Yesterday I was in the eastern part of North Carolina. Today I am on my couch, where I plan to stay.

In my travels, I have been talking to children about stories and writing. I talk about how we humans seem to need our daily dose of storytelling or else we get a little cranky. We are creatures hungry for meaning.

And I sign a lot of books. When I sign books, I ask kids to tell me something about themselves--one thing they like to do, or an interesting fact about them. When I hand their book back to them, I say, "Thank you. It's wonderful to meet you."

If I am a Christian, I am the least of all. I do what I should not do, and do not do what I should. But one thing I can do, and sometimes remember to do, is love the ones who are put in my path. And fortunately for me, many of these are children, whom I find easy to love. Even the ones who are smart-alecky or half asleep when they sit in the audience stand before me vulnerable and shy and sweet, asking so politely if I'll sign their book (or a piece of paper or their hand).

It is my hope and my dream that for some of these children it matters that the visiting author talked to them and listened to them and said, "Oh, I like your name!" or "My sons play World of Warcraft and Minecraft, too!" It's not much, but it's what I can do. What I hope they hear: You are loved. Your story is important.

I do it because it has been done unto me.