spent the weekend in westport, KC for the new earth festival...terri kalavig told me it would most probably be the last one ever. she and sheldon are "ready to be put out to pasture", she said. i wonder what will become of that place. if it does close and no more memories are to be made within and without its walls, i think i will recall as my fondest ones the don and lori acoustic shows upstairs, especially when it rained...seeds kicking off everyone's festival the other year, matthew perryman jones venturing out of nashville and blessing us with his realness and songs...sheldon and dons' sermonettes, all of waterdeep's jams and old favorites; waiting for bill malonee to get on stage already when in fact he was pounding on the wrong side of a door upstairs that wouldn't open, yelling to be rescued...the bottomless mugs of coffee, the seventies carpet, the community, the history. its place in time will be definitively remembered, that's for sure.

well, it's not so hot this week...nice. i've seen some friends lately that i don't usually get to see, that's nice, too. going through a trial (who isn't), but accepting God's grace through it...mostly. we're dog sitting chad's mom's pug...she's really ugly and misses her fam, but we're doing our best :). hard to believe summer's so far gone. hmmm...not much else to report. hope you're all having a lovely weekend.

hi all...i'm back from five days in phoenix, where the sun bakes everything to a crisp all day long, and the nights aren't much better. i was in a wedding, my best friend from fourth grade through college's(i know, terrible grammar, but i don't care right now) wedding, to be exact, and i saw a lot of people i hadn't seen in years. it was a good time. then chad flew back to kansas, and i spent a couple of days in the chaos that is his mom's house - between the twelve or so daycare kids, our kids, her kids, and the dogs i was ready to come home to some relative quiet. lucy and i flew home yesterday (we saw a rainbow during the flight - very cool) without the boys..**violins***..they are going to be traipsing about the southwest with chad's family all this week, hitting the grand canyon and colorado before coming home. i'm going to miss kansas' seventh birthday - a first, but i'm glad they get to do this. it'll make great ' what i did on my summer vacation ' material...jesse wasn't quite sure about being left at his nana's house, but i assured him we'd call every night. on the way home from the airport we went and ate dinner in lawrence and bummed around mass street for awhile...lucy really enjoyed herself, as she loves to be outside and hadn't gotten to do that much while we were gone.
now we're getting ready for the annual cul-de-sac fourth of july extravaganza, with more food and fireworks than we can stand. can it be that time of year again already? amazing how fast time goes anymore...well, a happy and safe fourth to everyone, and hopefully i'll post here a bit more often. wow, i just realized how much this sounds like a form letter to family or something...well, i guess in a way it is.
so long for now...

me, while listening to sink or swim - "jesse, remember last year about this time we went to memphis, to that festival, and saw our friends and worked with waterdeep?"

jesse - "YES! and i went in the bathroom that was a rectangle!"

currently reading 'a sacred romance' after having it casually mentioned to me about a thousand times lately by most people in my life - unrelated, of course. God is good, He draws us even when we are clueless, bumbling waifs.

it's so nice when i can actually get out of the house first (or at least second or third) thing in the morning and go for a good long walk. it clears my head, it gets me out of my self. today knasas went with me and we pet a horse, picked some flowers, and found some good garage sales. by the time we arrived back home, chad had gotten up and had some bible time and breakfast...could me getting out actually be motivating for him as well? we struggle with being late night people and living with early riser kids. maybe we'll get it together one of these years...

planning to see waterdeep tonight...i look forward to it. who knows how much longer they'll be playing like this. chad has been taking drum lessons from brandon...what a teacher.

kids naptime is half over -i better go relax before the next wave hits...

so i've decided on a curriculum for next year. it involves collecting about fifty children's classics - or at least great stories - from a list that coincides with the unit study. i'm finding that a good chunk of the titles are out of print, and very hard to find. so i've been on a treasure hunt, trailing through ebay, alibras, homeschool book sales, and anywhere else i can think of. it's quite exciting to find them one by one, and i'm looking forward to this new approach at homeschooling - spending lots of time on the couch reading to my kids. you'd think, bookworm that i am, that this would be a regular thing in our home, but sadly, as of late, it's been hard to make the time. i'm too free-spirited to be much good at scheduling, but i'm going to try in the fall.

oh, yes...my little blog. i've been neglectful, though it has not been to sit around and play solitare or anything...life has just been very full as of late. i've been tremendously enjoying a copy of anne lamott's 'traveling mercies' that linds sent me...helping my fam finish up spring things like preschool, awana, college...spending time with good friends, attempting to clear out some stuff in our house that is no longer needed (and maybe wasn't in the first place), watching the nightly lightning show all week. it's good to be in full blown spring.

lights bright lights
bright red lights
brake lights
blinking on and off for miles
it seems
in front of me
stop and go
add to my woe
i hate
being late.

an email exchange from yesterday...

Hi - I wanted to know if it is possible to order back
issues of Consumer Reports. I am interested in the Feb. 2002 issue.

Thanks, Lisa
*************************************************************
Are you in the media, a subscriber or just interested in
the article? My department deals only with the media but we do have a
customer relations department.

Jennifer Shecter

*************************************************************
Oh, I'm just interested in the article. Can you connect me to the right
department?
Thanks again,

Lisa
**************************************************************
You know what, just give me your address and I can send you the one issue.
I hate bureaucracy and hate to inflict it on anyone.

Jen Shecter
***************************************************************
i love it.

"the drinking part of my stomach is THIRSTY!...but the eating part is full." - kansas. our weekend in a nutshell - a scrapbooking workshop, taking the whole fam out in the pouring rain to get a good deal on a composter and go out to breakfast, hanging out at the animal shelter looking at all the kittens too little to take home, napping, cooking, church, spending sunday with dan and rosa at our place, then on a house searching tour all over northeast kansas ranging from the scary (an 1800's farmhouse miles from nowhere with bad plumbing) to the familiar (going up to holton to show them chad's mom's beautiful old victorian monstrosity that will be available in the next few months)...and we actually went to bed early last night. good times...

so i'm having a taste of what it would be like to have kansas in school..sort of. our homeschool support group (sounds like a ten step program, but it's really much more :) offers sat testing every year for grades k-12, and kansas is taking the first grade one this week. it's a three day thing, six hours a day, and he's doing really well as far as sitting for long periods of time, filling in bubbles with a sharpened #2 pencil - whether this is a worthwhile way to spend time for us remains to be seen. he's also had a ball running around with other kids his age who are homeschooled also, and i'm so looking forward to being more involved in this group next year. jesse won't be in preschool, and chad's not taking classes in the fall - probably - so hopefully that means a bit more relaxed family time.

"there are few experiences as depressing as that anxious barren state known as writers block, where you sit staring at your blank page like a cadaver, feeling your mind congeal, feeling your talent run down your leg and into your sock. or you look at the notes you've scribbled recently on yellow legal pads or index cards, and they look like something richard speck jotted down the other night. and at the same time, as it turns out, you happen to know that your closest writing friend is on a roll, has been turning out stories and screenplays and children's books and even most of a novel like he or she is some crazy pot-holder factory, pot holders pouring out the windows because there is simply not enough room inside for such glorious productivity."
- anne lamott.

...spending the weekend in kansas city for two waterdeep shows. it's nice to spend time at the new earth with friends, a tradition that may soon be no more as we know it (or at least a much more sporadic occurrance).

rem was on sesame street again today. shiny happy monsters...heh. mike mills and stipe always can at least look like they're enjoying themselves, but peter gives the feeling that he thinks this is too silly for him.

I’m sitting on my porch step among the pots of annuals I planted yesterday and today – the sunny marigolds, the floppy old straw hat pansies, the stout and gorgeous zinnias in all their deep flaming orange glory. It is a grand evening as far as the weather goes – it is neither warm nor cool, it is that perfect mystery temperature inbetween, with a soft stroke of breeze to boot. I smell smoke – some farmer out leaning on a rake, burning his fields out in the prairies that surround our rural neighborhood.

Birds are calling to each other tree to tree – one chatters, one chirps back. All are singing in their own way, and this pure music is easy for me to feel a part of. My dark blue jeans spill over onto my light blue flip flops, the cement is hard to sit on but I don’t mind. The beginnings of sunset are light charcoal grey and soft peach, pale yellow and faint washed out blue. I can hear Lucy murmuring and singing to herself in her crib upstairs.

The grass is beginning to grow long, the chocolate mint is emerging fragrant in the perennial patch.

I wonder if it will rain tonight.
I wonder if the farmer will finish with his fields.

planted flowers and did some yard work today...it was really nice. standing back to look at something you just made a little more beautiful has a theraputic effect, i think.

my kids are big fans of Franklin the turtle. i noticed the other day that bruce cockburn sings the little theme song before every episode...heh.

random biographic thoughts for the day - i think all cookbooks ought to be spiral bound...i don't think one can take too many pictures of their kids...i like my sugar in the raw dissolved in my espresso before adding the cold milk and ice to my latte...i'm an overly sensitive idealist with a healthy dose of women's intuition...i really want to make it to the ocean or the redwoods very soon...i hope my a/c in my little van can be fixed before july.

sometimes life feels like a salt sea breeze, bitter and sweet, sandy and clean. once in a while the record slows to a stop, there's quiet inside, and my mind is free to wander and explore. not too often, but still it happens, that i feel the smile of God on me, as if i had already learned to make my life a gift and let it be poured out for others.