Journaling: Where Do I Begin? (Podcast #23)

Have you always wanted to keep a journal but haven’t known where to start? Maybe you have a stack of journals that you started and never finished. Maybe you are a journaler who is currently uninspired. If so I hope you will find this podcast a jumpstart to a transformative journaling practice. Journaling is the…

Rhythms: Making Space for Beauty in Everyday Life (Podcast #22)

Life doesn’t slow down. Every day there is an inexhaustible to-do list waiting for me. There are needs and questions pressing in–about homeschool, health, children’s needs, creative projects, this house, community, adventure, prayers and plans for the future… One thing I have learned in my life is that I have to create rhythms for myself…

This Morning I Was Born

This morning I was born. My mother struggled with birth until dawn. I went home in her arms. I cried. I slept. My eyes focused on her beautiful, ephemeral face, familiar somehow though I had never seen it before. While she was getting pancakes on the table, I bounced on my sister’s knee. I listened…

Dress-up Tea Party, Creative Family Idea Box (Day # 3)

  You know what I love about tea parties?  All you need is some hot water, a couple of tea bags, and some imagination, and you have an instant party that can make any old day feel special.  Yesterday morning, I decided to throw a spontaneous Dress-Up Tea Party for breakfast, and it literally changed…

Voices of My Life, an abridged biography

It’s easy to look back over years as a series of big events–the day I was born, schools I attended, graduations, marriage, jobs held, the birthdays of my children…  These are the visible rings around my tree, the important details in a brief biography of my life. But when I close my eyes and let…

Living with Vision

I am up early this morning, before the little ones.  In my closet-office (where I sit in a corner at a small desk, typing this under a rack of hanging clothes), I am armed with a steaming mug of Darjeeling tea, a couple of Cinnamon-Orange-Almond-Spelt muffins, and the promise of a glorious uninterrupted hour of…

Joy and Sorrow (How Does Your Garden Grow)

It still hits me in waves. Not like it did last spring.  When my little garden was blooming and sheets of rain came down steadily day after day.  I drank tea in the music room and looked out over the mint and the marigolds and all the beautiful shimmering living things growing there in the…

Paper Tea Set from The Paper Doll Club!

I love this one.  Rosie, Paloma, and I love tea parties.  Over the summer, we inherited all of the leftover tea from The Baron York Cafe, a beautiful little tea room that used to sit in the heart of downtown Clarkesville.  It was a favorite spot for Randy and me, and is one of the…

The Daily Turn #4: Naming All the Colors

Naming all the colorsis harder than you think–best if left until the first cup of lavender-grey teahas made its waythrough all five senses. The table is pinkerin the morning(on this kind of morning–a pale wood-rose)than in the dandelion lightof afternoon.And the pink of each morningis a different pinkWhich my daughter seems to know instinctively:Coming down the…