I Don't Live Here Anymore

Come see me at my new place - often and anytime, and if you have a reader, don't forget to sign up for the new feed.

Shiny Happy People Holding Hands

Aw Man! I'm late. So sorry.

Are you ready for the electronic hand-holding? 

I can't wait for you to see my new digs, my new neck of the blog woods. I have something fabulously gorgeous there to show you.

Coming? 

Grab my hands, and see below here, the button? We're hopping there. It's a Magic Carpet Ride!

           BUTTON

Happy Things Thursday (eer, Wednesday)

Hooty-Mac and Ikeroni, two of my three yummy little buddies

I know it's not Thursday, but

look at one of the pretty horses in our yard (she's a whiskery throat-clearer),

and look at me here swinging from a vine (I was proudly able to jump about 6 inches off the ground),

and look at one of the pics from inside this barn. 

Sunday we went on a family walk to explore the barns and some open field around our house. It was cold, and we could hear tribes of dogs barking and carrying on at us. We felt so far from the world, and it was happy.

Tomorrow, I have another Happy to share. I'm actually going to want you to go somewhere with me. I'm moving, and I'm having a Moving Party, and you've got to come. Most of my boxes are packed, but there is no way for me bring the most crucial things if you don't help me. 

Visit me bright and early, and we can ride through air together. I've got a job for some of you, and I'm hoping one of you will be richly rewarded with Shparkly, Happy, Happy things.

Wait. Wait. One more thing. Do not forget about Friday. Friday we giggle. Remember? Mr. Linky's going to hook us up. If the Funnies can be at my house, then I know they're at yours, too.

God's blue finger

Jude, in his stealthy fashion, floated like a shadow to the boxes in the crammed closet. I had forgotten about one box, the one with the supplies I bought that day I woke up wanting to be a painter. He unscrewed the lids and played like acrylics were toothpaste. The old magazine I had tossed in with the paints, the one with the nude lady and her baby, was ruined. The hardwoods were streaked in yellows and a nice blend of blues and grays. 

I pulled my hair. Dog-prints. Baby hands and pajama foot-prints. Wasted paint. 

I hate a waste and was maddest about that. After wiping down all my little ones, I took what looked like a painting spatula, and I scraped as much of the paint as I could onto a palette and then took it, along with some deep breaths, to the kitchen table.

I loved the colors. He really picked the ones I would like to think I would have picked, and though I hadn't had the thought in a while, I was overwhelmed with the desire. Though I didn't know how the stuff worked, I smeared it all over a small canvas. I may have stuck out my tongue. My boys stood there quietly, and I dabbled and dabbled.

It was the most fun I've had in a while. And I know it's not the greatest. I know it. But it was so so fun.

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Sometimes, we're handed a mess, and then we get to watch God make it beautiful. I can't stop thinking about Robbie (read about him here) and his suffering under his family's helpless watch, and over and over again, I think I can't wait until I get to see him. I hope I know him when he's a man. He will be one of the most beautiful pieces God has ever made. 

Yesterday Robbie told his family that God's blue finger had touched him, and the word of that testimony has set me on fire. 

I have never seen God's blue finger, but I have felt it run the length of my spine. I have never seen His lips, but I've heard them whisper Courage into my weak mind. 

Revelation 12:11

They overcame him [the one who accuses you of unrighteousness before God]
      by the blood of the Lamb 
      and by the word of their testimony; 
   they did not love their lives so much 
      as to shrink from death.

So I'm thinking of my mess now and what God has made it. And I want to tell you about it one day. My mess, His poem, His coming for me like for canvas with his finger dipped in blue.

Making Do

When we had suspicions that we were to downsize, we didn't exactly expect to move to a home 1/3 the size of ours. Then Grandmom decided she wanted to sell the family home-place and friends asked if they could rent our big house. It all fell so beautifully into place that we knew the right thing was to buy from Grandma, move to the Little House, and renovate the slightly bigger Rock House.

We've lived here before - all wood paneling, 30 year-old carpet, stained linoleum, birds flying from the attic into the one and only clothes closet. Often, we walked in our sock-feet up to Grandma's for icecream or a tuna sandwich. Often, Grandpa would walk in unannounced, and we would pretend to be taking naps. 

Once I sat at my desk and winged termites poured in like angels on Armageddon. Once I ran down the road here in a pair of poodle flannels after one of the horses. Once I saw a badger here the size of a mutant cow. There has always been a hawk here, and she likes to cry.

This is the Love Shack from our college days, and we made two babies here before we were so crammed up that we spilled full-girth into another house across town. It was twice as big. We made another baby there and thought we would try an even bigger house on for size, and after a year of granite and actual non-kin neighbors (dirt roads have kept me pretty neighborless), we found ourselves in an amazing house that wasn't home.

There is something beautiful about scratch. It feels like the prettiest thing we've ever done to spiff up the shack and sleep in the laundry room. Making do is choosing to be simple, doing with what you've got - 

a bed and a microwave in the laundry room,

a pair of gloves for the dishes,

a favorite bookshelf with a curtain in it for the pantry and appliance storage.

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Are you making do? Click on over to Ann's place.

you can make it in a jiffy, but this ain't the sweet stuff

Got your skillets out? Go on and get your vegetable oil and self-rising cornmeal, and while you're at it, set the oven to 400 degrees. Now, pour just enough of that oil to cover the bottom of the pan, and then give it a light sprinkle of the cornmeal. Take a fork to it, so the meal is spread evenly throughout. 

You want to put your skillet in the oven while it's heating up. This gives you enough time to whip up the batter.

Grab your big bowl and an egg. You won't believe how easy peasy this is going to be. Crack that egg open. Add it to the bowl with a fourth a cup of oil and two cups of the meal. 

The buttermilk is the part you can't exactly measure. Start with a cup. And Whoa There, did you shake the buttermilk first? You've got to do that.

Keep adding the buttermilk and stirring until the batter is almost dripping off your fork when you lift it.

Your skillet is good and hot now. Get it out when the oil and meal are bubbling, but don't let it sit out long. Keep it hot. That's how we like it in the South.

Pour in and spread out your batter (lean in and hear it sizzle, but don't burn your hair), and then stick it back in the oven. Check on it after about twenty minutes. You'll want it to look like this when you pull it out. Seriously Golden.

Look at that pretty crumb.

Cut and serve in wedges along side pintos (with hot sauce) and greens (with hot pepper sauce), and you'll be telling old stories and talking about your genealogy in no time flat.

Oh, and if you want to make biscuits in the morning, looky here for the right recipe.

I couldn't be bored if I tried

Jude's ability to fly under radar is the picture of stealth. He can empty and strow as if having entered a time warp - the power of Hiro Nakamura.

Last week, on an unplanned stop to my mother-in-law's, he ate about 12 Claritin like they were tic-tacs. They turned out to be non-toxic. He has downed a half bottle of Ibuprofen and begged for more.

Above is the Allspice (I bought so I could make these babies) dumped all over the icky cans I had just brought home from the grocery store. Juders, you've got mad ninja skills, and I appreciate you.

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Girls, season up those skillets and set out for the buttermilk. Tomorrow, I post my mad cornbread making skills.

Friday Funnies

Seth and I had a pretty funny moment together this week. Here's a bit of backstory: Seth hates skinny pants. He wants me to wear the same wide-bottom bad-girl britches I wore when we first met, and I do still dress pretty much like I'm stuck in the 90's, but I do like the skinny pants, and after trying on about 36 pair (trying to find some that will accommodate the places God has generously blessed me), I finally found a pair that I love. Seth still just thinks they're hideous.

Back to the story: I finally ordered some house-shoes. (My toes are so glad to not be frostbitten.) I tried them on to get Seth's reaction, because I was thinking they looked pretty manly. To set the right stage for him, I needed him to pretend that I was wearing a pair of pants he really liked, so I said, "Seth, imagine that I'm not wearing these skinny pants. Do you like my house shoes?"

He's looking at me. Several seconds go by. He seems to have floated out of the kitchen.

"Seth!? Do you like my house-shoes?"

Then he smiles big, and says, "I love any shoes you're wearing without your pants on."

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Now that's funny.

Have you been watching for the funnies in your house? PLEASE tell us all about them. It doesn't have to be a rip-roar. Just let us in on the things that make you giggle. I'd love it if you'd link back here, so other's can read the things that all two of you think are funny.

If you feel like sharing, plug into Mr. Linky.

Happy Things Thursday

I know. I usually post my happies on Fridays, but I like the alliteration of this better.

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celebrating a warm winter day with Nerf  -- this is our Love Shack, my mini-van, and my warrior with his glasses upside-down

the old barn behind my house

the rock house we're renovating and the prettiest Magnolia this side of the Mississippi

this ginormous wench of spider with red painted on her underside -- she doesn't exist anymore, and that is a happy thing.

Sorry I just gave you the Willy Wonkas.

a good shot

my boys getting to know their amazing great-grandaddy

this baby in these pajamas -- look who wore them last year.

my husband - leave a comment about how cute he is so he won't be mad that I posted this one, and would you use alliteration, please?. 

Since I'm feeling sorry for Friday, I think I'll post Funny Things on Fridays. Be noticing the real-life funnies around you, and let's make each other laugh. I'll set up a Mr. Linkydo or something.

let it shine let it shine all the time

If I've eaten one Belgian Chocolate Lambertz cookie in the last few days, I've eaten 50, and that's not a joke. I'm an addict. On top of my near cookie comas that can only be cured by more cookies, I have become one of those moms who makes high pitched grunts when she gets frustrated. (You know, the noises your kids imitate?) Like today when Jude refused to take Mrs. Potato Head's purse out of his mouth, I put my hands in my hair and shrieked my awful mothercry - that almost yell and full-on plea for a thirty year old brain to poof into my two-year-old's head. 

When I pray, this is how it goes: "Father you are so good to me; You saved me; You couldn't be more amazing; did I call Amy back; there are so many dishes in the sink; Get that crayon out of your nose - so help me ... excuse me, LORD; oh, yeah, thank You for grace and our food and my husband; my toenails are so tacky; oh look, nobody painted around the top of that ceiling fan ..."

You get it, right? My brain is made of marshmallows, and I can hardly control myself. And I know, I know, I've been traveling, and discipline is going to kick in any minute. I'm trying. I know the right routine for us. 

We wake between 5 and 5:30 every morning for our quiet times together, or that's why we're supposed to get up. It's the only literal quiet time we have. After days of squinting my eyes and wishing hard to be transformed by the renewing of my mind (dang it!), I read Matthew 5 this morning, and God was so sweet in it with me.

It went something like this: bunch of people ... some mountain ... blessed are the blah blah blah ... earth stinks, heaven's awesome, don't lose your flavor, then WHAM!

"And you, like the lamp, must shed light among your fellows, so that, when they see the good you do, they may give praise to your Father in heaven." - Matthew 5:16

Big fat smile on my face. My babies are my fellows. I love my little fellows. I want to shine all the warm light I can on them, and so I think about what it means for my little light to shine. If shedding light is doing good work, then what are the good works I do before my fellows? 

Today has been brighter. Good works? Not in cookies. Not in television. Not in folding their clothes. But touch their faces and let them show you the imaginary lake and swim in it with them, and you'll click that lamp on. 

where the wild things are

When we go to Monroe, we always visit Black Bayou, and it's like walking in on somebody telling a secret - like everything comes to a great hush just as your engine clicks off.

We walk quietly on the boardwalk and wonder. What glides beneath the glass or frond waits to unfurl? What feeds on the hovering greenery, the floating bulbs, the down-reaching water roots? What mud covers cold teeth; what leather rests over silent prehistoric eyes? 

My mother-in-law has always imagined dinosaurs tromping up to their knees in that lake. I imagine that dinosaurs never stopped existing there. They've just become better hiders. 

The unknown, the fast flashing lights swishing in the sky, the tall angel in a purple-detailed robe Grandpa saw at the foot of his bed ... get me a bag of popcorn, I could watch and listen to this kind of thing for days. 

I treat Black Bayou like I did Loch Ness, with my eyes peered in a hard skim over the water's surface.  One day I'm going to see something amazing. This whole world is going to have the curtain pulled back, and right there, in real life - just on the other side of the veil, I'll see a blazing machine rolling under the One and Only God, and I'll hear angels' choruses ring like mermaids through infinity.  

It makes me want to Wake Up  - notice what I can of Him now and appreciate what He appreciates, that one yellow flower in the long, twisted brown of marsh.

we miss and eat

"Y'all come on over. There's more food here than we could ever say grace over." --Aunt Sharon, Monroe, LA.

Corningware and casserole are meaningless 

unless splayed appropriately on a fellowship table, 

spoon handles balanced over every ledge.

In the South, when one takes flight, 

able loved ones set straight to the kitchen. 

They grieve and cook the grits.

They press their fingerprints into cookies.

There is nothing left to do

but move clockwise in line at the table

and drink from the Common Living Cup

spurred to outright, bigger love 

and the making of better pies.

go team haines

We got home Sunday night from an 11 hour trip from Alabama, where I saw a ginormous road-side tree with about sixty pairs of shoes tied together and dangling like Christmas ornaments. What a strange bunch people are!

Yesterday we emptied and cleaned the big house and moved to storage what we couldn't fit in the Love Shack. We worked hard. This morning I could feel my heart beating in my back, but it was a good feeling, and I couldn't stop rewarding myself with chocolate over it. This is living.

Today I have cleaned and folded about 10 loads of clothes, and now I am packing up for Louisiana for the unexpected memorial service of a dear uncle.  We'll get to Monroe by midnight, and we'll rest in Granddaddy's big house, and then we'll lift his bird mugs of rich Community coffee to our mouths as we watch the sun rise over the bayou, and we'll be tender with one another. This is living. 

Every time I read a letter from The Mother Letter Project, I am strengthened - like I'm being woven into something very durable. I know I'll be responding to it for a while. It's genius, and it's true, and I can't even imagine what all it will offer while this life whirls hard about us.

I hope to be back into full blog-swing when we return from LA. I love love love you.