“Life is pretty simple: You do some stuff. Most fails. Some works. You do more of what works. If it works big, others quickly copy it. Then you do something else. The trick is the doing something else.” ~Leonardo da Vinci

In the past four months:

• We moved to a new town, away from family, friends, and church
• Said town is a  rural town where I need to drive to yet another town in order to visit Walmart
• I finished a five year college career and GRADUATED
• Our youngest finished a four year college career and GRADUATED
• I witnessed my first snake and then…my first mouse
• I built a deck, with a *little help from my man. Okay, maybe it was the other way around…
• We spied newly born buzzards in the window of the old haybarn
• We planted our first-ever garden
• I have sat many mornings and evenings on the deck we built and delighted in the cows in the back pasture
• We’ve hosted several rich and fun-filled family and friends weekends at our country place
• I got a TEACHING JOB!!
• I witnessed my first newborn calf
• We’ve begun to harvest the vegetables from our garden – such deliciousness!

All of this has happened in the past four months and I’ve not blogged about any of it. It’s been the equivalent of a thick tongue and dry mouth…LOTS to say but no real way to put it all out there and feel like I am doing any of it real justice.

I woke up this morning though and – as I walked through my house, with the sunshine splaying happily on the floors of this old house, my coffee cup warm and cradled in my hands – I realized I am doing more of an inservice by not at least attempting to journal all this newness.

All this wonderfulness.

I am not an ordinary farm girl. What is the antithesis of a farm girl? Find that word in the dictionary and I am sure you’d come much closer to finding my picture attached. Yet I am experiencing such a deep-seated contentment and sense of wonder these days that is making this transition a true adventure.

Google has been my point of reference for everything in the  last few months. How far apart should I space my zucchini plants? Google. What does poison ivy look like? Google. What are the nesting habits of buzzards? Google. What kind of flowers do I need to put in my garden to keep away the bugs? Google. What kind of snake is this? Google. Pros and cons to having a farm cat?  Google. Recipes for thing to do with zucchini when you have a bumper crop? Google.

Trust me, it goes on and on. And this not-your-ordinary transplanted farm girl/teacher/writer couldn’t be happier about it all. That’s not to say that snakes and mice bring any sort of happiness at all. I do, however, accept that they have their specific place in this wild new territory I now call home, and I respect that.

And that, my friends, may be the newest new stuff of it all.

I may not have all the right words to introduce this new life to you, but I do promise to try. I will leave the bits of pieces of writing that is happening now that my soul has found this fresh inspiration in the country air. I will upload pictures of birds and of projects and of any variety of animals and/or pests. I will share glimpses of the joy and wonder we are finding here as we make memories we’ll treasure forever with family and with friends.

This promise is brought to you by a not-so-ordinary farm girl.

This is my first week of my student teaching internship. How appropo that this should be the quote for today’s date in my day planner.

I want to write about just how well this week is going so far. But the truth is that I am speechless…it’s going THAT well. I am beyond thrilled with my schedule, with my mentor, and with the students.

I have a feeling that the next four months will be awesome ones.

Here’s a few things that have made me HAPPY this week!

Without any further ado…behold my BLISS!

Lunch bag & thermos

Keys to the building & to my classroom

My classroom!

Staff Parking Permit

Now…back to lesson plans.

And more amazing conjunctions of learning and inspiration!

“Life gives us brief moments with another…but sometimes in those brief moments we get memories that last a lifetime.”

2010 was chock full of those type of moments.

Brief  little pockets of time that swept down, wrapped us all in their warm grasp, and then left us changed for a lifetime.

We celebrated with MJ’s mom as she turned 90 years old. 

We hosted a Mystery Dinner Party and laughed until the tears rolled.

We spent lots of time doing fun things with the little people that make our life so GRAND!

We celebrated the major milestones…

and the tiny sliver of moments that took our breath away.

We welcomed new family members with joy, and we said good-bye to others who left  footprints on the pathways of our hearts.

We enjoyed time with friends, drinking in all the joys that come with these type of friendships.

We cruised the deep, blue sea…

and enjoyed road trips with our nearest and dearest.

We had epic sleep-overs, complete with McDonalds, popcorn, and movies, with all the littles in our life.

We took in Game 5 of the World Series…and had so much fun that we didn’t even mourn when the Rangers lost that night.

Most of all, we lived a year full of loving this family. The family that God has so mightily blessed us with.

2010 was an amazing year, filled to the brim with amazing people, amazing events, and amazing moments.

Moments that have left us forever changed. And forever grateful that lived them.

October gave a party;
The leaves by hundreds came -
The Chestnuts, Oaks, and Maples,
And leaves of every name.
The Sunshine spread a carpet,
And everything was grand,
Miss Weather led the dancing,
Professor Wind the band.

_______________________________________

I would say that autumn is my very favorite time of year. Except that I know me and I know that come April, I will be jonesing the Spring breeze every bit as much as I am relishing the fall ones right now.

I think it’s the distinct change in seasons that I crave, those few days when you can throw open the doors and the windows and welcome nature to come inside and mingle for a while. For me, it’s a sacred communing. It feeds my soul, and I find inspiration and a fresh zest for life when I take a few minutes to breathe in the beauty in the change.

That happened around here last week. Unfortunately, when I was through “breathing it in,” I no longer had the luxury of time to write about it. School is slamming me right now, but in the big midst of a research paper on the disciplines of English, and locating subtext in children’s picture books, and in learning all the laws and by-laws of special education in the state of Texas, trust me – I am absorbing the beauty of Fall 2010.

And I’m allowing it to spill itself into the spaces where we live…

Where we gather.

And into our kitchen.

We welcome you, Fall! Feel free to stay around a while.

1.) Carter’s FIRST football game since having his cast removed! BIG DAY!

2.) Next up…Madie’s volleyball game. The girl’s got game, y’all – she made us PROUD!

3.) Moments I treasured when they didn’t even know I was looking!

A weekend well-lived. A weekend well-loved.

Mike and I stopped by Mom’s on the way to church. Knowing they had already left to attend the Grandparents’ Breakfast, I wanted to slip in and set the big table in preparation for our family lunch. We were armed with all things festive and fun, and it was my intention to do what I could to ease us all into this very special lunch.

This would be the first time we’d all gather around the big table since my grandfather’s passing in July. And that is quite a bit of time for a family that has racked up quite a sum of memories by spending hours at a time sitting around this very table – sharing stories, sharing laughter, even sharing a few tears from time to time…

Last Sunday we gathered for an impromtu lunch at Mom’s too, but we almost instinctively huddled around the much smaller table in the kitchen. No one ever said a word, but it was like we all knew that we weren’t quite ready to take on the big table yet. The emptiness of my grandfather’s chair – and the one next to it, for that matter, that my grandmother had always occupied – seemed powerfully empty.

But yesterday was a special day. We were gathering to celebrate Robyn’s birthday. And one of our family celebrations definitely calls for the big table, no question about it. Not just because my sister-in-law deserves it, which she certainly does, but because we all deserve the feeling that only comes when we gather in that way.

So we left home extra early, Mike and I, so we could swing by Mom’s first and set the table. As I walked into the semi-darkness of the dining room, I was prepared to feel almost anything. Except for maybe the wiggle of delight that made its way up my middle and all the way to my face when I flipped on the light and first glimpsed the table.

Mom had beat me to it.

She had opened the bags I’d left at her house earlier in the week and she’d set the table, fun and festive. Each place was set with care. Mike and I carefully added the touches we’d brought in silence and then quietly turned out the lights and left. A deep feeling of contentment mixed with anticipation welled inside of me. All was as it should be. The family celebration would be perfect. I just knew it.

And it was. Perfect. My nieces – who’ve always sat at the “kid’s table” in the kitchen received a promotion. They accepted their new seats at the big table with a maturity and a grace that made me proud. And we laughed. And we told stories. And we passed Kael. And we shared food, love, and made new memories.

We did the Big Table.

And it fed our hearts in the best way possible.

I began having my children while he was finishing high school. By the time he began having children, my boys were ten and nine years old.

I don’t suppose we ever dreamed together of what it would be like if we both lived on the same street. Of what it would be like to have our kids and grandkids running back and forth, with large family gatherings and impromptu saturday afternoon backyard cookouts.

And yet we are very close to envisioning that very thing right now. Sprawling acreage where the kids can roam, where we can gather late into the evening – while the cicadas chatter in the background – and bask in the kinship that our kind of love deserves. We’re in the dreaming stages right now, with the hope that Kevin and his family can have a weekend place that adjoins ours sometime in the near future.

There is a sweetness to being with family…like this past week.

When all the kids – who have been separated from seeing each other for months – came together in one, long, jubilant visit that was filled to the brim with giggles, stories, swims, and sleepovers.

We crafted, we swam, and we watched late night movies while munching popcorn.

We visited the North Texas Children’s Musuem, lunched, and took the entire crowd to Chuck E Cheese (where Andi ate her lunch under the table in order to avoid Chuck E. )

Everything seemed sweeter…hugs were tighter…and the minutes were cherished because they were oh-so-valuable.

This past week was filled with only the good.

Only the best.

I think maybe that means we did something right.