June 14, 2011 @ 9:40 am | Filed under: Country Life,Family,Pure Sunshine,Uniquely Me
“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.
contentment, Family, laughter, living simply, memories
October 6, 2010 @ 8:31 am | Filed under: Pure Sunshine,Soul Food
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.
~George Cooper, “October’s Party”
_______________________________________
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.
contentment, fall delights, living simply
September 16, 2010 @ 6:21 am | Filed under: Motherhood,She said,Uniquely Me
A few years ago I started making random confessions to the world. Blogging is like that. It brings out all sorts of personal things you would normally only tell a best friend. Suddenly you are perfectly comfortable sharing things like the fact that you just went to Wal-Mart and – midway down the bread aisle – couldn’t remember if you’d changed out of your pajama bottoms before leaving home. Disclaimer: I did, however, change first. I was fully clothed for the bread run. Just not necessarily in my right mind.
At the time you are typing the aforementioned sensitive information into your laptop (thinking of it as a sort of therapeutic exercise) it seems like you are just writing for yourself. No harm done. But then you look at the stats from the day and realize hundreds of people you don’t know and everyone googling “funny Wal-Mart stories” forevermore now know the embarrassing truth about your declining state of mind and the fact that there are just those days that you don’t have it all together. They know you are (gasp), REAL.
I have also revealed over the past few years that I suffer from a disease.
“Hi. My name is Staci and I am recovering from perfection-itis.”
Okay, so the disease is fake, but the symptoms were very real. Suffering from Perfection-itis years ago meant I based my contentment in life by how nearly perfect I could bring every portion of my life. How perfect my home was. How perfect my daily word was. How well-behaved my children were. How well I could orchestrate all these things at once. And let me tell you – it was, like, um…never!
Over and over my expectations were dashed on the rocky cliffs of attempts and failure. Exhaustion and dismay kept me bound, held prisoner by the unseen hand of the impossible.
Cooking and writing and nesting are things I love. There is nothing wrong with being passionate about how God has gifted us. Creativity is a blessing and I am grateful for it every day. But when the creativity became more of a burden and less of a joy, it was time to examine my priorities. It took a while (and some days I still have to “go to a meeting”) but I finally learned the important lesson that a happy mama makes a pretty perfect home. And time spent on the knees is what helps Mama get her happy on. And with a good dose of happy, the well-behaved children and the word count and the picked-up house all seem to find their respective spots on the list of priorities.
It’s a constantly changing list and – for each season of life – the changes seem to only grow. My system isn’t perfect, nor will it ever be. But I’m learning to to wholeheartedly embrace this one amazingly beautiful and imperfect life that I have been blessed with.
And that’s my random confession for the day.
contentment, laughter, life lessons, living simply
September 8, 2010 @ 6:35 am | Filed under: Soul Food,Uniquely Me
“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.” ~ Hans Hofmann
“Hey Nana.” Kendall walked into the kitchen. It was the twinkle in her eyes more than her excited tone that captured my attention. “Can you come here for a minute?”
I dried my hands on a towel and then followed her into the living room. She walked to the shelves that now housed Mama’s salt and pepper shakers. I thought for sure she must have more questions about them. She reached one tiny hand out but – instead of fingering one of the sets – she pointed to the round tin with the letters S I M P L I F Y stenciled on the side that sat on the bottom shelf.
“Did you know – ” Her voice lowered to a bare hush “- that there’s change in there?”
I did know, but often forgot.
I had picked up the tin at a little store in Jefferson last year during our annual cousins trip. Mike and I had just entered Phase I of our Big Adventure and the message on this can was a ready reminder that everything we might be sacrificing in the short term was going to pay large dividends in the long term.
We placed it on this shelf and had gotten into the habit of dropping our spare change into it. Over the course of many months it had become quite the nice change tin. Particularly for a curious six-year old, who thought she’d just hit some major pay dirt.
Her words still linger with me – even now, a few weeks later. There’s change in here.
The irony isn’t lost to me.
We’ve made a very deliberate choice to live a simple life. Making daily choices that bring us closer to our ultimate goal. A place we want to create for us and for our families, a place that will be the legacy we hand down to our kids.
The place where we’ll grow old together, sipping early morning coffee on a back deck and hosting family weekend dinners in our outdoor living area. It will be the hub of happiness and hope, where love is the constant that bonds us all.
But sometimes - in the midst of THE RIGHT NOW – when the issues of work and school and the busyness and craziness that comes with our schedules rears up…I forget.
I forget that simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
I forget that life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.
I forget that you have succeeded in life when all you really want is only what you really need.
There is change in here!
I know this, and don’t want to forget. This morning it is fresh on my mind and newly imprinted on my heart.
There is change inside of simplicity. And that is what I am in pursuit of.
contentment, life lessons, living simply
September 4, 2010 @ 10:31 am | Filed under: Faith Lifts,Soul Food,The Writing Life,Uniquely Me
I’m at my home-away-from-home today, and my thoughts are all about life’s teachable moments. Sometimes I almost miss the simplest ones because I’m on the lookout for the biggest, grandest, most amazing display of an awesome lesson. When – all along – it lies in the quietness of the ordinary and in the beauty of the everyday.
Enjoy your day! I know I am. I am so in love with the weather – with the hint of fall in the air and the brand new promise of all that a new season brings with it. I’m like a kid in a candy store, running from aisle to aisle…I can’t decide what I like best.
But I’m definitely liking it!
devotions, Faith Lifts, living simply, walk with God
August 11, 2010 @ 6:15 am | Filed under: Family,Pure Sunshine
“
A smile is the light in the window of your face that tells people you’re at home.”
There is something about the smile on the face of someone you adore – with a cRaZy kind of love – that makes every single thing just a little bit better.
That smile can make cloudy days appear sunnier, heavy loads a little less cumbersome, and the darkest of nights a bit brighter. It can melt shyness, dissolve anger, and restore feelings of pure goodness.
Saturday was a day saturated with these smiles. Just thinking about them now makes me start smiling all over again. My camera wasn’t fast enough or good enough to capture all the smiles on display. Of course, one of the problems may have been that I was just too busy holding babies, chatting with Carter about his first-ever tag football practice, hearing about Amy and Paul’s vacation, and laughing with my brother and sister-in-law.
One big, long table during the middle of the day – filled with some of my favorite people. Sounds of laughter, kids playing, shared stories…
It’s in these moments – when I am sitting sandwiched in between my brother and Amy, with the sound of the grands playing with Andi, and the sight of my husband loving on the nephew across the table from me – that I feel so completely surrounded by all that is good and sound and right in this world.
It arrived again on Saturday, that feeling of perfect contentment. Of fully appreciating living this life of simplicity. Of daily making the choice to see the beauty in the everyday, in the people we love and in the life and home we’ve created.
Because no matter what stress we may face from time to time, no matter the challenges that almost certainly lie ahead, and no matter what changes sometimes detour us, the reality remains the same.
It’s these individual moments that make up a lifetime.
I don’t want to miss a moment. Not one single…
smile.
Family, grandkids, living simply, memories
August 2, 2010 @ 6:05 am | Filed under: Pure Sunshine,Soul Food,Uniquely Me
Setting out for the long drive, I settled familiarly into the passenger seat with all of my traveling accoutrements: a couple of books, a lap quilt, my iPhone, and a pile of magazines. A few miles in, though, along Highway 16, and it’s clear I’m not interested in any of these distractions.
A few turns and we top a hill and there lies…the most majestic view ever.
GLIMPSES has – over time – become the spot where I leave insights into things I consider beautiful and meaningful. Places, people, cirumstances – that speak to me. When I sit down to write – to paint the portrait in the window of life of that day, I discover there are colors I didn’t know existed.
I have begun to see life more beautifully and find myself appreciating so much more.
This, I realize, is one of those moments…
We drive further. The trees get lusher and thicker as stores and gas stations grow more sparse. The traffic is light and our fellow road companions seem about as mellow as we do on this day. It’s definitely enough to make me believe Robert Frost was on to something when he penned “The Road Not Taken…”
I choose to write about the good, to catalog the beautiful…and by doing so, the bad has all but disappeared, even in my mind.
My soul has settled into a grateful place. A very, very good place to be.
And grateful places need good rest. But before good rest comes our acknowledgement of good things.
We glimpse it then. The sign. And we made the turn, almost without talking about it first, and certainly without giving it much thought. The lane was just too irrisistible, too inviting.
We heeded the beck and call, following the distant, dusty trail that pointed us about as far past civilization and noise and busyness as we could possibly get…past the traffic, the stores, the lures of anything else we’d planned for this trip.
And we pulled off of the planned – the purposed – and took a moment to breathe in serenity. Places of serenity are the spots where you find fresh inspiration, and these wells need to be mined for all they’re worth. They appear every so often along our path and, if we can see them for what they are and drink them in, then Serenity Road is a road well-traveled.
I am refreshed and excited.
To tackle it all. Because I’ve done it so far and the satisfaction of pulling it off ignites me to keep doing it. I’m actually looking forward to some crazy organization days ahead…finishing Summer II classes…delving into the big middle of the current novel I’m trying to write…preparing for the exciting yet challenging changes in MJ’s job and travel schedule…getting my resume and letter of introduction ready to send…carving out some new beautiful traditions for our family this fall…cooking…and spending as much time as possible with the kids and the grands in the coming weeks.
All this busyness and craziness will be good for us. Because you know what? This is just life, and this is how life rolls. It’s kind of like the road before us…this road I’ve dubbed Serenity. It has ups and downs and twists and turns. It grabs my stomach when I least expect it and gives me more reasons to smile than to frown.
Things will slow down, and oh don’t you know we will graciously welcome the lull when it comes. But, for now, it’s okay. Because we are together and we are happy and there are a hundred moments a day when we can stop what we are doing in exchange for something quick and simple.
Like a hug. Or a family dinner. Or a story or two.
Or pulling off the side of Serenity Road and breathing in the beauty of…simplicity.
And you know how I crave simplicity.
living simply, memories, summertime memories
July 29, 2010 @ 6:23 am | Filed under: Soul Food,Uniquely Me
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| Free photo collage created with Smilebox |
living simply, summertime memories
July 21, 2010 @ 6:21 am | Filed under: It's a Girl Thing,Pure Sunshine,The Writing Life,Uniquely Me
I love beautiful, simple things.
Like old aprons with a rich history, books with a timeless story, people with a look of love in their eyes, and days dotted with laughter and meaning.
There is something about real simplicity that speaks volumes to my soul. It renews me somehow, reminds me of all that is truly important and all that is not.
Simplicity is an apron tie that binds my heart strings…
I appreciate the brilliance of the Kindle, but on some days there is nothing that gives me greater satisfaction than holding a book in my hands…breathing in that deeply musty scent and fingering the pages even while the words take my mind to a place far, far away.
I adore my iPhone and all of the apps and texting and messaging it allows me…talking to many friends at once without really talking at all…But on some days there is nothing that does my heart more good than to sit down over a cup of coffee with a friend who knows my heart and talk for real…and laugh and laugh and laugh…and even cry a tear or two if the moment calls for it.
Simple, beautiful things. They are the apron ties that create simple, beautiful moments…
And I’ve learned how life often hands them out.
Good and beautiful moments followed by trying and sad. Complex hurdles and challenges balanced perfectly with simple happy days. Intricate layers of learning and knowing, feeling and being, moving forward and being content to simply reside in the moment.
I don’t think I’d have it any other way. I love the simple, the good, the happy. But without the trying, the complex, the sad, the good just wouldn’t seem as good and there would be no desire to inch forward…to the better that is just waiting to be realized.
(1) my grandmother’s apron…worn thin and stained from a lifetime of making pecan pies for the family! (2) my newest find in Natchitoches, Louisiana – love the retro look! (3) the apron I’m TRULY jonseing for…it’s calling my name!
I find myself challenged lately to really think about the broader scheme of life and circumstances, and how to have a greater understanding of purpose.
Wanting to live purposefully and knowing that, at any given moment when things seem just as they should be – whether it’s enjoying a luxurious morning with a delicious book or a relaxing afternoon with a dear friend over a cup of coffee – my awareness alone for the simple and beautiful things in life is the beginning of my purposeful journey.
I’m trying to capture these thoughts and more for a new story I’m working on this summer. Without further ado – may I introduce you to my summer writing project…a way I’ve found to mix all that I love (people, books, God) with all that I find inspiring (food, aprons, writing).
Here’s a peek…I hope you enjoy!
The Apron Ties that Bind Series:
“Amanda, Jessica, Elizabeth and Lauren are more than mere sisters. They own and operate a business together—their family’s old world-style Italian cafe. Four sisters—four distinct personalities—and four ways of managing the cafe their parents willed to them.
Amanda, the eldest and the most conservative, runs a tight ship and keeps a strict eye on finances.
Jessica, the free spirited bohemian of the bunch, finds life inside the restaurant too confining for her taste.
Elizabeth, quiet and loyal, is the peacemaker, putting her own ambitions on hold for the sake of her feuding siblings.
Lauren, the baby of the family, is exuberant and carefree, oblivious to her sisters’ quandaries as she spends her days in college classes and her evenings chatting up the neighborhood boys who venture into the cafe.
As life and love stir the hearts of the Benetti sisters, they struggle to find their own place in the world…without losing each other in the process.”
If you don’t mind, keep this story – and me – in your prayers!
Embrace YOUR apron ties today! Let the binding {and more of life’s simple, beautiful moments} commence…
July 14, 2010 @ 6:36 am | Filed under: Pure Sunshine,Soul Food,Uniquely Me
There is something refreshing about things that are real.
Real chocolate. Real deals. Real people.
When we walked into this old-fashioned hardware store on Saturday and spotted glass-bottled Cokes for sale for $1.00, it was a REAL deal waiting to happen.
Not to mention that it was an “honesty policy” and you merely pulled your ice cold beverage from the cooler and left your dollar in a simple attached tube that read:
”LEAVE $1.00 HERE”
There is something so refreshing about moments like this one.
Moments where you find tiny treasures hidden amongst the dusty ordinariness of normalcy. Moments where those treasures remind you that it’s the dust you truly treasure, ’cause that’s where the work is, that’s where the memories are, that’s where love resides. Quiet and paitent…waiting to be lived.
Moments like this are refreshing.
There is something equally refreshing about sharing them with someone who is the real deal. Someone who says what they mean, and mean what they say. Someone like my MJ.
Today is his birthday, and the birthday boy will be on the Red-Eye home from Chicago sometime later tonight.
I’ll ask him Thursday morning what he wants to do for his big day (even though it means we’ll be celebrating a day late) and he’ll shrug and say, “I’m doing it already.”
And then we’ll pretty much just hole up in this happy solitude playin’ life by ear. We’ll sip coffee at ten and shower by eleven, or maybe noon. We’ll have a loose plan for dinner, meaning all the while to shoot for a real, honest-to-goodness night out, but in the end we’ll probably have another impromptu living room picnic.
We love life, love our home, love each other.
We love the beauty of our languid mornings and cozy evenings, but sometimes it’s during the in-between that we notice most what makes us happy. It’s during the demanding weeks when he’s on the road and I’m immersed up to my neck in school or writing that I’m more inclined to notice just how extraordinary the mundane moments can be.
I’m reminded how happy my favorite coffee mug makes me.
Or how much I love hot baths.
Embracing the real things rises to the occasion best when life is nitty gritty. Or when it’s tough and busy and not-always-fun.
But today is good. It is very, very good.
It is real.
And I do love real things.
Happy Birthday, Mike!
