Author: helvrum@hotmail.com

Our picture uploader is still on the fritz, but I’m not afraid to post old pictures….nope, I’m not.  In the meantime, here are some links to some things on the internet that I’ve enjoyed lately. Check them out.

1. I Carry Your Heart Blog ~ I’m a contributing photographer at this amazing project with other mama photographers.  I love photography, motherhood and to be involved in a project that has so many amazing women makes me feel pretty special and lucky.

2. Forty Portraits in Forty Years ~  This has been on the internets for a while, but I’ve looked at it a few times, studying the changing faces of the sisters over time. Something stirs inside me when I look at their body language and faces.

3. Not My Daughter ~  We’re on the brink of Maggie starting kindergarten, a decision of what that will look like  weighs on my mind daily, and the teacher in me wishes sometimes I didn’t know what I know. Teaching is hard, teachers are undervalued. The current climate of the testing culture of our schools and public education makes my stomach turn. I can relate to this article on so many levels. It’s a good one.

4. A Country Called Childhood ~ This book was an accidental find. I grabbed it off the shelf at the library and have been thumbing through it ever since. My mom called and I ended up reading her a few paragraphs over the phone….and then I followed Barry around the house reading to him also, wanting them to have the same Come-To-Jesus epiphanies that I’d had. A good read, not one that I’l be able to read straight-thru (I mean, seriously, I’d love to, but time is of the essence these days.)

5. Della Mae ~ My dad’s cousin posted a link on Facebook to these ladies and I’m in love. Great music.

 

 

 

*Pictures aren’t loading on our blog currently, so I’m using old ones. Enjoy*

Two days ago I twisted my ankle in the grocery store parking lot. It was an ugly fall with me grabbing at the side of the car trying to grab on to anything that would save me. Nothing saved me and within seconds I was withering on my back holding my ankle in pain. Audrey and Sydney, along with the groceries and my phone, were in the car waiting for me, so my immediate thought was about how I didn’t have time to have a sprained ankle. 

I had been bustling around all morning and was brag-talking to myself about taking the girls to Seattle for the day and enjoying some of the fancier parks. My sense of adventure was suddenly stunted by my throbbing ankle and bruised knee and ego. We made it home and I unloaded everything while hobbling around. Audrey kept checking to see if I was ‘happy’ becuse she’d heard me crying in the car earlier. 

My ankle got fat and bruised and today, two days later, it feels much better. It looks better too. I listened to my body yesterday and today I was rewared for that. For that I’m grateful. 

But it got me thinking about my thought about not having time right after I fell. What does that really mean? I’m a stay-at-home mom and I feel like I fight the ever-raging war against time. Time to be present for my husband, girls, friends, family. Time to prepare healthy meals. Time to get outside. Time to clean my home. Time to write. Time to edit. Time to read. Time to workout. Time for ME.   

I do have time. 

We all have time. But I’m realizing that I’ve got an internal urge for a sense of adventure, a feeling of not submitting to the normal day-to-day fight that so many of us have started to go up against. As I nursed my fat ankle yesterday, I spent time playing with the girls, reading, letting them watch Sesame Street,drinking coffee, and even cracking my book (without my headlamp on!!). It wasn’t much of an adventure, but so much of it was glorious.  

Especially the reading and coffee part.