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Reaching Back
Do you ever try to reach deep into your memories and remember places and how you felt in them and what you were doing? I love looking far back and finding the small person for whom I now have so much more compassion, with the benefit of hindsight and years of growth. The older I get, the more similar to her I become. I’ve always mourned the loss of childhood, but now I’m finding I never did fully let it go. During childhood, magic was easy to access. A day dream was only a blink away. All the coming-of-age tales seem to hinge on loss of innocence, a character realizing…
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Doughton Park Camping 2018
How nearly every Blue Ridge Parkway adventure begins and ends: a stone arch We planned this trip three weeks out when we were looking to camp in Hanging Rock during an October weekend. Every single reservable campsite was booked for every single weekend in October. When I relayed this information to my friend Sarah, who had felt me out on whether we would want to try a joint family trip, she suggested checking out Doughton Park, which I had never heard of. This is a national park, and camping reservations can be made through recreation.gov. To our good fortune, there were still three or four spots still available. We grabbed…
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A Pruning of Personality
My house is gross, and it’s really only my fault. I chose to adopt two cats. I chose to buy my son two parakeets. I chose to have two kids. The vision of the piles of clutter often feels like a hot, thick vapor in my lungs, and it’s the reason I’m driven out into the yard where I can feel the breeze and watch things grow. However, at the end of the summer season, the veggie garden and perennial beds start to resemble the “cat room” of my house and provides little solace from the tasks I’m avoiding inside. The weeds and the rotten tomato vines pile up and…
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Dying Under the Radar
I’ve been tossing around this phrase “dying under the radar” for a few weeks now, and since having kids, I’ve towed the line of wanting to “fly under the radar” in all things – church, work, pottery, blogging, PTA and school volunteering-wise, and socially. The idea is that if I’m not seen, then there will be no expectations – no expectations by which I disappoint others, none to exceed that would raise new expectations of me, and nothing for which to be disappointed in others. I write that, and I’m not sure if that is truly my motivation, but I suspect somewhere on the journey I’ve felt too exposed and…
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The Enneagram is ruining my life
I have to take a break in my final project and exam grading schedule to let you know what is absolutely ruining my life at the moment. First of all, it feels like winter, and I’m 100% ready for summer, which means I probably should pick up some vitamin D supplements today on the grocery run. Second, I was sick for a whole week with a fever and cough that turned into a snot-fest-ear-infection and led to 10 days of antibiotics. I felt very sorry for myself, and honestly, I still feel a little sorry for myself about it. Scoops was out of school for four days with his own…
