Life Lately

November is a whiplash of holidays. We usher in the month with a candy hangover and carved pumpkins on our porches and end with twinkle lights, Santa Clauses, and all things glitter. In-between, there are earth-toned pumpkins, corn stalks, and turkeys. We rotate through eating Kit Kats and Sour Patch Kids to a feast of fourteen separate dishes to eyeing up peppermint cookies and gingerbread men.

Phew.

I feel stuck in the pumpkin-ish phase of things. We put up our tree over the weekend but I’m worried there won’t be snow for Christmas. It feels impossible, when I look out our windows to the brownish grass outside, that we’re nearly a week past Thanksgiving. The lights glimmer at me from the living room, determined to lend their cheer whatever the weather.

I know many of my friends live in places where not having snow is the norm, where Christmases consist of 70 degrees and palm trees, or at least green grass. But I’m a born-and-bred Minnesotan. To not have snow yet, not even in the extended two-week forecast, makes it feel like we’ve jumped the gun, like we’re closer to Christmas in July than December 25th.

We almost didn’t have snow last year, I remember. I remember because it felt almost unbearable, on top of everything else 2020 dumped on us, to not have snow for Christmas. A brownish Christmas felt like the ultimate insult.

It arrived, unexpectedly, on Christmas Eve. We weren’t supposed to have any snow, or maybe just a dusting, until a storm moved further south than they thought or lasted hours longer than they predicted and so we ended up with a properly white Christmas, after all. I remember how ridiculously grateful I felt for the swirling snowflakes outside. I remember making appetizers in the kitchen while playing Christmas music and it finally felt acceptable. How I felt, for really the first time last year, in any sort of Christmas spirit at all.

This year, though, I still feel like the pre-Christmas Eve me of 2020. Despite trading in our pumpkins and leaves for twinkling lights and all things red and green, I can hardly wrap my head around the month of December. Not yet. Of course the lack of snow just feels like a final insult. Again.

I was reading through Sarah Bessey’s Advent guide on Sunday where she wrote, “In these days, celebration can seem callous and uncaring, if not outright impossible. But here’s the thing, my friend: we enter into Advent now precisely because we are paying attention. It’s because everything hurts that we prepare for Advent.”

I wouldn’t say everything hurts, not exactly, not for me this year. The shock of 2020 has worn off, or at least softened around the edges. 2022 looms, even as it seems impossible that we’ve lived through not only all of 2020 but also 2021. March 2020 still feels thisclose, despite being almost two years past on the calendar. And yet the kids will be officially fully vaccinated as of New Year’s Eve, exactly two weeks past their last dose. Miracle of miracles. We’ll have much to toast to that night.

We enter into December, into Advent, because we’re paying attention. We just spent a holiday giving thanks: for family, for friends, for food, for those vaccines, and now we wait in hope. For more light in the world. For healing for our planet. For stacks of presents from pages and pages of lists and catalogues, if you’re my kids. As for me? I’ll keep hoping for that snow.

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Action Item

I think the best action item of all for December is rest. There are a million people and organizations vying for your money, time, and talent right now. You don’t need me to write up yet another one. Give what and if you can, and then rest. Breathe. It’s been a long couple of years.

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Around the Internet

• This whole Twitter thread. I would listen the shit out of this album.

• What meal planning feels like, lately.

• “The truth is, I do not want to eat like my great-grandmothers or grandmothers ate. I don’t think many of us crave a return to wartime rationing or mid-century diet culture. A return to home-grown bounty and scratch cooking requires an investment of time and labor from someone. And because we live in a society that cannot reckon with how much this has cost, and continues to cost us, it takes a phenomenal level of privilege to either be that someone or hire that someone.”

• Why taking a vacation or even a break over the holidays is actually somewhat terrifying.

• I almost didn’t read this piece (late night, tired), but I’m so glad I did. The last two paragraphs are stunning. “I have no qualms about having been vaccinated, whatever the potential risk. I have no qualms about wearing a mask. Life is full of risk and inconvenience. It is in trying to eliminate risk and inconvenience no matter the cost that we create larger problems.”

• “The world begins at a kitchen table.”

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Eating

• These really are the best chocolate cookies. I halved the batch which made more than enough for us (between 15-18 fairly large cookies), but would use the amounts given to bake enough for holiday gifting.

• I’m pretty sure I sang the praises of this Coconut Chicken Curry last year, but since I’ve made it twice this past month, I’m here to do it again.

• This is one of my go-to pastas. I can’t eat shrimp, but sub in 1/2 lb. of Italian sausage instead. The sauce is DIVINE. Add in ALL the basil and top with shredded parm. It’s 10:32 in the morning and my mouth is watering.

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Fun Things

• I’ve been loving a dab of Cloud Paint on my cheeks.

• Sushi Go! has been our family game of choice lately. We are obsessed.

• I wore these pants for Thanksgiving and strongly approve. They feel like sweatpants but are acceptable in public and even for holidays. Elastic waists forever.

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See you in 2022, or very close to it. Hopefully with snow.

Life Lately

Did you remember that we had an election earlier this month? Because we had an election earlier THIS actual calendar month. Even though it still feels as though we’re in year 4 of the 2016 election AND also in day 485 of March 2020 AND simultaneously like the 2020 election was several months ago. But, * checks calendar *, nope. We actually had an election a mere four weeks ago.

This month’s chaos was, in a way, reminiscent of March. The kids, as stipulated by the district, are moving to full-time distance learning. So are their dance classes. They had a week off for Thanksgiving to give the teachers time to prepare. I found myself taking deep breaths during the last Friday morning the kids were all in school, which I think was my body’s reaction to the last time my kids went on a week-long break (and didn’t return to their school buildings for six whole months).

Schedule number 43 of the year but also make it Christmas.

Continuing with those deep breaths.

I won’t pretend that everything is fine because it’s not. As I look down the barrel of this week I see a schedule littered with Google Meets to manage. Tyson and I sat down this weekend to map out and overhaul our schedule which will probably happen at least once more before the year ends.

I don’t want to sugarcoat anything or tie this up with a bow. And yet. We decorated for Christmas this weekend and there’s something about those Christmas tree lights in the background. We might (read: will for sure, totally, definitely) have fights with three kids on three Google meets at the same time, or when two have Google Meets and the third doesn’t, or over using our tablets in the bathroom, or over staying on task during a 2:00 pm call when usually when they’re at home 2:00 = TV time. This is true. But the twinkle lights help. They’re the definition of hopeful. A tradition, a constant, in the midst of so much that’s not. And a reminder that 2021 is on the horizon which should be (read: better be, must be, has to be) so much better than the year we’ve all just lived through.

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Take Action

With Christmas coming, I’d love to urge you to shop local this year. Fellow Minnesotans, here is the ultimate guide to Twin Cities businesses. I’ll urge everyone to give up Amazon and replace it with Bookshop.org (heads up: affiliate link!). And wherever you are, I recommend gifting gift cards to local restaurants and buying beer and spirits made by local breweries and distilleries—these beloved businesses need all the help we can give them right now.

Also: Stay home. Please. As much as you possibly can. We’ve been urged by our Governor here in MN to stay home, to not have gatherings, to order take-out to support bars and restaurants who are banned from serving dine-in customers. It’s not quite as expansive as the shutdown we had in the spring, but it’s up there.

A vaccine (or several) seem to be so close; that light at the end of the tunnel feels like it’s just almost within our grasp. If we can buckle down these next few months, in the snow and the cold and the distance learning, there’s a chance life will return to ”normal” sooner rather than later. Stay safe.

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Around the Internet

• “Because schools are not the major cause of the problem, shutting them down won’t do enough on its own to slow the spread of the disease. When — not if — businesses are forced to shutter temporarily in the near future, we can tide them over with money, and we absolutely should. When schools are closed, however, handing students a check will not replace what they’ve lost.”

• I learned to knit right before the pandemic began and didn’t know how much I would need it this year.

• “My husband and I bought our first home when we were twenty-four. I think it’s important to be honest here. This wasn’t some triumph of good sense and hard work. It wasn’t accomplished by making our avocado toast at home instead of ordering it in a coffee shop. We didn’t work five jobs each to do it. When we got married at 21, we had good credit. Neither of us had ever had to charge rent to a credit card and then fallen behind on payments. We’d never been uninsured and then had a medical emergency that left us swamped with medical bills.”

• Scotland is the first nation to make sanitary products free

• For all my pandemic shoppers out there.

• Well this made me lol.

• “Yet some groups protested, refusing to keep their distance, marching against travel restrictions — as if measures that governments must impose for the good of their people constitute some kind of political assault on autonomy or personal freedom! Looking to the common good is much more than the sum of what is good for individuals. It means having a regard for all citizens and seeking to respond effectively to the needs of the least fortunate.”

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Eating

• Tyson’s company is based in Champaign, IL, a town where there’s astonishingly little to do, besides eat at the equally astonishing amount of really good restaurants. I’ve had actual dreams about this roasted red pepper and gouda soup from a cafe not far from his office. I decided to re-create it by following this recipe and while it was different from the one I remember, it was still SO GOOD. Serve with fresh bread, obviously.

• These fish fingers disappear in my house every time. Serve with a bag of frozen Alexia seasoned waffle fries because #balance.

• Since I won’t be posting another of these round-ups until after the holidays, I feel like it’s my duty to point you to some holiday baking goodness. These cranberry bars, my favorite gingersnap recipe, more gingerbread if you prefer yours in cake form, chocolate sugar cookies to switch things up, and these which you hardly need a recipe for but the kids can practically make on their own and they’re wildly addictive.

• Okay and let’s also include some party food, which you can bet I will make even if we’re only a party of five this year: the only (and easiest) meatball recipe you need, these stuffed mushrooms could basically be my last meal, bacon-wrapped dates and please include the goat cheese, and do yourself a favor and bake up some brie (top with jam, always).

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Fun Things

• This tea is everything. I’m not usually a fan of adding cream to tea but I add a little sugar and the smallest splash of heavy cream and it feels absolutely decadent. Honestly, I like to just hold it in a heavy mug to warm my hands and breathe in the vanilla scent which is divine. At under $6 it’s the best little luxury right now.

• This is a pretty big Fun Thing, but: our 10-year wedding anniversary was in early October. While we thought we’d be celebrating with a trip, that’s been put on hold for obvious reasons. Instead, I discovered that the traditional 10-year anniversary gift = diamonds. While I didn’t actually want new diamonds, I did get my wedding ring re-set. I’ve never had a wedding band, only an engagement ring (raise your hand if you were also a poor college student baby when you got engaged), so I had my original diamond re-set as a solitaire and the smaller diamonds that surrounded it in my original setting used in the wedding band, both in hammered yellow gold. I LOVE it so much. (MN friends: check out Sarah Commers Jewelry. She was so easy to work with and brought my vision to life!)

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Leaving you with those twinkle lights I mentioned earlier. I was skeptical, but they really do make all the difference right now.

Mary Knew

“In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, ‘Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.’

Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.’

‘How will this be,’ Mary asked the angel, ‘since I am a virgin?’

The angel answered, ‘The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail.’

‘I am the Lord’s servant,’ Mary answered. ‘May your word to me be fulfilled.’ Then the angel left her.”

Luke 1:26-38 (NLT)

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As the opening bars of the song fill my car, I bristle and make a face at the radio, hitting my turn signal with more force than is necessary. “Mary did you know…” the song asks, as it does too many times, sung by a guy who sounds like he’s over-doing the vocal theatrics. I hit the button to turn the radio off. I’d rather listen to silence. I shake my head, as though that action could clear my brain of the words.

Did you know your baby boy is Lord of all creation?
Did you know he has walked where angels trod?
Did you know he will deliver you?
Mary did you know? It asks, over and over and over again.

She knew, I think, fiercely. I think Mary knew more than anyone.

These lyrics annoy me. The Bible plainly tells us she did know. The angel Gabriel in those verses above says specifically that he “will be born holy”, that he “will be called the Son of God”.

It was she, after all, no more than a teenager, whom an angel appeared to. No one asked her father or her betrothed for their (male) permission. Gabriel came directly to her. He told her the details - quite clearly - and waited for her response.

In The Message version of this story, Mary responds to Gabriel by saying, “Yes, I see it all now.” It’s impossible to know if she really responded in such a way. I’d like to think she did.

I don’t know how anyone can read those verses and then dare to ask if she knew. It sounds so condescending. (“Mary did you know?” “I don’t know, Clay Aiken, did you?”) I’m tired of having Mary’s intelligence questioned.

Is it any surprise these lyrics were written by a man?

She knew enough to be the one who prompted Jesus’ first miracle. At a wedding, to turn water into wine, of all things. (I could make a tired joke about moms needing wine here, but I’ll restrain myself.)

Even after Jesus refused her, she ignored him like only a mother can. “Do whatever he tells you,” she says to the servants in response to his protest. This interaction reminds me of tiffs with my own children. (“But mo-om I don’t want to take a shower.” “Yup. Take off your clothes and get in.”)

And it was Mary again who was there along with the other women on the day of Jesus’ death. She was there to bear witness to what was unfolding just as Gabriel had told her it would.

Maybe then, through tears, she said once more, “Yes, I see it all now.”

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To give the song some credit, there’s no way Mary could work out all of the details.

Those verses in Luke tell us she was “greatly troubled” by what the angel says. I’m sure she was bothered on many levels: that she was unwed and pregnant chief among them. As her baby, this Son of God called Jesus, grew older, I’m sure she turned Gabriel’s words in her brain over and over again.

In Luke’s second chapter, Mary brings Jesus to be dedicated at the temple in Jerusalem, where she meets a devout man called Simeon. He tells her, “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.”

Luke doesn’t tell us Mary’s reaction. I would imagine Simeon’s words greatly troubled her, too.

As a mother, there is plenty enough to puzzle out. Will this baby ever sleep? Is this the right kind of diaper/swaddle/pacifier? Will they eat broccoli or carrots today? Is this school the right fit? If I feed them organic macaroni and cheese does that count as health food for today? Why are they sick/crying/moody? Will this season ever end?

There’s enough to think about without being told you’ve given birth to the Savior of the world. And surely she couldn’t know that this babe lying in a manger and wrapped in swaddling clothes would one day meet his end on a Roman cross.

Luke chapter two is also when the shepherds enter the Christmas story. They were told, by a heavenly host of angels, that a Savior was born, that he is the Messiah, the Lord. They rush to Bethlehem to find him and spread the word to everyone about what they’ve been told. It says after the shepherds came that “Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart”. It’s one of my favorite uses of language in the entire Bible. I like to think she treasured things up in her heart and pondered them often. How else could she survive parenting a boy she’d been told was the actual Son of God?

I think of one of the only stories in the Bible about Jesus’ youth. When he disappears at the age of 12 - when he stays in Jerusalem yet his parents travel on and they can’t find him for days - did Mary wonder then if this was it? Did she remember Simeon’s words and was a sword piercing her own soul then as she frantically searched for her oldest son? What was her heart pondering then?

After they find him teaching in the temple, after Jesus tells his earthly parents that of course he was in his Father’s house, the Bible tells us plainly they didn’t understand what he was saying to them then. But it also says, after they find him and return home, that once again Mary treasured these things in her heart.

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Still, the radio and even our own churches persist in asking Mary if she knew. Can you imagine such a song being written about a man in the Bible? Asking if Abraham knew what it meant for him to be a father of nations or if the disciples knew what they were doing in giving up their lives to follow Jesus? How dare we sing this to celebrate the birth of Jesus - his birth which was brought forth by the very human pain and suffering of Mary.

Mary herself gave us a far greater song to sing during the Christmas season. It’s almost an insult that a pop ballad questioning her understanding has climbed the charts when her own beautiful words, the Magnificat, are right there for us in Luke, not long after an angel has told her the most astounding news. It reads, in part:

“From now on all generations will call me blessed,
for the Mighty One has done great things for me—
holy is his name.

His mercy extends to those who fear him,
from generation to generation.

He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.

He has brought down rulers from their thrones
but has lifted up the humble.

He has filled the hungry with good things
but has sent the rich away empty.”

What if we sang those verses on Christmas Eve, verses not only praising Mary but also of revolution. It’s an anthem that’s a testament to her own place in the world as well as the role her son will play in it.

Mary was a human woman who was blessed by angels, who saw the entirety of Jesus’ life play out, who sang a song both of triumph and of social transformation while she carried that child in her womb. She was a mother who nursed and wiped tears and comforted and grew frustrated and treasured things up in her heart.

I want those words to fill my car - words of liberation and redemption. Words sung by a woman claiming her own life story.

Be Astonished

“Instructions for living a life: pay attention, be astonished, tell about it.”

I keep the quote above by Mary Oliver on the corkboard at my desk. It seems as good an instruction for writing, “for living a life”, as any. Writers are supposed to be noticers: to pay attention and look around at the often mundane in life and be able to capture it in a way that rings true.

Despite having just finished an eight-week writing class - you’d think that might make it easier - my words have seemingly vanished. I’ve been working to pull up even the simplest of phrases. It’s felt like “dredging up words from the bottom of the ocean” as Jen Hatmaker once said on her podcast.

Well, that’s not entirely true. I did write a poem I’m pretty proud of. (Which came to me in the shower. It was all I could do to finish rinsing out the shampoo instead of scrambling over to my computer naked and dripping wet.) Two essays were born during that class -  I’m trying to find homes for them. And I made progress on a much larger project. But your average post or essay or even Instagram caption? Seemingly nonexistent. I began this piece you’re reading nearly a month ago; I’ve been meaning to hit that “publish” button for three straight weeks.

I’ve already written that it’s been a busy fall. As we move toward the holidays, things are only growing busier and moving faster. In a good way — this is one of my favorite times of year. But planning our Thanksgiving menu and researching Christmas gifts and finding a new couch before we host a few gatherings (because our eight-year old couch decided that NOW would be a good time to give up its back support) has taken both my brain space and lots of plain old time out of my day.

To be fair, I like these tasks; I generally enjoy them. The mental load takes its toll, but designing Christmas cards happens but once a year and I revel in it. And I sure as hell am not giving over couch shopping to anyone else. The thing is that I want, as always, to have my cake and eat it, too: I want to have the same amount of time I usually do for writing and hobbies and still have all the time in the world to wrap presents, bake Christmas cookies, and cook two batches of my great-grandma’s dressing for Thanksgiving.

Noticing much of anything has been hard in the chaos. I’m more prone to be astonished by the car who didn’t use their signal to cross over three lanes of traffic as much as anything these days. I notice how sore my fingers are after folding 800 little booklets for the Kindergarten classes in the volunteer workroom in school. (You might think I’m exaggerating with that number. I assure you, I am not.) I’ve been paying attention to the leaves which have changed color and carpeted the ground but have zero new words to say about that.

Mindfulness is a word I see a lot. I hear I should concentrate on the task at hand, I should be focused on the present moment. I can get behind this idea in theory. It sounds so practical, so grounding. It’s easier said than done when the present moment involves a flailing, sobbing preschooler or the same dishes I’ve been washing in the same spot for the past four years or when I sit down to write and my mind wanders and I get distracted by the people walking past our house or the lure of Instagram.

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Caden and Brooklyn have been obsessed with creating lately. Pages and pages of drawings and sheets full of practicing what words they know (the, a, Mommy, Brooklyn, Caden, Nolan, Daddy, and, we, cat, see, go, I). 

Brooklyn has taken to drawing what can’t be called anything other than still lifes. The pumpkins on top of the bookshelf, a bowl of apples on the table, her favorite, ancient stuffed Beanie Baby cat named Toby. All she needs is some blank paper and crayons and whatever is closest to her becomes her muse.

Caden has been writing stories using the words he knows or can find from other books and things. I found one the other day called “The Sad Train”. (Which explains why I found an old board book about an elephant obsessed with trains laying around.) (Also, spoiler alert, it’s basically a plagiarized version of “The Little Engine That Could”.) Another one, untitled, reads, “I can go on the school bus. I can go to school.”

They’ve been drawing Mario levels and making Christmas lists, drawing pictures of our family and adding to the lists of words they know.

And as I watched them the other day, I realized, they didn’t sit around just waiting for inspiration to strike. They start drawing, putting pencil and crayon to paper before they even knew what they’re making; begin creating before they even know what they want to create.

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The blank page is daunting. The cursor and this machine with all it’s shiny-ness, the pristine white page awaiting its black marks, all seem to demand perfection. Or maybe that’s just me. With that inner critic in my head ready to pounce on every word choice, punctuation mark, or mistake.The delete key is only a pinky’s reach away. Though, usually, it’s starting that’s the problem.

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I’ve been trying to pay attention, though. Maybe I can reclaim those words again. I suppose that’s all Brooklyn is doing when she starts drawing - she notices the pumpkin on the shelf or the stuffed cat in her hands. She’s paying attention, and she’s telling the world about it through her drawings.

I love to cook. In theory. In reality, it’s burned me out lately, just one more thing to do in the chaos of the early evening and the holiday season. Another thing as the kids burst in the door and ask for snacks and pull papers out of their backpacks and ask for snacks as I rinse out their lunchboxes and they ask for snacks and I clear the kitchen table of its paper and crayons and they ask if they can go play with their friends in the neighborhood and also can they have a snack?

But I’ve been trying to pay attention to that, at least, in the evenings. Chopping things up evenly, the sound of the knife thwack-ing through an onion and hitting the cutting board. Maybe, by paying attention to these mundane tasks, I can reclaim some of that joy.

I don’t know how astonishing it is, another round of this soup (because I have a mild obsession) or chorizo tacos or chicken and rice. Maybe I’m not paying close enough attention to the way simple ingredients become a full meal. I’m distracted by thinking about who is going to eat what and we have to leave for gymnastics in 35 minutes and I had a genius idea for a Christmas gift yet now it’s vanished from my brain.

I try to watch, though, as the olive oil shimmers in the pan, when the chicken hits and it sizzles. I listen for the sound to change, to become more intense as the onions caramelize and I watch the batter expand as I beat eggs into butter and sugar for a batch of brownies.

The transformation of ingredients to food to fill our bellies. I suppose that’s pretty astonishing when I take a moment to pay attention to it. Maybe what’s right in front of me every single day is inspiration enough.

Life Lately

Has the “I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers” line from Anne of Green Gables been over-used yet? Because that’s something my heart has been sighing pretty much all day every day. It’s as unoriginal a thought as a (white, suburban woman) person can have, so, unsurprisingly, here we are.

The kids had fall break last week, Nolan for the entire week and Caden and Brooklyn for two days. Thursday and Friday, when they were all home, felt just like falling back into our old, familiar rhythm again. As though this whole Kindergarten thing were nothing more than a momentary blip.

Of course, it was different in that I KNEW it was a blip in time. Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday in some ways seemed to last forever, but in a good way, in the way that it was hard to dive back into routine and actually need to wake up to my phone alarm again on Monday morning. But unlike so many of the never-ending days of the past five years, I knew there was an end to it all, there was a slight relief to it, that I could count it down on a single hand.

Our weeks have a rhythm, more so than our days. Where most days in the past five years felt more or less the same, it’s our weeks that seem to loop now, instead of individual weekdays. Preschool on Monday, playtime on Tuesdays before I go off to a writing class and rush home to delivery pizza and dance class for all. Wednesdays it’s back to preschool and don’t forget to pick up the groceries. Thursdays are for eating lunch with Caden and Brooklyn at school before volunteering all afternoon, and Fridays equal preschool again and an afternoon movie.

Then, somehow, it’s the weekend. The weeks don’t usually feel quite so long anymore. Especially once I fit in errands (Target at least once, maybe Costco, and do I have any returns to make?), an inevitable appointment of some sort (dentist, chiropractor, optometrist), bringing a meal to a friend, writing, reading, and the cleaning and meal prep/consumption/clean-up of regular household function: the rest of my “free” hours fill up quickly. (Though ask me about that again in a few days if we continue this streak of rain, clouds, and sub-50-degree temps.)

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“When I was a baby,” is Nolan’s current favorite go-to line. Some things are factual. “When I was a baby, I could only crawl,” is more or less accurate. Others not so much.

“When I was a baby I couldn’t say ‘puppy’ so I said ‘po-pa’,” being one.

“When I was a baby I was in a tree and then I fell out of the tree and you were there and then a lion scratched me right here on my cheek,” is another.

Sometimes he even projects into the future. “When I was 10 I drove in a car and then I climbed in a tree. And I lived in my own house and it was pink.”

“But Nolan, you’ve never been 10,” you might say. You would be wrong. He was 10 at some point in the past and you’re a damn fool for thinking he wasn’t.

These statements are absolutely, positively not up for dispute. You just have to nod your head and agree with him or else you’ll realize you’ve enmeshed yourself in a debate with a three-year old void of all reason, facts, or logic, over whether said three-year old ate hot dogs with ketchup when he was a baby or not.

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Some thought-provoking reads from around the Internets:

This article on the privilege of obtaining an elite degree…and the pitfalls.
This one on why it’s not just about the cooking.
This post from Emily P. Freeman.
This beautiful poem from a fellow Exhale creativity member.

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“We have homework,” Caden announced the second week of school. He strode into the house, plopped his backpack on the ground, and rummaged through his folder for the orange math worksheet, “Mrs. Hawes said we HAVE to do it. It needs to be done in pencil and you need to sign it when I’m done and I need to do it right now and I need a pencil.”

He sat expectantly at the counter while I rummaged in the drawer for a pencil. He and Brooklyn sat down and completed their simple worksheets in a minute or two, working seriously the whole time. And that’s more or less how the school year has gone. They’ve adapted to kindergarten like fish to water; I think they would sleep in their classroom if it were allowed.

At back-to-school night, the second or third week of school, they couldn’t contain their enthusiasm. “We’ll show you where everything is!” they told us, giddy with excitement. They showed us around the school, showed us how to go through the lunch line, which table they sat at. They explained the rules and showed us the different classrooms with all the importance of freshmen.

“No sloppy-poppy!” Brooklyn says while she’s coloring. “That’s what Mrs. Hawes says.”

And “There’s no scribbles in elementary school!”

And “Name on your paper - first thing!”

And more. Almost every day they come home with another tidbit of information about their teacher which means that by the end of the year I expect to know Mrs. Hawes more intimately than I know some of my closest friends, despite only seeing her a handful of times myself.

DEAR KINDERGARTEN TEACHERS: THANK YOU. You are doing the Lord’s work. These kids hero-worship you. And I hope they talk about us at school even half as much as they talk about you at home.

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Believe all the five-star reviews. This soup is perfect, even more so with a loaf of crusty, homemade bread. My only quibble with the recipe as it’s written is that it absolutely should be doubled.

I’ve already made this applesauce cake twice this fall. And I’ll probably make it at least once more. All of Deb’s recipes are fantastic but this one has become tradition.

This blueberry oatmeal is my favorite. Topped with a little dark brown sugar and some chia seeds when I can find them in the pantry: yum.

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The more I think about it, the more I realize just how much the weeks continue to blur by. I’ve said yes to some things, things I wouldn’t have said yes to with three kids under five at home. I’m taking a writing class (it’s giving me LIFE), volunteering at school, doing some design work here and there, heading up a committee at church. Somehow the time and space I thought I might have with two kids gone all day and another a few mornings a week has never quite materialized.

Especially as we rush into the end of the year. Halloween blurs right into Thanksgiving and then into Christmas (and did you see how LATE Thanksgiving is this year??) which means my mind is already crammed with all the shopping, meal planning, parties, gifts, etc. (I possibly had a meltdown to Tyson about ALL THE THINGS in the next several months that need to be done in addition to ALL THE REGULAR LIFE THINGS last night. It’s fine.) Basically, I’m living this meme:

Of course, to the kids, Christmas is still a lifetime away. Two months is an eternity in their eyes. Heck, Halloween is in less than a week and that’s unbearable enough. (“Is it Halloween yet? Do we get to wear our costumes today? Is it trick-or-treating tonight? Can we eat candy?” MAKE IT STOP.) I remember, as a kid, just how long the time felt between each break, to get from one holiday to the next. I empathize with them, even as my brain feels scrambled with all the to-dos.

Hang in there, everyone. Buckle up during this last mad rush of the year. Enjoy the colorful leaves if you can, a mug of something warm in the afternoon, and bake up that applesauce cake SOON. This time of year might fly by, but it also doesn’t keep.