rain, rain, go away...

my house, right now, sooc...

I know I keep saying I'm going to show you our new house but then I forget or I post something else or I accidentally delete a bunch of pictures and don't feel like looking at my computer for a couple of days...yeah.

So tonight I decided to snap a bunch of pictures around the house and share them with you SOOC (that's straight out of the camera). No magazine staged pretty housey photos here folks. Welcome to the place where we live...

I'm dying to take some pruning shears to those shrubs. It has been raining non-stop for weeks -great for the yard, not so great for yard-work.
Speaking of work, say hello to my little housekeepers...

You can check out a picture of the table just a little while before this on flickr. We made play dough today and Kate was rocking her plastic sequined shoes. Man I love those kids.
ok, back to boring house pictures...

Hmm, the living room looks better on camera. What you can't see: cherrios all over the floor, dead leaves all over the mantle, dead roses on the coffee table, spackle all over the walls, laundry all over everything (that's just part of it on the couch the rest is behind me). It's a sight better than the kid's rooms though...

This is what the girl's room looked like after "quiet time". Often, I'll come in and find every single animal and doll sitting in a circle around a perfectly laid out tea party or picnic. Kenna puts on a great tea party.

That's actually the cleanest I've seen Tristan's room in a long time. I'm singing 'Pick up the Pears' in my head now. Such a sweet song, and way better than getting THIS ONE stuck in my head. Days it will be stuck there. Days and days and days...but I digress...

I was going to try to post these pictures a few hours ago immediately after taking them so they would truly be SOOC and all that, but a war broke out in the dining room over blah blah blah blah, you know, and Shawn was out studying for his flight tomorrow and I realized we could all yell at each other for a couple of hours till bedtime or go for a bike ride. We went for the bike ride. Right choice.

And now the kids are bathed and in bed and the house is quiet and the laundry is still on the couch but that's ok because I can sit on the other couch and ignore it. Good night, all!

and then they flew away

after what seemed like such a short time in the nest

we watched our three little birds hop around in grass up to their beaks
testing new wings, trying to reach mama as she squawked at them from fence posts

and then, just like that, they were gone.

at home | books

Remember how I told you I organized the books by color? Yeah that didn't last long. It sure looked cool but when I wanted to find a specific title it was kind of annoying and when I started unpacking school books I knew it was going to be downright useless.

I love books-as-decor but I'm just too practical to have books-only-as-decor. It was fun for a bit though. I found a happy medium after I re-arranged by genre and accented with some green/yellow arrangements. This might last longer (although I'm so bad at watering indoor plants it could end up a bookshelf fail as well.)

I finally took some pictures of the house so I'll be back with those for you later...I suddenly have a strong desire to go find a comfy chair to read in.

where I'd rather be wednesday

"...Sand beneath our feet, big blue sky above our heads,
no need to keep stressing from our everyday life on our minds
We have got to leave all that behind..."
Avett Brothers, At the Beach

(these guys handle broken strings with more style than anyone I've seen.

loving their boots-on-the-stage percussion and that banjo improv!)

mockingbirds

we have some tiny little, loud little, big-mouthed little neighbors outside our window

their mama keeps a close watch on us even calling all her friends to join her in a threatening vigil from various perches around the yard -we tread carefully

we first discovered the nest when it held four pretty blue eggs
by the time I took out my camera there were three
and one freshly hatched mocking bird (can you see him?)

they were fun to photograph in the first few days because every sound and movement made them do this...

it would take a minute or two for them to realize the clicking camera was not mama
hovering with worms for hungry mouths

then they would give up and go back to sleeping, waiting
in a pile of beaks and down

now they seem to know the difference between mama bird and camera mama
and are a little harder to get a reaction from
we also lost one, sadly, there are only three in the nest now

but my have those three found their voices
mocking bird littles can squawk!

I think we only have a few more days before they will be leaving the nest
I'm sure glad I get to keep my own babies around a lot longer than the mocking bird

project 52 ~ week 29 ~ get in close

this is me accepting...

home is where the marine corps sends us.

where we will hang our family tree and wait for them all to visit.

which they will!

home is where we play and bake...

and eat and laugh at Kate's mess.

where we can stay outside for hours on end twelve months out of the year.

where we will bloom.

this is where we live.

florida is home.
(for now.)

stories of christie purifoy

When she read that post title, I wonder if my sister thought I might have decided to spill some family secrets or embarrassing moments. Like the time she...ok no, I'm not that sister. Not today.
Christie holds a PhD in English Literature and is a gifted writer. She recently began sharing her thoughts on a new blog. Every post seems to speak right to my heart, and she has quickly become one of my favorite authors. I don't think it's just because I've known her all my life and get to be auntie to her kids and have on occasion given timeouts to her third-born, or because we have a shared aversion to this Florida heat, or even because we have such similar tastes that the words "oh, me too!" often come up in our conversations and we unknowingly gave our brother the same wedding gift. No, she's just a good writer and I think you'll agree and find encouragement in her words. She tells stories, her stories, but they are never about her. She is able to see these chapters God is writing in her life and recount them in a way that grants us a clear glimpse of who He is and oh how He loves us. I could go on but I'm just the family photographer. Christie is the family writer and her recent post, Stories, says it so well...

 

It's been said that there are only half a dozen stories.  The claim is that writers only recycle and reimagine the basic plotlines that have existed for hundreds of years.
Obviously, six is an arbitrary number.  Still, I think it's important to remember that most stories do share a kind of creative DNA.  Whether that DNA is labeled "quest," "metamorphosis," or "forbidden love," every story is a combination of utterly unique detail and shared structure.
It seems that stories have been a part of God's plan for his creation from the beginning.  And I do mean the beginning: "And God said, 'Let there be light."  The first storyteller.  The first story.
He's been telling stories ever since.
I've found that I cannot comprehend my own life or the universe in which I live apart from stories.    There are the big stories: creation, fall, redemption.  There are stories within those stories, like the deliverance, wandering, and homecoming of the Hebrew people after slavery in Egypt.
And then there are the stories God is telling in every single human life.
Like those found in Scriptures, myths and novels, these human stories are beautifully unique in their details, but they too participate in the shared elements of story.  Creation.  Fall.  Redemption.  Romantic  Pursuit and Love.  Deliverance.  Wandering.  Homecoming.
I often wish I could smooth away all the complications in my life.  I pray for God's blessing and hope he keeps tragedy at bay.  But, I know that if my wishes always came true I would be left with a life that is no life at all.  With a life that tells no story.
Which do you prefer: the blank page of a comfortable existence?
Or, a work of art?

© Christie Purifoy, www.christiepurifoy.com, July 2011

just so you know...

We are alive.

We survived our first few days in our new home thanks to some great little air beds from GranD, a new slip 'n slide, plenty of movies and entirely too many juice boxes. Shawn did an amazing job painting, flooring and generally sprucing up this place before the kids and I came to stay. We made a final push to get things done together before our furniture arrived, and we've been buried in boxes and projects ever since.

We unpacked for two solid days and then our dear friends, Brian and Jamie, came to visit for the week with their three kiddos. We enjoyed fireworks over Pensacola Beach on the fourth, a tour of the Naval Air museum on base, plenty of surf and sand complete with a Blue Angels show and some nasty sun burns.

The house is looking great -almost like we've been here for months (six kids worth of dirt and toys will do that.) Jamie even helped me shelve all our books. By color. (It's awesome. I'll show you soon, but don't ask me to find you any specific titles!)

Next on the list is a project involving way too many nails and screws, many of which have been strewn about the backyard (six kids will also do that.)


So we're here. Settling in, building things, painting things, playing at the beach -you know. I'm hoping to finally get back to more regular posting here soon. Just as soon as I finish painting the dining room. And unpacking my clothes. And the school supplies. And assembling some furniture. And potty training Kate....
oh my.
Maybe we'll just go back to the beach.