Longing for Summer

August 26, 2013September 30, 2015 Lindsey P. BrackettLeave a comment

Sunshine is streaming through the fingerprints on my front door and spilling all over the streaky floor. The pool in the backyard is full of rain water, and the swings are stirring gently with the late August breeze that kindles memories of campfires and light sweaters.

Summer’s slowly sifting away bit by bit.

Two weeks ago I could hardly wait for it. For school and routine and structure and those few precious hours I can snatch between naptime and snacktime to work and enjoy the quiet.

But last night we stayed out a bit late and this morning the forecast is for mostly sunny and I wish more than I longed for routine that I could buckle them all into that van with its peeling paint and slip away on some hiking trail and emerge at a lakeside to dig our toes into the only sand they’ve seen all summer.

Why is it the longing never comes until I realize it’s over? Why is it that I can’t ever seem to wrap my mind and heart around the slow pace and embrace it for all it’s worth because it’s so simple?

Why do I let activities and camps and far too many other good things crowd out all my days that could be spent in the woods or by the pool or on the back deck with popsicles and the water hose?

Why do I let tantrums and whining and frustrations over lost library books dampen my spirit so much that I forget how much I enjoy just having them all home and under my roof?

I don’t want to forget how much we need each summer. How much we need lazy days and pajama days and ice cream for dinner. So I’ve writing this to remind me and to remind you–

Each summer there’s beauty laced between meltdowns and fights and your mama exploding temper.

Don’t wait until summer is over to find it.

Congratulations to Sheila Beck who won the Real Food for the Real Homemaker cookbook giveaway! I hope you enjoy it and use it to make me something yummy if I ever make it over for a visit! I wish everyone could win, but since that can’t happen, you can go here to order your own copy. You’ll get a PDF file, a Kindle version, the recipe cards, and the excel spreadsheet to help you plan a frugal grocery trip and a simply homemade menu. Enjoy!

Linking up today with Gracelaced Mondays and The Better Mom.

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What I Learned While Refinishing My Table {and a cookbook giveaway!}

August 20, 2013September 30, 2015 Lindsey P. BrackettLeave a comment

Joining with Crystal Stine and an amazing community of women this week who dare to bare the soul behind the pictures.

It’s amazing what change can do for a place. Lighten up a dark space. Widen a narrow room. Increase joy.

Last spring my sweet friend Myrna gifted us with their old dining set. Her handy husband had built her an Ana White table (do you know about Ana White? Oh, she’s amazing.). She knew I was wanting one about the size of her reject to replace our gargantuan oval table that had lived in the basement of Joshua’s parent’s house long before we got married and thought we’d like a table but had no money.

Also, I was just sick of that style. I wanted something new and fresh that had a little bit of me in it.

Be careful what you wish for.

So Myrna’s table wound up in our storage shed until I could find the time to work on it. Fast forward three months of school ending and that heart incident and finally, this July, I felt like I had time to work on the table. So I lugged it around the house and into the carport (not alone) and set up shop. I did some extensive research, on Pinterest of course, and bought the first round of supplies.

Then we started step one. Sanding.

Yeah, that’s not so fun. I’m not really a power tools kind of girl. Honestly, the sander scared me a little. I was afraid I would drop it while it was on and sand off my toenail. But I tried. I really did.

Then my husband, who knew this project was bound to take years if he didn’t step in, finished the job. That’s when I saw how beautiful the wood grain really was, and I thought, Why am I going to cover this up with a coat of paint?

Enter plan #2. The whitewashed effect. It would give the table the distressed look I craved while also showing off it’s natural beauty. And it had fewer steps than Plan #1.

Back to the hardware store for an exchange and good to go….except that the best time to work on the table is probably when the kids are having rest time. Well, that’s when I write.

You can see my priorities, huh?

So I took a deep breath, put on my supermom cape, and let them help. That’s right. I put paintbrushes and rags in the hands of my 8 and 7 and 3 year olds and embraced imperfection. Because ultimately, it’s not going to matter that it’s a little streaky and uneven. This is the table I roll pizza dough on and where Amelia will learn to write her name. It’s the table that’s dripped with syrup at least once a week, and it’s the place where I’m hoping to embrace more hospitality.

It’s a project we finished together and that we’ll gather round together, hopefully, for many years to come.

Because I don’t think I’ll be refinishing another table anytime soon.

Have you entered the giveaway yet for the Real Food for the Real Homemaker cookbook? This incredible resource is helping me grace my new table with real food, as well as get organized about menu planning and grocery shopping so that all my extra savings can go to the little projects that make a house a home. You can enter here and read more about the book here. My favorite feature is this handy excel menu planner that makes the grocery list automatically. Can’t wait to try it out this week!

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In Which I Fail at Margin {and Giveaway a Cookbook!}

August 19, 2013September 30, 2015 Lindsey P. BrackettLeave a comment

So I spent six weeks writing reflectively on how I need to have more margin in my life. And some days I thought I had found it. Then there were some days when I knew I hadn’t and felt I never would.

Then school started back and holy moly, so did everything else. Suddenly my search for margin has become a craving that’s not going to be satisfied until I learn a little two letter word.

N-O. No.

Yeah, still working on that. In the meantime MOPS is gearing up, church activities are in full swing, and tonight I’ll finish casting one of my biggest projects ever: a community theater production of A Christmas Carol.

Did I mention that in October Joshua and I will attend three different conferences in two different timezones during the same two week period?

It. Is. Insane. Or incredible. I’m still deciding.

Anyway….so I’m going to have to find ways to build some more margin back into our lives.

Which is why I’ve got a new kitchen resource to share!

Remember, facebook fans, how I promised that when I had 100 likes, I’d host some giveaways? Here’s the first of several, though I’ve got to be honest and tell you that while I’m ecstatic to share this with you, I’m selfishly giddy there’s copy for me on my ipad.

My online friend Jaimie over at Living in the Light (she guest posted here last month) wrote a cookbook! She teamed up with some other women who share her passion for homemaking and simply real food and together they have developed this incredible resource that’s more than just a cookbook.

It’s a life book.

The first few chapters aren’t even recipes, they’re glimpses into the very real, very personal lives of these young women who are striving to start their families on the path to healthy living, long before they get caught up in the whirlwind of McDonald’s or Hamburger Helper. So while the recipes are great too (Cheeseburger Macaroni, anyone? Perfect Pancakes? You know I need that.), it’s really a book that shares a simple philosophy on “real food”.

There’s the difference between butter and margerine. A take on why you might want to jump on the coconut oil bandwagon. An explanation of why gluten and carbs are not intended by nature to be bad for you, but rather to provide nutrients our bodies need.

But unlike some places that have always made me feel guilty for serving pasta or baking with white flour, Jaime and the girls don’t do that. They are quick to admit that some baking recipes are going to need white flour if you want a desired lightness, but they pair those alongside recipes that are just as delicious and use way less refined products.

I’m thrilled to be a part of the team that’s helping launch this book and can’t wait to share it with one of you! There are so many ways to gain entries into this giveaway and so many wonderful things to tell you about this cookbook and these women, that I’ll be talking about it all week.

Tomorrow I’m going to share the Behind the Scenes of my recently refinished kitchen table and also divulge my absolute favorite feature of Real Food for Real Homemakers.

Until then, enter away!

a Rafflecopter giveaway //d12vno17mo87cx.cloudfront.net/embed/rafl/cptr.js

Friday Five · Home

Small {five minute friday}

August 16, 2013September 30, 2015 Lindsey P. BrackettLeave a comment

It’s Friday and that means it’s time to write for five minutes, no editing, no backtracking, no overthinking. Lisa-Jo provides a prompt and in this community we write and then we encourage one another. So link it up, friends, and share the love.

This week’s prompt is….

Small

The wide wood planks are the color of honey and just as sticky under the the baby’s chair but they still sparkle through the grime when the summer sun hits full-force at five o’clock in the afternoon.

Yellow-gold walls disguise crayons and remnants of art-displaying scotch tape and the baseboards are witnesses to three babies who have learned to scoot and crawl and walk across the floors of a home that was never meant for four.

A house that was never meant for four. Because this home certainly was.

There’s a garden plot he and the girls tilled by hand and there are splatters all over the carport because I let them help paint our “new” table. My fridge has never opened all the way because there’s a wall in the way and sometimes one can’t get through the door for all the babies and shoes and kittens.

It’s so small here that my mother told me when we moved in that I could never have another baby in this home.

I’ve had two more.

And I’ve learned that small is a state of mind and not a state of hospitality.

reflections · school · thankful Thursday

How A Teacher Keeps Her Optimism

August 16, 2013August 5, 2016 Lindsey P. BrackettLeave a comment

When I left my classroom two years ago to stay home and raise babies and blog stats, I didn’t expect to miss teaching much. I didn’t expect that this time every year, I would get a little wistful for new pencils and Expo markers and highlighters. I didn’t expect that this time every year, I would miss the anticipation of readying my classroom for a new group of silly, rambunctious, and yet, ambitious young teenagers. I didn’t realize that even though I had left the classroom, that my teacher optimism, that beautiful gift teachers have to believe every new year will be better than the last, would remain so deeply embedded in my heart.

You see, it never occurred to me that I could miss teaching because by the time I left, I had allowed myself to be so beaten down and discouraged that I had no hope the next year would be any better.

Teaching is an ironic profession. In the same day that you can spend all your extra planning time helping a student organize their backpack and locker in order to find three weeks of lost homework, you can sit at a conference table with parents and have profanity hurled at you for not giving enough of your time and energy to have made that same student successful from day one.

One thing that drove me away was the feeling that I wasn’t doing a good enough job raising my own children, because I was so afraid to fail at raising someone else’s.

A teacher’s career is filled with accolades and rewards, but that career is forged in the fire of expectations from lawmakers and parents that are often unrealistic and unachievable for our current system.

Teaching today is an intense, data driven, marathon. There is always some new piece of technology or curriculum on the horizon. Textbooks are becoming obsolete, and classrooms are equipped with laptops and iPads. Email is the new parent contact, and weekly, if not daily, updates of grades and reports are expected.

When I was teaching middle school, I could use my 90-minute planning block to attend a parent conference, help write an Individualized Education Plan (IEP), analyze benchmark test scores to determine our Response to Intervention (RTI) tiers, administer a make-up test, pull novels for my students’ next library check out, and grade half a dozen essays.

There was nothing easy about it, but one thing that made my days worthwhile, and kept me going through eight years and five certifications, were the all too rare times a parent was supportive. When a parent took the time to acknowledge the work I was doing to bring education alive for their student, that’s when I knew I was in the right place.

So, this fall when you take your student to Open House, when you meet their teacher for the first time, when you attend a parent conference, or chaperone a field trip, go out of your way to thank your student’s teacher for all they do.

It’s those few and far between accolades of support that fuel a teacher’s optimism, that reminds them, indeed, every year can be a little bit better than the last.