Author: Lindsey P. Brackett

When I'm not wrangling four kids and a middle school classroom, I sit on my back porch in the mountains and write southern fiction that's short and long. I believe in Jesus, library fines, supper at the table, the Edislow life, and strong coffee. Pretty much in that order.
motherhood

Our Daily Bread {Monday Musings}

Lindsey P. BrackettLeave a comment

I’m baking bread today and thinking about how, if I could, I would freeze time right here and now.  These are long days and trying times and good gracious, some days I’m up to my elbows in throw up and poop and tears, but I’d rather be here than there.

There is closer than I like to believe.  There is right next door to teenagers and licenses and proms and graduations.  There is where so many of my friends are this week, staring down eighteen years that have given them a capped and gowned child who is now so much more than just their baby.

So today I’m baking bread and forcing the act of slow.  Life wasn’t meant to be a hurry. Today I’m freezing time a bit in my own way.  I’m giving myself permission to slow down.

Because when I forget to be slow, I overschedule and overbook and overrun my life with all good things, but there’s little time to enjoy.  There’s little time to just be.

I want to remember when it seems all I’m doing is the work of folding the laundry and washing the dishes and reading the books and combing the tangles and wiping the floor and driving the car, that life’s not meant to be lived in a hurry.  It’s not supposed to be tedious and draining and fleeting.

There’s a point in the slow working, in the rhythmic kneading of bread, and the constant reading of Seuss, and the never-ending stacking of shirts.  These moments are the work that helps me build my children’s childhood.

These are the moments that will get us from here to there.  These moments are our daily bread.

birthdays · motherhood · school

More than Flowers (What May Brought)

Lindsey P. BrackettLeave a comment

So it’s occurring to me while I’m working on a (hopefully) profound post about how I need to slow my life down, that I haven’t done a lot of casual blogging lately about what’s been keeping us so busy.  May is marching on by with its cold snaps and thunderstorms and heartaches too big for words, but here’s a bit of what we’ve been doing.

Gus turned one.  I didn’t even write about it. I wrote this the week before and the week of I was busy with this.

That’s the incredible Mrs. Gibson and her talented students and crew.  Blessed that she allowed me back in the school to help with the annual spring musical.  I almost missed teaching that week.  But then I came home to this and remembered why I left.

We named our children like dwarves last week: Sleepy, Whiny, Sassy, and Screechy.  Guess which one she is?

We’re digging the CSA that’s started up in the past few weeks.  Now I just need a more expansive repertoire of what to do with collards and turnip greens.

Oh, here she is again.  Joshua wants to know why we’re not marketing her so that at least one college education is paid for.

She likes to dress herself, can you tell?  Tomorrow is her last day of preschool this year.  Insane how fast it goes.

That’s my sweet friend Shanna giving Gus his first haircut. I almost cried and she told me I’d be fine.  This from the woman who had to let someone else cut her baby boy’s hair because she didn’t think she could do it.  Love you Shanna!  Thanks for making sweet boy look good.

It’s been field day and field trips and general chaos around school these past couple weeks.  Glad I get to hang with my big girls sometimes!

When I was teaching, we used to have faculty meetings and brainstorm how we could move some of the craziness out of May.  Yes, please.  Let’s figure out how to do that.

http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post · motherhood

What We Did on Mother’s Day

Lindsey P. Brackett1 Comment

Mother’s Day was beautiful in the South this year.  After a week of overcast days and gray skies that only seemed to weigh down more heavily on my hurting heart, the glory of this past Sunday was a lift to my soul.  Lately, my mind is never far from unceasing prayers for our friends who are enduring unspeakable grief with grace heaped upon grace….and it is never far from the thought that we have no idea when we lay our babies down at night if we will be gifted with another day to share in their sweet lives.

Motherhood is unimaginably more than we can ever anticipate in both its ups and downs, but this Mother’s Day I wanted to focus less on celebrating myself and more on savoring the four precious reasons I am a mother.  We had planned a trip to Biltmore Estate in Asheville long before we knew it would fall after such an emotional week, and the two days we spent as just the six of us without distractions from our everyday lives were a balm to my soul.

Warning: Picture overload.  For even more sweet pics follow me on instagram @lindsbrac

Happiest of days after Mother’s Day (but isn’t everyday even in its ordinary chaos truly a celebration of motherhood?) to all those who mother in so many different ways, who anticipate motherhood, who are grieving motherhood, who know that we are but guardians of these precious souls.
oh, and watch for another post someday soon about why we love the Biltmore and how you can love it too!

faith · Friday Five

Comfort {five minute friday}

Lindsey P. Brackett3 Comments

It’s a bit late for me to be blogging, but it’s the first quiet time I’ve really had all day and the first time this week I’ve been able to compose thoughts into words that might be comfort.

If there’s anything I’ve learned this week, it’s that comfort comes in many ways.  It comes in steady rain like tears.  It comes in purple sunsets over Afghan deserts.  It comes in rows and rows of those who love others before themselves.

It comes in extra car seats so there’s room for just one more.  It comes in lattes and hazelnut creamer and pink hydrangeas.  It comes in messages and tweets and Instagram.

It comes in nails painted blue.

These little ordinary moments of comfort, they can never be enough to take away the hurt.  But, hopefully, gracefully, they can be enough to get you through another day.

This week my community is in fervent prayer for a family who lost their infant daughter.  Will you join me in lifting them up to the only One who can bring comfort?

gus · http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post · monday · reflections

Monday Catch-Up

Lindsey P. Brackett1 Comment
Joshua finally found a use for all the baby food jars.  Seed starters.  Squash and zucchini and cucumbers.  Except he forgot to label the jars and can’t remember which is which.  
Oh, well.  The girls and I planted these this weekend.  In the rain. He tried to recover from the stomach bug (yeah, that’s still lingering around) and went to a community theater board retreat.
I went to the grocery store with all four (again, in the rain) because I’m evidently an eternal optimist who really believes each time will be better than the last.  Four doughnuts, $75, and one inappropriate response to the lady who thought I was pregnant later, I decided to stop letting my menu plan control my life.
Speaking of menu planning, I’m trying to get an even tighter grasp on our even tighter grocery budget by planning for two weeks worth of meals at a time.  Any tips?  I’ve found endless planners on Pinterest, but I have yet to really be able to make this work for me.  Primarily because I actually like to grocery shop, hence the eternal optimism.  
But I like to cook and I like to plan and so menus work well for us.  I also like to coupon and watch sales cycles and I’m coming around to price matching, and since the grocery store is the ONLY retail therapy I get these days, I’m try to work it to my advantage.
I found this today the moment I clicked into Pinterest for the first time in a couple weeks.  I love it when everything I’m looking for is in one place.

The planning served us well last week when we were busy helping with the annual spring musical at my old school.  For me, right now, the best part of theater is that it’s a family affair.  I helped direct, Joshua set up lights, and the big girls danced in the show.  
It was also Gus’s first birthday last week.  Unfortunately for him, we spent it in dress rehearsal.  But that was probably best.  It’s been a difficult milestone for me to wrap my mind around. 

He’s happy.  He’s beautiful.  He’s a precious gift, a  realization that is all the more foremost in my mind as of late.
Many of us are sharing heavy hearts right now, and right now, I am only finding comfort in the precious words of the Lord.  I will never understand His ways, but I will choose to trust His hand.