Should I transport my favorite posts from sixredheads.com over here?

Should I redesign that site and reactive it?

Should I just keep doing what I’m doing, which is basically not posting in either place because neither one feels quite right?

sigh.

• 1/3 jar of red wine
• 1/3 jar of some kind of cranberry juice blend ( I like cran blueberry  and cran pomegranite)
• a good glug of OJ (maybe a 1/4 cup?)
• a squirt of lime
• float some fruit in there. I’m currently using sliced strawberries.

I keep a wine glass in the freezer so I always have a cold, cold glass. I add ice. This is my current 5 o’clock Happy Momma Hour beverage of choice, to drink while I make dinner. My quart jar gives about 3 servings. A little wine, a serving of juice, and when it’s done, the best strawberries ever.

Chamblin’s is indeed a mine. It’s as large as a Barnes and Noble but entirely comprised of used books. They fill floor-to-ceiling shelves and towering little stacks at the base of all the rows. Walking in, one feels immediately immersed in thoughts, stories, history. Andrew was a tummy sleeper and his stroller folded down into a pram. His long little body stretched out, thumb in mouth, Peter Rabbit nestled into his side, he’d sleep while I poured over art books, old literature, future homeschooling fodder. When he woke, I found a corner and nursed him. I used to think it must be a fascinating thing to wake up in a book store.

Today, in some ways,  our world is very different. That long baby is a young man taller than I. He’s going to school today down the street, excited about French and history, art and technology. He has an eye towards design and engineering; he still has long periods of time where he “thinks” and ponders the world.  There were 4 babies that came after him, none of them knowing long hours in a bookstore. The homeschooling years came and closed. I am in a season of life where I am learning to use the past tense. As in, “I used to homeschool”, “I was married”, or “I used to breastfeed”. Looking at me now, few would know that I spent 10 years home birthing, nursing, cloth diapering, and raising babies, unless those big children happen to be with me. No one can tell that I’ve grown, skinned, and cooked my own chicken or lived 6 months one year refusing to use paper products of any kind. It sometimes seems like yesterday, but as one friend is fond of reminding me, “yesterday was over last night”.

It is a season for moving Onward. It’s not without anxiety but then, no transition ever is.

Walking through the city today I had this on my mind. The new library is next to Jacksonville’s City Hall and several buildings with interesting design elements. It sits between two small plazas…one very old (Hemming) and one very new, on the other side, where some old building once sat.  Downtown Jacksonville is busy but not always bustling. I heard crickets at one of the crosswalks and wondered for a second why there are never any street musicians. My children were all tucked away in their classrooms, their crisp and bright uniforms a contast against the grey day. Walking away from them still feels foreign.

I crossed the street to get a cup of coffee at a little shop next to the Magnificat. I hadn’t noticed the name before but looking up, I had to smile. Chamblins. (Different link; check it out).  At some point between then and now they’ve added a downtown location. It’s half coffee/sandwich shop, half meandering book mine. Comfortably messy and rambling. I took my time ordering my coffee, tempted to sit and use their wireless. Today I am writing articles on Delaware and would only be distracted if I sat parked in a bookstore, people watching. But I left with a different bounce in my step.

My kids aren’t so far away. Our world has gotten bigger, as it should. The world is still full of books, trees, ideas, and sky. I’m glad for common threads that find their weave into our today, rooted back in our yesterday. They are like ropes in a net to catch us if we fall, or maybe just to remind us that they will should we need. I have a feeling we are more sure-footed than we think, and the present tense, all the sweeter from whence we came.

“Mommy, Andrew, Celia, and Wheaton came from your belly but I came from your heart.”

:sigh:

My Chickens, First Day of School 2009

A new school for them and a new school period. “It’s everybody’s first day” made the jitters a little easier. Still, the excited was palpable, the happiness evident.