Category Archives: Archives + Other

Oh, Hello

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So I promised in my last post that I’d come back here today and re-introduce myself as it’s been awhile and I’ve noticed a number of new faces lately.

So yes, uh, huh huh hi, hello, my name is Kari ;]

I’m originally from Missouri.

In college, I met a boy and he turned out to be not only stinking cute but also the love of my life. We celebrate nine years of marriage this summer and I’m so thankful I get to go through life with someone so fun and amazing by my side.

Seriously, this picture was taken Easter Sunday and I can’t stop staring at him and how handsome he looked. Here I am seven months pregnant and all chubby-ish and he’s just standing there smiling like he’s Magic Mike—I can’t get enough but I’ll stop ogling him via the internet now and move on ❤

IMG_20170416_103634_839Also, I have a two-year-old son who I completely adore 98% of the time. He’s hell-bent on destruction and completely insane but I realize where all of that came from and am rather partial to him.

IMG_20151023_095240And as before mentioned, I’m pregnant—baby #2 is coming this summer and I’ve spent the last 7 months warning her about her brother. I’m guessing she’ll be able to take him though because I have five brothers and I can take all of them at once…so she got dis ;]

I’ve lived in Massachusetts for the last nine years (thanks to Mr. Handsome up there).

Before I became a baby momma, I worked with my husband in aerospace. I say that because it makes me sound smart but really it was just a boring office job most of the time :]

I’m a Christian and write quite often about my faith.

I absolutely love bare feet, warm weather, and being outside. So I moved to New England (???). I cry like a baby from December through April because I have to stay inside or wear shoes. Everyone who lives anywhere near me is 1000% over hearing about it. I always swear I’ll have a better attitude at the start of each winter but I’m usually crying and complaining by the time the first flurries fly.

dsc_1356My husband and I love traveling and make trips a big priority in the way we budget and save money. If you think I cry about winter you should hear my husband cry about having to take a year off of traveling to have this baby ;] We’re both very restless, adventurous people and are always planning our next trip. Right now I’m dreaming of Ireland and Honolulu :]

img_20160917_174155.jpgIn 2013, we bought a dilapidated 1860s farmhouse thinking it was a good idea to remodel it ourselves. Ah hah hah hah…. we should have burnt it down. I’m just kidding… Four years and almost two kids later and we’re still working away (although we really are almost done and have enjoyed living here for the last 18 months).

DSC_0375I am mildly obsessed with leather bags, paper goods, capturing the perfect photograph, pasta, and like three people outside of my husband and son ;] No, I’m just kidding I seriously have at least five friends :]

So I hope that helps us get better acquainted for the moment. I would love to find out who’s reading this and what you’re like as well so go ahead and leave a comment introducing yourself if you like. I look forward to hearing from you ❤

—Kari

Memory

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The summer air is tangible, thick,  heavy on my skin. Humidity hangs visibly in the hazy air.

The wind is blowing; it never stops blowing here. There is a restlessness in this place–a constant motion and sound cutting through the trees, bowing the prairie grass gently from side to side.

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Everything seems bigger than me–the grass to my waist, the scruffy trees I climb barefoot and brown, the sky stretching out in ocean spans above the endless rolling farmland. I disappear into the cornfield, feeling smaller still with prickly stalks over my head pressing in around me.

I find a dusty bare spot in the field–a circle of dirt where the tractor turned and no seed was planted. I can smell the corn, sweet and tangy. Everything smells green here–did you know green is a smell? I can remember it–the green–the smell of green grass, green crops, green trees. Everything was green and brown and blue— the sky, the dirt, the oceans of prairie grass swaying in that humid Midwest wind.

My bare feet are brown and dusty, callused as leather and as good on gravel as any pair of shoes. You don’t need shoes here–you can climb the trees better without them–toes moving confidently against scratchy bark and branch.

I was a tomboy then. A little bit wild. Scrappy. A girl… not a wife, not a mother. A wildflower and a dreamer making plans to leave and go somewhere bigger. I did not know then how hard it might be to find a place bigger than a Midwest summer–bigger than that sky or those swaying fields of crop.

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I left. I married. I became a mother. I saw the worlds I dreamt of under apple trees and night sky.

It’s good. I’m happy. I’m proud.

But I’d give almost anything for one more day under the Missouri sun–barefoot, brown, laying in a cornfield watching the clouds roll by. I’d lay there til the stars came out. I’d watch the fireflies dance in diamond bands across the still-hot night air. I’d listen to the peepers and crickets sing their song in chorus with that ever-moving breeze. I’d hold on to the smell of green–breathing a little deeper and tucking away that Midwest magic in the pockets of my heart and soul. I’d whisper to my tomboy heart, “You’ll need these someday so hold on.”

It’s Okay To Be Young

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Before I had my son I received a lot of eye rolls when I tried talking with moms about anything regarding children or parenting. Of course I didn’t know a lot about motherhood, not having been one myself yet. But I wasn’t completely ignorant either.

I grew up in a big family with older and younger siblings. I babysat a variety of children and ages over the years. I worked in nursery and was around kids quite a bit. When I did become a mother I didn’t drown from lack of knowledge and experience–I simply learned as I went (and continue to do so).

I thought the eye rolling would stop after I had my son and knew better what motherhood was like. But now I get eye rolls for only having one child. Again, there’s plenty I don’t know. But the fact that I’ve been entrusted by God with only one child so far doesn’t mean I’m completely clueless to what life might be like with more children. I grew up in a big family, remember?

I probably sound bitter by now but here’s my point: You don’t have to know everything or have to experience everything to know something and to be perfectly capable as you are.

We really love to put people down, don’t we? We might not consciously think so or admit it but it makes us feel so smart and so much better when we can roll our eyes at people younger and less experienced than we are. We love to think we have it so much harder than everyone else and no one outside of our exact experience can possibly understand what life’s like.

But we’re wrong.

I know it’s easy to do, I do it all the time myself, but we’re wrong to judge and belittle people simply because they’re young or less experienced in a certain area than we are. I have to remind myself of this now when women who aren’t moms try to sympathize with me about having a baby or a toddler. I catch myself doing the same thing moms used to do to me–thinking, “What do you know?” or “You seriously have no idea how easy your life is right now.”

But here’s the thing: I have no idea what her life is like right now. It may in fact be easy (though probably not). She may know a great deal about parenting and children from her life experience even if she isn’t a mom. Or maybe she’s totally clueless about motherhood–who cares? If she becomes a mom, she’ll learn as she goes like the rest of us do after we realize we’ve brought a child into the world and have no idea what to do with them.

1 Timothy 4:12 says:

“Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.” ESV

Not only should you not worry about what people think of you for being young and inexperienced, but you, young and inexperienced as you are, should be the ones setting an example in the way you speak and behave.

You are never too young to know and do what’s right.

You’re an adult and you’re old enough to behave like an adult. I married at 22 just two months after I graduated from college–and I don’t regret it. I’ve already had the fun of spending eight years with my husband and I wouldn’t trade that for anything. In my 20s I finished school, married, moved across the country, worked several different jobs, bought two houses, traveled all over, and had a baby. Yes, I was young–but not for one second do I regret jumping into life and beginning to build all the memories and relationships I have today.

Don’t let people discourage you from getting started on the big things that matter to you–you’ll learn as you go and you’re ready to start.

It’s vital we listen to and learn from those ahead of us who know more and know better. But it’s also vital that we aren’t afraid of our own age and inexperience. After all, if you are inexperienced the only way to fix that is by going out and doing the thing you right now know little about. The more you do the more you’ll know.

“Let no one despise you for your youth, but…”

Let’s take those words to heart and do great things both while we’re young and as we grow. And let’s respect those who are behind us in age and experience by taking them seriously and helping them along rather than putting them down for being where we all once were.

End rant ❤

You Are Not Alone

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The first year after my son was born was one of the loneliest of my life. I went from working full-time and spending lots of time with my husband to being home alone with a newborn almost all day every day.

I knew leaving my job would be a big adjustment and I knew inserting a child into our relationship would be an even greater adjustment still. What I didn’t anticipate was the total wilderness I would enter into after we came home from the hospital and the dust settled on my new life as a mom.

That year was lonely for a lot of reasons, many of which I’ve talked about here before and don’t feel the need to revisit today. What I do want to talk about is finding your way through that loneliness, whether you’re a stay at home mom or anyone else struggling to find meaningful relationships and community.

Reach Out To Those Around You

Something I realized after my son was born was that I had actually lacked community and relationships for a long time but hadn’t let it bother me since I was busy working and had plenty of time with my husband to fill whatever need for community I did feel. I hadn’t been investing in people and relationships before motherhood and just kind of assumed those relationships would fall into place on their own after I joined “the mommy club.”

But that’s not how life works, really. People don’t generally just show up at your door ready to meet your needs because you’ve decided they now serve you. Relationships take time and investment and sacrifice on both sides. I had to recognize I was alone because I had chosen to be alone by investing in only my small bubble of work and marriage. I hadn’t reached out to others and so they did not, or had stopped, reaching out to me as well.

So step one for me was reaching out to the people who had been a part of my life for years but who I had neglected to invest in. It wasn’t easy getting out of the house with a newborn but I tried to spend time when I could with other moms from my church and with my sisters-in-law who were also busy raising families. This was a baby step but it was a start on restoring neglected friendships and community with the people who were already a part of my life.

Tell God What You Need

I remember lying in bed crying, telling God I was lonely and alone and I couldn’t do this by myself. I told God I needed friendship, I needed community, I needed women in my life who I could talk to, laugh with, cry with, and be my crazy stupid self with. I really didn’t know how God would answer that prayer. I knew he could, but I doubted if he would. I had lived in the same place with the same basic group of people for years so I wondered if anything could really change or if this was it—this was the life I had built and was stuck with.

But God did change things, in ways I never imagined, and started bringing the very women I had prayed for right to the small area I had been living in for years. My brother moved up from Louisiana and with him my fun, crazy, hilarious, thoughtful, sister-in-law. We have so much fun together, too much fun, and she has been a drink of cold water in a drought of loneliness.

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Then our pastor retired and the new pastor’s family moved to the area. Our pastor’s wife is my age with a young family and again, like my sister-in-law, she’s fun, crazy, hilarious, and such a sweet challenge and encouragement to me.

Friends who had moved away moved back to the area, people I had never thought to talk to started conversations, people I had struggled to be close to in the past started opening up and moving forward in friendship…on and on it goes.

In February, I sat at a women’s retreat with a group of girls from my church and as I looked down the row at each of them, it hit me, “God, this is exactly what I prayed for.” The answer to that lonely, tearful heart cry for friendship and community was sitting here on either side of me.

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God doesn’t always answer our prayers the way we want or especially when we want. But still I believe God wants to hear from us and wants to know our hearts and desires. God is a father, after all, and like any good father desires to give to his children and to see them delighted, so God desires to delight us as well. Tell God what you want, what you need, and see what he will do—let him delight and surprise you with the ways he can work and move on your behalf.

Invest In Long Distance Relationships

Because I grew up in Missouri, went to school in South Carolina, and moved to Massachusetts, I have friends and family all over the country.  It sucks that I can’t meet my friend Ashley for a walk through the woods or at a taco truck to eat some of the ridiculously good Mexican food she has available in south Texas —but we’ve learned instead to stay in touch through text {and by texts, I mean mini books written with our thumbs}, sending snail mail, or by reading and listening to the same books. I talk to Ashley more and feel closer to her than some of the people I see almost every day. Why? Because we try—we make an effort to stay in touch and know what’s happening in each other’s lives even though this big, beautiful country keeps us apart.

Not every friend will be one you can meet for coffee but with all the technology available to us, this is no reason why you can’t still maintain thriving long-distance relationships as well.

Get Up and Go

Life can be lonely and there will likely be times of aloneness and a seeming wilderness in the way of meaningful relationships and community. But if I have learned anything over the last year, it’s to do everything in my power to not accept loneliness as just the way life is but rather to seek friendship and community where I can. We were made to need each other and life is so much sweeter with friends to laugh with and at :]

How thankful I am that God heard and responded to my loneliness and filled my life with friendship and community; he can do the same for you—ask and see.

Ordinary Magic

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dandi blueWe finally got around to mowing the yard yesterday—after the grass had grown tall enough to lose a cat or small child in…only sort of speaking from experience 8[

I had a hard time letting the dandelions go—though they be but weeds, are they not the most magical little weeds you’ve ever seen? I love their cottony hair and think they belong in a place more enchanted than my scruffy back yard.

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Our nephew spent a couple of days with us last week while his baby sister was being born. I’ve never seen so much delight in plucking up and blowing away the soft hair of “fufs” as he calls them.

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He seemed to think the yellow ones were delicate and special—those he carried around carefully and gave to me sweetly while the “fufs” were shaken violently until all their wands of hair were blowing away in the wind to his endless delight.  I love him and I love that I’m not the only one delighted by weeds and dandelions and warm days spent knee-deep in the grass. If only we could all be two years old and see the world again the way he does.

We’re surrounded by ordinary magic—we just have to look past the weeds to see it.

Home School Moms: The Original Hipsters

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I’ve had a bit of a revelation about my parents, all of our parents actually: Are you ready? They were cool before we even knew what cool was.

Actually, I’m not sure, but I think they might have invented cool.

All you have to do is flip through a few old photographs of your mom and dad when they were young and the truth comes bleeding off the page—they were the original hipsters and we but humble clones.

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{My mom being all hip and awesome without even trying}

You know how they say the older you get the smarter your parents get? They aren’t kidding. My parents are practically a couple of geniuses at this point in my life and I’m starting to wish I had occasionally listened to them at some point prior to yesterday.

My mom for instance, was so hip and cool and ahead of her time that my mind is actually blown when I stop and think about it.

She raised us in the country close to nature and let us grow up free-range. She had a garden. And home schooled. And surrounded us with books. And cooked from scratch…all back when people were telling her she was crazy instead of writing blog posts about this being some kind of ideal.

Scan0001{My mom and two oldest brothers}

And my dad totally had a ‘stache from like 1970 to 1997 before moustaches had overrun the whole entire world and were “tastefully” {cough} plastered on everything. He loved photography and had a black room set up in the house to develop his own film. No Instagram filters needed.

He published his own work from home like some kind of indie artist before “indie artist” was even a thing, owned his own bookstore for a while, and sold and collected vintage beer cans for a while too {and is probably not pleased at all right now that I’m putting any of this on the internet because he’s way too cool for that}. Also, he still has way better taste in music than me—which is annoying.

So you know what I was doing while my hip parents were gardening and developing their own photography?

I was rolling my eyes.

Because my parents were just soooooo weird and annoying and I wanted to go to a “real” school and eat Happy Meals and live closer to civilization instead of being tortured by these crazy people who obviously.didn’t.know.anything.

And you know what everyone my age is now doing? Everything my parents did back when they obviously didn’t know anything.

I stand corrected.

My parents are awesome. They know everything.

At least my kids will recognize right away that I am the embodiment of wisdom and awesomeness and won’t roll their eyes for 28 years like I did. What a relief.

Johnny Appleseed

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DSC_0488One of my favorite things about the farm I grew up on was a giant Red Delicious apple tree sitting in the middle of the orchard. My dad planted lots of fruit trees when we moved to the farm but that particular tree was there long before that and all the others were simply added around it.

That tree was kind of my spot, the place where I would go when I wanted to think, pray, or be alone. I would climb up and sit in its scruffy branches or pace around beneath it when I couldn’t hold still.

DSC_0496I remember picking hundreds of apples off it one year when the snow had already come and my dad was trying to save the fruit before it was ruined and gone. I remember my dad climbing around on the branches like a monkey and dropping the apples into my nine or ten year old hands one by one. He gave me a dollar at the end of the day for helping him in the cold and we had more apples than we could ever use that year. I wonder if he remembers that day as well as I do.

My parents put a park bench under that tree and I remember sitting there talking with Darren when we were dating. It’s a sweet memory sitting there under the shade of the trees getting to know the man I would spend my life with.

DSC_0497That tree is gone now along with the rest of the orchard and the house I grew up in. It will always be one of my biggest regrets that I didn’t take any pictures of it before I left home but of course I didn’t know then that I would never see that place again. You never do know how life will work out.

My dad did something very special for me recently; he bought me two baby apple trees and promised to help me plant them at our new house when he comes to visit this summer. Darren and I picked the trees out one night in the rain and came home with a Red Delicious and a Mcintosh that now sit on our front porch waiting for my dad to plant them. The Red Delicious is going crazy with glossy leaves and lots of delicate pink buds.

DSC_0476I slipped outside today with my camera and took pictures of the papery pink buds blossoming in the sunshine. I won’t have any regrets about documenting this very special tree.

I wasn’t able to plant a garden this year, what with moving and a baby on the way. But the cheerful buds on my apple tree brighten my day and gives me something from nature to enjoy until I have flowers and garden next year.

DSC_0478Trees and blossoms will always be some of my favorite things. Just call me Johnny Appleseed :]

The Stuff That Weighs Us Down

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I’ve been on a bit of a rampage lately, throwing everything I can get my hands on right out the front door. It’s the perfect storm of spring cleaning, packing to move, and that funny nesting thing pregnant women do. Darren has been keeping a close eye on everything he loves as I’m likely to throw it all away when he isn’t looking.

I’ve felt so weighed down by stuff lately. It seems my soul has gotten a bit tangled in all the material things we think we need and I’m trying to cut the cords and run free. Our house is packed full, busting at the seams and neither of us ever seem to know where anything is.

I’ve been sorting through closets and under beds and emptying drawers and pulling stuff out of every black hole in the house trying to get things packed and organized for our big move at the end of the summer. There are piles everywhere—piles to give away, throw away, and pack away for another day. And with every bag and box I pack I wonder why do we own all this stuff anyway? And heaven help us, why do we keep buying more?

“Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Turn the old; return to them. Things do not change; we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts… Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only. Money is not required to buy one necessary of the soul.” -Thoreau

For everything I throw out, more baby stuff rolls in and I’m always trying to find a balance between preparing the things we need for a little one and not letting myself get carried away by the truly endless number of things that can be bought for a baby. I keep reminding myself that women have brought children into this world and successfully raised them since time began—without most of the baby stuff that is now considered indispensable. I have a list I run through in my head when I’m trying to decide what to buy and what to do without—does he have what he needs to be fed, diapered, clothed, and put to sleep? If yes then what else is truly essential apart from my own ability to love and care for him outside of material things? It’s a question I’ve had to weigh over and over again as I’ve struggled with wanting more and more stuff.

I don’t think you ever fully realize how much you already have until you’re faced with the task of packing and moving every shred of it to another place. I keep finding stuff I forgot I even owned, clothes I haven’t worn in years—buried beneath all the new ones I’ve gathered but certainly didn’t need. For every forgotten thing I’ve pulled out of the closet abyss I’ve had to ask myself—if you haven’t used this item in all this time, do you really need it? Are material things worth gathering and holding onto if they are crowding our lives and weighing us down? It feels like a waste to throw or give something away that I once spent money on and yet is it not a bigger waste to crowd my life and soul with the weight of unnecessary material things?

“I do believe in simplicity. It is astonishing as well as sad, how many trivial affairs even the wisest thinks he must attend to in a day; how singular an affair he thinks he must omit. When the mathematician would solve a difficult problem, he first frees the equation of all encumbrances, and reduces it to its simplest terms. So simplify the problem of life, distinguish the necessary and the real. Probe the earth to see where your main roots run. ” -Thoreau

This packing and purging is good for me because it shows me how much I have and how much more I don’t need. It’s easy with moving into a new, bigger home to think that every room needs to be filled with more new stuff. But packing up piece by piece what we already have and thinking through the example we will soon be to our son has made me realize how careful I need to be in the way I deal with money and possessions. Like most anything, money and possessions aren’t bad by themselves—but they can be if they are allowed to become a hindrance rather than a help. I have to ask myself if the possessions I own rather possess and own me. Do these things serve me or am I a servant to them?

“Amid a world of noisy, shallow actors it is noble to stand aside and say, ‘I will simply be.’’’ -Thoreau

Equinox

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Look at me writing a post two days in a row…who knew I had it in me ;]

It’s spring today everybody! Not that the weather agrees here in New England but I’ll take the end of winter either way. I decided to celebrate by wearing a springy little sundress…and am compensating for the cold with a cardigan, long socks, and riding boots so I don’t freeze to death. I can at least pretend spring is here even if freezing in a sundress is a poor way to do it.

I wore this dress in Italy when we explored Naples, the Amalfi Coast, and Pompeii by foot and train. That was a magical day in a magical country and this bright little dress always reminds me of those sweet, warm memories.

Today, on the first day of spring, I’m dreaming of the Italian sun, of lemon groves and street vendors selling bright flowers, and of taking a long walk in the sunshine…either here or there, anywhere so long as I’m warm :]

catKatniss is helping me celebrate…all snuggled up in my lap while I write this post.

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Walking the streets of Pompeii in my little sundress

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Flowers for sale on the streets in France

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A sunshiny day on the Adriactic

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Birds sunbathing in Croatia

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Poppies growing up out of the rocks in France; I think they love they sun as much as I do.

Happy spring, everyone :]

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Stop the Presses

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Big news in the world of fried chicken everybody: Chick-Fil-A has come to town. That’s right, you heard me, Chick-Fil-A and all its glorious golden fried chickeness has landed just minutes from me and my life is finally, officially, complete. There are exactly two Chick-Fil-A’s in the great state of Massachusetts {which is clearly an atrocity} and one of them, as of today, is near me…be still my soul.

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Also, there are fries…crisp heavenly little bites of all that is good in the world.

And there is sweet tea. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a proper cup of sweet tea in New England? Hard my friends.

And there are biscuits. Biscuits! Flaky, buttery biscuits drizzled with honey…I can’t even take it…my mind is blown.

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The baby is pretty exited too. Actually, he won’t stop talking about this glorious manna with which he is now being fed and has humbly asked that I please feed him fried chicken every day; I wanting to be a good mother see no other way forward. I like Martin Luther must plant my feet and say, “Here I stand; I can do no other.” I’m almost certain Martin Luther liked sweet tea and fried chicken. It just makes sense, you know?