Autumn puts me at ease. We are slowing down, yet anxious to be outdoors: catching the last tinges of warmth on the breeze, the azure sky, the crisp-white clouds. I am feeling more domestic.  Baking ensues, the crockpot is dusted off, mums cut and placed in a mason jar, pine cones on the mantle. I hum and putter around my ’studio’ – a well-lit corner of the basement where I try be more regular about courting creativity. Friday night lights, College Gameday and Husker football on Saturdays. Hot breakfasts. All manner of piping hot drinks. Opening the windows, then closing them again. Wearing layers and scarves and hats and jackets. Extra blankets on the bed, and longer nights.

I’m sure this crisp turn in the weather will be old and grey come February, but for now, we savor it.  I’ll break open Cold Snap as Yearning again soon and try to look forward to spending a lot more time in the great indoors.

No, Caron, I’m not drinking. Yet.

Mealtime with young children. Any of you mamas groaning yet? It can get tedious, boring, and some days, it feel like that’s I’ll I’ve done – feed people. “Sit up. Lean over your plate. Stop talking and eat. Don’t fling your food. Drink your milk. Can you eat a few more bites of veggies, please? How many napkins do you really need?” By the time the lunch dishes are cleared, I’m grumpy and counting the minutes ’til naptime. I don’t look forward to mealtime most days, and that’s a shame.

This week, the attention-deficient part of me decided to try and spice it up a bit. I had a revelation: RADIO. Not talk radio, that just gets me anxious, and I’m anxious enough. What about old-timey radio programs? I found a couple of podcasts (which I never can find the time to listen to or remember to download to my iPod in advance) that have really made mealtime pleasant and give me something to talk about with my kiddos while we plod through our peas. The minis are more focused, they actually finish most of their meals, and we’re all in better moods afterward, with plenty of fodder for the afternoon’s creative play.

Here are the two we’re enjoying right now: First, The News From Lake Wobegon podcast from A Prairie Home Companion. It’s Garrison Keillor’s (love!) weekly monologue – need I say more? The other I happened upon by accident while looking for something else, and I’ve been so pleased by every one I’ve heard. It’s The Story Home – a collection of classic fairy tales and well-loved stories (with a few originals by Alan Scofield) simply narrated without sound effects or music. I love these because the kids are enthralled, the narration is excellent and the stories are ones I would (or have) read my own kids. Reese begs to listen to this one. (Full-disclosure: listening to these with the kids is especially gratifying to me. As an elementary-school student, my favorite part of the school day was after lunch when my teachers would read a chapter of fiction aloud to the class.) Better than any PBS show, I guarantee you – and none of the “is Junior watching too much T.V.?” guilt.

I subscribe to both free via iTunes, and just loaded a few on the ol’ iPod for trips in the car. It’s like crack for my kids & me and provides a few calming moments of guilt-free entertainment – which, for any mama, can some days be the balm in Gilead.

What are your favorite podcasts?

by Billy Collins

Yesterday, I lay awake in the palm of the night.
A soft rain stole in, unhelped by any breeze,
And when I saw the silver glaze on the windows,
I started with A, with Ackerman, as it happened,
Then Baxter and Calabro,
Davis and Eberling, names falling into place
As droplets fell through the dark.
Names printed on the ceiling of the night.
Names slipping around a watery bend.
Twenty-six willows on the banks of a stream.
In the morning, I walked out barefoot
Among thousands of flowers
Heavy with dew like the eyes of tears,
And each had a name –
Fiori inscribed on a yellow petal
Then Gonzalez and Han, Ishikawa and Jenkins.
Names written in the air
And stitched into the cloth of the day.
A name under a photograph taped to a mailbox.
Monogram on a torn shirt,
I see you spelled out on storefront windows
And on the bright unfurled awnings of this city.
I say the syllables as I turn a corner –
Kelly and Lee,
Medina, Nardella, and O’Connor.
When I peer into the woods,
I see a thick tangle where letters are hidden
As in a puzzle concocted for children.
Parker and Quigley in the twigs of an ash,
Rizzo, Schubert, Torres, and Upton,
Secrets in the boughs of an ancient maple.
Names written in the pale sky.
Names rising in the updraft amid buildings.
Names silent in stone
Or cried out behind a door.
Names blown over the earth and out to sea.
In the evening — weakening light, the last swallows.
A boy on a lake lifts his oars.
A woman by a window puts a match to a candle,
And the names are outlined on the rose clouds –
Vanacore and Wallace,
(let X stand, if it can, for the ones unfound)
Then Young and Ziminsky, the final jolt of Z.
Names etched on the head of a pin.
One name spanning a bridge, another undergoing a tunnel.
A blue name needled into the skin.
Names of citizens, workers, mothers and fathers,
The bright-eyed daughter, the quick son.
Alphabet of names in a green field.
Names in the small tracks of birds.
Names lifted from a hat
Or balanced on the tip of the tongue.
Names wheeled into the dim warehouse of memory.
So many names, there is barely room on the walls of the heart.

Heard this song: thought it was a lovely prayer.  A prayer for me, today.

Speak, O Lord, as we come to You
To receive the food of Your Holy Word.
Take Your truth, plant it deep in us;
Shape and fashion us in Your likeness,
That the light of Christ might be seen today
In our acts of love and our deeds of faith.
Speak, O Lord, and fulfill in us
All Your purposes for Your glory.

Teach us, Lord, full obedience,
Holy reverence, true humility;
Test our thoughts and our attitudes
In the radiance of Your purity.
Cause our faith to rise; cause our eyes to see
Your majestic love and authority.
Words of pow’r that can never fail—
Let their truth prevail over unbelief.

Speak, O Lord, and renew our minds;
Help us grasp the heights of Your plans for us—
Truths unchanged from the dawn of time
That will echo down through eternity.
And by grace we’ll stand on Your promises,
And by faith we’ll walk as You walk with us.
Speak, O Lord, till Your church is built
And the earth is filled with Your glory.
(Words and Music by Keith Getty & Stuart Townend Copyright © 2005 Thankyou Music)

I was at Scout the other day, and got to chatting with the gal behind the counter – I told her that I have been admiring the framed quilt on the wall. It’s a vintage quilt, she said, and it’s framed inside a big, old window. You know me – frame anything inside an old window and I’m sold. This quilt was unique – it wasn’t your usual pattern. It looked kind of random, as if a bunch of rectangular-ish scraps of fabric were sewn together in a hurry, without a thought to mainstream quilting patterns.

The gal – I really should just ask her name, since she’s seen me a few times this week (h) – suggested I check out the Gee’s Bend quilts (these photos are just a few), that they were similar in design. So I did. WOW. Read a brief history of this isolated rural hamlet here. These quilts are lovely, and reminded me of the kind of stuff I studied in a Women’s Art History course at UNO several years ago. The elevation of the domestic craft as high art. (This webpage, from Auburn University, is a fantastic resource.)

Not only do the Gee’s Bend quilts satifsy an aesthetic I love (vintage/kitschy/folksy/geometric), it also adds to my fascination of the deep South. Someday, I’ll tour the South and scratch that itch. So far on my list: Charleston, Savannah, Asheville, Chapel Hill, a bayou or two, Athens, New Orleans, rural West Virginia, Andalusia Farm, Eureka Springs, north Georgia, the Smoky Mountains, Appalachia…and now, Gee’s Bend. (any other places I should add?) Something about the rural South fascinates me. I’m taken by those places I’ve read about and need to touch with my own hands, smell with my own nose, see with my own eyes. Plantations, antebellum architecture, red dirt roads, hills, hollers – ghosts of a past still present. Romanticism sometimes at odds with, sometimes cooperating with, reality. Folk traditions, inglorious (and glorious) history, community kept alive in the midst of a poverty and a people I’ve never known…the Scots-Irish, the descendents of slaves, the Appalachians. They’re out there, somewhere. I want to find the places I read about in Wise Blood, Same Kind of Different As Me, and The Secret Life of Bees. Dixie has captured my imagination at the moment. Can’t shake it.

I know. I haven’t posted in awhile. It’s summer. So sue me.

That said, I have some great photos from our Okoboji vacation that I’m editing. Knowing me, it may be October before I put them up.

My movie-lovin’ husband held down the fort and two snot-nosed kids this weekend so I could get out with my whocares girls. He’s not one to whip up a meal from scratch, so I laid out the menu for the weekend. After losing Reese at the Children’s Museum (What an amateur – he took them on a Saturday afternoon. Everybody knows not to do this! Then again, maybe not. It was packed.), I get this text:

“Went to Hy-Vee. Got pizza & drumsticks and ‘Madagascar 2′. Movie night!”

Oh great. Nevermind the fact that the kids watched two movies on Friday (I declared it a sick day. Everyone was out of sorts, and I was in no mood.). Whatever. So I come home on Sunday, and everyone is chanting “I like em biiiig, I like em chun-kay.” WHAT.

Here’s what:

We have been snickering over this since. It’s so over the top. I’m not sure of the appropriateness, but the damage has been done. Liam has become our little husky-voiced Moto Moto. A couple of hams, we have!

Yeah, you know….we all want to change the world.  Even the Iranians.  Don’t believe me?  Read this blog post.  YOU can help.  You can Twitter, you can talk about it, you can call attention to the situation on your blog, Facebook, MySpace, etc.  Most importantly, you can pray.  Many, many want Ahmedinejad and/or the Ayatollah out of power.  Most want fair elections.  You can’t ignore the thousands in the streets, and the many more silently agreeing.  Revolution may be afoot in Iran.  The world cannot afford to ignore it, even if it seems politically safe here to do so.  It’s been on my mind & heart lately…I am struck by the thousands risking their lives to get a fair shake in the political process there.  Conversely, I feel like America is asleep to this and many concerns abroad and at home.  [We're all tempted to get sucked into the 'Jon & Kate' drama, when there are many couples going through their own marital meltdowns privately, alone, and with less resources available to them.  C'mon.]  On one hand, I’d like to bury my head in the sand.  On another, I want to shout from the rooftop.  Instead, I blog.

Because I Need To Remember This: I caught Reese singing a few lines under her breath today, and it took me the better part of an hour to figure out what she was singing…”Jesus conquered the grave.” Turns out, she remembered it from Sunday worship and tells me it’s her favorite song:

[I find it a little awkward to watch a live-worship video - but I sure do like the song. So just close your eyes if it bugs you like it does me.]

I got to explain to Reese what it means that Jesus “conquered the grave” – and she  brought out her children’s Bible to show me her favorite illustration – the stone rolled away from Jesus’ tomb. Bought the song on iTunes, and while we were playing it for the umpteen-millionth time, Reese spread a banquet of play food across the floor “for Jesus”, she said.

She made a meal for Jesus, because it just made sense to her.  She and Liam danced together in circles.

It blew my mind a little to see how much our girl has taken to heart. In the mundane of our days, I tend to forget about these new-ish lives, absorbing everything that comes their way. The wonder. When Michael came home from work, Reese shouted out the window, “DADDY! WE HAVE JESUS IN HERE!”

Like a child. Be still my heart.

Reese turned four on May 3rd. I am so behind on my blogging - I hear in my mind all of these words – and can’t find the time to jot it all down lately. And it breaks my ha-ahahah-ahahah -ahahahahah-art. So please bear with my bloggy sluggishness while I enjoy the nice weather while it lasts! It never lasts long enough, does it?

Back to the birthday. The only thing Reese wanted for her birthday was a Sleeping Beauty cake (my little girl is suddenly into princesses! eeek-ack-gag-ahem-ohhowsweet), and I was inclined to oblige. Thanks to my friend, Deanna, who has the princess cake down to a science, Reese got the Sleeping Beauty cake of her dreams. She even made it blue, just like R.P. wanted it. (‘R.P.’ = ‘Reecey Piecey’) Tell me that isn’t glorious! We were all delighted.

So our little girl is four years old. Wowza. She astounds me and delights me on a daily basis. The apple of my eye. By the way, have I mentioned that I wanted to name her Apple? Or Scout? Yeah. Both got vetoed by the other voting party. Maybe it was for the best. Either way, I’ve got a lovely, ornery daughter, and I’m glad to have her.