The Playful Pirate

Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum.
5 bonny scarves, 1 bare tum.





You are the scurviest, head to your toes.
2 dirty feet and a button nose.

Avast me hearty, a sailin' you go.
Wave to your mama, she loves you so.

Where are you off to? Nobody knows.
But come back to mama before the days close.

Hoist the colors, light your torch!
1 mighty yell, you take over the porch.

You are the captain, brother's your mate.
When mom calls for lunch you don't want to be late.

Sisters the maid who cries out in dispair
When you threaten to tie-up her teddy bear.

You pillage the toy-box, playing your part.
You are surely a pirate, you stole mama's heart!

-- Raimie Harrison

The changing road

Life sometimes meets speed-bumps.

Those little things that tell us to "Slow down!"
*Thump*
 *Jog* 
*Jostle*
We are abruptly reminded that life is best traveled at a pace where we can contemplate turns, adjust our lights properly, and easily stay off the shoulder and out of the ditch.

But there can be much bigger things in the road than speed-bumps. Things so big they alter our course in an instant. There are circumstances that are like coming around a corner at normal speed and finding the road we are on simply isn't anymore. The bridge is out. The mountain has shifted. The forest has burned.

Brakes scream.
Tires slide.
Steering wheel spins without effect.
Impact.
Silence.
Weeping.

There was a moment like that this Saturday.

I blithely took my middle child to a play. I laughed. He wiggled.
I left my phone home on the charger.

I missed the text that warned of rocks ahead.
 "There has been an accident."

By the time I got home the abyss was open right in front of us.
"We've lost Emma."

The daughter of some of our dear friends was gone.
Impact.

*****

There is nothing that shakes me as much as seeing the agony parents go through when dealing with the death of a child and in our circle of friends, this has been our portion to witness 3 times in less than nine months.

Tyler, age 20
Rebecca, age 7
Emma, age 13

These names are engraved on my heart like historical markers. They are detailed with memories that keep each sweet face present and alive in my mind in a special way.

Tyler, with his easy-going, friendly manner.
Rebecca, with her unstoppable smile.
Emma, with her motherly-care of every living thing.

These 3 families, whose journeys are forever changed and whose hearts hurt in a way we are sure we could never bear... And we couldn't. Because only God has the strength to carry people through these things. Only He can lift them from the pile of rubble, set them back the right way on the road, and give them direction of where to go from here.

In these dark days they are sifting through the pieces, trying to comprehend, trying to put fragments together into something that makes sense and connects to what they once knew. Their heads are jumbled. Their hearts are shattered.  It feels like none of this can possibly real- except the pain, the pain is very, very real.

And their friends?

We wonder how we can help. We feel we lack the words to give comfort. We want to take some of the weight but human strength is not enough. We cry out to Heaven on their behalf and we beg for grace and wisdom to be a help when it seems like nothing could be remotely adequate.  We stand together because otherwise we would fall over. 

We watch while God does his mighty work.
It makes us ache with sorrow, gratefulness, and awe.

Where do I go from here?

These cliff-top, cannon-edge experiences may shake me beyond measure but they steady me too. When the knee-knocking fear of falling subsides I must find a rock to stand on. The rock that is knowing there is a plan for this journey and there is a destination that is worth all these experiences.

I am left with an overwhelming desire to reassess my route, refocus on my destination, carry on with careful precision, hug my littles in the back-seat and buckle them in with prayer in preparation for the bumpy miles. 

I want to turn on a song of love and thankfulness to play constantly while we travel - a song about the one who planned this way with every rest-stop, speed-bump, pot-hole, road-sign, and dead-end put there for a reason. A song of thanks for only showing me a tiny portion of the map, enough to tell me "You are here." and "Keep going." 

*****

Note: The particulars about Emma's passing are not mine to tell and I hope you will understand if I don't answer questions here out of respect for her family.

This post is meant only as an account of my own impressions, a glimpse of the impact the death of these 3 precious young people has had on me in recent months, and my personal observations about how we deal with life-changing events in general - because they happen to us all in some form or another.

If you would like to learn more about Tyler or Rebecca you can visit their memorial blogs here.

• Tyler Grotz
• Remembering Rebecca

*****

Our greatest condolences and expressions of love go out to each of these families as they grieve their children. 

Please hug your loved ones tightly. 

Love,
Raimie

Beginnings

Spring is another word for beginning.

All the promises of a new season with the bonus of budding plants, warming weather, and every bird singing a song of "hope.hope.hope". Gets me in the mood to clean, declutter, prioritize, create, plant, and make a joyful noise!

We are ready to be done with Winter.
The coats, hats, gloves and scarves have done their duty and are set for retirement. I would toss them all out in a minute if I thought it would hurry the warming even a smidge. But I've lived in Nebraska long enough to know that Spring on the prairie is a test of patience and long-suffering. Only the strong survive.

It takes patience beyond reckoning to have three little people in the house, underfoot, and in my face so much of the last few months. I adore those little faces but right now I would like them even better outside.

Am I abnormal?

But that song of hope keeps being sung and April is finally here.
Sunny days are getting more frequent; hints of the feast to come.
We devour those days like the starving sunshine addicts we are.

*****

This was one of those delicious, glorious, marvelous days:

Front-porch art show

Artist in torn jeans and bare toes

Sounds like the name of a masterpiece to me. 


"In Spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt." --Margaret Atwood

I would say my boys are doing their Springly duty quite well then. Got dirt? Check.

Climber

Climb high, precious bird, higher than the sky. But always come back to me because you take my heart with you when you go.

Bouncer

 Attempting to spring right into Spring.

Chucks and cowboy boots

That's how we roll!

*****

I could tell you it was a perfect day. And in a way it was... as long as perfection includes a fair bit of squabbling, dropping your apple in the sandbox, restroom requests five minutes after we left the house, and heading home just a dash early because of too much sass...

Maybe you could call it "Perfection with dirt on its face" and this would be the illustration:

Looks sweet right? Like the epitome of sibling camaraderie and middle-class Midwest America; walking to the park, holding hands, mailbox, mini van, camper, windblown trash barrels, cracked sidewalk, bicycle-wheel yard-art...

What you can't see is the girl pinching her brother, him sticking out his tongue, and the youngest yelling bloody murder at everybody to look at whatever he is innocently pointing to with his middle finger.

Call me crazy, I still love it.
It's a postcard of my life.
And I'm busy taping it in a place of honor in my heart's scrapbook.

*****

Have an amazing weekend! See you Monday.
Love,
Raimie

diy {Tomato-cage Chandelier}

I am probably the worst kind of gardener there is.

I admit it.

I love the idea of gardening. I want the vegetables and the flowers. 

I'm a rockstar planner/shopper/planter. 

But after that? 

I am a dead-beat gardener.

I don't remember to water or call. I don't weed, feed properly, or discipline. Half the time I forget to pick up the harvest on-time. I do not pay my garden-support.

All jokes aside, ask my poor husband, I'm bad. When he worked a job where he didn't have to travel we did ok -- a sorta limp-along ok, where I held up very little of my end and he pretty much dragged my dead weight. But we [read: he] managed to keep the thing alive and get some good out of it.

Now he travels. 

There is no garden.

The end.

Or not...

We moved a fair amount of gardening things along with us to this house, even though there are no plans to garden this year. I may wheedle some tiny flowers pots out of him if I'm good. 

I'm a rockstar wheedler.

Anyway, there is this stack of tomato-cages just sitting there.

They look so lonely and bored.

I had to help at least one of them out...

***

Tomato-cage Chandelier

Supplies:

• tomato-cage
• fabric
• yarn

Tools:

• fabric scissors
• heavy-duty wire clippers

The fabric I used was the backing off an old quilt. The poor thing is in pretty bad shape but I have plans for the front. It seemed a shame to toss this cheery polka-dot.

It was a bit of a chore to cut all the ties but I'm glad I did.

I cut the whole thing into strips about an inch wide (this project didn't take exacting measurements, thank goodness). It made a happy pile of polka-dot streamers.

Using the wire cutters I cut the legs off the tomato-cage right below the bottom ring.

I started wrapping the whole cage, tying lengths of fabric together as I went.

I left three alternating rungs without fabric-wrapping and then wrapped those in minty yarn (perfect for Spring). All the ends are just knotted at the bisecting rungs. I left the ends because I liked the raggy-taggy look.

Yum, makes me smile.

Who needs a garden? 

[wink]

I tied three more streamers to the top for the hanger.

But I needed something more to finish it off.

***

Pattern Posies

Our favorite little local thrift shoppe wraps all their breakables in old patterns and I'm in the habit of keeping a stack because it seems likely I will think of something to use them for, if only gift-bag tissue.

 I broke out my favorite scalloped-circle punch and punched away at a stack of pattern pieces. The circles became the raggedy pattern posies. These aren't an exact science either -- I'm not really into exact, if you can't tell. You just layer two or three pieces together and sorta 'smush' them into a flowery shape.

Thrift-store lace (again) and a quick needle and thread job. Not fancy stitchery at all.

Voila! A happiness-chandelier with pattern-posies on the side.

I started into this project an hour before the kids got home from school and didn't quite get done before they walked in. Felicity, not one to be left out of anything crafty, got busy using my scraps while I finished up.

She made these flowers with the tomato-cage legs, yarn, pattern posies and cupcake papers.

They may grace our table, play stand-in for our non-blooming houseplants, or bring a smile to a friend, I haven't decided yet.

***

Girl of my heart

Happy Friday!

Love,

Raimie

***

UPDATE:

Did you see the huge pile of strips that fabric gave me?

Well, I was curious about a smaller version of this project so I got to experimenting.

This one is made using only the top two rungs of the tomato cage. Otherwise the design is pretty much the same. I left off the yarn, it just didn't work on this size somehow.

I tied short strips around the bottom to give it some girly flare. This way it is a bit more lamp-shade looking.

I can see it as a front porch pretty or over a vanity. Maybe with something sparkly hanging down in the center? A friend said she thought she would hang her jewelry on it.

How would you use it?

Sharing at Savvy Southern Style, Common Ground, and Redoux