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I have chickens on my sweater. What the cluck? Ah, goldenly therapeutic. So much so that it deserves an echo. What THE cluck? There comes a time in one's life where the stereotypes of status, trend and overall age identification deserve the interrogative resting in the above sequential letter format. I am finding that time for rest, the presence of pure joy, the manifestation of chin hairs lunatic deranged hormone battles and the need to wear just what the hell you want no matter who approves is quite definitive in this round-up-to-40-year segment of life.
For those new to this space, you have some catching up to do.
The answer is no. I do not plan on selling a 2013 calendar from this rhythmic conquest. Put your money back in your pocket. There will be no pre-order sale with cash only either. These pictures are just my way of infusing some of my cheap thrill finds into my quest for a better me.
We all set? Let's dive in then.
Ensemble Statistics:
Sweater:
- Fiebel Flower brand (a real cool tag too)
- $1.25
- Goodwill 1/2 off weekend
- The older I get, the more in tune I am with what I like. I am not a lover of chickens per say. But, this sweater took a nose dive leap off the rack and into my hands as if we were kindred spirits of sorts. I didn't even consider that it might not fit. I looked at its whimsical offset details and it was love at first sight.
- It has grosgrain ribbon trim in kelly green and pine brown juxtaposed against lemon yellow.
- It has black and yellow chickens knitted throughout.
- It has those perfect 3/4 length sleeves. I.heart.a.3/4th.length.sleeve. This sleeve design looks great down or up. You know, kinda like Kirstie Alley's hair? The fact that I just linked a hair shout out to her instead of one of the Kardashians speaks volumes as to why I am choosing sweaters with chickens on them.
- The bowtie. Ahem. Melts me. It tapers out from tiny to wide on the ends WITH big hand-like made yellow stitches for trim. Brilliance.
- This sweater is light weight and so soft. It would even call it dainty.
- Oh wow. It just hit me. This sweater is like the adult version of all those snazzy smocked dresses little girls' mamas swoon over and are infatuated with to the point of Paypal account exhaustion. Hmm. And, to think I never owned a smocked dress. Well, hmph. I do now!
Shorts:
- Route 66 (KMart brand)
- Still had all the tags on them.
- $1.29
- Goodwill 1/2 off weekend
- Lemony rich yellow
- Again, these jumped in my buggy and screamed, "Mama!"
- Yes, that's correct. They are shorty short.
- Yes, that's correct. I am in the round-up-to-40-year segment of life.
- And, I don't care. I have always liked short shorts.
- I have no hind end, so no worries of that peaking out the back end of the shorts for all you wondering if I was in Daisy Duke mode.
- These are perfect on the waistline too. Just right above the hip bones.
Shirt:
- Faded Glory (WalMart brand)
- $1.19
- 1/2 off Goodwill
- It has the cutest cut too.
- Shorter capped sleeves and a baby doll tapered design for wearing alone.
- Great length.
- I have given up on deciding what length is "in".
- Upon our last University of Tennessee football game attendance, I people watched like a mad dog as I felt certain it was like I was flipping through the pages of People's Style Watch issue only through more of a hand-me-down second hand sorority source.
- High-low shirts are back in? Damn. I never liked them.
- Polka dots. The perfect size. Enough said.
{If any of you have never met my father, meet his knees. Inheritance is AWESOME.}
Shoes:
- Vera Wang's Simply Vera brand
- $.25
- 1/2 off Goodwill
- These shoes are killer awesome.
- I've been on the lookout for a pair of black ballet flats that had some kick-like texture to them.
- I adore the oversized buckle.
- Washed them 4 times in color bleach and soaked them in the sunshine.
- I am looking forward to wearing these with all kinds of leggings,
high-low dresses and tight rolled jeans this Fall/Winter season.
- Geez, I JUST got used to the skinny jeans, people.
Earrings:
- My great grandmother's clip-on chunky rhinestone floral set.
- Totally love these earrings.
- I get compliments on them every time I wear them.
Hair:
- 3 months PAST due for a cut and color.
- dirty
- Windblown from the windows down all day
- Pinned back with a tiny clip in the bangs area. Those clips are of Satan I tell you. They look at me and say, "Nah, you don't really want to fix your hair today, do you?"
- Makeshift braid with no tie on the end. Yes, my hair is that raspy that it can sorta hold a braid on its own when it has reached its maximum dirty potential. Let's just say I was there, okay?
Total Outfit Investment: $3.98
August 2012
My personal word of growth for August was perseverance.
My mission:
- Set schedules
- Seek answers
- Stay focused
- Try new ideas
- Be honest with yourself
- Seek counsel
- Prepare
- Promote
- Be more prayerful
- Find rhythm in the ebbs & flows handed to you
My status: * * * .5
3.5 out of 5 stars
My memories:
- I want to be perfect. I don't want one slip up to occur on my watch and in my being.
- I am a ding-a-ling for even breathing life to this thought.
- Come on, sweet Christian girl. You know this idea of perfection is unattainable and stupid too for that matter. Why must you continually bang your head against the ever-lovin door of life to try to obtain something that will never exist here on this Earth?
- I like to push myself. Well, duh? Who else knew that was coming after the above statement?
- I sometimes have more energy and ideas than my body knows how to produce.
- I love a schedule, but its life form sometimes squelches my creativity.
- I oftentimes want to hide under rocks when I know I have to go find out answers to problems. Little ones or big, I dance around making the call or setting the appointment. I am working on this.
- I need to trust more. Those people who love me are there. You know, the one who see my chin hairs and love me just the same?
- Some of my best ideas come on the fly. This DOES NOT blend well when trying to be a planner. I usually end up ditching the plan and going with the on-the-fly-idea. I like this better. I hope my kids do too. Sometimes I'm not sure what they think of this.
- Prayer is medicine. He heals and He helps. I like talking to Him very much.
- I like working with art.
- I suck at ebbs & flows. I want it right and right now so I can check it off and move on to the next spectacular I am dying to do.
- I constantly feel like I never do enough.
- Note to self: Shut up, Meghan. It will get done when it gets done. In the words of Coach Cobble, "Keep plugging, Meg. Focus on what you got done, and not what you didn't."
So, for all those who read the "Oh, look a squirrel!" segment of my memories for this month, I offer you a resounding NOPE. I'm not on any ADD/ADHD form of medication to answer your question. I just am just a sporadically gifted perfectionist in pursuit of the unattainable. Wine helps. So do sweaters with chickens.
See you fellow rhythm seekers, come September. Or, shall I say October?
.mac :)
{Loris, SC: July 2012}
Like a ball of yarn, complexly twisted within, my quest for a more rhythmical self requires me to consider the network. I am to remind myself that my ball is but one long piece of yarn wrapped & contorted to create this single spherical form. As human as they come, I need this reminder. The perpetual recollection that I am not just me. I am who I am for others. My actions and my demeanor affect, furthermore, shape two very important people.
And, if I am not careful, I will send out signals of sin & sour when my climb of rhythm is astutely ascending to the apex of just where I want to be. For the backs of my legs' up hill strain is pain in pursuit of my balanced vision. Hence, my discomfort oftentimes expels out into ugly & curt.
Motherhood is God's yarn ball. He takes you. He reconfigures your composition both physically & emotionally. You are forever changed for His forward gains. Your single piece of yarn grows and miraculously manifests itself into something more substantial. Something more complex. Something that transcends.
Motherhood is just that. Complex. Complex & beautiful. You find yourself on the inside knowing just where the yarn's origin is. You know, that single piece of start. Yet, you are so confined to the outer spherical form you resist going inside at times to locate its initial presence.
{Aunt Tee-Tee and Uncle Tone-Tone's driveway}
And, when you do climb inside that ball of yarn to search out your beginning, your rummaging can potentially alter the greater composition of sphere. On this day, I remind myself that I am there. I am the beginning of this something greater. My single piece of start lives within. It is in myself and in two very important people. I can find it whenever I want to. But only with grace and the cognizance of my place in the legacy that I am leaving in the 2 little hearts God gifted me to give life to.
.mac
My year of rhythm pushes me. Like a bull in a china shop, its eagerness to be not only present but so center stage in my life is cantankerously obnoxious and mannerly out-of-bounds at times. I am hard at work on riding the waves of life as they ebb & flow. But, those lots of responsibilities as a homeschool mama and perpetual to-dos of a designer and hormones and a full-time-hard-working-head-coach-of-a-husband tend to get in the way of my rocksteady efforts from time to time. Ahem.
This place I call home for my thoughts-turned-words deserves truth. I am not joyous all the time. There are moments when I want to explode; moments where I can hear my mother's words, "I hope your face doesn't freeze like that." all too loud in my internal ears. There are moments when I would like to call in a substitute mom for my boys complete with those great heavy worksheet laden sub-plans as I fill out my sick leave and/or personal day form. Goodness knows, my boys would enjoy a sub-mom on the days when my ebb & flow meter is askew.
So, I write this post for honesty's sake. Honesty to you, but mostly for the woman I see in the mirror every morning. And, I know that my smile is still here even in those days when I feel like her or her. How do I know? Those 3 examples above . Yes, these brought me joy this week.
Shiloh Season by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor This is the book I am reading to the boys aloud. I read Shiloh to them last Spring. I love that the dialect is West Virginia country and I love that the topics are hard ones about a love that works through tough lessons about life with bad people. I love getting lost in my boys' eyes as they are glossy and transfixed on every word aloud read from my lips. I love that they beg for me to read more as each chapter finishes. Joy is here in these precious times reading to my heathens.
OPI's Sweetheart nail color. You know my joy is grading out at a good C- when I am choosing natural tones for my nails. This color is soothing my ever-lovin' soul right now. I am not gonna knock it. And, yes. Nail color is important. It is if you're Meghan Alicia Cobble at least.
Gotta scoot. I am off to find a padded cell. One that fits a 5'9" woman of athletic stature. You'll know who she is when you see her. She has this sour scowl on her face almost as if it's frozen there. Her nails look great though painted in the sweetest natural hue.
.mac
We like to move. Yep, this camp doesn't enjoy stillness so much. As the teacher mom big dawg in this thing we call homeschool, I make it a point to give the boys a happy mixture of movement and sitdownanddotheworkinfrontofyou. Balancing joy & pain is real world. I want to make sure that my guys get rockstar lessons big & fun, but I also want to be sure that they 'get' that sometimes paper work and the un-fun is a part of life. You know like sunshine & rain? I got the beat in my head, cats. Sing it if you know it. Pump it up. Pump it up. Give it to'em, Rob Base.
And, we kick it in the driveway with trend too. Don't you know neon colors are all the rage now? Here's how the beat goes: MATH. It's got lots of tiers and layers. It requires concepts like process and critical thinking. It can be heavy at times. Boys typically enjoy math more than girls. There. These are things I know from my background in education.
Now, here's what I know about math as a little girl who struggled with thinking I could even do it (Up until 8th grade, that is. Thank you, Coach Lamar Davis. You were the first teacher who ever told me I could rock math like no other. From that point on, I loved it. Positive words and good energy. Who knew it could make that much of a difference in a child's attitude?) Math. It's got some jazz to it. Think of it like a game. We do. We look at numbers like they're puzzles and play doh. They can be stacked, grouped and molded together to create something new just depending on how you wanna spin'em.
Our game. We call it Driveway Dice. We play it about once a week. For supplies, you will need some "osom" (Casey's spelling for the word "awesome". I'm starting to want to change its officially spelling in our house. I like 'osom' so much more than 'awesome'.) large foam dice from the DollarTree. We bought every color. You will also need 4 different color highlighters, a clipboard and whistle. Take a sheet of copy paper and put numbers in columns or rows as high as you want. I went to 18 for Casey and 32 for Eli.
Make a chart like so at the top of the paper.
Now, for the fun part. Each boy rolls the die on the driveway takes a set of dice and throws them as far as they can possibly throw. Then they have to add them together and put the corrected highlighted mark under the answer on their paper based on the chart at the top.
We do this for about 5 minutes. The boys are really quick at fast facts. Fast fact are simple fact families that are needed to know without using fingers or counting up in your head. These are the basic fact families from 1-12. How do you get good at learning fast fact families? Repetition. That's how.
One whistle blow from the big dawg (me) means that the boys now add another set of dice into mix. Then, the boys are adding larger numbers and charting whether their answers are even or odd. Believe it or not, the boys are becoming masterminds at even this. Eli especially. Casey is still working on his accuracy and quickness, but he is catching on nicely to this higher level adding.
The boys do this for about 7 minutes. Then, the big dawg blows the whistle 2 times. This signals the flip of the script. They are now subtracting with one set of dice. Pavlov Big Dawg has them trained to take a swig from their water bottles and toss their 2nd set of dice back into the tub before changing processes. They now are working on quick subtraction facts with one set of dice each and still continuing to tally their answers with their even/odd highlighter system. This goes on for about 5 minutes.
3 whistle blows means they add back the 2nd set of dice and subtract the totals of each set from the other to find the difference and then chart its answer in our neon even/odd way. This takes place for about 7 minutes.
Eli likes me to blow the whistle four times for him at the end. He then works on quick multiplication facts with one set of dice. As he does this, I am working with Casey helping him tally which numbers on his chart won in the following categories:
- Even Number Sums
- Odd Number Sums
- Even Number Differences
- Odd Number Differences
Casey likes to draw gold, silver and bronze metals for each.
When Eli is done with his multiplication round, we talk through his tallys. He uses the addition highlighters to tally his multiplication as he knows multiplication is just a faster way to add. I go one stop more with Eli in my math talking time. I ask him questions like "What is the highest double dice sum you could have gotten?" "What about the lowest double dice difference you could have gotten?" He loves these questions.
The entire lesson takes about 40 minutes. It's repetition. It's tiered in process levels and critical thinking. It's outside. It's moving. (Your welcome, Michelle Obama.) Most importantly, it has a theme song. We thank you, DJ EZ Rock and Rob Base.
Math.
.mac :)
{self portrait: 9.4.12}
I had a wicked homeschool math lesson post to share, but it must wait. Vexing for the real is on my mind tonight. It seems the particulars of real are like shadows without warning: close and personal. The kind where you bob & weave only to find they still linger behind you. Like a broken record, my mind's needle scratches the rigid vinyl of now. I confront this present with past and future held tightly in each hand. The melody plays in that awkward ambiance the way that a 45 will spin. You know, with that distant lonely and eerily offset tune? And, I stand on the dance floor alone with party dress attire and handfuls of yesterday and tomorrow.
I beg for either lead to sway even if it's the slightest half step of a rhythm. Alas, nothing. I have 2 dance partners unwilling to commit to my now. My dance. My need for a lead. And, I know all too well it's not lady like to shift my hand to the small of one's back.
So, I wait. My toes tingling and my dress pressed. The immediacy of the melody begs for a way around the dance floor. I am anxious and so very eager. Yet, I wait. Solemnly. Politely. Intensely. I wait.
Me.
Moving through me.
The eerie and the melody. I am compelled to dance nonetheless. I want to glide and swirl with my eyes closed and my smile wide; I want to find that place called presence. And, I want to hold my rhythm there. Unconcerned with the right hand of you should have and the left hand of what if, I want my now to know no end. I want internal speculation to cease. "But, of course you wore the right dress, darling."
Life brings us there. To that place of righteousness & validity right where we are. Did I say just what was needed? Am I doing what is right? Am I where I need to be? Past and future have a hold undeniably profound and powerfully profuse in our present oblivious to whether we like it or not.
Tonight my dance floor is crowded with all too much room to move. Alas, nothing. Paralyzed and vexed, I wait. The small of my back is vacant.
.mac
It's called leading. Exceeding past one's sense of self only to be catapulted into something profoundly greater. He does this. Innately a part of his composition, through sidelines and game fields, God moves within him. Teaching him. Correcting him when so compelled. Guiding him for His glory and for so many other's greater good. He is a man of hard work and loyalty. He is protective of hope; intensely aware of his place as its facilitator: hands on shoulders, eye contact, smiles and helmet smacks, pats and go gettums.
It's called sacrifice. A pay stub equivalent to less than a part time job's salary at McDonald's does not balance out the countless hours of study, preparation and planning. Late Friday night laundry cycles, endless phone calls and texts fielded from players and parents alike, Thursday night game field painting after practices mixed with a heaping myriad of afternoons/evenings mowing game and practice fields are but a glimpse into his pay stub pennies. Time away from his family is the endless debt he works hard to repay in the winter months known as December, January & February. For his March to November is our borrowed time from the pigskin.
It's called growth. His dedication to building men both fiercely loyal and soundly equipped with tools for life is unwavering. Faith, courage, fight and commitment aren't just buzz words; they are his way of life. Taking the time for self reflection and moving forward with those hard steps of perseverance, his role as coach, most importantly Christ's child, grows roots in soil richer and deeper every year.
It's called a labor of love. God transcends His magnificent light of grace through this man. His walk on this earth is not one of perfection, but one securely held by His undeniable will in his life. Crowds will contradict him; fans may disagree with him, parents may bash him and players may quit him, but God's plan will bleed out in the work that this man puts in. He will have it no other way. To be in His hands and working for His glory is gain. It is the nucleus of the man I know as husband. I want nothing more than to honor him on this Labor Day.
Go Patriots!
Coach Cobble's wife
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