A Wildwood Story

“It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.” -Dumbledore

summer

5 Favorites From July

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July was a month of illness for our family, which shouldn’t be allowed in summer yet here we are, still blowing our noses and coughing up unmentionables. Thank you, modern medicine, for your merciful assistance. Thank you, essential oils and Vitamin C, for making me smell like an apothecary but also feel better.

Here you are, my five favorites from July!

∇ Essays on The Art of Simple. It’s where I go for self-help direction (ahem-always need more of that), life encouragement, and recommendations on all sorts of things. Here is one that I really needed to read: Transform Your Relationship With Your Teen…

∇ Birkenstock sandals. Up until this spring, I thought Birkenstocks were an ugly relic from the 70’s, but I was young and naive and now I am still young but also wiser. Wiser because apparently there are many styles of Birkenstocks and you don’t have to wear the kind your hippy aunt is still wearing from her flower child days, if you don’t wanna! My sisters Naomi & Keturah each bought their own pair and since they loved them so much and I want to be like them and do everything they do, I bought my own to try. I’d been wearing super flat sandals which just aren’t meant for constant wear and were causing my feet and legs to hurt. My Birkenstocks are a world of difference in support and I literally wear them constantly. {The first link is to the exact pair I purchased as an online-only special, but you can also find a variety of styles on Amazon.}

∇ Trendsend by Evereve. This July I received my fourth (fifth?!) box and while I’ve kept an article of clothing from each one in the past; this time it was a simple tassel necklace I adore.

∇Sniffle Stopper from Plant Therapy: this {kid-safe} essential oil blend has long been a favorite; everyone notices an improvement in their breathing when we diffuse it. LOVE

∇ Old favorite, often on repeat, thank you Ingrid dear:

You can find my June favorites here.

Photo by Brittany Neale on Unsplash

Letter 30 {Beach Bums}

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Dear Candace,

I’m writing to you on the 16th floor balcony of our lovely condo overlooking the Gulf of Mexico. It’s the very best of views, and perfect for dolphin spotting. The beach sand below is not unlike powdered sugar; the constant breeze invigorating. Cliche, but…it feels like I’m in a dream! The whole family is loving this experience. Our first day here was spent almost entirely in the ocean, riding waves and hunting for shells. I finished a book. We drank gallons of liquid. The paint is coming off my toenails. I have the oddest tan lines on the entire beach (positive about this).

Hmm, do I have to go back? We can home-school right here! 😉

Short but sweet, because the waves beckon and I must go.

Also I must NOT get a sunburn.

Seashells and squid tails,

Rachel

Letter 29 {Snippets, BLT’s}

Letter 31 {A Return}

 

 

Letter 28 {Ice-cream Tribulations}

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Dear Candace,

You know how family vacation begins. Finally, the van is loaded. Finally, everyone has gone potty (some of them twice) and is buckled in. You instruct everyone to absolutely not tug on or remove anything in the carefully arranged stacks of suitcases and paraphernalia lest it trigger a catastrophic un-packing event in which the van implodes internally.

You are on the road. Mercy, husband has thoughtfully filled up with gas so the pumps can be avoided.

Of course there is that one stop at Walgreen’s for miscellany. {Why are corn chips so expensive?}

Heading out of the city, you impulsively think it would be such fun to get everyone an ice-cream treat to start the vacation off right. Whispering conspiratorially with your husband, the two of you make a plan. {Or, more accurately, since he’s driving you show him an image of an ice-cream cone on your phone and pantomime the rest so the kids don’t hear.}

Soon you stop at a McDonald’s on a busy exit. Husband has to pee since he ate a lot of watermelon earlier (when did he have time to do that? You’ve only managed to eat ONE HARD-BOILED EGG because, packing). Once inside, the waitress apologetically explains the soft serve machine is dead. No ice-cream to be had there. Back in the van, then off again to the nearest fast food joint. Jack-in-the-box is almost empty! Only two cars in the drive-through, so you get in line.

And wait.

Wait, wait, wait.

An old lady hair starts to grow on your chin.

Your husband looks at you as if to say, “Why are we doing this, again?” You back out of the the line with the other vehicles still sitting in exactly the same place. The person holding everyone up must be ordering 50 menu items in varying combinations.

Forward on the highway you go, and this time you must find ice-cream because of course now the children know. The children are counting on it. The children mustn’t be disappointed. This is vacation, after all!

Ten miles down the highway, another McDonald’s sign is spotted. Ah, this will be easy. It’s not as crowded on this exit. This way to the golden arches! Yay! We’re gonna have an ice-cream cone!

Wait-where is the restaurant? Three more miles north of the interstate? Oh.

Naturally, since it’s the only restaurant for perhaps miles in this desolate land, a crowd has gathered. The drive-through looks a bit busy, and feeling raw from your recent experience, you decided to skip it and “just run inside real quick.” The line stretches from the door to the cashier but you are not. leaving. without. ice-cream. You watch, mesmerized, as the young woman taking orders casually flicks her waist-long, thick, black braids here, there, and probably all over your ice-cream. She moves slowly and gracefully. So slowly. You know you’re getting to your destination an hour late at this point. There’s no use in fighting anymore.

When it’s your turn to order, you rattle off your requests like a pro ice-cream juggler, payment poised in hand. Just hurry, black-haired beauty, so we can get back on the road before the afternoon ends. You think this longingly, wishing you’d never suggested a deviation from the straight and narrow.

She leans into the ice-cream while she prepares it. Strands of hair wilding, ever so close. You wonder when food establishments stopped utilizing those wonderful hairnets. She can’t find things she needs-this and that is in the back and apparently she’s the only one to fetch it. Leisurely she puts everything together, as if fifty eyeballs weren’t staring at her. People in line shift behind you, clearing their throats.

When you’ve at long last returned to the van with your treats, you feel an Olympic thrill. You’ve made it to the finish line! It’s vacation! There’s ice-cream! Blessedly sought-after ice-cream. It’s already melting in this heat.

Are we there yet?

Next road trip, we are quite probably skipping the ice-cream! 😉

~Rachel

Letter 27

Letter 29

Letter 27 {Heated}

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Dear Candace,

The demise of our air-conditioning unit was conveniently timed with hottest week of the summer. There was no fix to be had, no replacement parts to be switched out, there was only the hot, sweaty silence of a broken HVAC system.

The temperature inside the house quickly climbed to 87 degrees and then some, despite my best efforts to keep fans running and blinds closed. As long as there was air-movement, it didn’t bother me too much at first. That first night we slept as au naturel as possible in order to be as comfortable as possible, taking nice cold showers before bedtime and being so thankful for electricity. Only, we hadn’t seen the hottest days yet!

On the first day that temps climbed to 100 degrees*, Tom brought home a portable window unit to regulate the main floor. It helped keep the living room area cooler. Yet even with our fans continuously on, it began to feel oppressive inside the house. The next night he bought a bargain priced old-fashioned window unit and stuck it in our bedroom window, which helped tremendously. I began to see we were becoming collectors of small AC units and fans of every shape and size. Besides all the ceiling fans, we have 4 portable fans also running constantly. The whirring and droning noises sound like a small airplane is about to take off inside the house. If the children had a hard time hearing me before, it’s impossible to get them to listen now. “What? Huh? I can’t hear you mom. I had no idea you told me 49 times to pick up my socks/shoes/dishes/books/toys.”

I just checked on Drew-he’s fast asleep on the basement floor, snuggled on a sleeping bag with his head against a large floor fan. Literally his head is on the fan.

Did you see this post about the St. Louis heat wave of 1934? I have nothing to complain about.

I have many words about my current situation, but I’ve limited my FB updates to these:

When it is 87 degrees in your house because the AC unit chose the hottest part of the year to die a permanent death, do you want to bake in the oven or cook on the stovetop? No. Use the dryer, take a relaxing bath? No and heavens no. Eat ice-cream three meals a day and dream of plunging into icy glaciers? YES
#wewillsurvive #butourdeodorantwillbetested

It’s cooling off in STL! A temp drop of about 10 degrees leaves us with a comfy 95! #rejoicealways

Stay cool my dear,

Rachel

*104 the last two days!

Letter 26

Letter 28

Letter 26 {Blackberries + Nostalgia}

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Dear Candace,

July is in full-swing and with it some familiar heat and humidity, but it’s still such a beautiful summer!

Blackberries. With July comes memories of blackberry picking as a child and all the scrumptious treats first my mom, and then my sister and myself, would prepare; namely:  jam, cobblers, and best of all PIE. Blackberry pie is my jam. The butter to my bread. It’s only contender is peach pie with warm cinnamon sauce. But in July, there can be no other pie except the humble yet remarkable blackberry.

In the early nineties, before cell-phones and helicopter parenting, Mom would drop Mara and I off at a nearby conservation area. We were given a wagon, buckets, water, and instructions to be at the rendezvous point at a specific time. Then we were left alone, trudging through the wilderness, to a familiar patch of wild, thorn-encased blackberries sharing space with poison ivy.

It’s remarkable we didn’t meet our demise in those lonely woods, by wild animal or serial killer hiker. One hot July afternoon, Mara began to feel the twinges of heat exhaustion so I laid her out in the shade and kept right on picking. There are sacrifices to be made for blackberry pie, you know. I would often get poison ivy on my face from those outings, turning into an oozing, puffy spectacle known as Cauliflower Girl. The boys were mad about me in those days.*

We’ve been traveling deep in the Ozarks for Hosanna’s horsemanship lessons, to a little farm nestled by a creek and woods. It’s a lovely drive through rich green countryside, and I’m never exactly sure what the speed limit is, though farm trucks and motorcyclists pass me regularly on corkscrew roads. We drive by old white farmhouses, garden patches, fields of corn, and homemade signs that say things like WE HAVE WORMS.

During our recent visit to the horse farm, the owners graciously led us to their blackberry patch to pick the biggest, sweetest, juiciest berries I’ve ever seen! True story. Those blackberries were the epitome of everything a blackberry should be. Three times larger than my thumb, one berry filled your mouth with its juicy goodness. While Hosanna was working with the horses, Drew and I stained our fingers and mouths roaming through the bushes. In short order we picked enough berries for a pie, which became my one fixation. No matter how tired I was, or how many dishes and chores needed to be done, we must! have! pie! Back at home that evening, I quickly put together a homemade crust** and filled it high with the glossy berries. Pie for dessert, pie for breakfast the next morning;  that’s how July is done! Until peaches are in season, I’m quite content in my current relationship with Missouri’s obsidian jewels.

Thinking now of blackberry wine,

~Rachel

*There were no boys. Mad or otherwise.

**I must be out of practice! It was not the best crust, being a bit chewy and rather a poor representation of the large amount of pies I’ve made in my lifetime. Such things keep me humble.

Letter 25

Letter 27