summer giveaway: flip-flop heart

You have heard about my mother before. Well, now you can really hear my mom. She’s been a big supporter of this Lazy Summer project, and here she is leaving me a message after a big summer storm in Virginia.

She’s right that the power going out was always one of my favorite things. When we grew up, my family would actually have nights where we turned off all the power and pretended we were living back in pioneer days. And one of the craziest parts of that little tradition is that I didn’t think it was strange until I blurted it out at college once. The looks I got definitely told me that not many other families had self-imposed power outages on a regular basis.

I don’t mean to romanticize hardship. But I am tempted to say that the power has become a little too reliable for my liking. I remember that shiver of excitement when the lights would stutter and then go out. We’d be the littlest bit scared, but candles were nearby and we were used to the dark anyway since we grew up in the country. Your eyes would slowly adjust and really, either option was a good one: stay inside and play a board game, or head out the screen door and sit in the immense quiet.

But wait, this little trip down memory lane actually has a purpose. Because in addition to making up songs on the spot and relishing sitting on the deck at night, my mother also creates these Flip-Flop Heart necklaces. A pair of flip-flops joined at the heel so they make a little heart so you can wear a bit of summertime all year long. She’s giving one away to a lucky reader – just leave a comment before Monday night with a way to reach you and I’ll pick a winner at random.



in praise of a mom

I know I am a tad early on this one, but in recent years, my mom has taken to writing me and my sisters letters for Mother’s Day, telling us how grateful she is to be our mom.

This year, she made me a hand-stitched fabric valentine – which I think was maybe her first attempt at embroidery. Her note mentioned that she didn’t have skills, which is laughable to anyone who knows her. She paints, she sings, she draws, she imagines things and then makes those things happen. She pretty much provided the soundtrack to our childhood with her guitar or banjo, and decorated almost every building I spent time in as a kid (painting huge murals at our doctor’s office, preschool, school cafeterias, etc). She has loved us since before we were born – and my sisters and I have the journals she kept while pregnant to prove it.

Of course we have had our rocky times (pretty much all of my teenage years, when I was so mean that it makes me cringe remembering it). But that’s the thing about family, chosen or born into: we get the very worst and very best of each other.

In this case, that best is pretty amazing: a wildly creative mother who is always the brightest spirit in the room. Happy Mother’s Day, everyone. xo