Hippie Trails To You: A West Texas Adventure

      My Uncle Mark was our curator of all things cool musically. I remember hearing him play The Doors one summer while I was staying at my Grandmothers house. I was probably 12 or 13 at the time. In the rare instance that the stereo was playing anything other than Fleetwood Mac or Stevie Nicks, one could get quite an education musically.        I never had air conditioning growing up and the summers were long and hot in our second story apartment. My grandmother always had a supply of spaghettios, cokes and air conditioning, the holy trinity of summer as far as I was concerned.  I heard Mark play the Soft Parade more than the other Doors records and to this day there are songs on that abum that I consider to be my favorites. When I was a teenager Mark often refered to me as Wild child in referance to the song on the album. His assessment was entirely correct. I was indeed a wild child, probably more so than most people knew.  I would l...

       Some of you may be here for all the happy triumphant parts of the story. You might be a tad disappointed. It would be easy for me to sit here and give you every feel good moment of creating this dreamscape. There is no bravery in showing you the easy stuff. Where I learned the most was in between the victories.. The anatomy of a good story is a decent sized struggle. you have got to have a protagonist. I giggle a little now to think how much time we have spent on the struggle bus. Some days we still board it unknowingly. Some days we drive it. As long as we keep showing up day after day we consider that a win. Some days that we are winning don't really feel like a victory at all, just one more day that we arrived safely at bedtime and woke up the next day. You put your feet on the floor and try to make it happen all over again. There are seasons when putting your feet on the floor and not being crushed by the overwhelming amount of work that faces you is more ...

     A few months into our life in Texas, we had already tackled so much uncharted territory. We bought land, a house, moved said house and we were ready to begin the renovation.  I have said many times that this project has been more than just a renovation. It has been an exploration of self, and a personification of all the things we face when we explore our shadow.  With this space we had to be careful and selective. It was small and required a lot of out of the box thinking if we wanted to achieve a rustic homestead feel and modernize at the same time. In 1901, when the house was built there were no washing machines, convection ovens or copious amounts of counter space. Life was all about necessity and survival.  It was simple and in no way elegant.  I picture a man laboring in the west Texas sun all day, with simple tools to put the house together. Coveralls and straw hats, strong arms and strong back.  I cannot imagine building without power...

 When I show people my house and share my ideas for it people ask me two questions. 1) Are you crazy? 2) How much did it cost?      Well, the answer to the first question is quite easy. Yes, we are crazy, lunatics even to take on such a project with zero clue how to do anything. We rely on this old house, you tube video's and God's grace. Sometime the situation leans a lot more heavily on Gods grace but we get it done.  Most of the time we can muddle thru it.       I say we, I really mean Chad. I might be the dreamer in this scenario but he is the executer of dreams. I get a crazy idea and he takes it in stride and figures out how to bring that to fruition. I have flung many weirdo crack pot ideas in his direction and some how, he figures it out. He also has this amazing superhero way of knowing what ideas I am serious about and when I am just musing.  It's like I'm married to my very own magical being. For those of you who know us, I bet non...

I waste Spaghettio's on Saturday mornings. I wake up on Saturday mornings and the first thing on my mind is Spaghettio's. I pad to the kitchen half asleep, wash a bowl and pop the can. The only thing missing in my modern version of this ritual is the small brown pot my grandmother used when I was a child. The microwave cheapens the process a bit. I think of my grandmother round and Jolly, I never thought of her as fat. I always just assumed she was soft in the places I needed her to be.  I can still feel the polyester of her blouse pressed against my face when she would hug me.  Her rings would jingle together as she stood there stirring and humming a tune. I felt this was her little ritual just for me. An act of defiance that she would indeed feed her granddaughter real Spaghettio's and Coca-Cola for breakfast. They tasted of love and rebellion. My microwaved Spaghettios do not reach the desired expectation. They do, however transport me back to my place of sanctuary. I am...

Grandmother The shuffling and smacking of your flip flops on linoleum.  Rings jingling together on your hand. Dancing in the park and wishing on stars. Cracking a carefully shuffled card deck, war at 11 fish at 7. Stairs creaking and groaning, whispered lamentations while we listen to Art Bell aliens and broadcasting from caves, conspiracy theories at midnight. The delight of 5am coffee, black please and thank you Oh Grandmother, my soul mother we shared our secrets big and small. Cotton gowns in the night, Sour and sweet with the sweat of summer, what I wouldn't give to be the girl snuggled into your bosom 5 more minutes she said, 5 more minutes she said.      I've struggled a lot about how to say what I need to say about this experience and yet give insight to the amount of work, both mental and physical, that  this house project takes.  The journey to the point of acquisition is really about all of the things that led up to the decision and much less abo...

      Once upon a time there was a little girl who loved to go to her Great Aunts farm in the Missouri River Valley. I spent those days lounging in the garden, chasing chickens and picking strawberries. It seemed like a magical place to me and I cherish every single memory.       My aunt was not chatty. I don't remember her ever being young. She was always stooped over and small in stature, lines on her face and tiny hands. She kept her hair in a high chignon, paired with a simple house dress and apron. Her style was practical and simple, but feminine. I was often told that my Uncle would not allow her to do the hard work of the farm, that labor was a mans duty. She was in her late 70's when I was born and worked harder than any person I knew. I often wondered what the men were doing out there in the pasture that was so difficult. She churned butter and made candied apples from scratch. Her home always smelled of  rising bread and brewed coffee. The ha...