Meredith Carson... Across the Pond and Back Again...

Recently I have had this niggling desire to write.  It has been a niggling desire that I have hushed up with social media, Food Network, and Utz potato chips. If I am honest, I have been unmotivated to empower my writing self because I am afraid.  I am afraid that I do not have anything new or relevant to say.  Additionally I have realized that most of my obsessive thoughts spiral around my children, and, as they grow older, I do not feel as though I have permission to write publicly about their experiences.  Sharing an anecdote about the cute thing your three year old did at the park is completely different from venting about your fourteen year old’s friend drama.  (I was recently mortified when I read a blog in which a mother had written in detail about her daughter’s experience with puberty along with a self-congratulatory description of all the cute things she had done as a mother to make her daughter’s first period a “special celebration”.  Could you...

Here I am in the place I’ve longed to be for ten years.  I’m back.  It all feels rather surreal.  Thomas Wolfe had already warned me that I couldn’t ever really go home again.  I knew this.  I have never been this age, had these children at this point in time, or been the me who lives in this skin in this place before.  Everyone here has also grown and changed.   The roads have changed.  The barbecue, hushpuppies, and sweet tea, however, all seem to have remained constant.  Praise the Lord. I am elated to be back in North Carolina.  Yesterday I ate my lunch outside in the sunshine.  Folks up in Michigan are buried under a foot of snow and enduring sub-zero temps as I shut my eyes and feel the vitamin D being absorbed through my cheeks.  It is wonderful.  But I am impatient. I feel the burden of impatience when I wake in the morning.  I want to feel at home at home again.  Reinventing myself here sho...

Summer was a bit late to arrive this year.  When I last sat down to write, there was a bit of panic coursing through my fingers as they tapped on the keyboard.  I was suffocating under a blanket of doubt.  Would summer ever properly arrive?  I felt that I urgently needed to leave the country and possibly leave the state of Michigan permanently.  I didn't know if I could cope for one more day without the warm sun on my face. Shortly after I wrote about escaping back to Great Britain (a foolish retreat location for a sun seeker), summer finally did arrive, and ever since I have been happily drowning in it.  I cannot begin to describe how much better everything is during the warm, sunny, summer months for me.  I am still myself.  I do not suddenly have organized drawers or find myself cheerfully putting away fresh smelling stacks of folded laundry early each morning.   I am still an introvert who feels more than a bit...

We thought we already lived "Up North" since we are in mid-Michigan.  It's certainly farther north than any place I've ever lived before, but local Midlanders constantly refer to the wonderfulness of  "going Up North," and now that we've officially been, we understand why.  We recently returned from a long weekend up in the Traverse City area where we saw some of the most beautiful sights.  On the way up, we even pulled the car over in Paradise, MI so that Emma could have a potty break.  The highlight of her day was having "peed in Paradise." Words escape me as I attempt to describe the breath-taking scenery we encountered up yonder.  At several points, I looked through the view finder of my camera and simply sighed and replaced the lens cover.  I am not a good enough photographer to capture the immense exquisiteness that is Lake Michigan.  Here, however, are a few of the photos I took anyway.  Perhaps they are still worth almost a thous...

Last year the kids were seriously displeased when we weren't able to go to our local Midland County Fair.  Having grown up in the UK, they had never been to a county fair, and they were feeling extremely deprived.  We knew this year, even though we were still recovering from a long weekend away in Kentucky, we would have to suck it up and take them out there.  I think we managed to tick all of the boxes. Ooh-ing an Ahh-ing at livestock? Check. Indulging in some healthy fair food? It's no deep-fried stick of butter, but still... Check. Sitting astride a giant pachyderm? Why yes, as a matter of fact, we did that too. How about spending twenty American dollars to ride a giant Ferris wheel? Check. Double check. And finally... giving coins to the creepy and rather sad Capuchin monkey. Check, please.

Summertime in Michigan almost makes up for the suffocating, frigid, seemingly interminable winter.  Almost.  But as I have said before, I genuinely love Michigan in the summertime, and here are some more reasons why... As you can see I took my girls and some blueberry-loving, enthusiastic friends out to Freeland this morning to pick blueberries.  We came home with three buckets full, blue stained fingers, and big plans.  I see blueberry pancakes, cobblers, buckles and smoothies in our futures as well as more blissful Michigan summer days. "In summer, the song sings itself."  ~William Carlos Williams

Today was Day Two of our Spring Snow Spectacle.  School was canceled again.  My choir's Lenten concert at church was also canceled.  I could have been annoyed or depressed, but instead I chose to take the "Whee-Monster" out on the sled and pull her around the neighborhood.  She did not disappoint and cried out "Whee!  Whee!  Whee!!" all the way home. Her glee was so contagious that we all had to take turns running with her en tow. That was the only sane thing I did today since shortly after our jog through the snow, I thought I should take all three girls bathing suit and shoe shopping.  Lord help me!  Bathing suit shopping after you've had three children is depressing enough WITHOUT having those three children in the dressing room with you as you attempt to squeeze your stretch marks into some horrible piece of floral lycra.  Lili dumped goldfish crackers all over the floor, pulled everything out of my wallet and made several great esca...

It started snowing again on Sunday afternoon.  By the time we woke up on Monday morning, there was about seven inches of that stuff on the ground.  The kids already had the day off school since it was President's Day, and George cleared the driveway and went to work because he is apparently no longer the sensible Southern boy I fell in love with.  The little girl pictured above has a habit of standing at the window and moaning, "EMMA!!  EMMA!!" while watching her older sisters frolic and cavort in the Winter Wonderland that my front yard has become. So on Monday morning I thought I would make Lili's dreams come true by bundling her up and letting her go out and play with those big girls in the snow.  My favorite weather guy assured us all that the snow was wetter and heavier and perfect for snowman-making, so we were all ready to show off our wintry artistic skills. On went Lili's undershirt, trousers, sweatshirt, snow pants, double socks, boots, mittens an...

George left us early Thursday morning and headed off for a "Lads Gone Mad" weekend in Cancun with his brother and a friend, so all of the Carson girlies have been here enjoying the beautiful Michigan autumn on our own.  That George does not know what he's missing. Back by popular demand: Everyone's favorite green, fleecy hoodie with ears On Friday the kids had the day off school, so we went out to a petting farm in Freeland called Baby Acres where Emma and Sophie got to pet and feed all sorts of friendly farm animals.  Everything about it was excellent apart from the incident in which two pygmy goats took offense to my sheepskin lined boots.  They repeatedly headbutted my ankles and rubbed their foreheads menacingly all over the sides of my boots.  We were visiting the farm with a Mom's group, and all of the other Michigan Mommies who were standing by me laughed and said (in that unmistakable Michigan accent), "OH MY GAHSH!  That is SOOO cute!"  Yes...

Living in the UK for the last five years, I really missed having seasons.  There was some vague semblance of seasons with leaves in October, barren trees in January and daffodils in April, but mostly we could count on it being cool-ish, grayish and rainy all year.  Each year as the summer months approached, everyone would whisper hopefully, " They say this year will be different.  The jet stream has changed and we might have sun this summer," but that was not the typical end result.  Nine months of anticipation almost always ended with three months of disappointment. Here in Michigan we are now making up for lost time.  Here there are four distinct and proper seasons (with winter being particularly distinct, proper and LONG).  The day the calendar said it was autumn, the weather became crisp and the trees began to obediently drop their leaves.  We are now surrounded by beautiful autumn colors, and we wake up to frost.  In other w...

Oh Y'all, I think this place was made just for me.  PYO blueberries and obscure used books all in the same spot??  Oh Yeah!  I'll take a giant bucket o' blueberries and that old Graham Kerr cookbook for twenty, please! Lili was an extremely active participant on today's berry picking outing in Freeland.  She grabbed bunches of blueberries (as big as her little fists could accomodate) and shoved them, stems and leaves included, into her hungry mouth.  We were in our element. Emma too And sweet Sophia And just when we thought our adventure was over... Emma stepped in that huge pile of pine sap.  It looked like the bottom of her foot was covered in hot marshmallows.  She was mortified.  I laughed almost until I cried.  Then I took a photo.  Then I helped her clean it up.  I'm a good mom like that. Summer love to you all... Meredith

There is not much to report this weekend except that we are happy, and we do know it. Life has been treating us well.  The girls enjoyed their half-day camps this past week.  They came back with some excellent campfire recipes.  We tried one tonight: orange campfire cakes .  They also both did really well at gymnastics camp and have decided that they would like to pursue classes this fall.  We were especially impressed with Emma's demonstration at the end of the week.  See, those long legs can be trained to do some very elegant things! Summertime means that we girls are on a pretty relaxed schedule.  Sometimes we aren't sure what day it is.  Lots of nights we forget to go to bed before ten.  EVERY morning Lili somehow manages to find a spot in our bed where I coerce and extra hour or two of sleep out of her.  When September rolls around we will dream of fresh number two pencils and apples for the teacher, but for now, we...

As I type, I am listening to the sounds of three giggling little girls rolling around in the floor of our office.  The littlest Carson is producing some particularly exuberant belly laughs.  Weekends are great. I realized that in my last family update, I excluded the feline member of our family.  Emily, the cat, is in hog heaven up here.  Although she is supposed to be an indoor cat, she is having none of that.  The call of the forest and of all God's critters is too loud for her to ignore.  She seems to love the sunshine and trees as much as I do.  She has also enjoyed murdering several little woodland creatures and offering them up to us on our back deck as tokens of her unfailing affection.  I guess you can take the cat out of McCleansville, but you can't get that rural, country-lovin' moxie out of the cat. Additionally, for your viewing pleasure, here is a new candid photo of Baby Lil enjoying her dinner of black b...