John’s late grandmother would sit here in her Jordache cut-offs and read in the evenings, her feet propped up on the ottoman and a glass of watered-down wine beside her. At low tide, a warm breeze would come to her through the sliding glass door, smelling of muck and mussels and ruffling the pages of her book.

We weren’t really lost; we could see the house just across the cove. But the fields were so very cold and muddy, and the winds came off the water and whipped stinging sand at our eyes and mouths, making the evening seem desperate and epic. And so our thoughts and conversation turned to fire and food and warmth and shelter. The Muscari pushed toward the sunset, unfeeling, insensitive to our...

I found it at the edge of the Atlantic, lifeless, grey, sliding in the foam. The pain of the frigid waters shot up my legs as I darted in to pluck the ocean’s dead from her shallows. The white last now sits on my window sill, the trophy of a landlocked housewife.

School in the mornings, play in the afternoons, writing at night after everyone else has fallen asleep, so the days pass here. Our days have found a new rhythm that quite resembles the old…well, except for the sun. The new kitchen and dining room get lots and lots of delicious morning sun. I love nothing more than to sit in it and bake my poor bones, made frigid by five...

The walking path was covered with seed pods. The kids thought they looked like alien faces. They found a squirrel’s nest that had fallen from a tree and poked it with sticks, looking for life. Most everything along the path was brown and grey, except for bright green patches of moss at the base of some trees, and the river itself, colored green by long ribbons of algae that quivered...

One packing problem specific to LP owners: I keep getting distracted by all the eye candy. I’m a sucker for album art. Check out the LPCover Lover blog for more awesome album covers.

“We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.” — Ray Bradbury, on writing Writing is one of the most important components of our homeschool. I want my children to enjoy their journaling, narrations and compositions, and in my experience the feel of one’s notebooks contributes to the overall appeal, or lack thereof, of the work...

I use a sharp paring knife to remove a cone from the center of each cooled cake, the last step before filling each one with creamy, delicious, Fluff-based guts. Out of the corner of my eye, I see half-filled moving boxes in the living room, waiting their turn. Then the oven timer rings: the pizza dough is ready to divide and shape. At this rate, by the time this house...

This night I watched a man at the bar stroke his wife’s hair over and over again. I watched women and men stumble around the makeshift dance floor in front of the band. I watched my husband strain to hit some high notes while nailing most of them. I crouched in corners behind my camera. If life was a spectator sport, I’d be world champion.