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I bought a fluorescent light fixture with two full-spectrum grow bulbs and installed it in our basement pantry. I made pots out of newspaper and we planted seeds. I water them twice a day and imagine them tall and strong in the sunshine.

Happy Friday. xxoo

More music on our front steps. The kids played hide and seek in the dark spaces between the buildings. One nearby door slowly opened a crack, an unseen man or woman probably peering out to pinpoint the source of the sound. I sat on my stool, listened, swatted away mosquitos. My neighbors’ television sets cast strobing stripes of light on their front lawns.

Our house is featured in the July 2013 online issue of Ikea Family Live Magazine, a digital publication of Inter IKEA Systems B.V. The mag’s editor Helen reached out to me via email and asked if we’d like to be featured. When I accepted, she sent me a digital package containing photo guidelines, interview questions and FTP instructions. I styled our place myself. I used my Canon Rebel XT and...

I lit a candle in the dark morning hours and sat in silence with my nine year-old. We stayed in the quiet for only five minutes and then the day had to begin. My favorite part of the morning: the kids and I singing Looney Tunes words to the overture of Rossini’s Barber of Seville. Leftover drop biscuits held spoonfuls of homemade jam, or in some cases, small piles of...

After building up my courage with coffee and Ella, I spent the morning sewing a hefty curtain to replace the broken bi-fold door of our coat closet. I’d been waiting for five years to cut into this Ikea fabric, and couldn’t have used it for a better purpose, as the length of this curtain really shows off the pattern.

As predicted, the record player is getting a real workout. What is surprising–but probably should not be knowing this boy and girl of mine–is that most every selection they make is classical. I’ve raised them on a steady diet of jazz, classic rock, and cheesy 70’s love songs, but there is no denying their visceral hunger for strings, piano, brass. Mozart was his choice one afternoon this week, and the...

I rearranged the living room this weekend and made a spot for the turntable we bought two years ago. It had been about 20 years since I’d actually listened to any of my records, so I spent this afternoon with Wings, Led Zeppelin, Roxy Music, Blind Faith. I’m looking forward to digging into the Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, and Haydn from my husband’s extensive LP collection.

I’m staying cocooned in my home this week, working through each little pain and complication of last week’s surgery. The pain brings clarity of focus, and I find myself considering small details, like the banding on this teeny hand-thrown vase, for long moments.

I hear giggles mixed with serious discussion drifting up the stairs to my sick bed. I haul myself to standing, hobble to my camera, and tiptoe down the open stairs to see exactly how this day of their summer vacation is starting.