We picked a site.

We drew up some plans.

We purchased supplies.

We built into the space. Literally.

Finley kept the wood hydrated.

We got sentimental as we planned to use a window from our first house.

It began to take shape.

Briar took a test run.

The girls helped.

I helped too.

Helping can be fun.

I kept Sean slightly annoyed.

It began to rain. It rained a lot.

The sun came back. It was perfect in every way.

The surroundings were spectacular.

The window and clear roof came together.

The girls and Beso gave it a thorough inspection.

They decorated.

When fall came it got the full house test with the neighbor kids.

All winter long we worshipped it from across the yard.

I cannot wait to see where their imaginations take them this summer—inside, outside and all around their parent-built club house.

]]> http://amandamagee.com/2012/05/parent-built/feed/ 3 http://amandamagee.com/2012/04/grateful-to-saturday/ http://amandamagee.com/2012/04/grateful-to-saturday/#comments Sun, 22 Apr 2012 02:00:57 +0000 amandamagee http://amandamagee.com/?p=3318 I ended Friday with a bit of a broken heart. It was a balance of professional disappointment and personal heartache. There are invitabilities in work and home for all of us, lately they just seem to be throttling closer and closer to home in such a way that I get it—

I can’t control it.

I can only impact how I choose to deal with it, which doesn’t make it hurt or infuriate me any less, but there it is. Sean and I talked about what to do, or really, he gently moved to and fro sweeping away any responsibilities I might normally have and every so often saying in a gentle voice, “If you need a run, a walk or just some time, you tell me, ok?” I felt gratitude that neither showed in my eyes, nor traveled to my lips in any intelligible way. The enormity of my lack of authority in what will come rocked me, finally, the girls in the tub and Sean tending to the yard, I stopped.

I was halfway down the stairs and I just leaned back against the wall and slid until I was slumped in a defenseless heap on the landing. I looked out through our screen door and let my eyes blur somewhere between our trees and my fifteenth year. As the tears began to course down my face, cleansing the anger and hurt; I could hear the sounds of a baseball game being played 20+ years ago; words written five years ago hovered before me. Choices, opportunities and new paths all swirled as I let go of wishing I could change things. The girls laughter curled around me, their splashing and negotiating bringing me home. I resolved to be with them, present in yet another thing I cannot control, but can certainly participate in with everything I have.

Today, we did. We played. We imagined. We explored. We delighted. We slept. And they we got up and did it all again.

My heart is still achy, my ego is still tender, but I do know that I have so much to be grateful for and even the hurt that I have has spring from even more blessings.

This day that I was given and these people that I love and who love me back, they make me weep happier tears.

My friend Christina has a store up the road from ours called Sterling & Company. It is one of those places that you walk into and think, “One day, I’ll have the perfect taste to fill a shop like this,” and then you blush and slink over to a corner display so that people won’t realize you are experiencing a delicious flight of fancy. The shop brims with all manner of cute, useful and lovely things. You imagine they’ll all be beyond your means, but then they aren’t and then you feel princess-like again—cue another flight of fancy. Even guys get into it, which is how we came to have the “Munchstache Cookie Cutter” set.

Sean offered to pick up cookie dough and make the cookies one night while I worked late. I began to fret that they’d end up being something from a refrigerated dough bag and my HFCS, hydrogenated-this, chemical-laden-that button got pushed and I said I’d take care of it. I was going to hit up Epicurious or Allrecipes or some such thing, but Martha Stewart effortlessly SEO elbowed her way to the front and I shrugged, “If I’m gonna bake, may as well do it Martha-style.” and then I snorted, because Martha likely doesn’t curse, flick baked-on pizza crust off the tattered cookie sheet and call it good or wonder aloud, “Does it matter that the hand mixer is missing a beater?” I found solace in the “simple” in the title.

We can do simple.

I took the direction-following seriously and washed the cutters.

I used parchment paper (ok, regular grade wax paper, whatevs) to keep the rolling pin
from ever touching the dough directly. Much less swearing when it doesn’t stick!

Refrigerated the dough in 3 bags, one per daughter, for the duration of 1 nap.

Sweet!

We floured the entire kitchen and me.

We did a Today Show fast forward to cut, baked and finally cooling cookies.
Fanciest baked good shadows ever!

We checked them from every angle.

Demonstrated enough restraint to get an approving nod from Martha.

First one to the cooling rack, scowling for being caught red handed.

So I’m sick, unshowered and bakey?

Was hoping you’d capture it on film, Sean.

They put the sass in moustache.

All kidding aside, this was an amazing project. The kit came with 5 cutters, so even with three kids, there was no fighting. The lined patterns on the back of each cutter meant each person always had something to do—rolling, cutting, stamping. The recipe was super easy to follow, only called for one stick of butter as opposed to others that called for 5. 5! Only 4 come in a box, who is that prepared? And they were sooooo tasty.

I cannot wait to make Magee Moustache plates for the holidays.

Part way there Briar whispered: “Oh, I don’t want this to ever end.”

My soul is beaming.

A harried just-before-closing trip to the pediatrician revealed that it was just a cold. I’ll be honest, there is no “just a cold” with your last baby, even though she isn’t really a baby anymore. There is no “just a cold” when the margins are so whisper thing at home and work. There is no “just a cold” when the coughing in the night brings gagging, weeping and more durations of sleep measured in minutes rather than hours.

I left feeling sheepish, angry and filled with a relief that made tears threaten. 48 hours later we bundled up for a play date with friends unafraid of “just a cold,” later the same day the grandparents arrived; both events had us all falling over ourselves to occupy the space inside of the delight. We shucked our worry and our whining, and peeled everything back but the gratitude to be with people who enjoy us and  love us.

Sitting here today thinking that time with friends and family is just right.

I like it, always have. Every once in a while I see people complaining that they don’t get it. There is a lot to get confused by online, but Pinterest shouldn’t be one of them. You just get an account (if you need an invite let me know). You’ll set up “Boards”:

Install and drag the Pin It” button to your bookmark bar:

And then when you are on a site; anything from a blog to a store to a business, click Pin It. This will bring up all the pinnable images from that page. Some sites don’t work, but many do:

After you select your image, you assign it to a board:

And write a caption:

I adore it, not for anything related to what I do at work, but for the quick, easy chance it offers to curate things. Some people use it to dog ear the corners of virtual shopping pages:

Some people use it to catalog crafts/DIY projects they might tackle one day:

You can find inspiration:

Stuff for hair:

And for skin:

Art:

Love:

There is no right or wrong way to do it. I curate thoughts, making each pin an aspiration, a reminder or a dare. It pleases me in a way that saying the right thing at the right moment, overcoming obstacles or rising above something does.

For whatever reason, when I started I opted not to use punctuation, and so it is that my pins look like thoughts I dashed off, or at least that’s how I think of them. At the end of the day, Pinterest is for you, not for business, not for popularity not for anything other than a place to stow things that make you smile.

Isn’t that refreshing?

Happy pinning!

]]> http://amandamagee.com/2012/01/pining-to-pin/feed/ 9 http://amandamagee.com/2012/01/drop-off/ http://amandamagee.com/2012/01/drop-off/#comments Tue, 17 Jan 2012 19:59:04 +0000 amandamagee http://amandamagee.com/?p=3077 It started seven years ago with an infant and a sitter, then there was a carpeted corridor in a church preschool, and onto a sunny walk ending at the front steps of the elementary school. The second time doing the each of those for the first time hurt all over again. Now, with Finley, we’re at the tail end of preschool and I am recognizing drop off for what it is: a complete leap of faith.

This morning I dropped Finley off at the door. Her bag was packed to stay for lunch and her hair was pulled back to her exacting specifications.

“First the pink one mom, and then goes the green, the purple, the ‘nother green one and then an orange, not pink, orange.”

I moved my fingers gingerly through her hair, careful not to snag any hairs along her neck and draw tears. The elastic bands were looped around her fingers, little lassoes of expectation. As I gathered the sections of hair she sighed contentedly and craned to see her reflection. Tiny pricks of tears threatened at the corners of my eyes as she beamed and nodded in satisfaction.

“Don’t forget these,” she said proffering three garish, fuzzy bands with cascading strands of diamond shape beads.

“Ok,” I said, “which one?” She looked at me with comedic dismissiveness, “All of them of course,” she said swinging her pony tails behind her. I added them all and she declared herself ready to go.

I lifted her out of the jeep and one of the teachers came over from the door. “Hello Finley!” She chirped. Fin preened and whispered a shy, but extremely pleased, “Hi.” I asked if it would be ok for her to stay for the after-session. “Of course,” the teacher said. Finley looked up at her as she held out a hand. The look on her little face was so wide open and trusting it caught me by surprise. It’s not a look she directs at me. A part of me needed to pierce the moment, reinsert myself in what matter.  I mentioned her hair and that she had dreamt up the style herself. “So pretty,” the teacher said. Finley’s smile stretched from ear to ear and her eyes opened even wider. She was joy personified and it cut right through me.

My emotions roiled—so much hope in that one little face. I wanted to put my hand on the woman’s shoulder, to implore her not to let us down.

Acknowledge how significant this is, deserve her trust, respond to her delight. Be the person she thinks you are, if just for these few hours.

I kept my hands to myself and knelt down to kiss Finley. “Have fun, honey.” I drew the words out as if to accompany her to the door. She softly called out, “I will mama.” And then they were gone.

Climbing into my car I willed myself not to cry. Did I really need the extra two hours to work? Should I scratch it and pick her up at the regular time? As I approached the exit to the parking lot I realized how selfish I was being. The look on her face was not fear, it was pure anticipation. There was no thinking that I was failing as a mom or choosing work over parenting. She’d been skipping through the house all morning singing about getting to go to lunch bunch and asking if we’d seen the lunch she was taking. This was not failure on my part, it was achievement on hers.

The leap of faith in dropping her off was equal parts trusting it would be as exciting as she’d hoped and crossing my fingers that in coming home to me there might be some chance of her looking up at me with that same wide open, brimming-with-joy face.

Here we were a year ago –>  January, 17th, 2011.

The questions are going to get tougher and the stakes are going to get higher as we confront race, politics, sexual orientation, mean girls and shady boys. I think we can all do our part and honor people like Martin Luther King Jr and so many others who fought for equality.

Let’s.

Ugh. My iPhone camera was set to take my face. Does that ever not horrify? Yay for goggles.

Then I snapped a picture of the night, but it didn’t translate.

Then I held a spectacular yard sale after sliding 65 yards backwards and on my belly. Then there were the snowboarders who were stopped-in-the-middle-of-no-where-in-the-dark-and-oh-by-the-way-I-can’-stop. But in the end, I still had a total blast and will do it again. Although I may hope for slightly warmer weather and natural snow so I don’t have to ski into gusts of machine-manufactured-snow.

How’s 2012 going for you? I recommend that when you make an ass out of yourself do it in the dark and in 18 degree weather, fewer people catch it.

]]> http://amandamagee.com/2012/01/wednesday-at-west/feed/ 2 http://amandamagee.com/2012/01/revealing-hope/ http://amandamagee.com/2012/01/revealing-hope/#comments Sun, 01 Jan 2012 18:18:41 +0000 amandamagee http://amandamagee.com/?p=3044 A woman I have a deep fondness and admiration for, Susan Neibur, posted something this morning that has stayed with me like a strong beam of sunlight after a swim in the cold lake.

Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come,
Whispering ‘it will be happier’…

- Alfred Lord Tennyson

I certainly had my share of disappointment in the past year, but as the Tennyson quote rings in my ears, I realize that the voice of hope is my own. Any chance of seeing the world in a brighter way is not going to come from the laughter of my children, though that is sweet, or the supportive hand of my husband or unwavering support of my parents. Hope is mine to enjoy or ignore.

When I woke up this morning, the house filled with friends and errant wisps of the previous night’s merrymaking, I saw the mark of good decisions. Every corner shimmered with the energy of laughter and contentment. The sunlight streaming through the windows didn’t illuminate dust, it cast golden pools over vignettes: a board game and grape stems; baby dolls and blankets; dog toys and slippers—joy shared.

Later, after our guests left, we took turns at the gym. It was simple, energy out, more energy in. Naps. Laundry. Lasagna.

Wishing you hope and all the wonder that comes with it.