writing

elevate the everyday

Posted on by sheri

It’s here! So excited to finally share this beautiful book project from Tracey Clark with you!

In her new book Elevate the Everyday: A Photographic Guide to Picturing Motherhood, Tracey manages to combine her years of photography expertise with amazing and practical tips for capturing the journey of motherhood. The book is not only gorgeous, helpful, and insanely inspiring, but it’s also full of several must-read stories of motherhood — her own and those of many of the mom writers and bloggers you know and love. I am beyond honored to have my own story included in the book.

Take a look!

Beautiful, right?

And yippeee! Here’s my story:

no one is tired

Posted on by sheri

gulls out at the birdplace. funny, there are rarely gulls out there. but then again, just when i think i know something about that place, i get a big surprise. once there were cows out there. just grazing. and smelling like cows. another time a stray trio of eccentric chickens, probably abandoned, emerged from the grass.

here at home tonight, no one is tired. or at least willing to give into sleep. the four of us celebrated clyde’s 8th birthday at our favorite mexican place, probably the one place that pleases the four of us equally. they presented clyde with flan all lit up by a crackling sparkler and sang happy birthday in espanol. more celebrating with family and friends over the weekend.

still struggling a little with how and what to blog. i struggled for at least five minutes about whether or not to even tell you that.

a few sure things:

windowsill

Posted on by sheri

tonight when i got home from picking up the boys, leo stepped over into our neighbor’s yard and peeped up into their front window. “what is she watching on tv? oh, i see their christmas tree,” he said up on tiptoes, fingertips on the windowsill before i scolded him away.

“it’s not polite to look in other people’s windows,” i said.

since then, i’ve been thinking a lot about windows — from outside in or inside out — everything that they obscure and crop out but also everything they reveal and bring into focus. every day i sit at my computer in the very same place, at my very same desk, with the very same view from one small piece of the world to another. what is being cropped out? what is being revealed? what will i miss sitting there every day? what will i discover?

i could tell you the answers to these questions, but then we’re not talking about windows anymore, are we? and it’s no longer as simple a notion as i hoped it would be. or maybe it’s too simple, trite really. a discussion about the meaning of life made meaningless by words. and this is where i struggle lately with writing. if it’s not done well, it can really muck up a good moment. a moment better left unsaid.

if you looked in the window of my mind right now, you would see a woman crumpling up another piece of paper and tossing it in a pile with all the rest. but it’s not polite to look in other people’s windows.

more practice

Posted on by sheri

oh 2011, the year i contemplate, obsess over, and seek focus for my creativity. again.

don’t get me wrong. i’ve found and been a part of many small creative projects that excite me over the last year. however, creativity is like a hungry little monster. it always wants to be fed. and it’s one insatiable little bastard.

and the difference between that creativity and everything else in my life? if i don’t feed it, it doesn’t cry, it doesn’t whack its brother or act out at preschool, it doesn’t fire me, it doesn’t turn off my electricity, it doesn’t email or call, it doesn’t stand before me. instead, emptiness happens. inside. a hole inside. a nothingness. and how badly can nothingness hurt really? oh, let me count the ways…

so all i know today is i’m going to try to rededicate myself to blogging again (you know, now that blogging is so passé). i just need a place i can come to and place and spin my creative thoughts and ideas and stories and inspirations. and maybe most of all, i need a place that beckons me, calls me back, and reminds me when i’m down and out about the types of things that can bring me back around. yoohoo, remember me, your lonely ol’ blog?

yes, i’m hoping for magic. and i don’t even care if that’s crazy.

i don’t know where i’m going or how long it will last or how long it will take for me to find my way (to ira glass), but i need to do something here and now. before i spontaneously combust.

in 2011, more writing for myself here (to separate the gallons of writing i do for my day job), more birdplace, more photos, more music, a little learning, and more slow morning jogs even if i never run farther than 1.3 miles at one time…

ed gave me an instax mini 25 camera for christmas, but as you can see above, i need lots more practice. (dang thing won’t let you shut off flash either — and always wants to flash).

anyway, hope you’ll stop by occasionally while i try to keep my monster fed and get some much-needed creative practice in. please share your creative secrets and your magic tricks too.

out there

Posted on by sheri

out there

it’s been fairly nose-to-the-grindstone excruciating trying to get on top of work since we launched The Stir (did you check it out yet?). however, i’m holding my head high, knowing it won’t be like this forever.

and it helps that there are flocks of goldfinch tearing around the neighborhood every morning, throwing exuberant parties in the treetops. it’s also baseball season! my coffee is always freshly roasted, and i’m drinking smoothies every day. not to mention, there’s a $25 bid on my chocolate cake photo. and i have a fried chicken sandwich in my future (no, not because i won, but because i owe m one for pulling through on our writing bet, and i’m sure not going to let her eat alone).

i will come back to the stories. i have so many more to tell. like the one about the glowing yellow window, through the lattice work, and the sadness that sits inside. or the way she drove me, at 92, through the green and rolling hills, under the blossoming pink trees, down the familiar road streaked in yellow mustard, and showed me the way — and how i can’t stop wishing i hadn’t been in such a hurry. or the dream, in which i was running and leaping across green grassy fields. how soft black skunks were hiding in the clover. how i was trying to “get away from it all” there in that field, out in the wild, but the “all” was still there. still in the back of my dreamy mind.

yep, there are plenty more.

so…how is it out there anyway? do tell.