by Ashley Larkin | Sep 30, 2016 | Five Minute Friday, Gratitude, Joy, Mothering
We are on the third (or maybe fourth) leg of our afternoon school pick-up, which means “Lala,” Clementine and I have been sitting in the minivan for a while now. Big sister “J” should arrive any moment with her middle school carpool. From our...
by Ashley Larkin | Oct 23, 2015 | Five Minute Friday, Gratitude, Joy, Perspective
{The Lice Quarantine Room} We escaped from the throes of lice this week — the third time the girls have caught it at school in the last 13 months. I take that back. We did not escape lice. There is no escaping lice once they’ve made their way onto your...
by Ashley Larkin | Jul 30, 2014 | Joy, Risk-taking, Surrender, Trust
I mix a splash of spruce green acrylic paint with the chartreuse, let my paintbrush pick up and lay down the two colors unevenly. I do not know what will appear before me when I do. I hold one of the raw wooden-handled brushes that sit in the jar on the shelf between...
by Ashley Larkin | Mar 29, 2014 | Amusings, Family, Joy, Love, Marriage, Mothering, Perspective, Trust
1. Roller skating makes me feel crazy alive. I can roll and roll and roll around a circle (oval?) with my limited skill in the midst of some of my favorite people and a man flourishing a white towel with every epic twirl, and never tire. I cannot explain why...
by Ashley Larkin | Mar 21, 2014 | Five Minute Friday, Joy, Perspective, Poetry
Joy can feel like abstraction or open, sun-lit meadow, a winding path, a declaration or a hope. Joy can be grace and love’s overflow or picked and chosen like flowers from weeds or rope-burned hands clinging to a rescue line. Joy can feel easy and natural, a...
by Ashley Larkin | Mar 12, 2014 | Celebration, Community, Family, Grace, Gratitude, Joy, Love, Poetry
In her treehouse the light pours across the cut camellias and mug of peppermint tea, steam tendrils rising against a periwinkle sky The ancient typewriter sits on the shelf keeping guard over all the books, so many words drawn in wise tenderness by writers before She...
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