One Part Inspiration...

Things about me you never knew.. and don't let on if you do..... I have a violin. And one day I'm going to learn to play it. I didn't own a vehicle until I was 23. I want my own laptop. I like to play my own version of "The Price Is Right" when I price out items. I have no desire to climb Mt. Everest. I like planning celebrations - but I don't like surprises. I have been fortunate to have older women mentor me throughout my life. I am always on the lookout. I try to look for something good every day. I have several people with whom I have been friends for over 20 years.

So there we were. My son and I out for a driving lesson. The day before, we'd spent an hour or so practicing in a parking lot. Signalling. Shoulder checks. Turning left and right. Stopping. Starting. Getting into the right part of the lane instead of into oncoming traffic. We were ready. Out into traffic we ventured. Stopping at lights. Doing shoulder checks. Watching for vehicles and pedestrians. I guess I should have seen it coming. I'd travelled that way before many times. But I didn't. "Keep in the right lane son." I said pleasantly. "We'll keep in this lane down to our destination." In my mind I was thinking "The right lane has the least amount of hazards. We should be o.k. No shoulder checks or having to make it safely into a left lane". So he kept in the right lane. About that time, I remembered the the right lane was an EXIT only for the freeway. There wasn't time to change our minds. Suddenly, we were making our way onto the o...

I admit it. There are days when I do things that could be classified as rationale for sending me to the home. I'm not talking about my family home. I am referring to "the home". I say and do things that quite frankly scare me. The other day, I was at work and my co=worker was wearing brown cords. I looked at them and realized that we had matching pants. " Oh dear ", I thought to myself " now I am going to have to phone her if I want to wear my cords so that we don't look like we are in uniform ". (You have to understand that we were in a meeting at the time and it wasn't appropriate to find out whether we'd bought them at the same place. I saved that for later. I should have saved it all together. ) After the meeting, we went our separate ways before I could say anything to her about my thoughts about a potential uniform-type look we had. A bit later, she was walking down the hall. So I called out to her " Hey! You and I have matching...

I read others' blogs and I am amazed at the recipes complete with pictures that come up. Anyone who enjoys cooking is already on some sort of pedestal I will never reach as far as I'm concerned. Generally when it comes to making supper, I am trying to fit it in amongst all the other things I would rather be doing. Or perhaps it comes as an inconvenience because I am in the middle of some project that requires my full attention. Wednesday nights are one of the hardest nights for me to make supper. I promise I will not have the same schedule next year. For some silly reason, I booked myself into piano lessons until the early evening. That means that unless I am really organized, I am pretending to make some supper at 7 at night. (Not good. Usually it is reduced to "Hey, how does everyone feel about cereal tonight???") Well tonight folks, I'm glad to report that as the Latin books say "Veni, Vidi, Vici" ("I came, I saw, I conquered"). In the half ...

" The unthankful heart discovers no mercies; but let the thankful heart sweep through the day and, as the magnet finds the iron, so it will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings !" - Henry Ward Beecher- The dog was so worried that the scraps I was giving the cats were more interesting than what she was getting that she raced over there to eat theirs and left hers untouched. I guess we are all like that at times. So worried that we're going to miss out on something better that we don't even enjoy what we have. A couple of weeks ago in the kindergarten class, one little girl hadn't got anything for her 'goodie' bag from all the missionary displays we'd visited. So the teacher asked if anyone in the class would look through their bags and see if there wasn't something they could offer her. One little boy came to me very worried "I'd like to give her something from my bag, but I just CAN'T." I eventually told him that it was hi...

It all started because of Mother's Day. I wasn't going to. The weather is cold and more like November than May. I'd already had a full day of ferrying kids around and picking up their friends and stopping for ice cream for the whole van-load of them. I'd mixed in some poking around at garage sales and taken my adopted mom out for a Mother's Day treat. But then, my husband said he needed rabbit food anyway. So off we went to the plant store to buy some basket stuffers. After all, this is the weekend I traditionally go and get my plants! Those stores are dangerous. This particular one has aisles and aisles of annuals, perrenials, climbers, creepers, shrubs, bushes, grasses, and trees. I feel happy just wandering around, feeling the plants, smelling them, and soaking up the buzz of anticipation of all those shoppers taking home their choices to spruce up their living spaces. I can never get out of there without spending my wad. But I actually love it because the pay-of...

When I was eight and my older sister was ten, we had to live in an apartment for a summer. I think we lived on the 17 th floor. Whatever the floor was, it was really high up. And it was boring. Soooo o borrrriinnnnng . There was very little to do and nothing to do it with. We tried to entertain ourselves but it was very very hard. Anyway, one day, the Queen was coming to town. (Really, she was...not just a tall tale here folks). My mom said we could go and be a part of the crowd. Great excitement. We'd never been that close to royalty before. My sister and I were ready first, and ran down the hall to call for the elevator. That's about as exciting as our lives got that summer. Who would be there first to press the button? The elevator came. My mom and my other sister didn't. So we pressed the "ON" button to make the elevator wait. Then I did something really stupid. As we sat there waiting for the rest of the family, I pressed all the buttons from 17 down to 1. T...

I was watching Oprah the other day. She had David Blane on her show. He was going to perform a feat. He wanted to beat the record for holding your breath under water. The previous one was 16 minutes, 30 seconds or something crazy like that. He was lowered into the water and the timer began. After 17 minutes, 4.4 seconds, he came up for air. He now holds the Guiness World Record. I am gunning for my own Guiness World Record. For the last month, I have been performing a feat of my own breath-holding. My calendar filled up to the brim. I felt dizzy with the amount of activity and planning and implementation I had to do. And yet I couldn't come up for air . I cried out "Get me outta here!" But I had to hold on. April 30th arrived. Then May 1st took it's place. Suddenly, the timer went off and I had made it through to the end of my record-breaking month. Although no one gave me a standing ovation, which could have been disheartening, I came to the end of the month glad to ...

I love great solutions to every day dilemmas. You know those times when you suddenly find an "AHA" use for a tool, or a different place to put something that makes so much more sense than where you have had it for the last 12 years? Yep, that's what I'm talking about. There's something deliciously satisfying about enjoying the fact, that now, your ironing board and iron are on one hook in the closet where you keep your coats, because it makes more sense than fighting with it in the vacuum closet. I also love sharing solutions that I have found. You know - great products that work really well on mildew, or the fastest way to make spaghetti and meatballs, or the best place to go if you want professional printing. My sister who is just a little older than I has been the recipient of many of my 'great' ideas. She is very patient with me and allows me to go on and on about these great ideas I have happened upon. One time I decided that she didn't have th...

Suddenly, in the van one day, two quotes came to my mind. "JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN, DOESN'T MEAN YOU SHOULD". "JUST BECAUSE YOU DON'T FEEL LIKE IT, DOESN'T MEAN YOU SHOULDN'T."