One Part Inspiration...

They went camping. The boys. Just the boys. Vague invitations were issued,....But I read the signs, and decided to give them the freedom to be boys, without mom peering over their shoulder worrying about how close they were to the fire, or mentioning in just a bit of a panicky voice that the edge of the cliff was just a half step away. I did help them get their gear together. (Make that the food). They packed the rest of it in the truck and the trailer and off they went. They waved goodbye and tried to make it seem like I would be missed. However, once they were on the road, I knew there was nothing stopping them from 'wahooing' and 'high-fiving' their opportunity to get a taste of the open country they love. I waved too, and then went inside and 'wahooed' and 'high fived' myself, and began a 'Mom's Weekend Off'. I made a pretence of going to town to do 'errands'. Once there, I wandered over to and used my gift card to en...

A victory party was held today. A large celebration, an elaborate display. Crowds had cheered loud, urging her on, She shouted "hurrah" as she burst upon, The finish line. The end of the race. She saw pride written on her Coach's face She'd run it well; she'd fought the fight. A "Well done" received would be her delight. Arms opened wide, and face to the Son, She claimed the prize for which she'd run.

On the reason why I don't take risks. I usually get hurt. Like the time my friend and I decided to jump off the moving hay wagon and walk the rest of the way. I paid for that with a broken rib and a bruised ego. Like the time I decided to conquer the water slides. As I went down the second one, I felt myself flying down out of control and put my arm out to slow my progress, which resulted in a muscle wrench so strong, I could hardly breathe for three weeks. Like the time I decided to be a kid again and sail down the ramp while 'riding' the grocery cart. I ended up with a bruise in the middle of my stomach which exactly matched the shape of the coin drop in the cart. Like the time I thought I'd be a smart Alec and take the car out of gear when my sister got out to talk to her husband. The car very nearly missed the tree. I have now added the dangerous job of vacuuming to the list of 'risky business'. For the second straight year I have a broken toe [albeit a dif...

"stop world i want to get off. " my mom used to say this, in moments when life threatened to steamroller over her. today i am echoing the sentiment. summer is drawing to a close. decisions have to be made about school, and work, and soccer, and life guard lessons, and driving tests, and guitar instruction. clothes need to be bought . shoes need replacing. groceries occupy daily thought, with two boys returned from camp. stuff has to be sorted. boxes have to be packed. tidying up the farm has to be done. renovations loom. summer-time decisions seem so much simpler . stop world. i want to get off.

Two months before: Realize you have a lot of stuff. Decide that instead of boxing and bagging it up for the local charity group, you will collect it into a 'garage sale pile'. Do this off and on for two months, until you can hardly walk around the collection room without tripping over large bits of nothing. One month before: Announce to your friends you have picked a date. Change the date a few times because your son suggests waiting until he gets back from his summer work assignment. One week before: Remind yourself a million times to put the ad in the paper. Call the paper and inquire what the cost will be. Keep that number in mind, so all profits are calculated appropriately. Buy ad. Begin the arduous task of taking all the stuff from the collection room up to another collection area, to be sorted and priced at a later date. Keep looking around the house to find more things you might as well put in - since you're doing this anyway. Day before: Ask husband for the ...

Last week, I was doing a program on " Changes ". For the music portion, we took familiar songs, and changed up a word or two, or sometimes the whole song, just for fun. One of the songs was " Bring Back My Bonnie To Me ". I asked the group for ideas of something that perhaps they had lost, that they would like to have back. To help them along, I said " Bring back my __________ " with a big pause. People called out things like " family ", " good health ". We wrote them up on the board so that we could remember what they were and then added them into the chorus. I asked for another suggestion, and one man called out " Bring back my tape measure ". I guess his sons had gotten into his tool box! He was on a roll that day, because the next song we changed up was " Let Me Call You Sweethear t". I lined out "Let me call you _________". The group members responded with words like " honey ", and ...

This is a project I started more than a year ago. When we got married, my mother-in-law-to-be gave me this small binder. In it, she had transcribed recipes which she used in her kitchen. I thought it was the best gift. Very personal. She had dividers in it to categorize the recipes. I have used it often, and transcribed my own recipes into it. Well, I have to say, that some of the recipes I only used once or twice, but still, the book became one of my 'go-to' books when I was trying to come up with something that had a vague resemblance to a meal or a dessert. The book has begun to show signs of wear though, especially in the past two or three years (cookie dough being dropped on it, writing smudged from thumbing through it). The size and the shape of this binder also meant I had to put it into the shelf sideways to get it in. Although I'm not obsessive-compulsive, I did notice it every time I tried to put it into the shelf, that I had to turn it. I have a couple of other b...

What would you put in a magazine for moms? Here's a few ideas of my own: Less is (definitely) More - a guide for busy moms to make the most of their down time without cashing in for it a guilt trip later. Spilled Milk and Spoiled Attitudes- written to remind moms not to major on the minors. Jiffy Dinners - ideas for full meals prepared in ten minutes with thirty minutes bake time so moms can blog about thier ideas for a magazine. Spit Spot - Fast and furious cleaning solutions Rent a Gramma - Ideas for intergenerational connections for children who don't have relatives nearby. Pathways- Helping young adult children make their way into independence.

I went outside one day a few weeks ago and discovered this was a compressor tree. I have been watching it ever since to see what kind of fruit it would bear. This weekend, the fruit was ripe. And there was a lot more fruit on it than I had seen at first. I've never had a compressor tree before. I wonder what kind of jam it will make?

It was early in the morning. I had a few errands to complete before I returned home. One of them was to stop at a local grocery store, to return pop bottles. Where I live, recycling pop bottles and cans, means getting money back. Sometimes it's just enough to stop for a Slushie; other times, it fills the tank with a wee bit of gas. The store has a fun machine. If you put your can/bottle in the machine, it sucks it in like a vacuum and automatically calculates how many you've put in. Afterward, the big green button, when pressed, produces a receipt to take up to customer service to get the money in your hot little hand. I had a garbage bag full of returnables. The only problem was, that there was a big sign saying "24 can limit". I decided to take my chances and ask if I could bring them all in. Perhaps because it was early in the morning, the manager felt kindly toward me, and told me I could do the bag's worth, rather than coming back later. So I opened...

You'd think, by looking at my house, that I have had no time to 'get to it'. However, the opposite is true. I just haven't 'got to it'. This week has been one of celebration - with more socializing than I have done in a very long time. The remnants are everywhere. Flowers, and gift bags litter the table and counters. The picnic bag is sitting, waiting to be emptied. The answering machine is full of well-wishes from some of my favorite people. I have been wined and dined at various local establishments. The leftovers sustained me for several meals afterward. I love my birthday week!.

What a lovely day for a get-away. We drove for an hour and arrived here. It is on the ocean, but it looks like a big lake because it is so sheltered. There are kayaking lessons offered to young enthusiasts. We watched them practice their techniques. We looked at the houses overlooking the spectacular view and decided which one(s) we would buy with our left-over millions. We watched people walking on the dock (of the bay). We watched the kids who were brave enough to go in the water. Some of them dived right in and others walked in gingerly, with their arms out as if they were ready to fly, if it got unbearably cold. We listened to the birds, shooed away the wasps, and watched the otter swim. All this, while enjoying a picnic lunch - BBQ chicken, grapes, peaches (from our tree), tomatoes, topped off with Reisens chocolate caramels. Oh, and a hot cup of tea, (in real mugs) compliments of the thermos which keeps everything piping hot for hours. After chatting for a few hours, we went up...

"The rainy days a man saves for usually seem to arrive during his vacation." ~Author Unknow n We were going to go to Hawaii. But we bought the house. The vacation choice has become this: We are going to sit in the house and look at the driveway, and when we tire of that, we are going to sit in the driveway and look at the house. "The alternative to a vacation is to stay home and tip every third person you see." ~Author Unknown When I realized that we wouldn't be traveling, I decided to change up my holidays for the month. I am taking a day here and there, rather than all at once. I work part time, so it has been easy to get a block of time; not just drips and drops of holidays. 'A vacation trip is one-third pleasure, fondly remembered, and two-thirds aggravation, entirely forgotten." ~Robert Brault Last week, I took Wednesday off. There was a holiday Monday attached to the week so that gave me all but Friday. This week, I took Wednesday off. W...

I spent two days of my week going through paper. That's what I get for putting "Clean up office" on my list. I started by going through all the paper that has been thrown onto the "company's-coming-better-make-this-disappear-pile" on my desk for the last month. Then I moved onto the file drawers. One of my fav orite tools got c onscripted to work it's little heart out: The PAPER SHREDDER!! I love that thing. I felt so free as I listened to the whir of that motor crunching and munching it's way through the useless paper I have stockpiled for all these months and years. I'm not the only one who will benefit. The recycle guy might even issue me an award for the bags of shredded paper. It would have to be a recyclable award. I don't even miss the paper. I can't remember what I've shredded. I'm sure there's a metaphor for life somewhere in there.... I was inspired by all the space I had created in my file draw...

We didn't buy the head-basher house. We bought the first acreage we saw. I realize that sounds a little weird. "We just up and bought the first acreage we saw. " In actuality, it was a longer journey than that, but we came back to this place and decided we could make something of it. Some of you have asked if there are pictures of it. Well, no. Actually, yes. However, my husband has them on his camera. He keeps his camera at work, so I have no visual documentation of it. So I'm going to describe it to you so you can imagine how exciting this journey will be for us. First, go around to the back of the house to start. Imagine a hallway. That's the entrance. There's a laundry room there too. Right now, it has laminate flooring which has been put right over linoleum. How do I know that? Well, the linoleum borders the laminate. Guess they ran out. From there, we go to the kitchen. Stretch your arms. Finger tip to finger tip. That's about how b...

The real estate agent had arranged for us to see five places on that day of acreage hunting. We looked at the first two in short succession. The visits were not long. Basically we were just interested in seeing what was available in our price range. All of them were very small, but they boasted of great things. We saw the first two places in quick succession. We were at the third place longer. It wasn't that we fell in love with the place. It just took longer to extricate ourselves from the event that took place. On the real estate advertisement, we saw that it said there were three bedrooms. Three bedrooms would work better for our family. We walked into the house and right away we were in the kitchen. We took some time to check out the cupboards and the dishwasher, and the sub-compactor. Then we moved into the living room area. What was interesting was the "office" at the end of the living room. It actually was the entrance, but they had blocked the door an...

This week has been a wild ride. A ride, which felt at times, as if we were in an airplane spiraling downwards, only for the controls to be righted at the last minute. I had been prepared for some turbulence, but I certainly wasn't expecting to feel like I was in the passenger's seat of the Snow Birds or the Blue Angels. Spinning, then climbing at Mach 3, then plunging just as quickly, so that one could almost count the blades of grass on the ground. Well, now the plane has come in for landing. I'm leaving my seat belt on until the light goes off. Until then, there may be some unexpected stops. I know for sure that my luggage has shifted and I'll be careful when I open the overhead bins, so it doesn't fall on my head! I have gotten ahead of myself somewhat. Let me start the story back aways. Last year at this time, we looked at the housing market and despaired we might never be able to get back in. [O.k. honestly, I believe it was me who despaired - my husb...