One Part Inspiration...

“One of the secrets of a happy life is continuous small treats.”― Iris Murdoch Small treats do give me much pleasure.   Last week, I went shopping, while waiting for the soccer player to finish his practice.  With the gift card I received for my birthday, and a 50% discount, I bought me some boots for my wardrobe. The last pair I had, were a full size too big for me. These fit me perfectly and I am actually looking forward to wearing skirts to show them off. Or maybe I'll pair them with jeans and swish into the room. I could put on my best pair of dress pants and sashay into work. So many options. It almost makes me want to go to bed early, so I can get up and put on my boots.  I also went garage saleing. This is not an exact art. It requires an open mind, and no sense of direction. Fortunately, I excel in 'no sense of direction' and I'm pretty good at having an open mind - years of garage saleing has taught me that. It's best to have a ru...

I didn't realize it when I started, but being a mother means belonging to a series of clubs.  Some of these are formally organized; others are ad hoc. Membership is mandatory, but there are no life-time affiliates.  Mothers move through the clubs in parallel motion to their childrens' development.  Once they have left one club, they are no longer invited to be in the previous ones.  It is a harsh reality.   The first one is called " Mother of Infants and Babies ". This club is filled with bleary-eyed women, who compare notes on sleeping (or not) patterns, teething, potty training, and feeding schedules.  There is a fair amount of competition in this club.  When other members casually mention that their child slept through the night at 3 days, and was potty trained by ten months, it is easy to feel sub-standard.  This results in a mad scramble around in a now-mushy brain [beca...

In two weeks, we will have spent four seasons in the house.  In one week, we mark the second anniversary of our first look into what lay ahead.  I had NO idea.  My husband did.  I mistakenly thought we would bash a few walls about and then re-drywall and paint.  He looked at it and with a designer mind said "See this roof???  GONE".  "See this wall?  GONE."  See this front door??  GONE.".  So we walked into the livingroom which is what you see on the left, and within months, the fake brick wall was removed, the wall with the ugly wall paper came down, and the guts for a new, improved house began to be placed.  The living room on the right, is where we sit now.  There have been more changes since this picture was taken.  And there are more to come.  One day, the wood floor will be refinished.  And my steam floor cleaner will be busy keeping it clean.  When we first took a look at the house, one ...

tour·ist noun \ ˈ t u̇ r-ist\ one that makes a tour for pleasure or culture (Miriam/Webster)  The other day I had an unexpected adventure.  A friend from work and I signed up to do a little project together for an upcoming birthday. We agreed to meet half way so neither of us had to drive to the other's town.  Neither of us had spent much time in this little town, even though it was close to where we lived.  We felt like tourists.  First we wandered into the town thrift store to see what we could see. We wandered through two aisles (that's all there was) perusing the bits and pieces.  She bought some succulents for her garden. That reminded us we were a little hungry, and since it was lunch time, we went a little deli that served up lunches, and then made our way to the local park and set up at a picnic table. I brought my computer to take minutes, but had no luck trying to hook up to WiFi.  Suddenly she had a good idea...

I don't know why I always am shocked by the beginning of school.  I attended school for 15 years.  I have seen 15 starts of school for my children. You'd think that I would know the drill. Still, I find myself dumbfounded at the pace that is set. It starts with schedules and ends with money.  First of all it's the schedules:  Bus schedules.  Class schedules.  Sports schedules.  Choir schedules.  Music lessons.  On and on.  And it compounds - depending on how many marbles are rolling around in the can.  In our case, that would be five - less- two this year.  I am always relieved when someone has the good sense to say - "Let's start (insert name of program) but not next month after everyone gets settled in school."    Yes, let's do that.  In fact, why don't we wait for another month after that?! And then there is the money.  I think that at the beginning of September, all  parents should ...

A couple weeks ago, on a Sunday, my husband and I were trying to decide what to do for the afternoon.  It was a hot and sunny day.  We thought of going for a bike ride, but our son had already commandeered the bikes.  So instead, we hopped in the truck and headed out to see where the day would take us.  We ended up at "Granny and Grumpa's".  This is a place we had heard about from a variety of people.  It's the stuff of legends.  " They have sooo much stuff; they might sell it to you, they might not ".  " There are no prices on anything.  You have to negotiate with them on their terms ." "It's amazing ." We knew it was fairly close to The Pokeaway.  Still it was a surprise to find it just down the road, make a left and then another left.  We spent several hours perusing their barns.  There was a sign that struck me funny posted on the first barn:  " We buy junk, and sell antiques " ...

Summer has come to an end.  At least the school holiday has. The weather seems reticient to let go of  vacation mode.  I concur. Who wants to return to schedules? Who wants to shoulder the backpacks? Is anyone actually interested in active and passive voice, direct and indirect objects, or compound and complex sentences? Does anyone really care about absolute values or distributive properties? Is there an absolute need to expound on the effects of common diseases in 19th century London, or wax eloquent on the relative bouyancy of supermarket eggs? Couldn't we just hang out for a few more days and watch the sun rise and the sun set while enjoying pancake breakfasts and BBQ's on the back deck?

While we were on our family holiday, my husband and I had a big discussion about creating memories for our families.  I was conscious of how much money we were going through to live away from home for a few days.  My husband had a different perspective.  He said to me that when we went home, he wanted to look back at the experience and have some memories of what we did as a family, other than attend the wedding - which is what we had originally made the trip for. Once decided we were going to have to spend more money to make this happen, I settled into the job of finding out what we should do.  This took a while.  Our family has an overwhelming need to research EVERY possiblity in the tourist book we got from the restaurant where we ate breakfast.  Bungee jumping.  Parasailing.  Dinner cruise.  Bowling.   Each suggestion was met with a variety of interest levels.  Some were very ...

A few weeks ago, we passed another milestone.  My #2 son graduated into the world of driving.  This marks my last foray into the world of instructing my kids to become defenSiVe!!! drivers. Although I have had a lot of experieince in this area, it never gets old.  New drivers have a perfect mix of trepidation and impertinence. They can cause an instantaneous rise in blood pressure and inability to form a complete sentence in the person who is now relegated to the passenger's seat.                                              Being a driving instructor causes me to have a split personality.  I alternate between being as calm as a boat in a windless sea, and frantic as a... as a.... well, as a mom locked in a min...

I am so  fortunate.  I have people in my life, who will spontaneously agree to head to the beach for the day, rather than spending the day catching up on chores.  Originally, we thought we would go to the sailboats' beach, but taking into consideration that it was a long weekend Friday, and everyone in town would be trying to get out, we decided to go the road 'less travelled' and ended up here instead.  It was a drop-dead gorgeous day.  The ocean breeze breathed new life into us as we gazed out at the water, taking in the sights.  I said I thought it would be a cool project to choose a spot on the beach and take still shots of the same spot for several hours.  Each one becomes a moving vignette of people coming to enjoy the day, with their buckets and boards and shell-seeking agendas.  It was shortly after our arrival, that we decided to eat. Each mom brought out their provisions and everyone shared in the bounty.  She brought all the he...