One Part Inspiration...

Those of you who read this blog regularly. might know that profound thoughts occur to me in the oddest places.  One of them is the dentist chair.  It is a spot where I am acutely aware of my surroundings - my senses are heightened.  It may be because my adrenalin is rushing through my body, ready for the fight or flight syndrome.  I will describe them in terms of the five senses for our purposes today.  Or " The Five Schlenches"  which is what I sounded like after three rounds of freezing. Sight:  My dentist`s office looks out (from half-way up the window because the bottom half is blocked out by etched glass) onto the freeway.  I found this strangely calming.  I allowed myself to be mesmerized by the off - ramps, the on-ramps, the small cars, the big cars, the semi-trucks. Mostly I just wished I was on that highway myself, rather than sitting in the chair waiting for my dentist to pronounce certain doom on my back molar. And then there i...

*A holiday isn't complete without plans to do a whole lot of nothing.  So do it.  Nothing.  That's right, N.O.T.H.I.N.G. *Make sure you have a room with a view.  A nice breeze blowing in the from the lake is a bonus for the evenings - no need for an air conditioner with the fresh air to lull you to sleep. *It's always nice to people watch, and dream about what life would be like if you had a private plane and a boat to take you away to the far island.  This costs next to nothing and there's no need for maintenance or extra insurance. *Take lots of walks along the pier. * Poke your nose into the shops and look at all the things you don't need to buy. *Take a 'walk-back' to pick up one or two things to remind you of your time away - not souvenirs because no one needs another fridge magnet, or spoon with the name of the place on it - but something you will enjoy using and remembering the lazy hazy days you spent pretending you had nothing...

Lately, I have been involved in a few projects, which have given me as much pleasure in creating, as in sending them to the intended recipients. One was a birthday package to my sister.  I don't know when I decided that since she was turning a big number, she needed a big present, but I had so much fun getting the present together, it didn't matter.  It took several weeks to amass a whole lot of little bits of 'nothings' to add to the gift.  I numbered each one, and put a little clue for her to guess what the package held. Then I put them in big box and put instructions on the inside of this card, making sure that she would see it first.  I had made arrangements for me and a few other family members to watch her open the presents via video-conference.  It was almost as good as being there -  A virtual birthday party.  I had a pile of fun watching her open the presents, and trying to remember what I had wrapped.  The last one was the real rea...

Today, I faced the amalgam giants.  I went to the dentist.  It was a date I had avoided.  I thought I had put it off for a couple years, but it turns out it was closer to three.  I know, I know. Shoulda woulda coulda.  But the thought of little tiny machines whose audio frequencies make dogs around the dental office howl, and the sensation of periodontal scalers and curettes digging around in my mouth was enough to stop me from picking up the phone and making the appointment for almost 36 months..  During that time, I had been ignoring intermittent pain in my jaw.  I managed it, but it didn't go away, and I knew that one day, I would have to break down and reacquaint myself with novocaine and flouride treatments.  That day was today. I was very nervous about it.  After I announced my arrival, I distracted myself by playing Word Mole on my phone while I waited. I tried not to imagine (somewhat unsuccessfully) how many times in t...

I have AAADD.  [Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder].  There.  I've said it.  Things pass through my head with surprising alacrity.  Like the impulse to reply to the email I just read. Sometimes I don't actually remember until the next month that I haven't done that yet.   Or taking out the bills and looking at due dates.  I have them all in one place.  Isn't that good enough?  Or phone messages.  I blame that one on the machine.  It just keeps taking them and I keep listening to them and then the light doesn't blink anymore and I forget about passing the message on.  It should keep blinking until I have picked up the phone and replied to the person who was wondering if I would bring a casserole to the pot luck on Sunday...last April. I never think " Oh I probably won't get to that ", but that's what happens.  In fact this is exactly what happened last night.  I was sitting in front of the comput...

It was a sunny September day.  I was enjoying a lunch with my  father-in-law.  The older kids were in school, and my baby was down for a nap.  It was quiet in the house except for the sound of our conversation.  And yet, every once in a while, I heard a crackling sound.  It was weird.  I wondered if wasps were trying to get through the roof again.  I looked around but saw nothing.  And then I heard it again.  I asked him what that sound was and he said he wasn’t sure.  We resumed eating.  But the sound became so insistent that we had to look for the source.  We looked out the window and found our answer. The barn, which he had been painstakingly taking apart and burning in the burn pile, had caught on fire. The flames were crackling,sizzling and hissing. The sky was ablaze.     It was impressive . We ran outside and pondered what to do.  I asked him if he wanted me to get the hose.  ...

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...

They are installing new water mains along our street.  The people are very pleasant, and when they see you are turning into your driveway, instead of continuing down the road, they make every effort to scale back the work and let you through. Since we have some room on our driveway, they have used it to dump loads of gravel, park huge excavators, and pile up pipes.  The other morning, I was pulling out of the driveway, and because there were so many workers and big machines to my left, I decided to turn right and go around all the construction. The sun was in my eyes, I was on a bit of an incline and the van sat a little higher than a car.  So,  I drove right into the large hole they had dug, in preparation to install the pipe.  CRUUUNNNNCCHH.  Having got myself into the hole, I realized quickly, that I also had to get myself out of the hole.  I avoided eye contact with anyone and CRUUNNCCHH drove out of the hole, and kept going.  ...

Recently we were invited to one of the young cousin's bridal shower.  I was honoured to be invited.  She made it easy on us, by registering at several different places.  So my mother-in-law and I set off to find the 'perfect gift' for her.  We looked at the list and narrowed down what we would buy. Eventually we decided on serving spoons/forks and placemats.  She bought the spoons and I bought the placemats.  I said that I would take care of wrapping them up.  On my way home, I decided to drop into the dollar store and see if there might be some pretty boxes - and I found this one.  I picked out the ribbon to co-ordinate with some of the colours I saw in the box.    I am not a terribly precise person when it comes to making gifts come alive in the wrapping.  This may surprise some, because I actually had a job as a wrapper for Birk's Jewellers when I was, just out of high school.  I look back on that ex...

The other night, it happened again. I did something stupid, and am bruised and battered. I can show you this one. But not the other four, because they are in impermissable places. They do have the most interesting shapes however, and have provided me with much entertainment as I have tried to find a comfortable way to sit, and lie down. I am rather prone to injury. I should accept that by now. But it never occurs to me in the heat of the moment, that my actions will result in disaster. I just think " Hey, look at that! I can skate backwards!" or " I will just show the youth pastor how to wrap my hand around this rope swing and swing over this gulley .", or " Why don't we just jump off this moving hay wagon and see what happens ", or " I'll just try and look really cool, as I slide down this bannister, while my school mates are watching ." This particular event happened when I was at a bridal shower. I don't want to go into details, b...

Sometimes we have a date night. And we always want to do something fun for a buck or two. So we have big discussions about our options. Not too long ago, it happened that we had a bonus date night. We were talking about what we should do that evening, over a nice cup of tea. I said I had planned to colour my hair. My husband asked if I wanted him to help me. I said sure, and then half-joking asked him if he wanted me to help him colour his hair too. To my surprise, he agreed. I usually buy the same colour - for consistency of results. However, because I am a magazine fan, and had kept seeing this other product consistently recommended on the " Best Colourer for your Buck " lists, I had bought that brand instead. I chose a colour which I thought was fairly close to the one I usually buy. It said " Dark Auburn ". We decided that since my husband's hair was so much shorter than mine, we should start on his first. I applied the colour and started the timer. It didn...

I am fortunate. Most of my days are spent doing things I enjoy. I am truly, very blessed. So I feel a little bad about complaining about the 'time change day'. But I'm going to anyway. For some reason, I have a very hard time changing up my body clock in the fall. The spring is not so bad. But the fall? It gets me every year, no matter what I try. This year, I gave it another go. I started by turning the clocks ahead almost 12 hours ahead of time. I made a late supper, which was actally a regular hour supper according to what would happen the next day. I went to bed according to the new time. But then I woke up every hour on the hour after that, wondering if I'd slept in, and how many more hours it would be dark and if I would truly be able to get myself up at the new time. I had to teach Sunday School, so finally I looked at my cell-phone to see what time it was. It was 6:42 a.m. I had to be at church at 8:30 a.m. I wasn't quite finished my preparatio...

One cold night, as an Arab sat in his tent, a camel gently thrust his nose under the flap and looked in. "Master," he said, "let me put my nose in your tent. It's cold and stormy out here." "By all means," said the Arab, "and welcome" as he turned over and went to sleep. It started innocently enough. My mother-in-law called me before we moved and said "If you need a place to stay, while all that drywall is going in, please feel free to come to the farm." I kept it in the back of my mind. Close to the day of moving, I realized that option would be a good one for me. My husband was happy to stay out at The Pokeaway, but I thought better of trying to camp without a running toilet. So I just took my toothbrush with me, and arrived at the farm, thinking it would be just a night or two. A little later the Arab awoke to find that the camel had not only put his nose in the tent but his head and neck also. The camel, who had been turning his...

Every once in a while, I get to be a guest. One of these occasions was on a trip that my sister and I made to visit some very good friends of hers. Although they didn't know me well, they made me feel very welcome. Our hosts had a spare bedroom that my sister and I shared. The second night we were there, the security alarm woke my sister up. She got up to find out what it was. I woke up because she woke up. Together, we listened to it's soft beep. Every ten seconds or so, it would sound. It was soft enough not to wake anyone else up, but loud enough that neither of us could go back to sleep. We talked quietly about what our options were. Finally, I suggested that she go and wake up our hosts because we didn't know if it was something that was a security issue or not. I would have done it, but they were her friends and I thought she'd have better luck. (Besides, I usually try to send her to do the dirty work) So off she padded down the hall to their room. She stood at th...

As they say in the outhouse, 'things have been piling up'. I have been in an increasing state of "I- must- remembers" and "Oh -man,- I -forgots". So yesterday, I got out my little black book and started writing. I wrote down everything I could think of, which needed to be done, everything I was panicking about, and everything which needed an answer, even though I couldn't find one. I thought listing it out might help me clarify some of the uneasiness I've been experiencing over the things that I need to get done, the things I wish I could control, and any upcoming additions I would have to slot into my schedule. Amazingly, it helped me to find some calm. Every time I thought of something, I wrote it down. By the end of the day, the page was full. And I was even able to cross a few things off the list. This made me feel like I'd accomplished something. And having the others written down, allowed me a bit more confidence that I would be able to han...

5:45: Wake up to cell phone signalling it's low on battery. 5:46: Get up to look for cell phone. Know it's in the purse; but purse is not where it should be due to large project son was working on for the school banquet = I couldn't walk there with all that Styrofoam and glue. Find purse, fetch charger, and plug in phone. 5:48: Step into shower. 5:58: Go wake up son, in spite of my best intentions not to. He has an early morning leadership class. 6:00: Sit at computer and update myself on all the non-essentials of Facebook. It's still fun to find out what people are doing, even though they live far away. 6:19: Open up blog and head to dashboard to read other people's blog. 6:30: Blog. 6:35: Load son's project into van. Try to figure out how to get the project into van without bending Styrofoam and breaking it - mumble something about "What were they thinking, buying such a big piece to begin with". 6:50: Return from dropping off son and Sty...

I'm sitting here wondering how much work I could get out of by telling them I had two shots today. A twofer. The Hiny (H1N1) and the Flu shot. I feel like I've been punched in each shoulder by a well-meaning relative. Maybe I can get out of vacuuming, and dishes,....it might be stretching it to ask to get out of making dinner. Although it's worth a shot. Ha ha. I think the needle affected my brain too.Peace. Out.

Ladies and Gentlemen!!! "In this corner, Marni, who is weary and ready to go to bed. In this corner, Sleep Evasion, who is up for the fight." [Marni has had a long day. She has gotten up early, worked hard, attended a soccer game, (where she was chilled to the bone), and then returned home to get a few chores done, before running out the door again, to help her husband and children in their quest to become human bulldozers. Sleep Evasion waits in the other corner. He looks innocent enough, but he is a wily opponent.] Round 1: Ding. After a late supper, Marni stumbles upstairs and falls into bed. She flips on a movie. Soon, it's too hard to keep her eyes open. Ahh.... precious sleep. Round 1 to Marni. Round 2. Ding. The corner man shouts out to Sleep Evasion that Marni's defences are down. She thinks she is out for the night. "Go get her", the corner man advises. Sleep Evasion delivers a sucker punch - husband crawls into bed and takes the covers. Marni wak...

“No person who can read is ever successful at cleaning out an attic.” ~Ann Landers~ These days before moving, I am faced with many decisions about what to keep, and what to throw away. I am tempted to leave it all in piles and thumb through them another time. The other day, we went through the dining room . For three hours we went about packing away all the good china, the bowls and the platters - some of them wedding presents - along with any knick knacks that would fit into the boxes. I found myself wondering how long it would be before I would see them again. I rescued a few for the boxes to be immediately unpacked, once we arrive. They will take part in making our next house more homey. The rest I bid a -Fond farewell -- auf Wie·der·seh·en - Until we meet again - So long, it's been good to know ya. Later on in the week, I made the big decision to take a load to the local charity. These were mainly garage sale remnants, -the ones we unsuccessfully tried to sell on that fateful...

My aunt had an oil painting in her living room. The scene was reminiscent of the era in which Scarlett O'Hara lived. In the painting, was a living (great?) room with a grand piano . Two young ladies -one playing the piano, and the other looking down from the balcony also graced the picture. There was a winding staircase, and at the top of the staircase there were doors to rooms. I spent hours looking at it, wondering about the stories that house held. Were the ladies in the picture sisters? What was behind those doors upstairs? Pictures contain stories. They are frozen in time, and the viewer must use visual clues to find the tale. I have told you all this, to say that for Mother's Day, I asked for a family portrait to be taken. There will be no winding staircase in this photo, but I guarantee you, there will be a story behind the photo(s). Even without the photographer showing up, getting our family picture has a history. We have not had a professionally photographed family pi...