One Part Inspiration...

Say you were going to have a baby shower and you were in charge of games.  Say you didn't quite know how they would all go.  It might be a good idea to try out the games on your husband and a couple of dinner guests to see what you might need for the shower. There are advantages to having your husband play the games that women usually play.  For one thing, husbands are very analytical, and can give you all sorts of  pointers on how to run the game more efficiently.  For another thing, you get a perspective on the games that would never have occurred to you in a million years.  And thirdly, it's a fun way to spend an evening with friends - to find out sides of them you never knew existed. Say one of the games was to try and guess the prices of baby items.  This game, played in mixed company would make the woman-friend feel very good about herself because the men would grossly overestimate the cost of the items.  For instance:  a jar of ...

I was going to write tonight.  But it just felt like too much thinking.  So I got distracted and started reading posts from other years about Christmas.  I have entertained myself for about an hour this way. "Oh yeah! That memory!" "I forgot about that.  That was a good one!" "Sniff" "LOL" And now, I am going to bed.  With visions of sugar plums dancing in my head.  I will be more diligent about a Christmas post another day.

Today I decided to write a post and went to my 'Drafts folder'.  I perused the various options for topics which I started and never finished.  Of all the choices, "Fitness" caught my eye.   I decided I would edit and then post all my wise thoughts on Fitness.  [It might be worth mentioning that I  started this post over a year ago]  I pressed "EDIT" and found the body of the post was empty. Maybe it's just my cracked sense of humour but I found it quite amusing that I had written N.O.T.H.I.N.G. on Fitness. What doesthatsayaboutmythoughtson fitness? That I have none?  That I am so motivated to become fit, I simply cannot find the time to blog about it? I tend to find more enjoyment in talking about other things? That I can no longer remember what I was going to say about fitness?  (Probably closest) So I start again. When I was in high school, I obsessed over my diet.  My diary was filled with a list of food I ...

Sometimes you have to think inside the box, and imagine it to be a different box. Case in point: In a bid to have my newly-minted silverware drawer more organized, I stopped at Ikea the other day to find a product which they carry. My new silverware drawer is bigger than the individual boxes I had been keeping the silverware in and I was finding that they were sliding all over the drawer.  I didn't want an old-fashioned silverware holder because I needed to store more items in it than the slots had room for.   I know this is a First-World problem, but it was frustrating to continually put the little boxes close to the front of the drawer, knowing they would slip to the back of the drawer as soon as I closed it.  I tried to use other items to stop the slide, but the items were not big enough.   What I needed was another one of theseexpandable sets so I could put all my ecoutrements inside and know they would stay in place.   Sounds easy enough, r...

Since it is the beginning of November, I decided that it would be a good time to roll out a new look for the living room.  This began as a routine, vacuuming job.  Suddenly, I was inspired by the spider's web hanging in the corner, to move the end table. I vacuumed behind it and began looking with  a critical eye at my layout.  Perhaps I could move the Futon over to where the couch was and vice versa.  My husband smiled and said I could do whatever I wanted.  He could already see (I saw it in his eyes) that this plan would be an epic fail.  It was.  The Futon and the love seat are not the same depth.   However, I did manage to move the couch to the other side of the room [having recruited my accomodating son #2]  and leave the Futon in the same place (but not before removing more spider's webs and dust from the summer).  The other two chairs now sit in the other corner and are waiting removal when the Christmas tree comes i...

It takes a village to marry off your daughter.  It takes friends and loved ones to volunteer to offer to host showers. It takes friends and loved ones to attend the shower(s) and join in the fun and games; to bring snacks, and gifts and spend time celebrating the upcoming nuptials. Marrying off your daughter requires input from friends to decide on the flowers, and then further, let themselves be talked into shopping for the ribbons, and wire.... and then going the extra mile (or a thousand) to agree to make all the corsages, boutonnieres, and arrangements for the sanctuary. The village of people who come together to marry off your daughter includes friends who offer their beautiful garden of flowers for the pickin' so the arrangements will be one-of-a-kind and oh-so-beautiful. It means that friends agree to get up early and wear matching boots to pick those flowers on a 'just-after-the-rain' morning. It calls for friends to go to a big-box store a...

The question of the day was " What One Word Describes Your Life Today ?"  My response was immediate. "FLUX". For the first time, I am not able to anticipate the rhythm of family life.  One day, the boys are home. The next they are not.  My daughter is  adjusting to married life, and checks in occasionally, but not predictably. My days have gone from keeping a"Mom's Calendar" -where I had to monitor everyone's schedules and keep track of which child I dropped off where and when- to hoping that the kids will lock up after they get home, because I have gone to bed long before they arrive home for the night.  Sometimes I don't catch sight of them for a few days.  I only know they have been home because there are dishes waiting to be stacked in the dishwasher. It is a very weird and wonderful place to be in.  If I want to pick up and go, I can.  My husband and I do not have to plan ahead to go on dates.  We can just spontaneously ask each...