the mud

We have been relaxing the past few days.  Sitting in pajamas, playing games, enjoying the light of the tree.  I am savoring every moment of Christmas bliss.  We have created an insular world of joy and peace and it feels good.  I won't check emails, I won't think about work, I won't think about the countless tasks that I put off and planned to get done over the Christmas break.  They don't seem so significant now.  I won't think about sad.  We are cocooning.  I remember after 9/11 having the same feeling.  My family had rented a house down the shore at the end of September, not knowing how much we would need it.  It was just before my brother's kidney transplant and we all needed to be together.  I remember feeling so safe and insulated against what had happened and what was to come.  Everything was happy there, the calm ocean, the quiet of a fall sun, and the lone squawk of seagulls no longer confused by the crowds of the beach, no longer drowned out by the s

Last week I was in two different Kindergarten classrooms during a Lockdown Drill.  It's always a little scary.  One student, after it was over, said, "I was so scared, and I was so brave."  I imagine the little ones in Newtown were very brave.  There are children who don't feel safe or brave right now.  I love the idea of Ann Curry's to do 26 Acts of Kindness, and am trying my best, but if you want to one thing more, I would kindly suggest that you visit  Donors Choose.  There are tons of teachers who are asking for some very basic supplies to make their classrooms more loving and nurturing learning environments.   You can see where your donation is going and what type of district it is.  A teacher asked her kindergartners this week to write letters to Santa.  Their wishes are so simple, yet so complex.  "I wish my daddy would come home,"  "I wish my mommy would get a house so she would be happy."  In memory of those in Newtown, and for

I have heard/seen reports that Newtown is taking down their Christmas decorations.  I beg them not to do it.  Newtown, you are precisely who Christmas is for.  Christmas is not just for the little children who believe in Santa Claus and presents and whose faces light up under the lights of the tree.  Christmas is for those who need to believe in hope and love and joy again.  Christmas is the greatest gift to grown-ups, the ones whose hearts are hurting the most. I know some grief.  I know that it would be easy to curl up and not be around this Christmas.  It's not going to be easy when you are missing someone who has been there every Christmas and who has brought joy and light to every Christmas celebration.  (One year my brother was not supposed to be home for Christmas.  He created this elaborate plan to surprise my mother.  His friend came to the door on Christmas Eve and asked for Austin.  My mom told him, sorry, Austin was not coming home this year... and Austin popped out

When I teach religion classes, I teach the children that our prayers are really just like magic words to God - the same magic words we say to everyone else, "Thank you", "Please", and "I'm sorry".  "I love you" is a prayer too.  But I've learned this week that saying I'm sorry is so much more profound.  I am so sorry for those families affected by the violence in Connecticut.  We mourn with those who mourn, we cry with those who cry, we pray with those who pray.  I can't imagine what the people of Newtown are going through. I don't know why or how or what to say. The only consolation I have is this, that in the time of great need we are lifted up.  I am so so sorry. On Friday morning I found myself in a little chapel for mass.  I hadn't planned to go.  It just happened.  The feast day was that of St. John of the Cross, and whatever your faith, there was an important lesson there that carried me through the news that

The other night in Dick's I hit the gift wrap jackpot:  BOXES!  I had asked for one box and they told me to take the whole case - they got their shipment late and had more boxes than they knew what to do with.  Being that it was ten o'clock at night on a Friday and no one else was around, another shopper and I loaded up with as many as we could carry, laughing all the way!  However, in North Face on Saturday, the clerk looked at me very accusingly when I asked for a box (for a winter coat, it had to be bigger.)  "WE are a GREEN store.  WE are trying to ELIMINATE waste."  Yes, I am an awful person because I use boxes to wrap gifts.  I tried to explain to her that I am trying to go green and so was going to wrap JUST the lid this year, so I can reuse them and not have to throw away paper on Christmas morning, and I started blabbering and blabbering about how I HATE trash too and I really am at least a LITTLE green and all that wrapping paper on Christmas morning just

The December calendar is practically full already and I don't see where I'm going to fit in baking or wrapping or even bathing, but I know it has to happen. On Christmas there will be presents and food and fun and the lights will all be hung and the stockings too, but right now there's a lot more work to do. And I still have to work work. But I think I'm going to take a Cookie Day, not a day off, not a sick day, just a Cookie Day. I'll be in my kitchen all day with the butter and the flour and the mixer and the radio turned up high enough that I can still hear it. I'll dance around the kitchen all day.  One of my earliest childhood memories is baking with my mother.  She used to bake in our grandmother's kitchen when I was very young, filling poinsettia-covered cookie tins with sprinkle cookies and sugar cookies. The cookie tins were stacked on a shelf of a built-in hutch in my grandmother's pantry, and given to guests and relatives at Christmas

Dear Austin, I can't believe it's been six months since you've been gone.  We miss you something fierce.  I hope you are content.  I bid you peace. There is so much to fill you in on, so much you have missed.  We have to catch up.  First, you'll be happy to know that Obama won the election.  I think I would have heard you yell from way over here if you had seen that election night.  It was pretty cool.  You'll also be happy to know that Avalon survived Hurricane Sandy.  It was a really bad storm in October that knocked out much of New Jersey and some of New York.  I'm sorry to say that Breezy did not do so well.  Lots of damage.  Remember when we drove up there to pick up Walt?  That was a great trip.  Didn't we go on to New England?  We drove all day and night it seems.  Is that when you bought that Yale sweatshirt that I "stole" from you?  I can't find it now, but I'm still looking.  I know you ripped the collar when it didn't fit

Today I threw away what is hopefully the last of the silly bands that began invading our house about 5 years ago.  It was right about this most wonderful time of year too, and I have to say that I was an accomplice in the crime.  I stood in line debating which pack of silly bands would be just right for each one of my children.  I was teaching in the classroom at the time and "the word" on the streets was that this was the hot toy for the year.  Every kid had to have at least one pack.  And so began the breaking and entering of the silly bands, for which I gladly held the door open.  It has been a long battle.  We moved once and were hoping to have completely rid ourselves of the invaders at that time, but apparently a few escaped us and quietly crept right into the new house.  I think I can finally put my feet up and say that I have won the battle and all silly bands are now where they rightly belong - in the trash.  The funny thing is, when the kids found them in their st

Mem Fox has this incredible book called Where is the Green Sheep?  It is one of my favorite read alouds for little kids and I still laugh every time I read it.   The phrase has to be said with a lot of emphasis too, "BUT Whhheeerree is the GGRREEENnnn sheep?" It is so fun to say.  I heard Lester Leminack talk about the book once, and with his slow Southern drawl and dramatic flair, he added another whole dimension to the reading.  I highly recommend it. The phrase has been echoing in my head lately.  You see, my brother drove a green jeep .  Not for long.  He had a white jeep that got wrecked and he quickly was able to find an old green jeep to replace it.  It was the perfect vehicle for him.  Big enough to carry his junk.  Cool enough to still be cool.  Old enough to look responsible.  Fun enough to go on ski   snowboard trips and camping trips.  He drove it to the shore.  He drove it to my house.  When I visited my mom, I would know he was around if I saw his Green Jeep.

When the book, Eat, Pray, Love came out a few years ago, there was much controversy on the authenticity of the author's experience.  Some people loved it, some people hated it.  Some found it phony.  I read it and I saw the movie.  I don't think I loved it or hated it.  It was just one person's experience and it had something to teach.  It resonated with me for reasons I can't remember now.   But I think it may have been because I could identify with her suffering, her searching. Why is it that with love comes suffering?  We love someone, we paint a picture of a future together where every Christmas, every Thanksgiving, every summer that person is part of the picture.  We build hopes and dreams of a future.  We invest in a life together, a relationship that is strong and steady, supportive and nurturing, or at least can sustain the winds of turmoil that creep into all our lives.  Then something happens and that picture is no longer complete. We try and try to color in

Raking leaves today, I felt my brother looking over my shoulder.  I was using the leaf blower and blowing the leaves west.  At the same time, the wind was blowing from the west and ruining my perfect curbside leaf piles.  I started laughing.  I could just feel my brother shaking his head and laughing, "You're so STOOpid!"  he would say, in his serious-frustrated-light-hearted way, that left you thinking you are kind of stupid to keep going at it, against the wind, but then I remember that I taught him everything he knows and I can't be that stoo-pid.  But I would continue doing just what I'd been doing, egging him on, but smiling.  "What, what's the matter?  I'm blowing the leaves!"  He would shake his head and walk away.  Or he would go into some long life-lesson-speech about how to use a leaf blower , and how power tools are to be in the hands of professionals, not weekend warriors.  (My son calls them WEAKened warriors, or are we weekend WORR

My new love in decorating is Barclay Butera.  I came across one of his books at a bookstore in Yardley last spring and I keep looking his stuff up on Pinterest.  I may need a twelve step program to get me off there.  It's really bad.   Anyway, Barclay's signature designs include lots of blue, lots of beach, lots of burlap, and he's not afraid to mix everything together.  Also lots of pillows that are plumpily fluffed, or fluffily plumped.  I just love this room!  I wish!  So simple, so lived in, yet so elegant.  I'm not spending any money, but he gave me lots of ideas.  (It makes it sound like I had lunch with him, which I didn't.  But if I'd known he was there when we were in California, I would've made my husband take me to his store!)  What I did learn is that I want to accentuate with pillows a bit more.   Here is what I did on my bed: Plain old pillow... Two ribbons... (I learned how to tie this from Runner's World...) Make an N

Imagine that you entered every relationship as if your life depended on it.  As if what you put in and took away from that relationship would keep you alive.  I am continuing to learn how special my brother was. I met friends of his the other night down the shore and it made me realize what it was that made him so special. Austin lived as if his life depended on other people. And it did. What if we all lived that way - as if our lives depended on the love we had for other people everyday.   Two stories: The other night I visited the bar where Austin used to work.  His picture hangs over the bar with a quote that he is now famous for:  "Dude, you've been waving me down for ten minutes, and now you don't even know what you want to drink and you're making this beautiful girl next to you wait - at least buy her a drink!"   We've analyzed this story so many ways.  On one hand, it seemed it was his temper coming through on a busy weekend bar shift.  But if y

An old boyfriend of mine way back in college once said to me, "I never want to feel that way again," after an argument we had.  The problem was that after that, we, or at least he, didn't feel much of anything.  Trying not to feel masks everything.  Later that same summer after the heart-breaking breakup, I went on a business trip with a friend and she had sage Jewish wisdom.  She said, "Aren't you glad you're feeling something!  That means you are human, you are alive!  Imagine life without feelings!"  And of course we can't. I went to the doctor a few weeks ago and they offered to prescribe something, but I think I'm okay.  I mean this is like, um, depressing.  So it's okay to feel a little depressed.   I'm glad I had my brother.  I wouldn't trade one minute with him to not have these feelings.   It's just hard.  It's painful.  But it's real.  I'm feeling something.  Not to feel would mean that I couldn't feel

My eldest son turns 14 today.  I am overwhelmed.  I feel like I am running out of time with him.  My favorite book about caring for children, The Baby Whisperer, which I have mentioned before, describes the day with a newborn this way:  E - eat, A - activity, S- sleep, Y - you.  The Y is when you take time for You, doing whatever it is to help yourself stay rejuvenated and energized to get ready for the next EAS.  The activity she suggested back in the day may only consist of a diaper change or a lullaby. Those sleep-pajamas-all-day days are long gone.  I used to sleep or make tea or watch tv or refinish furniture (Yes, really) during my Y time.  Between all of our kids, the household still functions on those basic steps.  Eat, activity, sleep, school, sports.  But if we do sit down to relax for a Y minute, inevitably someone realizes that their uniform isn't clean, or they have a spelling test tomorrow, or there is an urgent need for making cupcakes, or something else that force

This weekend a boy on my son’s baseball team hit an over-the-fence homerun.   It was so exciting.   Around every base he waved his arms and ran his heart out.   The smile and the disbelief grew on his face with each base he touched.   The team gathered at homeplate welcoming and congratulating him.   He must still be reeling from the feeling, still be feeling the ringing of the bat in his 11-year-old hands.   I can’t imagine that kid slept much last night.   I think I can say that I feel something of that emotion.   We finished.   We made it home and safe.    We rounded each base and touched down safely, checking off the miles and the sights.   We saw the most incredible scenery and the most incredible places.   We met really cool people along the way.   We experienced things I hope we never do again, felt things that we’ll never be able to fully express, and some that we’ll spend forever trying to replicate.   I hope we can someday, somehow.    Here is a list of where we went:

A few weeks ago as we anticipated the closing of the pool, the end of the summer, the beginning of our trip, my 13-year-old, who was floating around on the raft in the pool, said, "You know mom, I don't think I appreciate this enough.  I mean the whole summer has almost passed and I really don't appreciate it.  I think for the rest of the summer I'm just going to take it easy!"  Well, I really couldn't contain my laughter.  Really?  You are going to take it EASY?  I wanted to say.  You've slept past 10 every day, you have no job, no responsibility besides making your bed, and showing up for dinner and you are going to take it easy?  But I think what he meant was, "I'm going to take it all in."  That's the hard part.  Taking it all in. Here we are in the middle of the country and seeing all sorts of new things.  Learning new words, learning new people, learning new places.  Trying our best to take it all in.  But it is hard.   There's

Imagine.  Feet in the blocks.  Hands and fingers crisply stretched across the painted line of the track.  Heart loud.  Brain wired.  Eyes focused on the path ahead.  Adrenaline pumping.  Lungs deeply inhaling.  Anticipating the crack of the gun.  Run. No.  False start.  Back to the starting line.  Do it all over again.  I've never actually run a race on a track but I do know that when I'm in the corral for a 5K I'm all adrenaline.  It's an awesome, terrifying feeling.  You have to pace yourself.  You can't go out too fast using all that energy or you won't have any left for the end of the race.  It's all about mind over body.  You have to hold back a little.  We were all set to be far from here now. All set to be well into the race.  But it was a false start.  We are back in the corral waiting, anticipating.   We have a good place - a pillow top bed, a warm shower, a nice pool, a hot tub.  But if we wake up here again - if I see that same alarm clock - I

Thursday afternoon.  8 hours til departure.  The house has a quiet buzz to it.  The kids are 'napping'.  The phones, kindles, ipods, cameras, lanterns, airpumps, everything are all plugged in.  Everyone and everything is charging.  Charging up for an adventure.  The kids need those 'screens' as we call them, they are Digital Natives, a term I heard at a conference this summer.  To not take them would be like taking corn away from Native Americans.  They need them to communicate, to feel connected.  So we are packing them and charging them. I am baking.  The old fashioned stuff that keeps us charged.  Oatmeal cookies with chocolate chips, nuts, and honey.  No Raisins.   There are a minority who don't like raisins, so we give them preference.   We want to keep them happy.  So we are fully charged.  We've got trail food to keep us charged and we are on our way!