the mud

It's an atypical Saturday.   There is nothing on my to-do list, technically.  No place I have to be right now, no time crunch.  Or at least that's what I told myself yesterday and told my husband last night when we sat down to figure out our weekend.  And yet, it is 3:00 pm and it's the first time I sat down since 9:00 this morning.  I took one kid to the eye doctor, ran to the pharmacy, took clothes over to the clothing drive, made a return at target (ours really does have a little t), picked up a couple groceries, got gas, and returned a book to the library.  That was my nothing day.  And that doesn't include what I did at home, like cleaning the kitchen, doing the laundry, and packing for our trip tomorrow to take Jay back to school.  But that's what constitutes Nothing these days.  There were no baseball games, no crew regattas, or plays, or cross country meets, no major purchases to make, (next week we have to buy a storm door).  No parties to host, nothing to

Welcome back, welcome home, welcome in, you're welcome! Welcome, welcome, welcome.  Every September I put these words all over my classroom- on the door, in the halls, on their desks.  It has a ring to it: Welcome back.  Jay is home from college for fall break and of course we all say Welcome Home .  It has such meaning now that he is living somewhere else most of the year.  It's not something we say to just anyone, it is reserved for special people coming back to a special place. I recently opened a meditation entitled, "Welcome".  I wasn't sure what to expect, but what happened was definitely not something I expected.  I just thought it was some ordinary talk about getting back to what you loved maybe, or going back to a place like home.  Not at all.  The speaker invited you to think of the last time someone made you feel welcome, with a hug, or a greeting, or an offer of a cup of tea.  She said to think of the last time someone gave you that big warm welcoming

We keep a list in a drawer in the kitchen to add items that we need.  Not everyone uses it.  I try to remember to take it with me to the store, but more often than not it just sits in that drawer waiting for some attention.  Just like the reusable grocery bags I'm supposed to remember.  But now we need a new type of list.  The Un-grocery list.  Here's why.  We had, until yesterday, about 8 bottles of mustard.  Today we are down to 4.  There's a bottle of dijon, a bottle of brown, a bottle of honey, a bottle of grainy and bottle of something that looks kinda brown but just says Mustard, so make it 5.  Still a six-year supply.  We knew we had to do something, so my husband got rid of three bottles of the yellow.  It's not that we were purchasing mustard every time we went to the store - I blame it on the pretzel factory.  When you place a large order they give you a bottle, or 2 or 3.  Apparently we place a lot of large orders.  Now we know.  No more mustard.  And taking

I remember my mother saying to the five of us when we were young, "You just walked right by!" Usually it was a pair of shoes someone was looking for, or a book, or a paper.  If we were looking for something in the fridge, she would say, "Look with both hands!"  Usually that was my brother looking for the ketchup or something, and he would just stand in front of the fridge waiting for the ketchup to appear from behind the milk instead of moving the milk!  Or looking for socks in the sock basket, that definitely takes two hands.  Now I find myself, and of course it's very cliche, saying the same things my mother said.   You can't find the barbecue sauce, Look with both hands!  You can't find your backpack, You just walked right by!  You can't find the keys, You just walked right by!  And sometimes the kids say this to me too - MOM, You just walked right by!  (I can never seem to find my shoes- I never outgrew that.)  It's funny in our house because

Sometimes you want to get away and escape!  Just for fun, we can go shopping!  (I am not paid to advertise nor am I sponsoring any stores or products, I just felt like looking around for stuff I have seen or enjoyed... ) Here's a list of little surprises to help entertain you and help you entertain and enjoy the summer, whether you are headed to the beach or the mountains, to the swim club, or your own backyard:  (Trust me, I'm mostly just window shopping:)   Pineapple Matches  $5 - to light up (without those plastic torches) Blue Seaweed Wall Art  $36/4 - in case you have to stay inside one day Green Valley Kitchen Peach Feta Salad  $ - after you go peach picking! Aventurine  $298 - it's fun to have one new piece of jewelry Perfect Dress  $88 - I don't know where you couldn't wear this A Stay by a Lake  $300/night- we almost booked it for our trip to Indiana Folding Table  $125 - for iced tea, UNO,

I recently facilitated a workshop on Mindfulness.  Mindfulness is the practice of cultivating the art of being present, breathing, living, thinking in the moment.  It also has a lot to do with being available to the people we are with at a given time in a given place. I have been a student of mindfulness for about 12 years. When I walked into the room where I was to present, the table around which we would sit was far away from the computer screen, almost across the room.  The director offered to move the table closer to the screen for me, but I said no. I wanted space for us to move and sit and be separated from the technology pieces of the workshop. It worked. We all had space to sit and breathe and write and move back and forth.  We also had space to sit together when we were practicing our meditations. When it was time to share we all naturally gravitated toward the center of the floor where we could see each other and be closer. It is important to be “in person,” to be clo

Last week I drove to Indiana to pick up our oldest from his first year at college.  While I was driving, my youngest son served as co-pilot, offering me snacks, navigating the Waze app, teaching me Spanish, and generally keeping me focused and entertained at the same time.  It was a long drive.  We broke up the 680 mile drive by first driving to Youngstown, Ohio.  We left mid-afternoon on Thursday, before rush hour hit.  We were traveling west, tracking the path of the sun set.  The further we drove, the lighter it seemed to be.  Even by 8:00 the sun set still seemed to be far off.  The sun beckoned us on, assuring us of safety and hope and making it feel that it hadn't been six hours of driving in the car.  We had a nice cozy bed waiting for us somewhere - we just didn't know where. Thankfully the sun lit most of our trip no matter what time it was. The next day we woke easily and drove the remaining 6 hours to South Bend.  We never crossed the time zone line between Eastern

About 8 years ago, we found ourselves outgrowing our house.  We had four little children and a little Cape Cod with a big family room.  I had prayed for that little house "with small white beds up the stairs" but the time had come for a change.  The three boys were in one room with two bunk beds, a single bed, and one dresser.  And they were getting bigger.  And their clothes and their stuff were getting bigger too.  We needed another room.  We hired an architect.  He showed us plans with everything we had asked for.  We sent them out to contractors.  But no one quite knew where to put the heating ducts.  What?  No heat in the new room?  So we found another house.  A perfect house with four bedrooms and lots of old amenities.  Linoleum walls in the bathroom.  A light with a red swirly plastic cover over the fireplace.  Metal cabinets in the kitchen, circa 1950.  We moved in.  We gradually made changes. The first thing to go was the red light over the fireplace, plastic and al

We are all searching for guarantees.  The guarantee on shipping from our website order, the guarantee on the newly-purchased mattress, the guarantee that when we wake up the electricity will still be on, the guarantee that the weather will get nicer soon, the guarantee that my car will still be parked where I left when I get back, the guarantee of a healthy pregnancy, the guarantee of an easy child.  All the things we expect at the beginning of the day to go our way, the meeting, the conference call, the sales pitch, the ruling, the game, the score.  I see people searching for schools, looking for a guarantee that the choices they make, the selection of this school over that school, will guarantee that their child will thrive, be successful, and maybe happy.  They want the guarantee.  They expect it when they walk in, as if they were going to a car wash, that the car will be perfectly cleaned when it comes out the other end.  As if kicking the tires will guarantee the purchase they mak