the mud

Last week I said ‘So Long’ to what was my first class of my own students in a very long time.  The boys looked a little more nervous than excited about the summer awaiting them, not as confident as their fifth grade counterparts who knew what summer held for them.  The first graders have quickly forgotten what it’s like to be a child again for the summer.  The school routine quickly takes over their lives and they adjust and assume that this is what it means to be ‘big.’  It’s what we teach them from an early age – ‘ so big!’ we say with smiling faces and great anticipation, yearning for the time when they are so big and can do more things for themselves, can go to school, can tie their shoes, can write, can draw, can put their clothes on by themselves .  This is what we tell them, and this is what we tell ourselves.  That they will be big and that we will have five minutes of peace.  So the boys learn to be so big, doing and keeping cadence with a ...

For some odd reason, I really crave going to coffee shops.  I'm not some snobby know-it-all coffee barista or connoisseur.  It's not that I'm looking for an escape from home, although it is a good excuse not to do household chores.  It's not that I'm looking for friends or someone to talk to.  It's not the coffee that lures me in.  It's not the ambiance, although I do like a certain local shop for it's funky decor and art.  But really no, it's not that either.  I mean Dunkin Donuts does not have ambiance.  Starbucks tries, but there's bound to be trash on the floor, crumbs in the leather chairs, and someone talking a bit too loudly. When we went to Seattle, we bypassed the original Starbucks store, on our way to brunch at a place a little fancier.  On the way back we passed it again and were not about to wait an hour in line just to see the inside of a cute little shoebox of a store. No, not the ambiance.  Maybe the smell, no.  ...

There's a saying going around on the internet, I don't know what it's like to be a millionaire but I bet I'd be darling at it. It dates back to ? Kate Spade has a bag and a cuzi for your phone with it emblazoned on them. Well, gosh darn it, Duh. Don't you think we'd all be darling at it?  Really I would. About ninety percent of the people I know'd be darling at it. It's being darling at the hard stuff that counts. Like being a good mom. Or a homemaker. Or a cook. Or a wife. Or a coworker. Or a daughter. Or a sister. Or a skier. Or a skater. Or a seamstress. Or a whatever the hell you want to be. You see I tried to be darling this morning.  I woke up early to get my son ready for the Klondike derby for Boy Scouts.  I went in his room and quietly whispered to him that it was 6:20 and what would he most like for breakfast?  Anything. Pancakes? Waffles? (Even though the waffle iron is down the basement and the basement is really cold this morning.) A...

It's another cold winter morning in the Northeast, with more snow predicted!  That's fine by me.  I can handle one more wintery blast, although my toes would argue.  They are in their own permafrost.  We came across an old baby calendar a few weeks ago, mixed in somehow with the Christmas decorations, and I had written down funny things the kids said.  According to the calendar, Jay called it "Snow Bites" instead of frost bite.  That's how I feel, snowbites, on my toes.  All the time. Anyway, my surefire cure-all for snowbites is Cream of Wheat, that childhood comfort food like no other.  Morning, afternoon snack, or dinner, Cream of Wheat is so good.  Butter, honey, sugar, whatever.  The funny thing is that this is one of the few things I had in common with my brother.  He and I were very different in lots of ways, but Cream of Wheat was one of our strongest bonding points.  No one else in our family really liked it all that...

I'm learning to create slide shows using all kinds of Apple programs.  These are not the old slide shows from when I was small.  Countless Sunday evenings my grandmother would visit for dinner and my father would take out the old slide projector and line up each slide just right so that we could view and review the last few weeks of our lives again in pictures.  It was always so much fun.  I'll never forget my Uncle John's slide show when he photographed my Aunt Doris slicing a banana and then showed it in reverse order so that the banana went back together.  I was about 8 or 9 and I remember laughing so hard! These days slide shows are much easier to create.   Choose pictures, upload, set to music, edit, delete, and show.  My husband created a fantastic one from our California trip last year that we've watched over and over again.  It takes us back in time and gives us back those days if just for a moment.  We see the moments when we all po...

Back to Design!  How fun is that?  I wish I had a degree in design of some kind because it really is a science.   There is so much to know, so much to figure out, so much to SHOP FOR   (heeheeheehee;)!  So I've been all over, on line and in person, in stores and outlets, in warehouses and other people's basements!  It's kind of ridiculous.  But now the contractor is here and things are progressing... Here is the before shot and all the goodies that are going in...    for some reason I can't find the real before pictures.  I thought I took them to send in to Nate, but I can't find them now.  So these will have to do. First the floor inspiration!  (JK - these are the floors at the Phillies game.  Everyone who walks in this bathroom, says, "Wow these look like grass!  Look, the tile looks just like glass."  Now it has taken me years to get over the "Look,-there's-an-airplane" thing, that horrible ...

So just a little recap of our summer... Yes, there are EXACTLY four weeks left.  Four Tuesday mornings from now the kids will be back in school.  At least JJ and I will be.. the other kids get until Thursday.  LUU-cky!  I am going back soon too... well, more about that later. So what to do?  Plan your next four weeks - every single day.  What will you do?  It's entirely up to you.  I started my calendar last week and I still have some blanks to fill in but I'm going to accomplish as much as I can.  We have two days scheduled for Out and About Stuff, cleaning closets, shopping for floor tiles, etc., and two days of Away Stuff, going to the beach, going to Grounds for Sculpture, visiting Daddy at work for lunch, and one Home Day, wear pajamas all day and just do nothing, sweet-summery nothing.  Hopefully those coincide with the Rainy Days! If you don't know where to begin, look up your State Parks.  There are lots of things to do ou...