Borrowing Good Ideas

Posted on May 9, 2012 by Grace

Reading.  I have been reading.

Blue Nights, by Joan Didion, is a memoir about the death of her adult daughter.  But it’s not heartbreaking and it’s not strictly about her daughter.  Much of the focus is on Joan and process – the remembering, grieving, and aging process.  It is a well-crafted book in which every detail counts.  I even thought the photograph on the back cover was memorable, perhaps a bit haunting.

What have you been reading?  Do you have any good fiction book recommendations?

I have also been reading the NPR website.  One of the site’s features that I love is “The Picture Show.”  Last week there was a story entitled “The Power of Flower Photos.”  It was about the enjoyment of receiving a daily email of a picture of a flower.  The article got me thinking: I have pictures.  I have many pictures of flowers.  I have a blog.  I can put  up one picture a day of a flower on my blog for the remainder of this month.

So that is my goal.  I am going to post a daily photograph of a flower that I have taken over the years.  I don’t promise quality.  Many of my flower photos are out of focus, or just not that great.  But I know I will enjoy looking for pictures to post and perhaps you will like a few of them.

Let’s get started.

Just kidding.

Here is the real flower photo of the day.

It’s cliché, but I just had to begin with stopping to smell the roses.

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Images from My Phone

Posted on April 30, 2012 by Grace

I took a lot of pictures with my phone this past weekend.  I was too lazy to pull out the real camera and/or I just did not have it with me.  I spent time with the girls going places and doing various projects.  Here is the run down.

On a scale of 1 to 10, making play dough rates at a 9 for simplicity and at a 10 for pure kid fun.  There are a zillion recipes online but here is what I mixed up:

½ cup salt

1 ½ cup flour

1/3 cup water

1 tablespoon of dishwashing soap

Food coloring (I only had red and blue)

I mixed the dry ingredients and then added the wet.  I split the dough in half and let the girls decide about the food coloring.  Holly chose red.

No surprise that Heidi wanted purple.  Fortunately red and blue make purple.

Cookie cutters added to the fun as did small measuring spoons.

As for outdoors, yellow seemed to be the color of the day.  I took this picture at Meadow Farm.

 And this one at the park.

The girls and I also tried to make pretzels topped with coarse salt and an egg wash glaze.

Don’t laugh.  The bread was actually very good!

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Throwing Rocks

Posted on April 17, 2012 by Grace

On Monday I had coffee (OK, actually an iced chai tea latte) with a friend from my stay-at-home mom days.  Like my younger daughter, my friend’s four-year-old is in preschool.  For the first time ever, we had a chance to talk without interruption from a little girl needing a juice box, band-aid or bathroom visit.

My friend keeps up with me via my blog and commented on how I don’t post very often anymore.  My excuse was that it is hard to find time to think now that I work a full-time job and still have to be a full-time mom, housekeeper, cook, and teacher when I get home. But truth be told, I miss the moments when blogging ideas would pop into my head.  My best thoughts often occurred outdoors when I would take my kids by a lake to throw rocks or to the park to hunt for slugs.

My friend and I sat outside on the patio and I watched the pollen blow off of the large umbrella that shaded us from the sun.  We sipped our drinks and conversed on a myriad of subjects.  Yet what I appreciated most from our conversation was when my friend referenced our children and said in an unsentimental tone, “they are only four…once.”

I have no desire to quit my job nor will I ever stop cleaning my house or cooking for my kids.  But I think I will go out this weekend and throw rocks or hunt slugs with my daughters.  After all, I am only thirty-seven…once.

Holly drew this picture.  She told me it is a unicorn on a rainbow trail heading to Ponyland.  She said that she is the little girl in the drawing who found a pot of gold under the rainbow trail.  Works for me.

Posted in General Seriousness | 2 Comments

Surprise Fun

Posted on April 10, 2012 by Grace

It is possible that I am the most easily entertained person in my neighborhood and here is why:

This, my friends, is exactly what it appears to be: an electric hedge trimmer.  Do you have one?  Have you ever used one?  It’s fun.  It’s a lot of fun and it’s virtually effortless compared to the old manual clippers, which I have been using for years.

I have “before” and “after” shots to show you.

Before:

After:

Before…

…and after.

Perhaps a little high and tight on a few of the bushes, but I was having a good time and now my house can be seen from the road.  Happy springtime.

Posted in General Seriousness, Outdoors | Tagged | Leave a comment

All Kindergartners Should Have Glue Sticks

Posted on March 22, 2012 by Grace

Several times, over the past few weeks, my daughter has brought up the fact that her class is out of glue.  She asked if I would buy some glue sticks.  At first I was a bit put off.  Back in December, Holly had the same request and I sent in twelve glue sticks, figuring that would solve the problem.  I was wrong.  Apparently I underestimated the per diem adhesive consumption of eighteen six-year-olds.

After thinking over Holly’s request, I started to wonder if any other parent had sent in glue sticks.  It didn’t seem fair that I should have to spend my money (again) on other people’s kids.  I decided that I was not going to buy the class any more glue sticks unless the glue was on sale.  That was last week; Holly has not mentioned glue sticks since then.

This morning I was at the kitchen counter making a shopping list.  I looked up and saw Holly packing her school bag: lunch, water bottle, snack, library book and homework folder.  After snapping the bag shut, she smiled and said she was ready.  And she was ready – ready to learn, play and be completely open to anything the day would present.  I wrote “glue sticks” on my list.  It was time for me to be a little more open as well.

Some flowers for the picture of the day- bet you were expecting glue sticks.

Posted in General Seriousness | 3 Comments