une 5th is National Gingerbread Day and I can’t for the life of me imagine why. Who thinks about gingerbread in June? We’re outside tending our gardens, graduating our children, and dreaming of afternoons out on the water. We’re inviting friends with crab pots over for dinner and bringing perfect meals to a brilliant conclusion with strawberries, piled atop flaky shortcake and mountains of freshly whipped cream.
I’m not a “good ole days” kind of person. I rather like these days. But for a few moments last…
While I was always labeled a good reader by my elementary school teachers, I did not choose to read for…
“Remember when we moved into our first house?” I inquired of my husband this week, “And the neighbor kids talked…
“Well, how does everything look?” I asked my son as he placed his wallet and keys in their customary spot…
I stood before a bedroom closet this week and surveyed the scene. The task I assigned myself would be simple: remove the childhood memoirs, reorganize the items and label, then move everything to the attic. Once cleared, I would paint inside the closet as step one of my plan to transform what was once a child’s bedroom into a den. I want a place to write and pay bills and a nice room where the kids can sleep when they come home to visit.
I’m not a huge TV watcher. In fact, I’m much more of a TV listener. If I’m at home you’ll most often catch me listening to cable news or a Food Network personality as I take on housekeeping tasks. If it’s a movie everyone wants to watch I grab a stack of magazines and take in a scene or two between articles outlining how I can better organize my linen closet. My son and husband don’t understand my viewing habits. I think if you were to pin them down they’d confess it is both my topics of interest and the way I view TV that mystifies them.
Everyone wants Love to follow them
The older I get the more I gravitate to funny people. Funny movies. My children. When the three Klope kids get together they reminisce and tell me stories about things I never knew happened while they were growing up and living at home full time. Had I known I might have been slightly worried. But hearing about their tame shenanigans today brings on laughter. In fact, most of their banter among themselves makes me laugh, brings energy to our family gatherings, and fills our home with happy sound. It makes their leaving all the harder even though it’s appropriate that they are establishing themselves apart from their childhood home.
There was a time during my childhood when I’d complain if my parents suggested I read for pleasure. The recommendation usually occurred following that age-old protest that I had nothing to do and was bored when the neighbor kids were unable to come over and play.
It was from the comfort of my front porch where I sat in the sun, treasured library book in hand, iced coffee within reach, that I observed our rescued pet cat do the very thing I hate most: hunt. Although he spends the great majority of his life inside, the sun was so warm it beckoned even him away from his resting place on the back of a couch and over to the door, where he meowed and pawed at the screen until I finally gave in and let him out. Drawn back to my book, I lost track of his activities in the yard until I noticed his sleek, orange tabby coat dart from the edge of the wooded area that surrounds my home. It was the tiny form of a wild baby bunny hanging from his mouth that prompted me to leap off the porch and run screaming across the lawn and over to the hunter.
