Category Archives: seasons

wake me when it’s over

26 Thursday Feb 2009

Posted by in Motherhood, seasons

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dozing

Camping is that special kind of vacation where later sleeping with your head on a loaf of bread and a box of baggies feels GREAT.

Camping takes me out of my comfort zone.  I’ll agree to it several months in advance, when it sounds so outdoorsy and romantically rustic; then hate myself when packing for it; then doubt my sanity when in the middle of it.  Then when it’s all over, I can look back and say “WOW, that was amazing and I never would have seen 97% of the coolest stuff had we not been camping!!”

I have my brother to thank for the adventures.  The main reason(s) I have actually enjoyed my last two camping trips have been my brother and sister-in-law, who have been our ‘urban outfitters’/hiking guides for several Utah trips.  When it comes to camping, I won’t leave home without them.  Pancakes and cowboy coffee, and a loaf of bread to lay my weary head after a nine-mile-death-hike-with-mike.  Good times.  Really.  And no one was more surprised that I loved it than me.

We are not doing a camping trip this spring, and I will miss it.  We all will.  The motto of 2009 spring break is staycation, kids.  But, you wait, happy campers, we’ll be back another year, to doze on baked goods while dreaming of all those amazing sights.

the gift that keeps on gonging

15 Sunday Feb 2009

Posted by in get along like cats and dogs, seasons

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valentine cat

First of all, let’s all pretend that the cat isn’t usually allowed to sit on the kitchen table and stare at a cake.

Pets aside, Valentine’s Day is a tricky “holiday”.  It’s not really a holiday, but if one is not careful, it can get the hopes up just far enough to dash them year after year, like a small wooden (heart shaped) raft bashed against the rocks of reality, over and over and ouch and ouch

Oh, sorry, I don’t know what came over me.

I am having a happy valentines day, because I have f-i-n-a-l-l-y let go of all loaded expectations for the day.  My beloved gave me exactly what I wanted — he fixed up an old, dilapidated cuckoo clock that used to hang in my grandma’s house when I was little.  The bonus gift is that he actually hung it in our home, even though it does not keep time, and it gongs every 15 minutes, and, well, it cuckoos.  Enough said.  That is love.  I’ll take that in an envelope, hold the chocolates.

a flag a day

12 Thursday Feb 2009

Posted by in Photography, seasons

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flag day

My flag has been up and out there every day since the Inauguration.  I think it is the only flag flying in my neighborhood.  I also had the only Vote Obama yard sign on the street, at least until the alleged teen hoodlum in a George Bush mask stole it in broad daylight.  Halloween prank or political statement?  You make the call.

I want to keep feeling hope about the state of the union.  The flag makes me feel better.  I don’t want my kids to think that we only put the flag out on certain days of the calendar year.  It was an internal struggle to put it out there during the last eight years, and I realize now that I did not try hard enough to find something to stir my patriotic soul.  I need to learn to put the flag out even when the winds blow the wrong way.

However, it was really windy yesterday, so it came down for a few hours so the pole wouldn’t bend.  Today it is back in the bright sunshine that we see when the wind blows the smog away.