It took me 15 minutes to find my car in the Target parking lot last week.
Last night I couldn’t find my debit card. I figured it was in my car. I couldn’t find either of my credit cards, I figured I hid them and couldn’t remember the act of hiding them or where I may have placed them.
As I pulled into work this morning, my phone rang. After I found said phone in the depths of my school bag, I answered. It was my bank – telling me that I left my debit card in the ATM yesterday.
I lost an assignment and rubric after photocopying for a student who needed the weekend work early. It showed up on my desk after work.
I found hope in a swath of sunshine during my morning class; patience with a group of students who continually challenge me. On the way to my car, I looked down at a streak of orange on the ground. It was my missing grading pen.
A little bit of lost and found for your Thursday, friends.
p.s. If you find my credit cards, will you let me know?
Pictures courtesy of Eve Wiles, preschool photographer extraordinaire.
We were all cookie swap virgins, well, to the best of my knowledge anyway. In an attempt to be organized and festive, we picked a kitchen and set a date to come together, visit, and bake cookies. After multiple hours, lessons in such things as: how to hold the baby, how to cream sugar and butter together, and how to totally gross out an 11-year-old boy with a kitchen full of women and, ahem, women talk; we each had a pile of cookies, dirty clothes, and wine-stained teeth.
The non-bakers
I spy with my little eye . . . Eve’s finger!Eve and RussellA bit weary of cookie making?
Now these people here – a motley collection of childhood friends. Yes, we know how lucky we are. We really, really do. Nobody could blackmail me like any of these women could.
Festive.
If you count success by the number of cookies baked and sheer amount of shameful gossip swapped, the day was wildly successful. Merry Christmas, my girls.
I attempt to make healthy granola bars. I enlist C’s help. This results.
I’m pretty good at accepting myself as a work-in-progress, but if there is one thing I could change about myself (other than my 27 inch inseam), I would become a morning person. Because on days like today, where I roll over and waste two brilliant hours of sunshine, I get a little short with myself. Pun intended.
Even with the two lost hours, I still managed to finagle the best kind of Sunday: one that is both peaceful and productive.
Colby returned from his father’s later than we planned, so I tidied up, drank coffee, watched Meet The Press and started my Statistics homework. He came home, we visited briefly, and he played music while I finished up. He stacked wood and I prepped the kitchen for a little creative culinary endeavor – homemade granola bars. Said endeavor lasted upwards of three hours and ended with a sink and dishwasher full of dirty dishes, about 4,000 jokes about me saying “OK, Colby. Now you need to process your nuts”, and Colby saving a chocolate glaze that turned. He then used the leftovers to craft what, at best, would be a spicy chocolate drink and at worst, a science experiment gone wrong. Matt was the only one brave enough to try it and, well, you remember that post about bravery, right?
I went for a run in that last afternoon blast of sunlight while Colby and Matt finished stacking wood. I came home, showered, and Colby and I went to the 6 p.m. student mass. When we returned, I began my quiz while Matt finished dinner. We ate, I finished my quiz (and passed! phew!) while listening for juicy plot tidbits from Once Upon a Time playing in the next room. Now, I am having a glass of wine with you!
Doesn’t that sound like the product of a well-oiled machine? Am I the redneck incarnation of Martha? No. It’s a fluke, believe me, but I am oh-so-grateful for it.
Do you get it? The pop-culture kiddie show reference? I just knew you would.
Once upon a time, two young women spent their early adulthood adventuring together. At first, most of their time was spent walking a certain un-named someone in the Baby Jogger until he went to sleep – then they would rolllll him into the house and watch Sex and the City re-runs while he slept. Eventually they went back to school and got real jobs. Wouldn’t you know that they managed to find professions with a summer break. They went camping, to Phish shows. They even drank bottles (bottles I tell you) of wine smack in the middle of snow days.
Life was good.
Then life was crazy. They moved and switched jobs and (one of them… ahem) got married.
Finally, they were exhausted and lonely. They missed each other. So they went on an adventure.
oh yeah
You guessed it. I’m talking about myself. And Angie.
We spent last Tuesday exploring Little Wilson Falls in Elliotsville Township. In an unbelievable stroke of luck, we managed to arrive without incident (barring a near-death experience at an intersection in Monson). The area was familiar because My Dear Friend Angie and I, like most who grew up where we did, grew our hiking legs on Borestone Mountain.
Armed with PB & Js, junk food, and bathing suits: we had arrived.
Deceivingly calm, this pool empties into the falls.
It was a textbook August day in Maine: hot, humid and buggy. The climb up was easy enough, and we chose a trail overlooking the falls. Incidentally, we spent a little too much time talking and a little too little time paying attention to our surroundings. We followed a few different trails on the way down (um, which one did we take?).
M.A.T.C. sign-in box
The trail connects with the AT, and we spied a couple of through hikers. One chuckled as we approached a small climb, and I thought he was laughing at our general naivete and school-girl gigglyness. Nope. I have a feeling it was because he knew his buddy was taking a shit in the woods and we were going to come upon him quickly. Just about the time I was ready to ask Angie if she was having some issues, the poor guy emerged from the woods with a tell-tale bag. Question answered.
Lunchtime view
Let me tell you – this is an amazing little hike. I wouldn’t recommend it for most kiddos because of the sheer size of the falls and the very, very long drops. If I had brought Colby with me I would have been picturing traumatic brain injury, broken legs, and potential landing sites for Life Flight.
Snapping a mental picture to get me through a long, January day.
We, Angie and I, agreed that it had been far too long since we had been on an adventure of any kind. The thing is, what we do tends not to matter. We’ve been stuck in traffic in Hartford for 9 million hours and the time, well, however we spend it, it has the same effect. I think the recipe is something like no husbands + no children + friends who will stop and let you drive if you think you’re going to puke = actually relaxing. Not a day at the spa relaxing, but relaxing into yourself and a moment without worrying about someone’s health and safety, or worrying whether or not your traveling partner is enjoying the experience. So in February when I’m going out of my mind, will you all remind me of this? K. Thanks.
looking uplooking down 😉top of the fallsthe intrepid Angie gets far closer to the edge than I am comfortable with!
Now. What do you do at the end of a day like this? Well, if you’re me, you get naked in the parking lot because there are no changing rooms in the Maine woods. Then you go swimming.
I was a cheerleader. So what.I stayed in long enough to numb my entire body.
It was lovely. We meandered home, stopping in Monson at a craft store and in Guilford in search of iced coffee and Dramamine. Funny enough, I arrived home a kinder and gentler mama. Maybe there is a lesson for me here?
Camp bedtime routine is obviously superior to that of home.RHUBARB!The requisite ruined shoes.Camp Monopoly. . . still Monopoly . . .“Please, Colby. Can we just count up and see who won?!”Matt takes over the kitchen.Fresh off the grill – steamy and aromatic and YUM!Cherry tomatoes, shaved fennel, mussels, white wine, olive oil, salt and crushed pepper. Grill in foil, serve with a good loaf of crusty bread.
As you can see, we’ve been busy trying to relax. I’ve found that a healthy combination of family, fresh air, exercise, good friends and good food is the recipe for a happy me. Funny how I’m not surprised.
July is packed full of camps and trips, so I’m trying to peck away at all of the house jobs I’ve either started or wanted to complete since we moved in (directly before the start of school) last year. I’m taking a class and working a couple of days a week, one from home and one on-site in an attempt to lessen the end-of-August frenzy. Colby is working on a solid teenaged sleeping pattern, and has been quite successful thus far.
Also. I’m reading like CRAZY. I have a couple of reviews in the works for you, but here’s the short list: The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman, Dinner: A Love Story by Jenny Rosenstrach, A Simple Act of Gratitude by Jon Kralik, The Red Pyramid and The Throne of Fire by Rick Riordan. Colby told me that I HAD to read the last two, and not so subtly placed the final book in the series on my nightstand last night.
I hope this rainy morning finds you well. I’m off to clean my house before two of my favorite young ladies show up for the day. If I can banish the dog hair and locate our tub of Thomas the Tank Engine toys all will be right on this end of town.
Colby says “I think this is my thing!”. I introduced him to the trails tonight- 4 miles on the road and 3 on awesomely muddy trail! We finished just as it started to pour.
I’ve spent the week embodying that line “every day I’m shufflin”. Two positions have given me comfort; one in which I’m lying propped up on pillows, the other I’m walking around with my right arm tucked up in an invisible sling. While my body has been screaming, my spirit has been buoyed by the unexpected warmth and sunshine. This makes be happy.
Because I am uncharacteristically happy and because I’m sure Oprah has trademarked the phrase “my favorite things”, here is a look at some stuff that makes me happy.
This kid and his shenanigans.bubble baths - which coincides with actually living in a house with a bath tubThese girls... even though they act like drunken goats ...Oh, and this guy and his collection of early- to mid-'80s gems. Hey! I'm an early '80s gem!Sunny days!Work/running/life buddy, Jane
Also: Amazon shopping, this book, Central Street Yoga, new running shoes, peanut butter ice cream, and the general feeling that I can thrive in chaos.
from midnight oil 