Quotations for a Monday

Here's what I'm pondering today:

"Had you restrained your love, you would be free of sorrow. The greater the love, while one possesses it, the greater the sorrow when one is deprived of it." Von Tepl

"Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn." Romans 12:15

"Many waters cannot quench love, Nor will rivers overflow it..." Song of Solomon 8:7

"This is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal suffering, 'No future bliss can make up for it,' not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even the agony into a glory." C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce

"Hope claims the possibilities of the future, hopelessness recognizes its limits. In the mature person there are feelings of both, but they are kept distinct and separate. There's nothing wrong with hopeless feelings as long as they only limit, but do not contaminate the hope." William Lynch

"And I was having to bear the unbearable. If I must bear it, I would bear it-- find the whole meaning of it, taste the whole of it...I would not run away from grief; I would not try to hold on to it when-- if, unbelievably-- it passed." Sheldon Vanauken, A Severe Mercy

Much love to you today...

Monday Musings

So much to tell you, I don't know where to start.

I am now the owner of skinny jeans, oh yes I am. You may remember my attempt to pretend that my other jeans were skinny, and shove them into boots, but these are the real deal. My cheap self found some on sale at Target for $6.24, and I didn't pass them up even though they were a few sizes too small and smelled strangely like chemicals.

Even though I have to grease myself down to get into them and use a pair of pliers to hike them up a la my Gloria Vanderbilts circa 1983, my 9 year old suddenly thinks I'm cool! I took her out for pizza, and when an adorable young man said hi to me, I said hi back. When Molly asked me who he was, I said, "I'm not sure. Maybe he's a former student." She said, "No, I just think he likes your skinny jeans." Hmmm. Is that kind of approbation worth getting a yeast infection? We'll see.

And in keeping with the fact that Tom and I are obviously teaching our kids to value what is important and true, we had this conversation about being a grandmother.

Molly: "I feel sorry for grandmothers."
Me: "Really? Why?"
Molly: "They can't wear skinny jeans and bikinis anymore. They only get to wear FLARES and fuzzy sweaters."

Alrighty then. For the record, although I now possess skinny jeans, let it be known that Molly has never seen me in a non-skirted bathing suit.

Shadow got a clean bill of health at the vet today, and despite eating cooking grease and several loaves of bread lately, she had managed to lose 3 lbs. The vet was happy. I wasn't so happy with:
1. driving around with a stool sample in the car
2. Paying $475 for well-dog care. We just canceled our $400 pool membership to save money, so while we're inside watching too much tv this summer, I'll just remember to be grateful that Shadow is worm-free.

I spent Friday night staying awake at a church lock-in for 5th and 6th graders. 107 of them. The good news is that despite staying awake sitting in a chair all night (he was afraid if he unfurled his sleeping bag he'd doze off,) Jake survived the next day without any colossal drama like last year. We wisely cancelled an all-day boy scout outing and basketball game, but he still had to muddle through baseball practice and neighborhood interactions. Things may have started to unravel around 6 pm the next day, but we think we did pretty well.

Speaking of drama, when I dropped Jake off at school today he was about to cry. Not only was he debuting a new haircut, he was without his security blanket-- a navy blue sweatshirt. One parenting expert has written about how kids LOVE LOVE LOVE hooded sweatshirts, and Jake is no exception. So, having managed to misplace 2 navy sweatshirts in one weekend, and having no winter coat (don't judge-- why buy a coat when he's just going to wear the sweatshirt?) he went to school in a gray wool thrift-store coat I found in the closet. Should be an itching good time. Sorry, teach. The upside? Tom located one of the navy sweatshirts a few minutes ago, frozen solid in the neighbor's back yard.

In other news:

Almost all of our Girl Scout cookies have been delivered. We are about $23 short, which considering we had to collect $700, doesn't seem so bad. I love how helping my daughter earn her "Cookie CEO" patch, which you know I'll never get around to sewing on, has challenged my math skills, used up a lot of gas and postage, and made getting into my skinny jeans that much more of a challenge. In honor of Girl Scouting, we bought a tub of Thin Mint ice cream yesterday. Like.

Well, there's always more to share, but if you have made it this far, you may be yearning for your freedom right about now, so I'll just say I hope you have a fabulous Monday!

I'm heading to a chi-chi fabric store, so here's my question: sweatpants or skinny jeans?

Monday Musings

I decided I was well overdue for a little blogging. So I turned on my computer and the screen was completely black. Lifeless. I tried to fix it by pushing and pulling on all sorts of plugs but that yielded no results and just seemed so…tiring...so I gave up.

I tried to jot down some blog ideas on a piece of paper for later and all I could find at my desk was a stubby green colored pencil which was about as much fun to write with as a cheese stick.

And then I started wondering why, if there are probably 500 pens and pencils in this house, the only ones ever on or around my desk are highlighters, crappy colored pencils, or pencils that look normal, but basically have an outrageously long point with half wood, half lead. I mean, who wants to have to swivel her pencil around to find the lead, or more importantly, to avoid trying to scratch something out with a sharpened, squeaky piece of wood? Obviously not me. Is a little flowing ink too much to ask for?

I decided that while these thoughts were scintillating, instead of blogging today, perhaps I was really meant to pay more attention to my children.

But then I started talking to my 55 lb 11 year old (!) and he told me he wanted to start eating healthy foods so he wouldn’t “get fat.” No more cookies, no more ice cream, no more snacks. This totally stressed me out and made me project that in a year or so we would have enough new traumatic material to be the subject of yet another After School Special, so I decided to turn my attention to the other child.

She was trying to kill time before her soccer tryout, in which 65 girls were vying for 44 slots. And I mood-swung (?) between feeling foolish for letting an 8 year old (!) get all wrapped up in this travel soccer thing, and hoping that at least 21 of the other girls would come down with a little something before 6 pm. And then I spent a little time wondering if I'd done that math right on that.

Then I did what anyone would do-- started thinking about my hair, which I had chemically straightened on Friday! I spent the weekend swinging and flipping my very flat, silky, lustrous mane around (in June, in the South!)

Sure, it smelled like an Ogilvie Home Perm, but those 3 days were totally worth it! Now I've washed it and look pretty much like my old self again.

I contemplated putting a picture of my fancy hair on here, but in the ones Molly took my nose is so incredibly long and pointy I was afraid it might protrude through your computer screen and alarm you as it does me most mornings when I look in the mirror. So I decided to post a pic of my adorable daughter instead. You know, the one who said, "The pictures don't make your nose look big, Mom. It's always been big."

Sooooo, not sure where I’m going with this, but am thinking perhaps I was not meant to blog, or parent, or preen or post photos at all today.

Perhaps this Monday is a day best spent with a girl enjoying other people's blogs, a cold Mike's Hard Lemonade in her hand.

xo