I’ve been married 25 years, and I brought a couple of small pets into marriage that died before we’d even had children. We had a…
3 CommentsRelevant Fiction for Body & Soul
Tag: family
Children have an innate sense of justice and fairness. If you spend any time with kids, you know the plaintive cry “It’s not fair!” surfaces with enough frequency to make a drinking game based on its utterance a dangerous affair.
Many times a week, I hear myself responding to those cries with a trite, “Life’s not fair.” In other words, “Suck it up, buttercup.”
True enough. And yet those words don’t take away the niggling rub that, well, gosh, it’s not fair.
4 CommentsBy most standards, my mother didn’t accomplish anything noteworthy in her 91 years.
She came from a Depression-era household, a row home filled by her parents and 10 siblings. They spoke one language.
She didn’t finish high school.
Once she had her first child at age 28, she was never employed again.
My mother was married only once, for 50 years. She bore four children, and buried one.
Ten miles was about the limit of how far she’d drive from her home. I don’t recall her ever driving in the city. The farthest west she traveled was Illinois, and she never left the lower 48 states.
She never posted a single thing on social media. In fact, she never owned a cell phone or used a computer.
Her home was decorated simply; the only wall decorations I recall are a crucifix and a mirror. At Christmas, we added matching Styrofoam Santa heads and a beer can wreath. At least until Home Interiors and Gifts found her in the 1980s.
Over a few days greeting her friends and family at the funeral home this summer, her legacy become clear:
She baked.
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North Myrtle Beach Vacation Edition
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It’s not the destination; it’s the journey. That’s what they say when they want you to focus on the beauty in front of you, not what’s ahead of you. Our journey started at midnight, after no sleep. I haven’t pulled an all-nighter since I was an elementary school-aged kid at a slumber party ordering prank call pizzas for cute boys. But, with a few little cat naps, I managed. Dawn came somewhere in southern Virginia while my family slept. There were no accidents, no moving violations, and only one vomiting incident, so I consider it a great success.
Fostering Friendship Edition
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For the last several years, I’ve become acutely aware of the dearth of friendships in my life. For that reason, when I caught wind of The Friendship Project: The Catholic Woman’s Guide to Making and Keeping Fabulous, Faith-Filled Friends by Michele Faehnle and Emily Jaminet last year, I was eager to read it.
If you haven’t gotten a copy, I recommend it (and you can read my review here). There’s plenty of practical suggestions, but to be honest, I need to go back and make a list of baby steps to get started.
The Friendship Project was a catalyst for thinking more about friendships and how they arise and where they are missing in my family’s lives. This post is less about my friendships, but about helping my children foster friendships.
4 CommentsMy mom had a simple timer that she used exclusively for cooking and baking. Whether it was lasagna in the oven or her frequent batches of chocolate chip cookies, the timer’s use was exclusively in the kitchen. I recall an egg timer or two as well, the old-fashioned sand-filled kind, which were used for my play.
The myriad uses for the timer are yet to be explored in our house, but since joining 10 Minute Novelists several years ago, I’ve discovered more “grown up” uses for the timer that I should be employing more frequently to keep on task with both writing and household chores.
10 CommentsThe day after Christmas, we enjoyed a short winter reprieve. Temperatures soared. With my 13-year-old’s brand-new drone fully charged, we headed to the park, where he could fly it in wide open spaces without worrying about entangling his new toy in wires or treetops. All of the pre-Christmas bustle had ceased and for once, we didn’t have holiday travel plans. Our visit to the park was sheer fun.
I took this picture of my children chasing after the drone in the distance. From our vantage atop a hill (at this time of year, it could as easily be the sled riding hill), they seemed so small. My oldest is only a few inches shorter than me, but in this picture, he might as well be the size of his three-year-old brother.
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Resumption of Camping Edition
My husband and I began tent camping together before we had children and continued with regularity for years with our young children. We toted babies and toddlers. We relished the outdoors. And then, around the time we had an infant and a toddler in addition to our two older children, it became a bit much. My husband feared an unknown woodsy calamity. I’ll admit, our last excursion, with only three of the children, was a bit challenging. My sole recollection is my toddling 10-month-old stretching out of her Bumbo seat to gather dead leaves from the forest floor to stuff into her mouth while we wrestled with tent setup. So, we took a break. Our youngest is now three, so on Labor Day weekend, we gave camping another shot. Here’s what I learned.
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All Pit Toilets Are Not Created Equal
We’ve camped in state park campgrounds with pit toilets before. Not recently and not often, but we’ve done it. My boy scout has done it fairly often. It’s not a big deal. At least it hadn’t been. The pit toilets at this particular Pennsylvania state park stunk. Sure, you say, pit toilets stink. No, I don’t mean “stink.” I mean eye-watering, gagging, covering-my-mouth-and-nose-with-my-shirt stink. Putrescence. Is that a word? I think that’s a word. Lesson learned: If you’ve smelled one pit toilet, you’ve smelled one pit toilet. (Since we like this park, I was relieved to learn they are installing flush toilets over the winter! Yay!)
