Off The Board
I love it when events coincide with specific dates so that they are easy to remember. Example: earlier this year we purchased a new lawn mower. S. wondered how long we had our old one1 and I said, “I can tell you exactly when we got it.” “OK, what game was that day?” She knows me well. “It wasn’t just…
Tabloid News
First, a quick story from my youth. I once had a babysitter who had stacks of newsstand tabloid magazines. I recall them mostly being The National Enquirer but I believe she had some of the really crazy ones, too. Anyway, I liked to read and since the TV was usually on soaps or the news, I would hide in the…
Fin de Semana
It’s been a busy start to the summer, thus the slow rate of posts here last week. I can’t promise it will increase, but know it’s because we’re enjoying the season. For example, here’s how we spent the weekend. Friday the girls got to go to Target and spend some of the money they’ve saved. L. got a turtle from…
Summer Dreams
Back in mid-May 1990, when our circle of high school friends was retuning home after our first year away at college, a good friend was insistent that it was going to be “the greatest summer ever.” It’s tough to measure these things accurately, but I do recall that being a pretty solid summer.1 Obviously that became a running joke each…
Back In Time
As I mentioned earlier, Friday was field trip day for M. with the bonus of having me tag along as a driver/chaperone. We were going to Conner Prairie, one of those old time re-creation towns that is on the site of one of the first white settlements in Central Indiana. It’s also five minutes from our house and I had…
The Big Six Year Old
Mid-May is always a big time for C.. Most years her birthday falls right around the end of her school year, which turns our already exciteable daughter into an extra-charged bndle of energy. That’s really the case this week. She turns six today. Tomorrow she “graduates” from kindergarten.1 Following graduation is St. E’s annual year-end bicycle parade. It’s all about…
Three Things
Mercy, there has been some funny stuff over the past week. M.: She’s picked up two new expressions, which she uses ceaselessly. One, ironically, is “It’s an expression,” often preceeded by a defensive, “What?” Example: “You better clean that up or Mom’s gonna kill you. What? It’s an expression!” The other saying is “Think about it.” This one is a…
New Friends
As I shared last week, we have new neighbors. They began to arrive Friday night, and then spent much of the weekend replacing carpet, painting, and moving their stuff in. We finally met them on Sunday. Nice folks. Like we guessed, they have one daughter who is about M’s age and another who is about C’s age. As a bonus, their cousins,…
Moving On
Wednesday was a sad day at our house. Our next-door-neighbors, who have lived here for nearly six years, finished three days of packing and left for a new home in Texas. They were pretty much the perfect neighbors: our age with kids, friendly and easy to talk to but not ever in our business. Their kids and our girls spent…
Three Things
This week’s list of things my daughters did that made me smile. M.: Her class has been busy sending Flat Stanleys all over the place this year. Among other places, they exchanged them with children at a school in Derby, UK. Her friend there returned a package last week that was loaded with cool stuff. British coins, postcards from the…