1/30/2010

Let's go nextblogging!

I like this "about me" from Obed's blog: "I surmise my writings speak for me; I have no description. Tell me when you describe someone multi-talented in a different way." I think he came up as a nextblog because he has "Chew" in his header and I have "munches" in mine?
http://sarpongobed.blogspot.com/

Help me name my inner critic?

I have placed a sign on the dining room table (ground zero for preparing the tax return) that states:
S.---the 2009 tax return is not finished until you have collected all receipts justifying all deductions, and set up a better system for organizing and tracking medical expenses for 2010. 
Your Inner Critic
Now this is an edited version, the first draft of the sign was quite foul. 

I know I don't NEED an inner critic (I have plenty of external critics such as my daughters, who threaten to nominate me for What Not to Wear), and am trying various techniques to get rid of her or disarm her or transform her into an inner voice.... if she had a name I may be able to collar her.  She's wiley.  I guess if I am able to edit the first draft of the sign to something neutral if not positive, that must be my inner voice sounding off.  And I know her name.  It's my name.

1/28/2010

RE: Jiggity-jog over to my bloggety-blog

Here is my 19-year-old son's reply to my email announcing my blog: "Mother, this is exceptionally exceptional. Thank you. <3"
    Sigh.......... He's away at college and I miss him sharply, painfully.  OK, he's only 40 minutes away, but still.

1/27/2010

Ah, Mi-na-Soh-dah........

"...he was confounded by the local custom of driving a jalopy onto the lake in the dead of winter and placing bets on which day the ice would melt enough for the car to sink through."--Dana Goodyear, on the author Neil Gaiman, about his move to Minnesota from England (The New Yorker, 1/25/10).

Stardate 01.27.1958. And a baby boy was born unto...

...V. and T. As he "squirted out like a fumbled football," (all of V.'s deliveries were effortless), the doctor hauled him up by his little feet and swatted his behind. No crying he made, but he did have this to say, very precociously: "Hey ma, I'm gonna be an engineer!"
And so it came to pass that D. DID become an engineer, in his vocation and his numerous avocations, where engineering comes in oh-so-handy. Love (mm-hmm, certain aspects), remodeling, landscaping, car maintenance, rock climbing, kayaking, hiking, skiing, scuba diving.
Honey, today, MiddleChild had her senior portraits taken here at home, every backdrop consisting of something you created: rock walls, cedar outbuildings, flagstone walkways, steps, railings, benches, trees, shrubs, vines!
We celebrate your other qualities too, such as total commitment to family and to taking care of yourself in all dimensions: emotional, spiritual, physical, parental.
D., you are an awesome and integral cog in this world and we are happy you are in it and we are so lucky that you will be in it for many many years to come.
Happy birthday,
S. and the kids

1/21/2010

Inside a mirrored ball.

Saw this at http://askville.amazon.com/imagine-ball-completely-mirrored-inside--facility-inside/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=65470869 "imagine a ball completely mirrored on the inside- if we had the facility to 'see' inside the ball what would we see?"
I imagine myself as a softly glowing creature inside the ball, the only source of light......I just don't know what I would actually see......I need a physicist!

1/09/2010

1/08/2010

Mindfulness Shmindfulness

A classic.

Having some wonderful preserves on hand, I decided to bake cornbread for dinner. What to go with it? A plan came about slowly over the day: cornbread and preserves.... with chicken cutlets.... and sweet potato fries. I whipped up a batch of cornbread and put it in the oven, then got busy with the other items. When the oven timer went off, I turned it and the oven off, meaning to take the cornbread out when I had my hands rinsed off from the chicken breading.

We had a lovely meal. The thought of the cornbread, and the preserves it was to showcase, never crossed my mind. It wasn't until bedtime that I remembered this hub, this nucleus, this centerpiece of the meal.

Natch, my inner shrill piped up--this time she had a screeching Irish brogue, tougher to fight off than the Southern drawl. I elbowed her in the teeth and told M. the whole story. We laughed about it.

The cornbread, a very dark brown dry mass, will please the hens tomorrow.

Our (Perhaps) Unique Family Traditions

  • Watching thunderstorms together from the picture window
  • Getting right out into heavy rainstorms to run through puddles, and collect worms.
  • Once in the dead of each summer, I wake the kids up early by saying “Get up, time for school!” and they groan with shock, and then annoyance at being tricked again!
  • Wednesday is allowance day, because Wednesday needs something to recommend it….
  • When asked what I want to do or get for Mothers Day, I always smile sweetly and reply, “Oh, nothing! Every day is Mothers Day!” (family groans).

And, finally, it has become a family tradition that, whenever I am forgetful, hubby mentions the time I baked banana bread and left the bananas out--a bowl of mashed bananas sitting right next to the oven. Didn't notice my error until I pulled the baked loaf out and it was strangely pale and small and odd looking. T. was a bun in MY oven at the time.

1/04/2010

Prompt: "The last time I..."

The last time I was scolded by my inner critic, she spoke to me in a southern drawl, a real piney-woods-of-Georgia accent, and I just had to sigh, and laa-aa-afff it off, la-la-LA! Oh, brother. Apologies to Southerners everywhere, but that’s what I heard.
I had this idea a couple of weeks ago—to catch myself berating myself and try to turn the whole thing around, and came up with the idea of giving it an accent. Jotting “inner voice=accent” down on a post-it next to my keyboard and glancing at it frequently, I finally remembered to accentuate myself yesterday. It worked like a charm. I’ll do anything to fend off that bitch. She sounded like a moron and she cut no ice with me! If all she gets from me is laughter and scoffing, well, she can’t last long.