family

Out of Doors

It’s funny how a littlest thing can change your perspective. My dad recently gifted me a little redwood cabinet he made ‘round about the time I was born. When I was a kid, it hung in our kitchen. There were creamers in it. Two of them were shaped like cows.

I don’t know what happened to the creamers, but the little cabinet found its way to my house and on Sunday, I hung it in our bathroom. Which prompted me to sort through all my hairpins and corral them into little jars that fit nicely in the cabinet. Shawn and I stood back to admire the addition.

Halloween, Part 3 of 3: Rest in Peace

While strolling through a cemetery on a romantic getaway last weekend, my folks happened upon a tombstone that reminded them of me. (And to those of you out there who may have questioned why I am the way I am, you now have your answer.) Specifically, my dad said, "Think you and Shawn might have gotten along with this couple had your paths crossed in the right time."

How are Things on the ol’ Homestead?

"Hey Mom.”

“Hey Bug.”

“So I hear someone tried to blow up the restaurant next to your office.”

“Yep.”

For the record, my mother lives in Napa, not Bosnia.

“Why blow up a Thai restaurant? I mean, there’s two Italian places on every block. Why not take one of those out?”

“Actually, the news story had it wrong. It was closer to the health club.”

“Oh, that makes more sense.”

“Mmmhmm.”

Nepotism

My dad wrote a bad ass blog. Go read it.

[Aside: Though his blog doesn’t specifically link back to it [dude, Dad, contact your webmaster and get that set up], Dad makes speakers and his blog is related to that endeavor. He also makes the world’s best barbecued chicken. Completely unrelated trivia.]

Not a Creature was Stirring

December 21st 11:00 p.m.:

Of Partridges and Pear Trees

I dread this part of the year. Christmas, you say? Thanksgiving? Nope. I dig the holidays. My favorite part of the year starts when the leaves to begin to turn colors and ends right after New Years. I love the holidays. What I don’t love is divvying them up.

Sigh... Here we go again.

It’s rough, you know? Everybody wants to go back and sit around that same Christmas tree they had when we were all kids, to shake that little silver sleigh bell and hear it ring again.

In Point of Fact

I was making lunch in the kitchen and Luke was watching a DVD in the living room. In point of fact, he was watching The Point, a tradition in my family that dates back before my birth. We originally had it on record. (Kids, records were these large black discs that made music before the world was introduced to CDs. Very groovy.)

This was Luke’s first introduction to The Point.

Half way through spreading the peanut butter on the bread, Luke came running into the kitchen.

“Mommy, you have to come help me.”

Fair to Say

Shawn and I both entered some of our craft into the county fair this year, so on Friday night we journeyed out to the fair grounds (all of two miles - long trip) to see how we did and enjoy a corn dog or two.
Of my three entries in the textile exhibition, I took two first place ribbons, one in the children’s costume category and the other in the crocheted sweater category:

Glitch in the Matrix

I walked into a room in my parents’ house at the tail end of a birthday party for family member on Sunday. My cousins were having a conversation in the doorway to the spare room. The dog was crunching up a carrot on the carpet of the playroom floor. The light and the time and the sounds, all suddenly screaming that I had been there before. In this moment. Chiding the dog and cleaning up the carrot bits. My cousins were having that same conversation. I know it. I was there. And not somewhere similar. There.

Huh... Déja vu.

Donner Lake

My family’s laughter drifts down the stairwell to my room, sometimes in a single, identifiably-loved voice and sometimes in unison, in the voice that is my family. Downstairs it is quiet and dim. I’m in a rented house on Donner Lake and my young son is lying beside me on a mammoth bed, his eyes heavy with sleep but too stubborn to close.

Pages