New

January 1, 2017January 6, 20177 Comments

no-matter-how-dark-the-night-the-sun-always-rises-and-hope-with-it It’s a new year! Hooray!

And also…what? It’s 2017? But…but I thought 1997 was just a few years ago…

1997-me would have had a lot of New Year’s Resolutions. 1997-me had a lot more free time. But still, new years are nothing if not perfect for making a change, and this year I’d like to make a change in my writing. That is, I’d like to do more of it.

This seems like the perfect place to start.

My poor blog has been rather neglected the last few months, and that needs to change. Once upon a time, I undertook a challenge to post a picture a day for a year. I had a lot of fun with it, even if there were a few times where I posted several days’ worth of pictures all at once. Life happens, you know?

This year, instead of posting a picture a day, I’m going to try to post something every day. Some days, a picture. Some days, a poem. Some days, maybe several days’ worth of things all at once. Because life happens, you know?

More writing isn’t the only change I’ll be making this year – I’m going back to school in the fall – but I hope it’s one that will yield positive results. 2016 was supposed to be a year full of awesome, and instead it was mostly a year full of suck. I’m tired of feeling defeated. It’s time to try feeling hope.

Are you with me?

You’re only fourteen once

December 20, 2016Leave a comment

It’s Miss Tadpole’s birthday today, and she is fourteen. It’s hard to believe that – it seems like just yesterday when we met.

Seymour and I had decided to take the kids bowling. We thought introductions would be less pressure that way; they arrived first, and Bubbles and I arrived a few minutes later. They invited us to bowl with them and we accepted. We had a blast together, and afterward, she invited us to have supper with them.

Completely her idea.

I’ve been thinking more and more about those early days lately. They seem so long ago, and yet…not. I swear it was just yesterday that she walked up to me, tugged on my shirt, and said, “My trouble name is Tadpole Mary Kauffman.”*

And if I’d have smiled any bigger, I think my face would have broken.

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So have a happy birthday, Miss Tadpole – you’re only fourteen once. Before you – and we – know it, you’ll be fourteen no longer.

*name changed to protect the silly

I’m too fill in the blank for this!

December 6, 20165 Comments

It’s hard to believe it’s been almost a year since I posted my stressed-out-Mom version of “Jingle Bells,” but it’s true. It’s that time of year again, and just like this time last year, I’m feeling the blues. The holiday stress began in earnest with Thanksgiving and trying to squeeze in trips to family, trips to friends, and trips to the store on Black Friday (not for the deals, but because we actually needed things) without going bonkers. This week I’ve got two Christmas concerts, church for the kids, a basketball game, a house to decorate, family pictures to take, and 20 dozen cookies to bake before Saturday.

It’s gonna be a crazy…

Today I’m thankful for…

November 22, 2016Leave a comment

It’s hard to believe that Thanksgiving is in just a couple of days. Surely it was only New Year’s last week?

At any rate, I’d like to take the rest of the week to write about things I am thankful for, and today, I’m thankful for friends, both old and new. I’m lucky enough to have a few old friends, people I’ve known since I was Thumper’s age (which is to say, five), people who’ve seen me through many a rough patch in life as well as many a happy day. Friends like them don’t come around often, and while it’s crazy – not to mention slightly scary – to think that we’ve been friends for almost thirty years, I’m beyond glad to know that some friendships can survive just about anything that life throws our way.

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I’m also thankful for Facebook and MySpace (the old version – may it rest in peace) for allowing me to reconnect with old friends I’ve lost track of over the years. If not for MySpace, I’m not sure I’d have reconnected with one old friend so soon and if not for Facebook, there are quite a few dear friends who would have likely remained confined to memories. I reconnected with one such friend over the weekend, and I am so excited to meet up with her Friday and catch up in person. Yay! 😀

I’m also thankful for blogging and social media in general for allowing me to make so many new friends, friends I would never have met without the internet. The Alliance of Worldbuilders, the Ink Slingers’ League, and the Cheer Peppers are just some of the friends I’m lucky to have made in the last several years, and there are many more out there.

What about you – what are you thankful for?

Tinkering: Life Edition

November 14, 20161 Comment

life If ifs and ands were pots and pans, there’d be no need for tinkers. But then, if wishes were horses, well, beggars could ride. And you know what?

I have no idea what any of that is supposed to mean.

I get the wishes and horses and beggars bit. But what have pots and pans to do with tinkering? I’m more likely to tinker with other things when I know I have pots and pans waiting for me in the kitchen.

Also, I have no idea why these two proverbs popped into my head when I opened up WordPress today. Of all the things to write about, why these?

Nerves

November 10, 2016November 10, 20161 Comment

Have you ever watched the days bleed?

They do, you know.

They bleed, one into another into another, week after week, month after month, year after year. Seconds bleed into minutes bleed into hours bleed into days. Each of them crushing in their weight.

This is my thirty-second year of watching days bleed into months, of watching seasons bleed into one another so that you can no longer tell where one ended and the other began. It’s my thirty-second year of watching leaves fall into snowflakes, of watching dead brown grass bleed back to life and then to death once more. It was supposed to be a magical year, full of all the good things I could possibly imagine.

It was supposed to be frightfully wondrous.

But instead…

Favorite moments

November 7, 20164 Comments

Yesterday was not a stellar day. I was grumpy. I don’t know why I was grumpy, but I was, and it seems to have carried over into today as well. Then again, today is Monday, and if that’s not reason enough to be a little grumpy, then I don’t know what is.

Anyway.

Yesterday afternoon, we stopped in at Staples while we were out running errands. I could spend a small fortune there, if I had one to spend, but I behaved myself yesterday and confined my purchases to two. One of them I’m already regretting – it’s a file folder, one with multiple pockets for storing lots of things. I bought it to keep Bubbles’ school things in, mementoes of each grade he’s completed. The problem is that I can’t fit everything in it. I can’t even fit all his preschool stuff in it, and it’s not that there’s a lot of it, it’s just big. Really big. His first grade folder alone is probably bigger than the file folder I bought to put it all in.

Maybe I should have invested in a box.

Anyway.

The other thing I bought was a journal. I really don’t need another – I have two or three that I haven’t filled yet at home, plus a whole shelf full of ones I have filled – but this one called to me. It’s called “Favorite Moment a Day” and that’s all there is to it. Each page is lined. There’s room at the top for the date, and then it says, “Today’s Favorite Moment:” with plenty of room to write.

Or at least, there might be plenty of room to write if I’d have printed instead of writing in cursive. People always remark about how small my writing is, but my printing is even smaller than my cursive.

Anyway.

I thought it would be a good purchase because it’s small enough to carry around in my purse, and I want to start looking for the good in each day. If I have a place to write down some of that good, maybe it will start to outweigh the bad I seem to focus on so easily. For instance, despite yesterday’s lack of stellar-ness, I did have a pretty awesome moment…

Things I like

November 5, 20165 Comments

I’m feeling a little less than inspired today, so here are some of my favorite things:

Fall leaves.
Crisp autumn nights cheering on my team.
Old cartoons.
Happy kitties.
Books I can get lost in.
Visits from old friends.
The sound of the corn dryers near my childhood home.
Office supply stores.
Silly puns.
Bad jokes.

If you made a list of some of your favorite things, what would be on it?

Looking on the bright side

October 31, 20164 Comments

Self portrait courtesy of the movie Inside Out.

According to Facebook’s “On This Day…” feature, I was having a Leopold Bloom moment on this day back in 2007, and you know what? I kinda want my blue blanket right now, and I don’t even have one.

Well, not a blue one. I do have a striped blanket, though, and it makes an excellent shawl. Why didn’t I grab it on my way out of the house this morning?

Oh, right – because I was too busy being hysterical. At least I wasn’t hysterical and wet.

How’s Monday treating you? Will you go trick-or-treating tonight? Let’s look on the bright side of this Monday together!

Writing

September 27, 2016119 Comments

I haven’t been writing, and I miss it.

I’ve watched TV. I’ve read blogs. I’ve come up with a thousand brilliant ideas that quickly vanished into the ether. I’ve played a lot of Pokémon Go (Go Team Mystic!).

But I haven’t been writing, and it’s left a void.

Getting back in the habit is…