Heading out

As I mentioned last night, I leave tomorrow for North Carolina so my posting may slow down a bit over the next week or so. I'm still at work (6:30pm) but I wanted to post quick to say goodbye, tell you all I love you and I'll be back Monday. For those of you local, take care of my boys (all three), for those of you far...why the heck don't you come and visit? And because I love to post pictures, I snooped around here on my work computer and found some cute oldies...

Notice the beer bottle and the baby bottle...

Duncan is technically in my belly, so he has been to St. Croix too... Coop and Aunt Bryn

Until Monday...

Slow the heck down

Oh my goodness, what happened to the weekend? Can it really be TUESDAY tomorrow? I am exhausted and I even had an extra day off. At first I could not figure out why I was so tired, but then I started remembering all the things I did this weekend... *I had my sister, niece and nephew over for dinner and ice cream on Friday night *My niece and I shopped for a new dress and shoes, plus she got a new bathing suit and flip flops *We had dinner at my mom and dad's on Saturday night *I bought a new camera *I did my grocery shopping to the tune of $200 *I did 7 loads of laundry *I walked a piece of land with John, Coop and Dunc *I went to 2 open houses *I went to Country Cupboard with my mother and grandmother and Duncan *I made 2 trips to Tony's Delicatessen *We went to Aunt Barbie and Uncle Teddy's for dinner *I dropped alterations off at Ma Jane's *I vacuumed the entire house *I dyed a new shirt *I stubbed my toe to the point that it has one huge mother blood blister that John has been repeatedly poking needles into to "drain"....eewwwhh. I am fully sure that the toe stubbing was probably a "hello lunatic, SLOW DOWN" kind of thing... To top it all off, I leave Wednesday for 5 days. I am off to Charlotte, NC for the Comfort Keepers National Convention, and because my dear friend Missy happens to live there, I get to spend some nice time with her too. Maybe I can rest when I get back? A few pic's from the new camera... Heading to bed...surprised?

Graduation

Tonight we went to the graduation ceremonies for Cooper's pre-school. The theme this year was Cats and Dogs so they asked all the children to dress up like a cat or a dog. Now some of you may already know this, but Cooper does not "dress up". At Halloween Cooper gives out candy, but does not go trick or treating, so I thought "there is no way he's going to go for this". But low and behold...check out my pup... He was actually quite the little entertainer! He was dancing in the aisles and waving to mommy and daddy from the stage. Happy graduation Coopie Doo!

Write it down

I'm reading a new book now (book club was last night) and I really wanted to share a quote from the book.

"Country children used to walk five miles to school in the morning and five miles home at night without complaining. Or perhaps they did complain but no one ever recorded their comments for posterity. That was how history worked, wasn't it? If it wasn't written down it never happened. You might leave behind jewelry and pottery, ornamental tombs, you might leave behind your own bones to be dug up at a later age, but none of those artifacts could express how you felt."

I read these sentences over and over because they just made so much sense. And I think it's part of the reason I started this blog...to write it down. My grandmother (who is now in her 90's...91, 92?) told the family years ago that she keeps a diary. She has kept a diary since I was a young child ~ she has journals and journals filled with thoughts and memories. She in now living in the early stages of Alzheimer's Disease and I doubt she writes much anymore, however if she does, I'm sure we will be fascinated someday to see what she's been writing! I have often thought about those diaries and look forward to reading them someday. I plan to continue to write and take pictures. I want my family and friends to know what they mean to me and know the impact they have on my life. We all want to know we are loved, needed and valued...myself included. I figure, what better way to get it back, then to put it out there? This is the gift of writing things down. Think about it. So here is Duncan. I walked into my room and found him like this. He crawled up on my bed, put the blanket over himself and curled up with a book. I grabbed my camera, took a couple of pictures, then just stood there and watched him. Part of me wanted to go right over there and curl up with him, kiss him up and read to him. But then another part didn't want to interrupt the scene I was watching, it was so sweet and soft. The moment didn't last long, but now I have documented it... I will remember, and he will know.

Simplicity

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." ~Leonardo da Vinci

Recap

It's been a very long weekend. On Friday night I volunteered to chaperon the Youth Relay for Life at Lycoming College. Please remind me not to do that again. Bryn volunteered too ~ bless her heart. We were basically locked in a gymnasium with about 200 high school students overnight. I was supposed to stay awake the entire night... but at 3:00am I finally crashed, I just could not stay awake another minute. I told everyone that the last time I was awake that late I was in labor! So I "rested" for about 3 hours. To call it sleep would just not be right, the bright florescent lights were glaring, there was a ping pong tournament going on next to me, and did I mention there were 200 high school students there? So Saturday night I tried to catch up on some sleep and by today I am feeling a bit better. Sunday is usually a big cooking day for me...I like to make stuff for my lunches, so I made a big bowl of Tabbouleh. I get a craving for Tabbouleh in the Spring, but my friend Bryn says that is just plain wrong that someone actually gets a CRAVING for Tabbouleh!! Chocolate maybe, but Tabbouleh, no. And I couldn't resist the Peppercorn Salmon on Cedar Planks in the Wegmans magazine. It was just delicious! And it was so beautiful to look at too. My mother always taught me that food must look as appealing as it tastes and I SO agree. Check it out...

Now I am going to bed. I have so much to share, but sleep is becoming overwhelmingly like a drug this weekend...

Dirt

In the Spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.

~Margaret Atwood

Life stuff

I don't know about all of you, but personally I need more hours in the day! Or I need to start functioning on 4 hours of sleep? But no complaining here...Comfort Keepers is REALLY busy, which is wonderful. In November we were dreadfully slow and I was worried, but here I am 6 months later and we have more than tripled our business (with one less person in the office). I am feverishly trying to hire and train staff, the phones are ringing off the hook, all the while we need to maintain our very high standards of care, we are implementing a new continuing education program, we have switched payroll companies, we are changing our pay structure, we seem to be getting more and more government work AND to top it off, in July we start the process of becoming licenced through the Department of Health...whew. But I still remember to snap photos of our lives, because days/weeks like this one would quite possibly go by totally unremembered, and I can't have that.

Thanks for the ribbon Grammy...

Peace.

Pink bats

Every night after bubble tubbies, the boys go down to our room and watch a little baseball. Mother's Day was no exception, except that on that night Cooper hollered out "mommy look, they are using pink bats"! And sure enough they were. The players wore pink wrist bands and pink ribbons on their uniform too - even the Umpires. I looked it up and as I suspected, the players were raising both awareness and money for breast cancer. Apparently it is a fairly new thing...this year there were around 200 players who signed up to use a pink bat that day which was much more than last year. Well I say "GO BOYS" - what an awesome idea and tribute to breast cancer survivors and victims. From a mommy of baseball players, "WHOO HOO".

Happy Mother's Day

My mommy cup has runneth over today... We have a tradition in our family. Every year for Mother's Day, John takes a picture of the boys and puts it in a new picture frame. Here is this year's picture. I cried. Man, I felt like the luckiest mommy in the whole world ~ and isn't that the point? I also got a new pair of crocks, I've never had a pair...boy are they comfy! And to my own mommy~thank you. You set an awesome example. I hope to be as awesome in my own children's eyes. And because I do love quotes, here are my two picks for this year. For all my dear friends without children (either by choice or fate)... "The commonest fallacy among women is that simply having children makes them a mother - which is as absurd as believing that having a piano makes one a musician". -Sydney J. Harris For some reason this one reminds me of my own mother; not that she would actually say it, but I can hear her quoting it and laughing... "A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie". -Tenneva Jordan

Sometimes

you just need to take a tractor ride.

An otherwise unspectacular picture

Some pictures are not necessarily good pictures, but I believe you can make them good if you can tell the story or the feeling behind the picture. I took this picture on Tuesday evening, and like I said, there may not be anything spectacular about this photograph, but to me it's amazing. It is a picture of my father and Cooper in the field below my parents house. It is spectacular in many ways... That night was the first time Cooper went off alone with my father for any length of time. For whatever reason, Cooper was ready to accept Pop Pop's invitation this time and they rode off in the truck together ~ with Cooper wearing a huge smile. After maybe an hour, I went looking to see if I could spot them...and this is what I saw. I look at this picture and I can feel the happiness in Cooper, he was literally running around, almost dancing it seemed. I think the sight felt good to me, because I'm quite sure I have experienced that exact same feeling, in that exact same spot, with Pop Pop working beside me...only it was 33 years ago. I don't think I can put into words the joy I felt for Cooper at that moment, but I am glad I took this picture, because what would otherwise be an unspectacular picture, has become a spectacular memory for me...thank you dad.

Here's to the crazy ones

John has been working at the Lodge up in Eagles Mere since Monday (spending the nights) so I have been a CRAZY single mommy the past few evening...I promise to get back to blogging very soon (I have some great pictures of a trip up to my mom and dad's last night that I am dying to share). But in the mean time, I found this and liked it and wanted to share it... Jack Kerouac : Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round heads in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status-quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify, or vilify them. But the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

Raspberry anyone?

We got raspberries, blueberries and bananas at Sam's Club on Saturday. Then watermelon and strawberries at Wegmans today...it's been a yummy fruity weekend. Aunt Lynnie and Brucie ~ hope you got home okay, it was wonderful visiting with you! (See the left over beans on Cooper's plate?) Aunt Barbie ~ Cooper was dying for you to stop over today, he had on his new soccer shirt and cleats and he wanted to show you so bad! And speaking of Aunts and dying and cleats... Right before we left for the Lodge yesterday, the boys were sitting on the front steps and when I walked out Cooper said to me "mom, I died the ant with my cleats and I broke it with my bat". Translation..."I killed the ant with my cleats and I broke him in half with my bat". Sigh...poor ant. And one more Aunt, Aunt Bryn ~ thanks for daring the carnival with us Friday night. Boy, were the freaks out or what?

More food for thought

I am a great fan of Morning Edition on NPR (National Public Radio). It seems just about every morning I find myself sitting in the parking deck, not wanting to turn the car off because I want to hear the rest of an interview or a news piece or heck, even the sports! I would have never called myself a sports fan, but have you ever heard Frank Deford's commentary? It's wonderful, HE is wonderful and he is proof that a good writer can make you enjoy almost anything, even sports. But back to my point... This morning there was a beautiful piece on Leroy Siever (former journalist for NPR) who is living with Cancer. A little over a year ago he started a conversation with this sentence... Death and I are hardly strangers. He caught my attention, and I sat mesmerized by this man's interview in my car on the third floor of the parking deck. On the heals of "taking your life temperature", I found his words so uplifting, and he is dying of cancer! If you get just a moment in your busy schedule, take a peek at his blog, very nice writing, even if you don't like the subject. And Ted Koppel has a documentary, Living with Cancer, airing on the Discovery Channel May 6th at 8pm that looks like it would be worth watching if you're home. His message was so simple. When asked "when you learned of your diagnosis, was there anything you wanted to run right out and do, or at least think about?" He said "there really wasn't". There were many survivors speaking their own words on their feelings about living with cancer and they all had the same message... Live, really live. They said that the diagnosis has made them so aware of the beauty of the simple things. I got out of my car and made a point to really feel the chill that was in the air, I walked just a bit slower so that I may enjoy the sun that shown this morning, and when I picked up my children today, I nuzzled my face in Cooper's neck and stopped to really feel his soft skin on my lips and cheek and I didn't wipe Duncan's sloppy kiss of my face, but instead smiled to myself at the sweetness of it. I won't kid myself that I am living and experiencing life through the eyes of one who knows their days are numbered, but then again, they are aren't they? Maybe I have more days then they do, maybe not. But whether it's Joshua Bell before breakfast or a deadly diagnosis, I wish for myself and all of you moments that we will remember and cherish. Be it the concert pianist or just the commute to work, remember these are moments that make up the days that make up our lives. Have a memorable weekend everyone.

Life temperature

I was recently reading something that talked about taking your "life temperature". Taking a step back and looking at whether or not you are really living IN your life? Is your life balanced (work vs. family vs. self) or are you just going through the motions? So I took the opportunity to look at my own life and "take my life temperature". I went through a couple of days and kept asking myself, am I happy? Do I wish I was somewhere else? Will I remember THIS day? And do you know, I think my life temperature is A okay. I enjoy getting up in the morning and going to work, but I enjoy 5 o'clock when it's time to go pick up the boys. I enjoy cooking dinner and eating with my family and I enjoy the volunteer work I am currently doing. I love the people that I work with, my family, my friends... I don't feel pressure and with everything I have going on, I really don't even feel overwhelmed. And because I now live with my camera not more than an arms length away, I think I WILL remember this day. My creative juices are flowing...what I really need now is a day off to scrapbook some of THESE days, these ordinary days, these ordinary days that make up my life and my life temperature.

1957

It was 50 years ago.

Bobby socks, pony tails, root beer floats, Paul Anka and Leave it to Beaver.

And on April 21st 1957 - Jane Shipman married Theodore Larson Jr.

And 50 years later surrounded by family, they celebrated that momentous day with lots of laughs, a ton of silliness, a bit of nostalgia, and a whole lot of love. As promised, here are some pictures of our 50's anniversary party... I'm not sure, but I found a lot of pictures of me on the camera when I downloaded it...I'm thinking Johnny found me rather cute that night?

This is Bruce (Lynne's boyfriend) who is just awesome!! Not only does he play endlessly with the boys, but he is kind, he puts up with all our silliness AND he likes my cooking!!

And the night topper...we played trivia with some great prizes...

I think Pop was the big winner...what do you think??