“No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.”
– Alice Walker
wcw – the beauty of a true friend
Author Archives: Laura
gratitude: looking for the glass half full
Ah, the summer wind down.
The days when my kids are alternately bored out of their skulls, dreading the start of school, and feverishly pitching ideas for activities just in case they haven’t managed to cram enough fun into the 9½ weeks of summer gone by.
These are the days when I juggle last minute appointments and school prep, except this year my house decided to mutiny. So while other parents are shopping for binders and book covers, I’m listening to a demolition.
No dramatic flair – there is literally a man with a sledgehammer knocking out tiles, walls, and flooring in my bathroom. I never in my wildest dreams imagined I’d hear these sorts of crashing noises inside our home.
On the up side: We didn’t go crashing through the shower floor ourselves before the water damage was discovered, it didn’t happen during the madness of our summer rush, and the kids (HALLELUJAH) will be back at school in a couple of weeks.
Now, we’ll be talking major gratitude once I have a bathroom of my own again.
we have a new world order and nobody bothered to tell me
“Do you have any children?”
“No. My husband has cystic fibrosis so we weren’t able to have kids.”
“Oh.”
“We tried to adopt in 2015 but they told us no.” [voice drops to a whisper] “Unless you’re single or gay you don’t get the kids today.”
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph – what on earth?!
Share Your World 8/14/17
When you leave a room, do you turn the lights off behind you or keep the lights on throughout your house most of the time?
I intend to turn the lights off behind me, I really do. I even think I’ve done it most of the time, but the rate at which BrightSide walks around the house exclaiming, “Doesn’t anyone turn off the lights when they leave a room?!?” indicates otherwise. Then again, we have kids, so…
What do you feel is the most enjoyable way to spend $500?
I’d take a couple of girlfriends off for a weekend of pizza, kicking back, delicious drinks, and gabfest.
Complete this sentence: My favorite thing to do on my cell phone is…
Check my e-mail. Dorky, I know. I play solitaire on there but it doesn’t rise to the level of “love.”
What inspired you this past week? Feel free to use a quote, a photo, a story, or even a combination.
Heather Heyer’s last Facebook post: “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.
Cee’s Share Your World questions come out on Mondays. Check out the photography on her blog!
blowing up that University bubble
BrightSide and I met in Charlottesville.
We were both twenty and living in that University bubble. Life being what it is I bumped into BrightSide with some baggage, but by some miracle he liked me in all my nuttiness anyway.
When we go back to visit I can still feel the thrill of being young, free, and accountable only to ourselves.
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how new math ruined the grocery store
Come on, you know you’ve wondered about some of these. I’m not losing sleep or anything, but I’ve run a few internal rants about some of these. Check out Nick’s commentary on grocery stores:
Paper towels that advertise you are buying “Like 8” rolls when you are only purchasing 6 thick rolls – It’s not “like 8” rolls. It’s 6 rolls! Recently, and I swear this is true, I bought a package of 6 paper towel rolls that are usually ”like 8,” but it had a large “BONUS ROLL” label on it because somehow it was “like 9”, when it was still only 6 rolls. I hate this new math. If I am going to pay for “Like 8” or “Like 9” paper towel rolls, I think I should be able to pay “Like full price.”
How are 6 paper towels like 9? Things that annoy me in grocery stores – nickclaussen.com
Sunday Snapshot: early evening wisdom
“Teach all men to fish, but first teach all men to be fair. Take less, give more. Give more of yourself, take less from the world. Nobody owes you anything, you owe the world everything.”
– Suzy Kassem
SoCS – the pain and angst of guessing games
I don’t like guessing games. Never have, never will.
I don’t want to spend time hemming and hawing over what might be in the box when someone gives me a present. I’m convinced I’ll guess wrong and make them feel badly, or maybe I’ll guess right and ruin the surprise. Either way, I’d rather just graciously accept the gift, thank you very much.
I come off as a big old fuddy duddy but I hate most guessing games that children insist you do, too. What’s behind my back? When’s my birthday? What’s my middle name? Nothing I want to spent time thinking about. Also, per the kid thing, those jars in classrooms where you’re supposed to guess the number of items in the jar – UGH. I actually had to teach this skill one year and it almost killed me: Now kids, here’s how you use estimation to determine a logical guess for how many jelly beans are in the – when what you really want to do is shout out THREE HUNDRED FORTY-SEVEN and be done with it.
Guess the sex of the baby. Guess what’s for lunch. Guess your best friend’s dream job. Guess when the baby will be born.
Nope, nope, nope nope nope.
Call me a fuddy duddy if you will.
Linda’s SoCS prompt this week is (no surprise here) “guess.” You should click over and check out who else participated.
