Monday Musings

So I'm sitting in a gym watching 8th grade volleyball and realized I hadn't blogged.  Since I love you all, I will take a few moments and pen a short Muse on my phone since life will be busy when I get back to the chalet.

I was starving since I essentially had no lunch so I picked up a snack.  Balance you know... a doughnut hole and a super blend drink.  Heh

So how's life?  Good.  And busy.  And sometimes not too busy.  I saw my "big" sister today.  That always makes me happy.  Apparently it makes her happy too.  She was beside herself with a story I told.  And to be truthful it was a very funny story I could never share.  

When's Arbor Day? Well here at the Chairman and Co. it was last week.  I singlehandedly planted three blue spruce and let me tell you those buggers were pokey and heavy.  

I have discovered that powder dishwasher detergent and powdered laundry soap work better for me.  This has been a public service announcement.  

So I'll quit blogging and a be a good parent and watch the action here in the gym.  I'm slightly distracted with the two boxes of doughnuts next to me.  I think they're for the team, not the middle-aged mothers.  

So here's a few things that made me smile. 

Monday Musings

Oh Monday how I love you!  It's been such a nice day so far - weatherwise and otherwise.

I might be a bit slow at the switch, but I just discovered a perfect place to put my bread dough to rise.  In the microwave!  Not running of course.  The humidity of the dough stays put and the bread rises very quickly!

Speaking of microwaves, we use ours only to heat up leftovers mainly.  However, I just discovered popping corn in there!  Put 1/2 cup of unpopped kernels in a brown lunch-sized bag and fold over a few times and turn it on.  Voila!  Microwave popcorn without added chemicals or oil!  I may or may not enjoy adding a lot of butter and salt when it is done.

I just learned something at the advanced age that I am.  Pine cones make a soft popping/clicking sound when they are opening.  Yes, I never knew that before.

We here in the upper-midwest in the state of Dairyland have had wonderful weather for a few days.  It's amazing how chipper and happy everyone seems when I go out and about.  It's kind of like we're all having a collective sigh and looking at each other with the thought that says, 'we survived the winter of 15/16'!

I spent a good portion of the weekend trimming, weeding, and burning piles of stuff.  At one point as I was burning and it almost seemed to be getting too big of a fire, the neighbor man came out the front door and just looked my way.  I'm not sure if he was ready to call 9-1-1 or watch my eyebrows go up in flames.  But after a couple minutes he went inside.  So I figured the fire was under control.  Heh.

As I trimmed and trimmed and trimmed some of our bushes, I remember shortly after we planted everything some years back.  I kept urging them, 'Grow!  Grow!  Grow!'.  Then there were a few years that everything looked perfect size-wise.  Then 'Slow down!'.  It kind of reminded me of parenting.  It seems I was anxious for each new stage of their development.  I was anxious for them to roll over, sit up, take their first steps, and talk.  Then it happens and so much more and now I just want life to slow down a bit.  Time is that way too.  I checked the calendar anxiously for my next birthday when I was young.  Time moved so slow.  Then in my early-mid 20's life hummed along at a lovely pace.  And now time goes by quicker and quicker.  I just turned 50 a couple weeks ago and I just noticed my birthday is in two weeks.

Daughter #2 wants to make some edible cookie dough tonight.  I have no intentions of stopping her.  Yum.

Let me see what I have to throw your way for pictures.  I must sign off.  Two teenagers will be walking in the door in 20 minutes starving.  And another in another hour.  Happy week ahead!

took a full day, but the porch is clean and ready for some good company!

I like this note to himself.  Especially the encouragement at the end.  

So sweet...

this is so me...

Monday Musings

Well hello there.  This feels like me.

An empty mind.  My older brother would say that's how I am most the time - with my mouth running.  But I won't give him the satisfaction that his comments bother me.  

It was sibling day yesterday.  Or so Facebook said.  Many posted pictures including me.  Here is what I posted.  I am the 'baby'.  And I do think that so much of who I am can be attributed to my siblings, not just my parents (who worked with challenging material).  Siblings hold you accountable.  They help you laugh at your mistakes.  They give you courage to take the next step whatever that may be.  They are your friends when you feel alone.  They challenge you to do more.  To be more.  And I'm not just talking about when we were kids all living under the same roof.

We've had winter and then spring and then winter and then spring and then winter and then... I think you get the point.  Countless times since I've last blogged we've had significant snowfall that has dissipated into the ground.  I liked this:

The Chairman completed our taxes with days to spare!  I have to admit I might kinda miss the adrenaline rush there is when he's feverishly working on April 15. 

Daughter #2 got to babysit her little cousin last week.  I'm not sure who had more fun, him or her!

I offered once again to contribute a bunch of cinnamon rolls for a school fundraiser.  I think they make money on them.  The making them was actually fairly easy.  The packaging them - not so much.  And yes, I rewarded myself a warm one with coffee for my efforts.  

Yesterday we had some more MYP come over to join our MYP.  They played games and talked and ate a whole batch of fresh chocolate chip cookies and talked and ate ginormous amounts of food I pulled out of the fridge.

Now one of them has promised to come back to day and he's making supper for our family!  This could be interesting...!

Happy week ahead to you!  Sorry this isn't very introspective, interesting, or informative.  Maybe next week inspiration will hit!  Pretty clever with all those 'in' words, eh?  Maybe I still have it.  Or not.

Monday Musings

Well hello!  We are safely back in Dairyland!  I'll try not to wax on and on about our spring break trip because quite frankly, very few people would be interested in the mundane details.  However, I'll make a few brief comments.

Colorado is beautiful.  Really, really beautiful.  I would live there.  Except for the fact that the Chairman's job is in Dairyland and that we are a team.  So unless I leave him (which will never happen) I will live in utter contentment in Dairyland.  Colorado is also a very dry climate and my skin attested to the fact.

Ski vacations should not be called vacations for the ones responsible for cooking, cleaning, and doing laundry.  They should be called ski and lots of work experiences.  I have never been so tired returning from 'vacation'.  And that even takes into account that everyone pitched in.  So don't feel sorry for me.

The Chairman tends to be very cautious and for that I'm thankful.  However I was questioning his wisdom and cautiousness when he went careening down a ski run and said 'you can handle it'.  Thankfully I trust him and thankfully I made it to the bottom with all my equipment and limbs.  But just barely.

Pictures never do a location justice.  I'm not sure exactly why.  Maybe because we can see beyond the frame.  Maybe it is because we also are not just seeing but we are hearing and smelling and feeling.  I think that's what the bible does for us too.  We can see so much, but when we would get to the other side, it will be so much, much more.  That's such a comfort.

The Chairman typically has a death-grip on the steering wheel and doesn't like to let me drive a whole lot when both of us are in a vehicle.  However, a non-stop 16-hour journey will change that.  I had the privilege of driving from dark o'clock til dark o'clock.  It also was raining.  The entire vehicle snored along except for me.  And I loved it.  I had these cushy-headphones that came with the vehicle.  I also had a country music station on satellite radio and for many hours I knew every song and nearly every word to every song and sang along and it took me back to memories I had thought I had forgotten.  At one point the Chairman woke up and said, 'are you doing ok?'  And I told him I loved him and he went back to sleep.  Sappy country songs will do that to you.

We returned home to content but over-joyed pets.  Lisi seemed to fare very well.  She seemed almost ambivalent that we were home.  This was due to the fact she got to go on several doggy field trips to exciting places.  Simba?  Well he followed me from room to room for two days and at the moment I'm typing this blog post he is purring loudly and has his head on my left hand as I type.  Who said cats don't miss their people?

We had a super-special weekend with dear guests and privileges.  One tradition that we have done since 2001 is to take pictures of our MYP (many young people) before we leave for the day.  Yesterday was no different.  As I pulled out the picture of the first year we had three MSC (many small children) I wondered where our babies went.

So back to the realities of life.  The laundry spins.  The dog is waiting to be walked.  The calendar is full of places I need to be after school.  And somehow between all that I need to figure out a healthy suppertime choice that can sit on the stove for the  different meal times required due to practises and work schedules.

Here's a few pics:

easy run but very long!

The Chairman and I.  Can't you smell that fresh mountain air?

stopping for a bite

great young people that have more gumption than me

this is how close they all are even without a funny video on a phone

the very beginning of a 16-hour journey

my view at dark o'clock

special people came to see us

The Chairman and the Chef

Sweet sisters

2016 special morning

2003 special morning.  (sniff)  I wish I could hug those babies again. 

 Click here to listen to one of the songs I thoroughly enjoyed that dark night.   Gonna hold who needs holdin'.  Mend what needs mendin'.  Walk what needs walking tho' it means an extra mile.  Say wheat needs sayin'.  Pray what needs prayin'.  Cause we're only here for a little while.

Have a good week.