Summer list (so far...)

1. Visit the Carmel Farmer's Market
2. Visit the Noblesville Farmer's Market
3. Visit the Westfield Farmer's Market
4. Participate in the library reading program
5. Go to Symphony on the Prairie
6. Go up in the balloon at Conner's Prairie
7. Throw a summer party (Christmas in July?)
8. Finish scrapbooking our wedding
9. Start scrapbooking our house
10. Go to Talbot Street
11. Eat at The Flying Cupcake
12. Eat at Zest!
13. Eat at Pizzology

On learning to take a break

I am one of those people that keeps going and going and going until I simply can't go anymore.  And that's what happened over the past few weeks.  I've been teaching all day and coming home to work on my Mary Kay business all night.  I would work on and off until Andrew came home from work at 11pm and then I went to bed.  I kept doing that while adding in facials and parties for Mary Kay last week and found that I just couldn't keep up anymore.

I had been getting sick and then on Thursday I thought I could go to work on cold medicine and make it through school and then prom that night and by 10am I knew that that wouldn't work.  I ended up going home sick from work on Thursday and then taking another sick day on Friday.  I spent most of Saturday sick and finally started to feel better today.

I have always done this to myself and I know that I probably will do it again, but this should serve as a reminder to me and others who do this that it's okay to take a break if you need one!

A mother's love (a little late for mother's day)

I've been watching Oprah as she remembers some of the most meaningful guests she's had on her show.  One story that really resonated with me was that of Erin Kramp.  Oprah's website explains the story:

Erin knew she was dying, and after realizing that her 6-year-old daughter, Peyton, would have to grow up without her, she began recording hours and hours of motherly advice. The videotapes covered everything from how to choose makeup ("Try to find makeup that looks natural, like you're not wearing any") to how to choose a husband ("Pick a very nice guy who has a backbone"). In the midst of grueling treatments, Erin also found the strength to write letters and prepare gifts for Peyton to open every Christmas and birthday after she was gone.

When my mother went through each of her three major surgeries in my life (two open heart surgeries and a hysterectomy), I know that she wrote letters to each of us children to make sure that we knew she loved us if something happened.  I thank God that she is still with us and that we have her here to tell us that instead of having to read it in a letter.  I think that's why I identify with this story so strongly.

When Erin's husband and daughter were on Oprah earlier this week, her husband said that the lesson his life taught him was to "have a sense of urgency about your life.  Live each minute to the fullest.  You don't know how much time you have."

Just wanted to say that I'm still here

Just a little busy/sick/needing to take some time for myself.  I'll be back soon.  I promise;)

On trying to repay your mother

The Lanyard

The other day as I was ricocheting slowly
off the pale blue walls of this room,
bouncing from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one more suddenly into the past --
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sickroom,
lifted teaspoons of medicine to my lips,
set cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift--not the archaic truth

that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hands,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.

- Billy Collins


Originally posted by Marta Writes

The lilacs are blooming!

Too bad you can't smell them through the computer!