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  • Looking on the Bright Side

    It is worth a thousand pounds a year
    to have the habit of looking on the bright side of things.

    -Samuel Johnson

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    Ok, so I’m looking at the bright side:
    I have had ample oppotunities to photograph Japanese beetles.

    The not-so-bright side:
    They’re eating up my victory garden!

    HELP! How do I get rid of them?

  • Proud of Himself for His "Reuse of Materials"

    Sometimes, my husband gets little ideas.

    This one started when he happened across new doorknobs and locks I demanded he buy (over a year ago) after our house was robbed.

    His reasoning went like this:

    1. I need to take off the old doorknobs.
    2. If I’m going to do that, I may as well paint the door so I don’t have to remove the doorknobs later, when I decide to paint.
    3. If I’m going to paint the door, I may as well paint the hallway. It needs it.
    4. If I’m painting the hallway, I may as well take down the trim and paint it separately outside because it’s easier that way.
    5. Oops, this trim is all warped and damaged. I’ll cut it down and add on some new trim, no one will notice the joints where they meet once it’s painted.
    6. I don’t have as much trim as I thought. But I do have this wood over here left over from making the elaborate bedframe-with-built-in-storage that we didn’t really need.
    7. Robin was just saying she misses doing the bulletin boards at school. And talking about setting up a seasonal table in the hallway.

    And that, logically enough, led to this:


    You know, so I can decorate it seasonally.

    What I found impressive is that he managed to paint everything with leftover bits of paint we already had, all the trim is salvaged from the kitchen we tore apart, and he did all this in the space of one weekend.

    As whimsical and weird as it may seem, this is a vast improvement over the dingy hallway and horrid paint job that was here before.

    And yeah, I’ll totally decorate the tree and have a ball doing it, because I am queer like that. He knows me all too well.

  • Some Thoughts on Parenting

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    Yesterday Cassidy turned four.
    It hardly seems possible.
    My darling girl, my wild child. Trouble incarnate.
    As nearly opposite to myself as seems humanly possible,
    Cass is perpetually filled with such joy and laughter
    that she can hardly keep it contained.

    It bubbles forth
    and touches everyone around her.

    She makes me believe that perhaps,
    I am doing something right.

    So today, some thoughts on parenting.

    “My mother had a great deal of trouble with me,

    but I think she enjoyed it.”
    -Mark Twain

    “Sylvia thought how all parents

    wanted an impossible life for their children-

    happy beginning, happy middle, happy ending.

    No plot of any kind.

    What uninteresting people would result

    if parents got in their way.”
    Karen Joy Fowler

    “A child’s world is fresh and new and beautiful,
    full of wonder and excitement.

    It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision,
    that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring,
    is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood.
    If I had influence with the good fairy
    who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children
    I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be
    a sense of wonder
    so indestructible that it would last throughout life,

    as an unfailing antidote
    against the boredom and disenchantments of later years,
    the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial,
    the alienation from the sources
    of our strength.”

    -Rachel Carson

    Have a good Wednesday!