Today I Love Not Knowing...Slice of Life 26 of 31

I expect either Barney or Andy to walk in any minute.

Alright now, remember when I told you I get to play my game my way?  Okay, I know that I loved "not knowing" already back in February, but that's all I can boil it down to today.  I didn't know when I started my day out this morning in this little nook of nostalgia what a joy it would be to me.  This is Henry's Restaurant, on the west side of West Jefferson, Ohio.  They don't have their own website that I could find, but here are some nice reviews.  I started my day at Henry's with a good, good, good friend.  The kind of friend who shows up just when you need her to and has all of the right words right when you need them.  

See the $.99 over J's shoulder?  You really can get bfast for $.99!

    I had set today aside as the day to get my Christmas letter done.  Yes, I know it is March.  Last year, I had a very busy (busier than normal) holiday season and didn't get my annual (21 years this year) Christmas letter out on time.  I for sure didn't want to do a double issue (did that twice...worse than childbirth!) so I just put it off a little more and a little more until I finally got it complete just in time for Easter!  The timing was actually wonderful.  Instead of sending it in time for Jesus' birth, I was getting it out there in time for the more important aspect of his life...his resurrection!  And because folks weren't bogged down by their own holiday hustles, more people commented and replied to it than ever before.  So....this year I just planned on waiting and figured as long as I had it out before the 4th of July, I'd be in business!

      Well, I couldn't have picked a better way to start a totally writing day!  Jaci and I enjoyed our breakfast (too bad I didn't order pie...Henry's is FAMOUS for their pies!) and had a great time catching up.  She gave me a good dose of mama advice and kind blog words that I really needed to hear.  Heck, she gave me banana bread to take home with me!  It just doesn't get better than that!  But it did.

     As luck would have it, our nest has recently re-filled and our son is living with us again for awhile as he continues his college.  His morning class got cancelled today and we had just the nicest time hanging out, listening to his very eclectic collection of music on his laptop, and discussing the merits of rinsing vs not rinsing when loading the dishwasher.  He had us both in absolute tears over this song that he was remembering from his younger boy days.  We talked about nostalgia, about growing up, about how the grass in all of our photos on the kitchen wall looks so much greener than in real life.  We talked about life in general.  We laughed.  He showed me Calvin and Hobbes' cartoons on his laptop.  We talked.  We talked.  And we talked.

     And when I finally did make it to the computer to start on my Christmas letter, it just rolled right out and I made it all the way to May in just a few hours!  (Yes, I'm one of those annoying people who recounts the year month by month.)  This is very a laborious process, so to make it to May in a few hours is quite the accomplishment.

     Later in the day I went a-blogging and found this wonderful quote from a blog mentor of mine, Bossy Betty .  (I wonder if she knows she is my mentor?)

 

I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next.

                                                               Delicious Ambiguity.

--Gilda Radner

   So...yeah, a pretty ambiguous day and a very ambiguous slice, but some days you just don't know.  And you have to do just what Gilda says and take the moment and make the best of it.  Some days it's good not to know. 

Today I Love Learning How to Live - Slice of Life Tuesday September 8, 2015

Today I Love Learning How to Live
 
 

Today I love learning how to live. 23 years ago today, the day after Labor Day is when I really began receiving lessons. On the evening before Labor Day, The Man and I had just put the finishing touches on the baby's room and then we just sat in that peaceful space listening to lullabies before going to sleep for the night. (Maybe that's where some of this boy’s love for music comes from, but I truly believe that gift comes from God.) Little did we know, as we rested our heads that evening, how our lives were about to change.

Fast forward to 2:13pm the following afternoon and this guy shows up to begin our lessons in how to live. He's been teaching us ever since. We've learned some things that we'll never forget, a few lessons that we needed extra course work in (thus his sister two and a half years later), and a few facts that I'm sure he doesn’t realize he taught us. And there are a few that maybe even he has forgotten. I thought I'd set them down here for all of us to remember.  In no particular order, these are 10 Lessons in How to Live from my baby boy:
 
1. Never expect things to go exactly as planned. I think this is the first lesson all babies teach their parents.
 
2. Always be ready for an adventure; keep your Legos packed. You never know when you'll have the opportunity to take off for South America. (Make sure your dad is watching when you leave so he can stop you before you actually leave the yard!)
 
3. Learn...in spite of what doesn't go your way...learn from it...learn in spite of it. (And never mix up the radiator with the windshield fluid reservoir.)
 
4. YES on the copy of Oh! The Places You'll Go for high school graduation; YES on getting all of the teachers along the way to sign the copy.  NO on the read aloud at the graduation party...trust us on this one. The ugly cry is...well...not pretty.

  5. Keep wonder; lose judgement. (He got almost as excited about the tree frog outside of Henry's Restaurant in West Jefferson as he did at the baby tigers in Indiana last week!)
 
6. Youtube...if you don't know how to do something, chances are someone else does. And if they know it, they have probably shared it with the world!
 
7. Something can usually be made from nothing...open your mind and let your creative juices flow! This kid once fixed our refrigerator shelf with a paper clip and a rubber band!
 
8. Macaroni art is a perfectly acceptable gift. (See #7 above!)
 
9. Be ready with a song; you never know when you'll need it, and you'll always be able to make someone else's day with it.
 
10. "If God is for us, who can be against us?" Romans 8:31 This one goes all the way back to our first Vacation Bible School experience. I can still hear his 4 year old voice reciting this memory verse. True then, true now, true forever.
 

Happy Birthday, my son.  I've told you before, and I'll tell you again, and someday you’ll believe me...you are a great teacher. 

Thanks for the lessons. 

I love you!  

Today I Love Silly...Slice of Life 2015 Day 9 but late to the party

Knock knock...phew!  (Imagine huge dust cloud!)

Dust, dust...

Wipe, wipe...

Hello?

Anyone out there?

Well, it's been over a year since I've been here, but my friend Cathy has inspired me to join the party at Two Writing Teachers again this year.  Sorry I'm getting here so late!  

If you don't mind, I'll just pick up right where I left off last year and right where I've been going along all this time on Facebook.  I post a Facebook status update each day (today is roughly day #991) telling about something I love.  How that whole habit got started is another story all together that you can read here if you want. 

Today I love silly!  My college daughter and her friend were home over the weekend, coinciding with a quick visit from my older sister.  We had the best of times! My Ol' Man took us all to the diner down the road for the very best homemade pie in the world!

It's pretty much impossible to get a "before" picture of Henry's pie!

We chatted, we cooked, we ate like stevedores, and laughed and laughed and laughed and were just plain silly!  Somewhere along the way, someone mentioned the game Chubby Bunny, which neither my sister nor I had heard of, so the college girls demonstrated!  In case you are unfamiliar, the basic premise is to say, "Chubby Bunny", then put a marshmallow in your mouth.  Don't chew!  Say, "Chubby Bunny" again, put in another marshmallow, and repeat until you can no longer be understood!  Or...until you are forced to choose between choking on or spitting out marshmallow goo!  There may or may not be a video of that experience, but since I love all of these girls and want to keep up my relationship with them...you won't see it here!  But, ooooh! We laughed so hard!  And for the record, my college girl won the contest with a whopping ELEVEN marshmallows crammed in her chipmunk cheeks!

Also, somewhere along about Saturday afternoon or evening, the song "Everything is Awesome" from the Lego movie came up and...yup...you guessed it... it became the ear worm of the weekend! Such fun times!

"There you go, that's $37."  / "Wha-a-AWESOME!"

Fast forward to today...the first day of what will surely be the first full five day week we've had in quite some time.  
The first day of Daylight Savings Time.  
Monday....the first day of the week for Pete's sake!  
Things were most definitely looking decidedly UN-awesome!

And of course, that's when that tune came bubbling back up to the top of my mental play list.    

It reminded me of laughter.
It reminded me of pie! 
It reminded me of marshmallow goo!
It reminded me of the weekend and the good times we had.

And suddenly...everything was looking pretty awesome again.  

I was so blessed to be able to spend that time with loved ones.
I am so blessed to be able to teach at a school that I love.
I am also so blessed to be a part of this writing community where my teacher juices are replenished when things begin to fall toward the un-awesome.  
And aren't we all blessed with the ability to be just a little bit silly when we need to?

So, there it is.  Your daily ear-worm and a little dose of silly delivered right to your door!  

(Go on, head to the store for marshmallows...you know you want to!)