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The Well-Stocked Pantry
There is a secret to eating healthy, and not calling for that emergency greasy pizza box– it’s in your pantry. More precisely, what you put in your pantry. You can be sure of one thing: meal time will be crazy every night. Here’s the only chance you’ve got to put yourself a bit ahead of the game, and give yourself a shot at cooking a healthy meal. Stocking your pantry (to see how to stock your refrigerator click here, and to see how to stock your freeze click here.) with the right ingredients, can make all the difference between desperation about what to fix, and the accompanying guilt for ordering…
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No Power
UPDATE: Our power came back on around 6:30 p.m. — about 18-19 hours without heat. The inside temp was 50. The day was not idyllic. I did not like being held captive by four rambunctious boys all day along who thought their idea of fun was to build a fort in one room, and see how far they could stretch various blankets, quilts and every single sheet we own it into other rooms, with chairs from the dining room, and the kitchen piled into the living room, while they hooped it up like Indians all DAY LONG…. while munching crackers, and dropping crumbs all over the floor. I learned this…
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My Sweet Reward
It’s been a tough week. Facing death’s sting, coming to terms with the limits we have in this physical world, watching the end of childhood, and cold, bleak weather that makes me want to stay home and never go outside again. This morning, like so many others, I woke to the sound of wooden Brio train tracks clinking as they were being built by little hands. I realized how thankful I am to hear that sound. Little boys jumping out of bed as soon as they wake, heading downstairs in their jammies to build some new rail system they dreamed up over the night. Little hands grasping for toys. Even…
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I hope you remember you loved this
He studies the garden railroad book. The book with real pictures of miniature railroads. The trains that have real smoke coming from the engines, that climb across miniature bridges, and wind around tiny plants that look like trees.“Can you buy this for me?” I explain that the trains are too fragile for little hands. Your wooden train is perfect for practicing; perfect for your hands. Grandpas have real trains. He moves the wooden tracks of his train in a new configuration. He uses Lincoln logs to build houses to create a village for his train. He stacks wooden blocks as buildings. They fall, and he struggles. “How come my Grandpa…
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I offer you only one promise…
Have you noticed this? Funerals move too quickly — they close the casket before you’re ready I need — and want — to linger. Is this is a favor? That truck with the dirt shows up as we leave the grave. Please, don’t let me see. He lived a long life so, you think you won’t be sad. Death is expected. Still, a reminder your place in the universe has shifted a bit. Then you see his son… sitting in that same church pew where you sat with Dad. Please spare him this pain… and then, the tears flow in waves. You move your…
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How to make a Paper Snowflake
Snow! Snow! Snow! Nothing brightens up a gray, dreary day better than crisp, white, crunchy snow — a gift to an otherwise overcast blah, Winter day. If there’s no chance of snow, you can make your own snow out of ordinary computer paper. Check out these patterns. Soon, you will definitely be generating some white stuff floating all over the INSIDE of your house. ( I throw a tablecloth on the floor, and we sit on the tablecloth, and go to town. So to speak.) The art of making snowflakes helps children learn math symmetry, and sacred geometry, as all snowflakes are hexagons, with six equal sides and six equal…
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Baby It’s Cold
at the lake… This is a photo of the steam coming off the lake, from the warmer water beneath the ice as it hits the zero degree air above. Cold.
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Anyone want to go for a drive?
When I was little, before gas prices skyrocketed, my Dad used to love to take us for a Sunday drive in the country to see one-room school houses and old abandoned cemeteries. Our drive to the lake is 3 hours, and most of the drive has no direct route via interstates. Instead, we drive through back-country roads, past weathered barns, horses, and a loose cow. The owners of the farms, houses, trailers and stores are becoming familiar as we increase our travel to the lake, yet they still remain strangers. I put this video together during our summer drives to the lake. (Yes, it’s a little shaky, I hope you…
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In my dreams, I am untethered
I can help you find your contact when you’ve lost it in the bathroom, while it mysteriously fell from your finger while you were putting them into your eyes. I know exactly the places to look… sometimes it falls on your cheek, and it just sits there, waiting to be picked up. Or, it’s sitting lightly on your hair, precariously balanced — untethered by gravity’s pull. If it’s not in either of those two places, I can usually find it hanging on the edge of the sink, or the edge of your toe. No matter, not to worry, I will always find it, no matter where it has landed. To…
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