That is a Wrap

Well...it wasn't pretty....but I finished. I completed the writing challenge. This is my last official Slice of Life for the month of March....a day late. Spring Break and a road trip across the country visiting family along the way made writing on time each day much more difficult than I anticipated...but that is okay. 31 days and 31 posts....just not one each day there at the end. Even though I didn't complete the challenge exactly the way I was supposed to, I completed it and it wasn't a failure. It wasn't a failure because I took my writer self off of the shelf, dusted it off and nurtured it. I am a writer again! I had the same feeling last year after this challenge. And then, I put that writer self back up on the shelf. If I take it down once a year, that is okay. I am comfortable with that in the season of life right now--the season of raising kids and supporting learners. That writer self will wait for me on that shelf. That's the joy of it.

I appreciate this opportunity and I admire this community of writers. I am better for having been a part of it.

I Am, Revisited

I am a wife, a mother, a daughter, a sister, and a friend.

I am chronically 2-3 minutes late for everything.

I am a believer in balance. I don’t always achieve it, but I always work towards it.

I am a learner, always, and I am very aware of all that I DON’T know.

I am well-aware of my faults (probably too aware).

I am a lover of dessert.

I am a grudge-holder (but I am trying to knock that off.)

I am a person who smiles and waves at people I pass on the road.

I am a post-it user and list-maker.

I am a "the glass is half-full" kind of person.

I am sick of politics. 

I am a home-body, a lover of travel, a country girl and a city kid all wrapped up in one.

I am a reader.

I am a teacher.

And now, I am a writer. Again.

Recap

Spring Break Recap

Two grown-ups and three children. Eight days. Forty hours driving. Seven total states. Three destinations. Mountains, prairies, Kansas. Cousins. Love. Laughter.  Family. The Denver Zoo. Late nights and early mornings. Lots of chicken nuggets and chocolate chip cookies. The open expanse of road. Creating memories. Family road trip. 

Failure

Spring Break Failure

I failed the writing challenge. Well, officially, anyway. Last week on Wednesday, I was packing and getting my family prepared to leave the next day for a Spring Break family road trip. By the time I sat down to write, it was 11:30 Wisconsin time…which meant it was 12:30 eastern time…I had missed the deadline. Disappointment washed over me. It had been going so well! I felt pretty bummed. I kept going, though. With a very long road trip on Friday, I wrote and then posted when we arrived at our destination. I kept going! Even though I had officially “failed” the writing challenge…I really didn’t fail. I was thinking about writing; I was drafting pieces in my head. Most importantly, I set aside time to write and made writing a priority in my life again, at least for the month of March. I participated in the writing challenge last year, too, and those posts are a record of my life at the time. I captured what was happening in my life, what I was feeling and what my thoughts were at that time. I am so grateful for this opportunity.

And then, I got really busy visiting family and missed posting two days in a row and REALLY failed the writing challenge. J

Cousins

Playing and bonding
Making the most of the days
To last the next year.

Similar yet different
Hours of togetherness
Laughter, memories.

Forging meaningful
Relationships together
lasting through the years.

Scenes from a Road Trip

4:00 am: Pitch black. Chatty children. Excitement mounting. The road trip has begun!

6:30 am: Children are sound asleep in the back, heads to the side and mouths open. Husband is listening to comedy Pandora station. The sky is lightening. Coffee is needed. 

9:30 am: Frozen soundtrack playing. Everyone appears happy. Chocolate chip cookies all around!

12:00 pm: My turn to drive. Time to catch up on Serial and What Should I Read Next podcasts. Naps, please!

4:00 pm: The boys took turns napping while the two-year-old did NOT nap. The kids are getting restless. Jack keeps complaining about being hungry. We should probably stop for dinner soon.

5:00 pm: I am sick of being in the car.

6:30 pm: I am REALLY sick of being in the car. Trying to listen to the Wisconsin basketball game, I keep hearing complaints about not sharing the iPad mixed in with, “How much longer?” every few minutes. “Daddy is trying to listen to the game!” My husband hollers to the backseat. Someone get me out of this car.

7:30 pm: Almost there. It’s been a long day.

8:00 pm: We have arrived! It’s a flurry of cousins! Everyone is so excited to be here! Yay!

Way Too Many Glasses

We have a plethora of canning jars at our house. In the basement, shelves and plastic trays hold a variety of sizes and shapes. There are random canning jars in our kitchen cabinets, freshly washed after finishing up the jelly or pickled beans. A few crafting projects with canning jars are also scattered about. I love them. I turned a blue one into a soap dispenser in our downstairs bathroom, which really means it was my idea, but my husband turned the blue jar into a soap dispenser.

Recently, probably as a result of all the Fixer Upper episodes I have been watching lately, I decided to use some of these canning jars as glasses. So, I went to the basement and rounded up a collection of jars I thought would make good glasses in a variety of sizes. Then, I pulled all of the rejected glassware out of the cabinet and put in a box to store in the basement. Mind you, I have already pared down our glassware by storing an entire plastic tote of it down in the basement. As I was putting away a few wine glasses by the bar, I kept thinking, “Geez, do we have a lot of glasses.” Seriously.

When we got married, I had a pretty decent supply of glasses, my husband had drink glasses for every kind of cocktail you can imagine, we registered for and received a nice set of everyday glasses and I am pretty sure between the two of us, we had pint glasses for every restaurant and bar we ever visited. And I haven’t even mentioned the vast collection of shot glasses! We both collected shot glasses from our travels when we were younger and neither of us knew the other one collected them. Now they line the top of the bar area.  We have an obscene amount of glasses. Goodwill has nothing on us as far as glassware goes. As I was putting these glasses away, I kept thinking, “We should get rid of some of this stuff.” But, then, I noticed a pint glass from a friend’s wedding and another one from one of my favorite restaurants, and I put them in a box and thought, “We might use them someday.”

This is happening more and more lately. I keep saving things I would not have saved five years ago. I blame my husband. He is a notorious saver. I can’t count the times, though, that I have mentioned something I would like for the house (like a ladder to hold blankets), and he has said, “I have one in the barn,” or goes into the basement and returns five minutes later with the mentioned item. Now, every time I think to get rid of something, I think, “What if I need this someday?” or “That wedding was so fun! I love this pint glass!”

And now the basement storage shelves are out of room.

I can’t even blame my husband. Well, not entirely, anyway.