My aspirationally weekly, realistically more like monthly email of books and enthusiasms will keep your #tbr full and make sure you know what's next.
I’m a big fan of Laura Vanderkam’s 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think–a time management book with the premise that most of us do have time for the things we actually WANT to do. It changed my life in at least one way: I almost never say I “just don’t have time” for things anymore. Instead, I say (at least to myself) “I don’t want to give my time to that.” Because that’s nearly always the truth. […]
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I’ve just finished reading Anne Lamott’s Imperfect Birds, which, long and very absorbing story short, is about an AA mother, her newly druggy teen and her writerly second husband, and how the mom and stepdad wise up to their too-clever daughter. On the surface. Under that, it is, of course, about a lot of things, and not the least is how crushed the mother is by how late it is with her daughter. She’s been her mother, and not always […]
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Whew. It is Sunday night. We had a long, nice weekend of mellow togetherness. Helped Sam with his model of Spaceship Earth. Took Lily, Wyatt and Rory to the bookstore with their wallets. Went to a grown-up party (for us, there were a few kids there but hey, not ours!) and made new friends, a rarity in our town, where a) we tend to already know most people and b) (and probably more relevantly) people only talk to people they […]
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Apparently the urge to clean, like spring itself, comes late to me. There are still hockey bags in our hallway. Ski boots in the closet. Too-heavy coats (although not full-on ski jackets) in the cubbies and I am tired of it, and tired of the piles in the kitchen, and tired of the piles in the bedroom, and tired of the piles in general. Maybe even tired enough to actually do something about it. But not alone. I called three […]
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I’ve always tended to react to evenings—you know, after bedtime, when you regroup and try to figure out what on earth went wrong and how others could change to make it better—based on how the kids were. “Lily was in rare form,” I say of my girl with the curl right in the middle of her forehead. Or “Wyatt just could NOT leave Rory alone.” And I think of how things went—whether there were bedtime books, whether I’m glugging the […]
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Wyatt and Rory brought these home from school earlier this week. They were part of a much-heralded art project that is truly Montessori in theme: using clay, wax and soft wood, they were exploring different carving mediums! That seemed fine to me, if a little high-falutin’; I don’t tend to question what they do on Montessori time. They go, they come back, they seem happy, I detect learning—this is all I ask. I displayed their art on the kitchen counter […]
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Last night, in a lucky confluence of events, I unloaded my pasta machine from the basket I’d taken to Wyatt’s classroom (biannual pasta-making demonstration) at the same moment as I began contemplating mixing up tortilla dough—and a brilliant idea was born. Any good Texan knows that the only real tortillas are handmade tortillas, and that putting “handmade” on a baggie and then selling them in the grocery fridge section really does not count. I’ll eat those, but only under duress. […]
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When we adopted Rory, almost two years ago now, she was 3 1/2, 6 months older than our youngest, Wyatt. All of our other kids were biological kids (Sam was 7 and Lily 5), and Rory was our first (and only) foray into adoption. We “adopted out of birth order,” and as I remember it, the decision process went something like this: our social worker, Kathleen, a big, comfortable woman with shorn white hair and a confident, rolling walk, had […]
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I love to grow food. I’m pretty indifferent about flowers. I mean, flowers are nice. I like it when there ARE flowers. But there’s a limit to how much time and effort I will invest in flowers, and I generally reach it about the moment when I get to the farm stand, note the huge selection and decide to go get a coffee. (Good thing the farm stand has coffee!) But growing food–whole meals so local we are talking steps […]
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I love my NPR. In the car, it’s pretty much solid NPR all day long, unless it’s Car Talk or one of the guest-oriented programs has someone on that I’m just not into. But NPR creates conflicts—namely, that all of my kids consider themselves, as conversationalists, way, way, WAY more interesting than even the most fascinating NPR story. And so should I, right? They will only be young enough to want to share with me, for a 25 minute drive, […]
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Today: Lily’s lacrosse. Lily’s lacrosse takes place from 3:15-4:15 at the green in front of the elementary school in one of the next towns over. On the down side, it’s a solid 20 minutes there from Lily’s school, which gets out at … 3. This means we WILL be late. No matter how hard I try. I can be bright and shiny and first in the carpool line, and there we will still be: late. On the plus side, Lily’s […]
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This has never happened to me before, and I’m so happy that it waited until I was ready. Last night, Guo Ji Mama and I were at her son’s lacrosse game on our local fields. We ate a picnic from the Mexican place, left most of our respective broods happily playing in the park and sauntered over to sort of semi-watch the game. After a while, a largish blonde woman approached. “Are zose your kids alone in ze playground?” she […]
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What a day. Let’s just say that the amount of crying that went on this afternoon was stunning, and that was before I told the kids that the (old) dog had (easily, I hope painlessly) died this morning. I have had better days. So, I guess, had she… But (so I won’t start crying) back to the crying. I told the kids this am that I would bring them home for an hour before soccer. We take Lily’s friend B […]
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It must be spring, because amidst all of the outside activities and the going outside and the going back outside comes… cleaning. Sort of. At a very low key. I have a pretty high tolerance for the debris level in our house at the moment, because while dealing with it—putting, say, the hockey bags away for the year—would give me a pleasant high and offer some lasting pleasure, it would have to come at the expense of other things , […]
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Let me just say: actual adults could now ride in every single seat of my car. Rob’s boss’s wife. Your mother. Martha Stewart. (I would let any of them ride in the passenger seat. Of course. But say they were ALL in the car.) Now they could ride. I would not have to say “Oh, my God, I am SO SORRY.” Or “I have a towel. Do you want a towel? Seriously, take the towel.” Or “Shit, I don’t know […]
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I Am So Not the Person I Wish I Was Originally uploaded by kjda I am so mad at them. I am so mad at me. And I would just like to say right now that this is stupid, stupid, stupid. Wyatt and Rory each brought a pop tart in the car on the way to Lily’s after school lacrosse. For Sam and Lily, I brought Oreos. (for those of you who thought we ate some fantastic, snotty organic diet, […]
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Crafty Lily Originally uploaded by kjda Lily has crafty instincts in more ways than one. By all rights, today should have been soccer. Normally, we play soccer in the rain around here. We do not let a little 50 degree weather or drizzle stop us! In fact, we have, and have had since Sam was this age and playing in this particular soccer (a spring fundraiser for the Dartmouth men’s and women’s soccer teams), special soccer gloves. Well, they’re not […]
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Should You Need to Ask for What You Want? Originally uploaded by kjda "Ball!" Rory’s tennis ball ice cream has rolled away, under my feet. "Ball! Bally!" "Yep," I agree. "Bally." Rory sighs. "Please can you get my ball?" "Sure." I roll it back. We repeat a variation on this about every other hour. She will sit in the public restroom, grunting "uumph! Uumph!" if she can’t reach the toilet paper. Ditto for too high paper towels. Struggle with an […]
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Guess who is the only child to just come in every day and empty her lunchbox out without direction? Rory. Guess who remembers to do her morning chore without being asked? Rory. Guess who jumped up and got the crayons when I reminded them that Mother’s Day boxes were being mailed tomorrow? Rory. She is so alert to any opportunity to please. Not just me, either. Wasn’t I so nice, Wyatt, she asks if she gets him a cup for […]
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