Domestic arts
I thought for a little while on the title of this musing. My first thought was to title it In a jam, then came Jammin’, but I decided that I didn’t want to go with playing with word meanings. Instead I started to think about a conversation I had with a friend of mine this…
Struggle
Everybody has struggles. This is something that my kids and I talk about. It is usually triggered by seeing someone that needs help with their mobility, but I try to make sure they understand that everyone struggles with something, multiple somethings. Some of the struggles we can see, some are happening in people’s environment, body,…
Dog Entertainment
I am sitting on my backyard swing enjoying the fading warmth of the day. The kids are inside being entertained by various media devices. I am being entertained by the dogs. I think I got the best of the possibilities. In the last half hour I have watched some all-star wrestling, tug of war, stealth…
Jack-of-all-trades
Chauffeur, chef, personal assistant, receptionist, nurse, dog trainer, personality management and conflict resolution, home repair, baker, bicycle mechanic, teacher, motivation coach, confidant, creative director, nutritionist, photographer, gardener, dress and costume maker, artist, councillor, graphic designer. A teacher once said to me that I was a jack-of-all-trades. I think she meant that I was so busy…
Reduce, reuse, recycle
I have a renewed admiration for people who make new things from old things. New materials are easy: you buy them, you manipulate them, and you make something. Done. Making something new from something old is more like: you hunt down, scavenge, discover, clean, repair, prepare, sort through, organize, store, dig through, manipulate, and then…
The damn keys
Several years ago my dad and husband built a new shed. It replaced a crumbling, rotting cubicle that might have formally been considered a shed, but it’s useful days had ended. The replacement shed is lovely, with a cedar shingled roof, sliding door, and almost twice the size of its predecessor. The inside is a bit…
New Toy
My camera has served me well. I have taken thousands of photos with it over the years. Kids, flowers, cars, kids, pets, skies, kids, stop motion, holidays, art, kids… I am not sure when I started fighting with it, but I know it has been going on for a while. It would pass through where…
Clothing purgatory
The weather guess-timators are promising a week of lovely warmth and mostly sunshine, which means I get to spend most of today in clothing purgatory otherwise known as the seasonal clothing switch. Clothes that were put into plastic bins months ago and stuck into dark awkward places are wrestled, dragged, and cursed out of hiding….
…maybe a short stroll
It appears that what I imagined to be a roller coaster quest to find the perfect dog was just a gentle meander with a couple of stumbles. The newest edition to our clan joined us today. She is cute, dark and has been dubbed Olive. Although with one light and one dark dog no article…
Manning up
I was talking to a neighbour the other day and she was telling me a story about her son and giving him a pep talk. He had been crying and she said to him that he was crying like a little baby girl and needed to man up. I wasn’t about to get into…