Paw Prints in the Snow

Last week I was reminded about perspective.

For the last three years, right around this time of year (just before Christmas or just after Christmas), we seem to get hit over the head with an unexpected  something or other (for lack of a better term.  I am about to have a cup of tea and am hoping I may be able to think of a better word in about 10 minutes.).  Leaky roof.  Leaky septic tank.  Leaky car.  It reminds me of opening the back door yesterday morning and finding a dead mouse on the steps, left there by my favourite feline companion.  I know I should dispose of it but honestly, I just want to step over it and hope that it removes itself.

Mike and I balance each other well and while he has bemoaned each situation, I have been able to pronounce the merits of being able to do a load of laundry without creating a puddle in the backyard, for instance.  This year, however, was the proverbial "straw that broke the camel's back".  "Really?!  Again?  Why us?"  I was right there with Mike, shaking my fist at the world and the beginning of the year.

Then I happened to be talking to a good friend and suddenly everything was put into perspective.  We love our house with all its creaks and cracks. It is our home.  Our kitchen is a bright and busy area of our home.  We eat well and we eat often.  Most importantly, we have each other.  I couldn't think of any other people I would rather spend my days and nights with.  We are happy and we are healthy.  The boys are healthy.  When put into perspective, that straw is exactly that.  A straw.

So while sometimes I find a dead mouse at the back door, other times my favourite feline companion will leave paw prints in the snow for me. And coming upon a good paw print?  Well, you can't help but stop and admire it, even if there is a dead mouse beside your foot.

It's a Man Cold

Mike has been a bit under the weather this weekend.  I hope I don't come across as sounding cold-hearted because he is sick.  I recognize that.  But there comes a point when you want to say, "Dude, it's just a cold."  I'm not alone in this, right?  Have others experienced the man cold?

I couldn't help  but think of this British comedy skit from a few years ago.  Take two minutes and watch it because you will giggle.  Unless you're a man.  I remember Mike not thinking it was nearly as funny as I did when we came across it a few years ago.

Sunday Morning Sky

Happy I decided to get up a little early this morning to enjoy a quiet coffee before I do the grocery shopping.

It was a pretty sky, especially if you don't mind living across from a cemetery.  Which we don't.

Woman's Work?

A few weeks ago, Keegan (who is 7 years old) and I began watching cooking shows together.  Not often.  Once a week or so.

One of the shows we have watched has self-proclaimed terrible cooks pitted against each other as they learn to cook from professional chefs.  During the last episode, Keegan loudly says, "I get men not knowing how to cook but how does a woman not know how to cook?!"  Huh.  Who would have thought that those stereotypes can be ingrained at such a young age?  I think it's time to get going on those cooking lessons.

i also think it's time for Mike to cook a little more often.  

Wordless Wednesday

Me in January

I really, really don't like having my picture taken.  Never have.  I am uncomfortable in front of the camera.  I never know how I should stand or smile, what to do with my hands, where to look.  So it is kind of unexpected that I have decided to take more self-portraits in an attempt to become more comfortable in front of the camera. Having said that, here is the first self-portrait.

I like that I can partially hide behind my scarf and my hat.  Not sure what I am going to hide behind in May.

What am I looking at?  The top of a tree.  Not that there was anything in the tree.  Looking up and to the side helps to disguise a chin that is no longer the chin of a twenty-five year old.  Not that I want to be twenty-five again.  i like being forty.  I just want my chin back.

Wordless Wednesday -- All's Fair

It's Been Quiet

2011 ended so well.  A walk in the woods on a mild New Year's Eve day.  Chickadees feeding from our hands.  An after dark treat at a local cafe.  We quietly said good bye to 2011 and hello to 2012 and all was good.  While welcoming 2012, I quietly made plans.  As we all do, I guess.  And in my head, these plans unfurled smoothly and quietly, with to-do lists quietly being checked off.  I had no grand resolutions, just getting back to a quiet routine of doing the everyday stuff.

Then 2012, with all its preschooler brashness, kicked me in the pants.  In the middle of last week, an upper respiratory tract infection with its attending fever and subsequent dehydration (yes, I let myself get dehydrated.  Who knew?  Well, I did but I wasn't paying attention.)  knocked me off my feet for 5 days.  For five days, I did nothing but lie in bed.  I couldn't even read a book until yesterday.  Today  I feel welcomed back to the world of the functioning, not the quickly-moving-highly-efficient-check-things-off functioning (to be honest, I have never been a member of that group) but the slowly-moving-take-a-bath-eat-a-bowl-of-soup functioning.  It feels good to be back.

  
I think it will still be a couple of more days before I quietly start working on my first to-do list of the new year.    I just missed five days of hanging out with the two of the most interesting little people I know and I have some catching up to do.

memorial on log bench in the woods

My Dirty Little Secret

It is the beginning of a new year and I figure it is time to come clean, to share a dirty little secret with you.  It's not something I share with many people and only when I have achieved a certain level of comfort with someone, when perhaps that person can't simply turn around with a smirk and walk away from me.  Brace yourself.  I read comic books.  I think I can legitimately announce that I have a comic book collection.  A small one but a collection, nonetheless.  I could put on airs and call them graphic novels but whenever I have done that in the past, most often people mistake it for . . . well, a completely different, more, ahem, individual genre of literature, if you know what I mean.  When I call them graphic novels around Mike who knows what I am talking about, he smiles and says, "Comic books.  You mean comic books."  So there it is.  I'm a forty year old woman who reads comic books.

As a child, I read comics.  Who didn't?  That was a long time ago though.  I blame my new found appreciation for comic books on my brother-in-law.  It began several years ago with a mutual appreciation of books.  Eventually this led to talk about, well, if you knew him, it led to talking about everything.  Then a couple of years ago, for Christmas or my birthday, he gave me a comic book based on a favourite TV show.  This led to online purchases once or twice a year for more comic books.  You see where this is going, right?  About six months ago, I took the big step and walked into the local comic book store.  Every stereotype that you have in your head at this moment of who you will find in that store?  Well, they are pretty much true.  It was kind of intimidating that first trip.  I don't know much about comics and these people?  They know their comics.  You know what else?  They love to share their love of comics with others.  To be honest, it didn't take much to get me hooked.  Think about it.  Wonderful stories combined with beautiful art -- all in one book.  It didn't take much convincing.

Just as often  the boys will be with me.  There are some great kids comics available too as long as you steer them pass the more "graphic" shelves.  I have even convinced Mike to join us once or twice.  The first time he went, one of the guys who works there started talking to me right away.  Mike:  "Oh man, he can sense that you are one of them.  These are your people."

So there you have it.  Go ahead.  You can laugh.  Those people I mentioned at the beginning?  The ones I am comfortable telling?  They all smiled in that special way when I told them and they are still around.  I wonder if people would find it more shocking if I told them I read the other kind of graphic novel.  Which I don't.

Now, if you'll excuse me, my cup of tea and I have a date  with Cinderella:Fables are Forever, issue 6.