by jphilo | May 21, 2015 | Three Thoughts for Thursday
- The top of my dresser is covered with toilet paper rolls, paper towel rolls, and coconut shells. Can you guess who is going to receive a cornucopia of craft supplies from his grammy this weekend?
- Our son-in-law received his Masters of Fine Arts in Acting and Directing from the University of Wisconsin, Madison last weekend. Kailen Fleck, we are so proud of you!
- 30 years ago this month we celebrated our little boy’s 3rd birthday just before we moved from Camp Crook, South Dakota to Boone, Iowa. This year I just completed the first draft of a novel set in the tiny town where we used to live…just in time to spend the weekend celebrating our son’s 33rd birthday and our son-in-law’s graduation. The best things in life are worth the wait!
What’s been worth waiting for in your life? Leave a comment.
by jphilo | May 17, 2011 | Family
She did it! Our Annie graduated on Saturday – in 4 years and with no debt, so we are kicking up our heels and grateful, grateful, grateful.
What will she do with that literature degree? Well, she’s already finished up one young adult novel and is at work on a second. But everyone in this family knows writing books is not a way to get rich quick, though it is incredibly satisfying.
Of course, our Anne has more ideas up the wide, flowing sleeves of her graduation gown. She spends oodles of time sewing, knitting, tatting, and doing anything else she can think of with textiles. She even makes her own patterns and has perfected one for a high support, no underwire bra that full-figured women will love. The patterns can be purchased at her etsy site. You can also order custom made bras there.
BTW, for those of you who didn’t know Anne as a child, I am not making this up. For those of you who did know her in her dressing-Barbie dolls-in tissue-and-tape-creation years, followed by her Barbie-in-latex-glove-and-tape-bungie-jumping-creation years, this present day obsession comes as no surprise. Nor will it surprise you to know that she and her honey, though debt-free, are happily living on a pittance.
But you could surprise her by visiting her website and perhaps even ordering a bra. Now that she’d all graduated, there’s no risk of loose pages of her senior research papers being sewn into someone’s D cup. And there’s a high probability your order will be filled and shipped in record time – if you order before she and her hubby move to Bowling Green, Ohio in August.
So make this newly minted graduate’s day by placing an order. Or pass on the information to someone who might be interested. Or just congratulate her on her most recent right of passage. She’d love to hear from you!
by jphilo | May 26, 2009 | Family
Today is shaping up to be a two steps forward, one back day. First, I slept in after our ultra-busy weekend, which pushed everything back so I wasn’t ready for the day until later than usual. Then before I could get to work, I had to go to the grocery store since my cupboards were a dead ringer for Mother Hubbard’s. I made my to do list and attacked my email inbox once the groceries were stowed. For an hour, I made steady progress until a friend stopped for an unexpected, urgent conversation. After she left it was time for lunch, which my stomach said was the most important meal of the day. Of course, I listened to its advice.
Now it’s 2:00, the inbox is finally cleared out, and I can write. But after a weekend packed with fun, what do I write about? If I try to mention everything – the son’s birthday, the relative’s graduation, the trip to the cemetery to decorate graves, the quality time with extended family, and meeting our daughter’s boyfriend – I will get behinder and behinder.
So here’s the deal. Because the foot picture is so cool and it fits with the title of today’s blog, I’ll briefly mention the Sunday afternoon game of barefoot kickball in my cousin’s back yard. It was a classic clash – the Old F**ts vs. the Young F**ts. By the end of the game, I’d taken 100+ photos of the action (much safer than actually participating), every foot was stinging and rosy red from kicking the ball all over the neighborhood, and the Old F**ts had beat the young ones quite convincingly.
Best of all, another wonderful afternoon was deposited in our memory banks. Another bond was forged from my parents’ generation to mine and on to our children who will carry it into the adulthoods they are beginning.
If you ask me, that’s three feet forward and none back. I like the sound of that.
