Thursday 28th June

Everlasting peas, in our front garden this morning. 

I'm back! The British Telecom engineer just left, having fixed the phone line. Despite his protestations that there was NO WAY that the fault on our phone line could have caused the broadband to drop out as well, somehow mysteriously and miraculously when he fixed the fault on the line, the internet came back. 


So here I am. I have really enjoyed my internet-free week, I have done more book-reading, as opposed to blog-reading, done some gardening and organising indoors. I love the internet, and use it daily to check things, look things up, do banking etc, as well as blog and read blogs, so it is an inconvenience to be without it, but also somehow life has seemed quieter and more simple, and I have got more done. 


It was lovely to see a full length photo of all three of you in your last letter. I would love to see the light display. One of these days I am going to make it over there...I keep planning my itinerary...few days in New York, Amish country, New England in the fall, your house for Thanksgiving including pumpkin pie and succotash and now I am adding  fountain gardens to the list. The Prof and I haven’t been out of the UK together yet, it would be great to, just the small matter of money! Minor details ;)


You made me laugh what you said about boys...no, my boy doesn't eye roll or slam doors. He is actually really easy to get along with  (although saying that feels like tempting fate!), he does what I ask, and is always happy to hoover/change his bed/take out the rubbish/pick up after the dog though sometimes it  gets done on the second third fourth umpteenth time of asking...


Last Friday, Sara and I met up in London. We hadn't seen each other since the Prof and I went to visit her and her family last year, and it was lovely to catch up. Cake was of course an added bonus, despite my diet healthy eating plan!  I am so glad that you paired me with Sara when you organised that Christmas swap in 2010 between the online course participants. 


Speaking of my diet  healthy eating plan, I am in my third week of it now. It is based on the glycaemic load, which is an approach I have never tried before. Well, I don't know if it is because of the diet or what, but I have been considerably more well than usual for about ten days now.  I would actually say I feel 'normal',  and this is extraordinary for me as I have not felt this way for more than one day at a time in about three years,  and even that is extremely rare.  This is quite remarkable and I am loving it, and equally, I am terrified it will go away. 

So, with my new found energy and wellness, I have been out more, got more done indoors, been gardening, and am all-round feeling like a normal person!! Long may it last. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Look forward to hearing from you,

Debbie  x

June 25, 2012

Sorry friends, we are on hold again as Debbie's computer is on the fritz. 

Let's hope she's back soon!

June 18, 2012

Another Monday again?  I can't believe sometimes how quickly the weekends go by.  Truth be told I just wanted to stay in my nightgown all day today.  I woke up at 6:45 a.m. threw on a sweater, high of 68 (20) degrees today, made a cup of tea and sat down here at the computer with my Pandora station  to some really soothing music, but as dutiful as I am I dressed and went to work and fought with an ages old printer most of the morning.  Patience is NOT my strong suit.

The weather forecast is saying that it will be highs of 97 (36) degrees later this week.  I really don't know what to think of Mother Nature these days, she's fighting off global warming I suppose.  You seriously don't know what season to prepare for each day.  So are you telling me England's reputation is holding true?  I'm sure though your sweet peas are loving all the rain.  I had to smile when I read that you had them growing I remember you telling me they were a favorite.  

Reading back over your letter, I am trying to imagine you there with all those boys.  Sometimes I wonder how I would do this with boys and then I think about you raising the young philospher by yourself, wondering how you tackled all those "boy" things.  As hard as I think raising girls is sometimes I can't help but think I am lucky that I don't have a mysterious boy slinking off, hiding from me, not that I love the rolling eyes and the slamming doors.  Don't know are boys door slammers?

So we were off to the gardens for an evening light display.   This is the three of us outside the fountain gardens Saturday.  If you ever would make your way over the sea, this is one of the first places I would show you, it's amazing.  Sunday I was a bit off, don't know why.  Not much sleep, disagreement with my father, feeling a bit lonely again.  I think people don't really realize how lonely being a single parent can be sometimes.  The world seems full of pairs and you don't have the freedom to just go out and seek out friends and relationships.  It passed though and today is much better.  I just had to reframe my mind.  

I am trying to write a bit each day and work on editing one photo per day.  Like always, I try to remind myself to slow down and take it one thing at a time, especially when I get overwhelmed like I did this past busy weekend.  I hope you are regaining some of your energy, though our situations are different, I feel like we go through the same patterns.

All for now, the girls are finishing a movie and I'm about ready for bed.  It's 9:00 pm here and it's just only gotten dark, another good thing about summer coming.

Until next time,

xoxo

Jen.

Thursday 14th June

Don't talk to me about insects!! Although fireflies sound lovely, from a distance. I have yet to see a maybug this year, thank goodness. Last year we had one in the bed! Thankfully I wasn't there at the time, the Prof had gone up before me, and found it there, urgh. I am so jealous of your bluebirds, we don't have them. In fact since the people next door acquired two cats we don't get many birds in our back garden at all. The garden is so small too, and for the last few years I have had two washing lines strung the length of it, I wonder if that is also a factor, it might be hard for the smaller birds to fly down. It seems that these days just the pigeons and ring-necked doves come down to feed at the bird table. Ever since a friend of mine years ago said it to me, I hear pigeons saying to each other 'How awful. Oh, how awful'.


The Young Philosopher has two friends coming to stay today, so we will have a houseful for a couple of days. This house isn't really big enough for company, but I think one of them will probably sleep on the bed with him (he has a double) and the other on the floor, probably with the dog! They don't seem to mind! I have always been happy for all his friends to come here, sometimes when he was 13 or 14 there would be lots of them here, we had about six stay over once, no mean feat in this house! I moved furniture out of the way and they lay side by side on the living room floor.


It is a lovely sunny day here today, at last. Honestly we have had several nice days in a row just twice this year, and the rest of the time it has Rained. Every. Day. At least the unusual amount of rain means that some of the water companies are lifting the hosepipe bans, its a pain watering the garden with a watering can. Not that I have bought and planted any summer flowers to speak of yet, except the sweet peas! It's on the list. I have two lines of washing already this morning blowing in the breeze, have done some tidying and cleaning, and am sitting here with a nice cup of rooibos tea planning my afternoon. I think I will make scrambled eggs on toast for my lunch, then watch Lark Rise to Candleford and do some cross stitch. I have a lot of Lark Rise to get through, I borrow them from the library a series at a time and then have a week to watch twelve episodes! I am trying to take things a bit easy, having overdone it last weekend and not been so good for a few days.


How proud you must have been at the graduation last week! I have a few friends with much younger children than mine, and it makes me think back to when the Young Philosopher was younger, and I wish I'd had a blog back then. I found the baby book I kept for him in the loft last week! I will have to scan some of the photos and share them with you. I have been doing a lot of thinking lately about when my boy was little, and then not so little, and then goodness where did those 21 years go?


Make the most of them. It goes so fast.


Take care

Debbie  x

June 11, 2012

It was graduation here this weekend.  Busy times.  I tried not to cry as I watched my girl make her way across the stage being promoted out of elementary school. (Here we have three schools, Elementary-Grades Kindergarten-Fifth, Middle School-Grades Six through Eight and High School-Grades 9-12).


I have really been struggling a lot lately with her sense of Independence and well know-it-all-ness.   She has definitely hit that age of rebellion and attitude. YET...this weekend was delightful. They had a little party at her best friend's house after graduation on Friday with about ten kids from their classes and it was a blast.  Water balloons, super squirt guns, games, music and food.  It was a great thing for both of us as we tend to spend a lot of time by ourselves; we don't necessarily have a tribe of friends that we spend time with.  Over the course of the day I realized how I have been moved more to the sidelines. As they sat on the deck and sang, laughed, ate and threw things at each other I took some photos but then without the camera in front of me, I felt the need to move off into the house and give them their time. No longer am I in the mix of their playtime, coordinating and joining in.  But I was so glad to see her so happy and energetic.  That is her crouched in the chair in the halter dress. And that is the boy she likes in the blue shirt. Her first crush and once I met him at the party I saw why, she has good taste my girl.  It was all cute and elevenish where they follow each other around smashing water balloons on each other and moving and grooving alongside each other but not really talking much.  She is shy my girl, just like me and he seemed a bit too.


Her stomach got the better of her after about three hours.  Too much sun and excitement and noise and junk food. I felt bad for her at first having to leave the party before the games or the sleepover but the truth was she seemed so relieved to be home.  She just has a sensitive nature, too much of anything just sets her off kilter even the good things.  I asked her later after some rest and some coolness if she wanted to go back for the sleepover and she said no, she was so tired.  In a way I am glad that she is able to know what she needs versus needing to keep up with the other kids.  She curled up in my lap and we watched a movie and she snuggled in close and I could have done anything to just hold onto the day, it was so perfect, stomachache and all.


Saturday we had a high school graduation for my cousin's daughter with the rest of my immediate family about an hour's drive away.  Another great afternoon of food and family. It's amazing I guess sometimes what just getting out of the house does for you and I had Sunday to rest and clean up a bit, and eat off graduation leftovers, so I wasn't completely overwhelmed.


So now school is out.  Hooray!  For me it means no homework to do in the evenings, no papers to remember to sign, no lunches to pack, no children to wrestle from bed in the morning.  We can stay out while the sun is still shining about 8:30 pm these days (nice) and the girls are thrilled that I am not forcing them to summer camp again this year and they are spending the majority of their days next door with Great-Grandmom and Grandpa.


In other news, I am still seeing the bluebirds flittering among the trees.  The chickadee babies that we have been watching diligently in protection from the outside cats seem to have flown the nest while we were away on Saturday.  Sunday morning we no longer saw the parents landing on the house and hopping in to feed them.  So we are sad our little neighbors have flown off into the world.  Summer is arriving early.  Almost all our flowers have bloomed already.  Half my grandmother's roses are already fading away and my hydrangea bush is already flowering, something that doesn't usually happen until late July/August.  It seems our mild winter threw everything off schedule.  I expect we'll start seeing the fireflies any time the way things are going.  I know how fond you are of insects.


Hope you aren't drowning in your business of decluttering.  Until Thursday, happy days.


  Jen

Thursday 7th June

How wonderful, a weekend at the ocean – it is so long since I went to the beach properly! We visited Sara last year, and had a little walk on the pebbly beach near her home, but it was rather a chilly day. Since my boy is grown up (21 this year!) I don’t go to the beach any more, really. We live an hour or so from the beach, (technically it's an estuary) and we drive through occasionally, but it’s been I don’t know how many years since I sat on the beach, tried to skim pebbles, paddled in the sea, made sandcastles. I guess I will have to wait for grandchildren. I would like to manage a day at the seaside this summer. Oh, and I know the boards you mean, only I have heard them called belly boards. I remember one in our shed when I was a child, I think it had been my Mum's.

We've only been back a few weeks from our break in Hay-on-Wye, and already it seems so long ago. What is it about being away from home? Everything becomes so laid back, peaceful, easy, and so do we. There is a simplicity and an ease to being away that I long to incorporate into our everyday life. Our favourite escapes into the country at the weekends helps - somehow as soon as there is all that green space around me I feel I can b r e a t h e, and for once I have space in my head.

This past weekend, as well as getting involved in the Queen's Jubilee celebrations, we spent a lot of time decluttering in our loft. It's surprising how cathartic getting rid of all that stuff really is, once you get stuck in. Most of the stuff up there has been there so long it's a no-brainer,  easy to throw out, but I did find a few old treasures.  Getting rid of stuff is another thing that makes it easier to breathe, I think. Maybe decluttering is the key! Although 2011 was the year I chose simplify as my word, I am still working on it. The word I chose for this year was peace, and I don't think I will ever have that until things are more simple.

It was lovely to hear about your weekend, I hope you haven't had to come back to earth (and work) with too much of a bump this week. Here in London, of course, it is another grey day. We had a week or so of sunshine a while ago, but it's back to murky and miserable now.  I have washing to hang on the line, so I hope it stays dry at least. 

It was my WI meeting last night and I won a jar of home made lemon curd in the raffle. I think it could be time for elevenses.

I hope you are having a good day!

Debbie  x

June 4, 2012

Happy Monday, my friend.  In this case it is as we've just returned from two days ocean side.   I cannot get used to the way my new phone takes these super long photos, but in any case here is Ems and I from Saturday.  Looking at this photo just slaps me on the head with how much she is growing up.  It was a much needed retreat though this little spur of the moment mini vacation we took.  I think we were all going slightly mad and quite ijity with each other here at home.


The Atlantic Ocean is about 2 1/2 to 3 hours from us depending on traffic of which we had none which I was thankful for and it seems we picked the right weekend.  Memorial Day weekend (last weekend) is the official "kickoff" of beach season with "Labor Day" in September closing it out, so it appears everyone was too worn out to be there this weekend so it was relatively quiet and the beach fairly free of the mobs of people usually there.


I didn't spend much on the trip.  I booked an okay room about a block from the ocean and packed a cooler full of breakfasts and lunches so we wouldn't have to eat out the whole time and of course the ocean is free. The girls though acted as if I we were flying to Paris.  They were thrilled when I told them Friday we were staying at a hotel which we rarely do and you should have seen their faces pushing the elevator buttons, jumping on the beds and staring out the sixth floor windows.  They oohed ahhhed over the view (of the back parking lot and neighboring houses) which made me think we really need to get out more.


It was all quite stress-free.  Ems had one of her anxiety attacks over her stomach after eating some greasy boardwalk fries (remind me never to do that again) which caused a meltdown on the boardwalk that lasted an hour and a half as Karelyn finished her shopping and we picked up pizza (for K and I) to take home, but later she felt better.  The girls didn't slouch around, we were up both days at 6:00 am and out on the beach by 7:00, Saturday we actually had a sand castle built by 9:00 am.  Karelyn spent her day with her boogie board (heard of them?  miniature surf boards you body surf with) in the ocean being tossed about and Emily built mermaids in the sand and then had me videotape her dramatically impersonating a mermaid desperately trying to roll back to sea.  Good gosh, they are two completely unique personalities.


Regardless, I think I am the one who most enjoyed it.  There was no stress (minus the boardwalk/stomach incident where I behaved a bit horribly out of frustration) It was amazing to spend a weekend where there was nothing I "must" or felt I "needed" to do.  I spent a lot of my time just watching the girls or staring out at the ocean.  I didn't think about home, or chores, or work, or what I want to do with my life.  I just stared at awe of the magnificent big blue and listened to the waves crash and spent time being silly and caring for my girls.  


So the sand is rinsed off of everything.  The clothes have been washed and everything put away.  I'm trying to hold on to a bit of that easy feeling.  It's almost 7:00 a.m. now and in five minutes I'm up and away to wake the girls for school and to prepare for work.  I'm hoping some of the calm stays at least for today but we'll see what happens when I get to work.  I've decided I pretty much like the natural world much more than the world of people, more quiet, but more on that another day.


Peaceful week to you, cannot wait to hear from you.


Jen