Speaking of Kids...

Today, as we do a couple of times a year, our water aerobics group met for lunch at a local restaurant.

We talked about all sorts of things, including a favorite topic...family, especially children and grandchildren.
There is general agreement that child rearing - particularly methods of discipline (or lack of it) - has changed over the years since our own children lived at home.

One woman told a story about her then teenaged daughter buying a car to drive back and forth to work. She'd used her own money to purchase the car, but her dad had sprung for insurance, license, etc. The daughter worked the evening shift, but was cautioned to be back home by curfew. Of course, one night, she didn't get home on time. So her dad said she'd have to park the car in the driveway and take the bus to school each day until further notice. The daughter protested, saying she should be able to drive her car since she had bought it with her own money. Her dad disagreed, saying, "you only own half the car, and my half is staying in the driveway." It was a lesson well learned, and the daughter never missed curfew again.

That story reminded me of when I was raising my own children as a single mother. The youngest child was in charge of mowing the lawn, but he was very lax in the responsibility. I got tired of continually pushing him to the task. So one day after I'd returned, dog-tired as usual, from work, I curled up on the couch and began reading a book. My son looked at me, puzzled. "Aren't you going to cook supper," he asked? "No," I replied. "I've decided if you don't want to mow the lawn, then I don't want to cook supper." He hurried to the door. "I'm going out right now to mow," he said. "So you can start supper, if you want to."

Greeting Cards From Scrapbook Scraps

My 85-year-old mother and I belong to a scrapbooking club that meets once a month at a local bank community room. Today was our meeting day.

Most meeting days, we confine ourselves to working on our scrapbooks, but today we strayed into making greeting cards from leftover cardstock. The photo above shows the results of some of my mother's and my work (I wonder why I call it work when it's really play?).

I made the birthday card at the upper left using lots of little strips of leftover cardstock. The Christmas card on the upper right (made by my mother) uses several elements, including three slide mounts that she painted. Inside the mounts, she used red buttons with peppermint candy stickers on top. The words "Merry Christmas" are stickers found at a local one-dollar store, and the patterned paper on the bottom is leftover from a scrapbook page. Both of these cards are based on ideas we got from a magazine.

The middle left card uses a panel of flower stickers that came on a sheet of address labels I got in the mail. I glued that panel to a piece of scrap cardstock, and then used butterfly stickers mounted on cardstock scraps, and trimmed. I also adhered foam squares to the butterflies to help them stand up away from the flower panel, creating a sense of flight. A ribbon at the top of the card completes the design.

The birthday card on the striped paper uses foam letters...I got these at a yard sale last weekend. I glued the striped paper to yellow cardstock, and used fancy scissors on the card edges. On the bottom card, I used skeletonized and dyed leaves glued on top of strips of autumn colored paper. I got a whole box of the bargain-priced leaves in various fall colors at our local discount chain last year.

All the cards have blank insert sheets for writing messages.

More About Pop-up Books

In a previous blog, I mentioned purchasing pop-up books, illustrated by artist Robert Sabuda. After reading the blog, my sister suggested I shoot some digitals of these amazing books. Here are three - one from Lewis Carroll's classic tale, "The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland," one from a book written by Sabuda, called "Cookie Count," and one adapted from a book by Stephen King, titled "The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon." This book is more suited to an older child. "Count Cookie" is for very young children, and of course most everyone loves the "Alice" tale.

Two of the books, "Alice," and the Stephen King book, include side panels that open to reveal pages of story plus more pop-ups.

Rain, Rain, Go Away?

One of the convenient things about being a retired senior adult is the freedom to take weekday road trips. Yesterday, my husband and I traveled about 40 miles southwest, to a town even smaller than our own, to visit family.

I'm usually game for any sort of outing, but I dreaded this one because yesterday was rainy, and I'm not a fan traveling on rainy days.

I changed my mind, though, as we approached the hills just outside town. Here, nature presented one of her wonders. Gray rain-laden clouds hovered low, just grazing the hills, and from the hills wispy, white, tendrils of mist rose up from among the trees. The hills glowed in gray and white monotones.

Despite the splash of our van's tires on the wet road, and the steady, rhythmic whip-whap of the windshield wipers, the day seemed hushed...serene. No matter the chaos in the rest of the world, in this spot, at this moment, all was well.

What a gift a rainy day can be!

Sympho(yawn)y

Sure signs of autumn in our small town are the beginnings of a show of color in the trees, and the arrival of our state's symphony orchestra.

The orchestra comes each October to perform at a local college. In years past, they packed the house, but of late, attendance has dropped. Too many other things compete for attention. Still, there was a nice audience for last Sunday's performance.Used to be folks gussied up for the symphony. These days, it's more casual. A lot of the women, myself included, wore our Sunday best, but a number of younger people came in what they seem to wear everywhere - jeans and t-shirts.

A few men (probably at their wives' insistence), drug their suits and ties out of mothballs for the event. My husband wasn't one of them. Sunday afternoon was uncommonly warm, so he opted for slacks with a short-sleeved shirt. I didn't protest, hoping that his attire would keep him cool enough that he could stifle his yawns.
This is not to say that hubby only yawns at symphony performances. He's an equal-opportunity yawner...any live performance brings it on. But then, he also yawns during TV shows. So I guess getting too cozy signals the impulse.

Bugs, Spiders, and Butterflies

Yesterday, as I strolled the yard, I came upon three beauties...a yellow and black garden spider resting calmly on its intricate web; a yellow and black Monarch butterfly flitting from flower to flower; and a praying mantis that seemed to be sunning itself on a golden zinnia.

I rushed back to the house and grabbed my digital camera. The spider remained calm through a couple of flash shots. The butterfly was a bit harder to capture, but I still managed to snap it just as it spread it's wings upon a flower. The praying mantis was most interesting of all to photograph, because it turned it's head in my direction, as if posing for the close-up shot.

How wonderful it is, I think, that in this senior stage of my life, I can take the time to stop and enjoy such wonders of nature.