Words

Several people I follow on Pinterest collect quotes, as I do. They've named their boards such things as "Words to Live By," "Wise Words," and even "Wordy Candy." I have a board of quotes, the name of which is "Quotes." I could do better. But the important thing, I suppose, is coming across words that are thought-provoking and a good reminder of something. Words to live by.

The end of the week seems like a good time to share some of these thoughts, and I'll start by sharing two.

"Listen earnestly to anything your children want to tell you, no matter what. If you don't listen eagerly to the little stuff when they are little, they won't tell you the big stuff when they are big. Because to them, all of it has always been big stuff." - Catherine M. Wallace

"The words of the tongue should have three gatekeepers: Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary?" - Arabian proverb

I hope you have a happy weekend.

(Photo by Raceytay.etsy.com)

Good things online

Two new-to-me Web sites I'm loving, plus one not-as-new but always good:

A group of bloggers - writers, photographers, stylists - recently got together and started Clementine Daily. I love it for its name but also because it's like getting a favorite magazines in the mail - or email - every day. House tours, interviews, fashion, food, and a daily quote that I like most of all.

Have you heard of Tradesy? It's a site where you can sell clothing items - jackets, handbags, sweaters, etc. - you no longer need or want, and Tradesy will do all the work, including sending you a pre-paid shipping box once an item sells. You can go there to shop, too, of course, and I just spent more time than I should have looking through an assortment of size 10 shoes.

I've been reading Sweet Paul Magazine for some time now but always get excited when a new issue comes out - and a new issue just came out. The photography is gorgeous, and there's always something good - from recipes (salmon stir-fry for dogs!) to travel (Stockholm) to interesting kitchen finds. I think you'll enjoy.

First day

While I've been thinking a lot about this blog, I haven't actually been writing this blog. My excuse is summer, filled with lots of children all the time. But then suddenly yesterday, they were gone, leaving a dog behind and a mother with a lump in her throat. There are changes this year, as there always are, including the first year of middle school as well as the last. It was a big day.

I won't say summer flew by, because it didn't always feel that way, but it was good. Good to be off schedule, good to go away and come home again, good to move a little bit slower.

The slower pace meant more time than usual to read, which I'm always grateful for. I just finished The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls by Anton Disclafani and couldn't put it down. I also liked Sisterland by Curtis Sittenfeld, Life After Life by Kate Atkinson, and Oprhan Train by Christina Baker Kline. I re-read one of my all-time favorites, Every Last One, by Anna Quindlen. I cried hard throughout the book, which my husband says is proof I loved it. He's right. Now I'm looking for my next good book. Any recommendations?

Motherhood here and there

For four years, we lived next door to a family from Norway, and they became some of our closest friends. Our children were young, with a 7-year-old, a not-yet-born, and everything in between. The kids raced between houses, had their first sleepovers, and started preschool and elementary school together. We celebrated Norwegian holidays with them, and they went trick-or-treating and to Fourth of July parades with us.

Audrey (the mom) and I spent hours talking on their driveway, and often those conversations were about life in the United States vs. their home in Norway. Audrey is Scottish, married to a Norwegian, and her ability to adjust to other cultures seemed almost effortless. Her insights into life both here and there fascinated me.

Eventually our friends moved back to Norway, and we miss them. I thought of Audrey, her sweet, Americanized kids, and all our conversations on the driveway, when I read the first of a series on one of my favorite blogs, A Cup of Jo. For the series, called Motherhood Around the World, blogger Joanna Goddard interviews American mothers about their impressions of raising children in a foreign country. First up was Norway (coincidentally), and last Monday was Japan. You can find both here.

I've loved reading about the differences these mothers have encountered living overseas. But I've also loved the sameness. For example, Joanna interviewed Yoko Inoue, a photographer who grew up in Japan but lived in the United States for 17 years before moving back with her American husband and son. She talks about children walking to school: "As parents [in Japan] we have to make sure kids always say greetings 'with big voice! Good morning!' No mumbling or looking down. If you don't, it's considered so rude!"

I smiled when I read this. "Remember to look the person in the eye," I'm constantly telling my children. "Use a good, strong voice" (though I'm going to start using the simpler instruction, "With big voice!"). Very Japanese of me, I now know.

This photo is not really related to the post other than reminding me of when she was 7.

Married

Last night a friend asked me how long I had been married, and I couldn't remember. I knew it was either 15 or 16 years, either 1996 or 1997 but not which one. I was fairly certain my husband wouldn't know, either. It wasn't until I sat down later with a calculator that I figured it out. My other option would have been to dig up our wedding invitation.

One of the things I do remember about that time is going to wedding after wedding after wedding. It seemed as though there was one every weekend, usually requiring road trips, hotel rooms, pedicures, new dresses, and reunions with friends. All those weddings took a bit of effort but were so worth it. They were that much fun.

After the wedding stage came the non-wedding stage, where I remain today. The non-wedding stage consists of one wedding every five years or so, if I'm lucky. Definitely not enough. Not enough beautiful brides and beautiful dresses; earnest, clean groomsmen; scene-stealing flower girls; moments that make you cry and many that make you laugh; that feeling of two people starting out on a great adventure.

I got a little bit of a wedding fix last night when I read C Magazine's fall wedding issue. I loved seeing the dresses, the table settings, the flowers, the brides. I was intrigued by an article about Greg Kalamar, an artist from Los Angeles who paints scenes from people's wedding celebrations in the likeness of a Degas or Monet painting. The image below is a painting he did of a reception inside San Francisco's Ferry Building.

Meanwhile, looking forward to my next wedding invitation. I'll try to be patient.

(All images from C California Style Magazine)

Finding the way there

A friend dropped a book off on my doorstep yesterday morning with a note saying how much she liked it. My computer was moving slowly, so as I sat and waited, I read the author's note at the beginning of the book. And there I came across a perfect description of my life, right down to the detail about the author's sister:

"A hopeless navigator, I regularly got lost trying to find birthday parties and doctors' offices, exiting the highway at the wrong place and driving around for ten minutes without recognizing anything. After a while my children would begin shouting from the backseat, 'You're lost, aren't you? You're lost again! Call Aunt Bridget!' My sister, Bridget, would navigate me back to our town after I called her on my cellphone, my heart pounding with the stress of being late, being a wretched driver, risking a citation, being lost."

This is me. I remember driving a carful of girls to a birthday party and becoming utterly lost with no idea where to go next. The GPS was no help because apparently - as I remember - there there two streets with the same name in the same town. I called my sister, trying to sound calm for the listening ears in the backseat, and sure enough, she got us there.

I love the author's description of this state of being - being late, being a wretched driver, being lost. I once told my children I don't panic when I'm lost because I'm so accustomed to it, but that's not true. Being lost in a car is a terrible feeling. The GPS (usually) helps, to be sure. And of course my sister.

The book, by the way, is Paris in Love by Eloisa James. It's about the author's decision to take a sabbatical from her job, sell her house, and move with her family to Paris, where she continues to get lost, but this time on foot and - most important - with much greater pleasure.

'Wet foot, dry foot. Low foot, high foot...' *

I won't tell you too much about my feet, because certainly no one needs to know that. I'll only say they're nothing like my 8-year-old's feet, or even my older children's, though I become less and less familiar with theirs as the years pass. But my 8-year-old still needs me to trim her nails, so I know those feet well. They're soft and smooth and wash off quickly and easily with soap and water, even when she has spent the large part of her day outside barefoot.

Part of the problem with my feet stems from my love of flip-flops. The fact that I wear flip-flops almost all the time in summer, even to walk the dog in the woods, certainly doesn't help. When my feet are grimy after a walk, they don't wash off quickly and easily with soap and water. So I was intrigued when I came across a recipe on Pinterest for a foot scrub and thought I'd try. It's so simple, with just two ingredients: liquid soap and granulated sugar. To make, pour half a cup or so of sugar into a bowl and mix with liquid soap until goopy. Then, using your fingers, rub the mixture all over your feet, concentrating on heels and toes, and rinse.

That's it. And the best part is, it works. It's the sort of DIY scrub my 13-year-old loves. After using it a few times and ending up with fairly clean, softer-than-when-I-started feet (though still not 8-year-old feet), I'm loving it, too.

*Dr. Seuss