Weeds or wishes?

It's all in how you look at the world, isn't it?

My elderly neighbor, Miss Emmy, is in her 80's and independent as they come. Her husband passed away long ago, and it is Miss Emmy who maintains the house. She has always push mowed, and taken care of her yard herself, and she has her massive Live Oak trees trimmed religiously. For the past couple of months she has been in assisted living. We have missed seeing her take her evening walks, and Taryn particularly has missed having her to chat with. A favorite past time for our little eight year old has always been to just go sit with Miss Emmy in her driveway as she enjoys the cooler evening air.

When Miss Emmy left, we were told she would just be gone for a couple of weeks while they got her medications adjusted, but a couple of weeks has turned into a couple of months, and her once well manicured lawn has become weedy and unkempt. I stopped today, walking past, to take a photo to send to my husband, suggesting we mow it in her absence. Her granddaughter hasn't been by recently, and Miss Emmy would hate to return home and see how the weeds are taking over. I got down at lawn level to take a picture of all of the weeds, and my 6 year old son stooped down right next to me and said, "That's going to be a great picture, Mommmy. You got all of the most beautiful dandelions in it!" Then his sister picked one to make a wish, that she was sure not to tell me or it wouldn't come true, and he cautioned her, "Don't take anymore, Taryn. We need to leave wishes for other people."

I smiled at those two cuties. I thought about running through our huge backyard as a kid in Maine, kicking the puffball dandelions so that the white fuzz would go flying, or making a wish and blowing on them with all my might.

I don't know when dandelions came to mean weeds instead of wishes for me, but I hope my kids to see them as conduits for wishes forever. That's a much better way to view the world.

"Even when we grow up, we can still whisper our wishes upon the wind..." Jill Hanna

Stupid Thick Mugs

I am not a fan of mugs. Other than a couple of times, I have not willingly had coffee from a mug in my adult life. Now, perhaps I respectfully have accepted a mugful of coffee to be polite, but when I make my own coffee I "Go Mugless or Go Home". I prefer to use my paper coffee cups with lids, so I might not spill. Plus, I am usually taking my coffee in the car with me to head to work, and they travel well.

I am not a mug-hater. I have a few mugs that I love, like my "Got Bon Jovi?" mug that was given to me as the best late Christmas present ever. That one just makes me smile. It is covered with images of one of my favorite crooners, Jon Bon Jovi, and reminds me of the time we held hands. Yes, I initiated it. Yes, it was in the middle of a concert surrounded by 10,000 fans, but trust me, we both appreciated the moment. I could tell by the way he stopped to, ever so gently, shake me off so that he could move on that it was special. I also love my set of Nordic gnome mugs. They make me laugh because I once had a classroom mascot who was a gnome, named Jack For No Reason, and they remind me of those happiest of times with him hiding around my classroom.

Aside from those, however, I have a cabinet full of mugs that just make me mad. There they sit, all heavy, and thick rimmed. Reminding me that I could not use them even if I wanted to because coffee would drool right out the sides of my mouth. I can't get a proper seal on those thick rimmed mugs, and I always feel drinking-impaired when I try to casually sip my coffee from such a mug. I usually end up having to use my tongue on the mug. And trust me, you should not have to use your tongue to make your mouth strong enough to sip. If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times. Or never. I've really said it never, until now, but I do believe it.

I have a smallish house. Space is at a premium, and those mugs are mocking me...taking up space I do not have to spare. Stupid thick mugs that I hate. I am pondering your demise. So, sleep well in my comfy cabinets while you can. Your end shall be, and it shall be sooner than later.

I apologize for the dark and threatening tone of today's blog. Once I handle those mugs, I predict that things will be all sunshine and rainbows. (Haha, handle the mugs. See what I did there?)

"I do not like coffee mugs, and I am a successful human being. Therefore, successful human beings do not like coffee mugs." -Jennifer Lynn Andreson Freitas

What if?

What if law makers remembered that eight year-olds watch SpongeBob, and sleep with a night-light? What if they realized that if they can’t find their favorite stuffed kitty, with the scratched marble eyes, and the grey fur that used to be white, that they can’t sleep? What would happen if they remembered that eight year olds want to please the grown-ups in their lives more than ANYTHING at all? They want their teachers to be proud of them, and they want to feel smart. What if they knew that kids don’t want to be taught how to pass a test? They want to be taught that dreams can come true. They want to learn about people who lived before them who had crazy, messy, bold, daring, adventurous dreams, and who followed them even when it wasn’t easy. They don’t care if it’s Despereaux or Neil Armstrong, but they want a front row seat to adventures. Their minds are not small enough for standardized tests. They aren’t confined enough to boxes yet to really do well. No, these minds take boxes, and turn them into castles, space ships, and race cars. We don’t produce innovative thinkers because our education system is designed to take innovation out of learning and standardize it. But the best minds are anything but standard. What if the people shaping public education in the United States remembered that? What if grown-ups stopped trying to impress other grown-ups by how complicated they could make elementary school, and common sense ran the world again? Would the performance over 180 days school matter more than one single test then? What if it did?