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I have a date tonight with a blond-haired, brown-eyed cutie with a great laugh and an obsession with Anakin Skywalker.
It's my eight-(and-a-half!)-year-old son, Stephen.
Inspired by a similar tradition in my family growing up, we do a little half-birthday celebration in the Dryer house. On each of the kids' half birthdays, they get to go on a real live "date" with the opposite gender parent. I take the boys, and Hubs will take Corrie, when she's a little older.
In our noisy, busy family, it's so special to set aside an evening like this, where the half-birthday-boy (or girl!) gets to choose the restaurant/movie/etc for an entire evening, with one-on-one time with a parent.
So tonight Stephen and I are eating at a local restaurant that throws (actually throws!) the dinner rolls at you. Thankfully, Stephen's a better catcher than I am. Afterwards, we'll be yo-ho-ho-ing with Captain Jack Sparrow at the new Pirates of the Caribbean flick.
This fun little tradition works for all of us around here. Have a clever idea you'd like to share? Blog about it at your place and leave a link below. WFMW guidelines can be found here.
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I love the blog I'm An Organizing Junkie. Laura writes with grace and practicality about the tricky issue of organization, and I always leave her blog feeling encouraged, not guilty. I highly recommend her blog for your list of everyday reads.
The best thing I've learned from observing Laura is how helpful it is to have a stash of various-sized containers on hand when an organizing challenge arises. Previously, when I was cleaning out a drawer or a closet (you know, every TEN YEARS or so), I'd find myself running to the store mid-project for the necessary containers. It made organizing projects that much more overwhelming.
But now I've started buying interesting-looking containers when I find them on sale (dollar stores are perfect for this), and I keep a stash of them in my garage. I find that I'm much more likely to tackle organization projects when I know I most likely have the containers on hand. It's a little thing, but it's been a big help.
Have a clever idea you'd like to share? Blog about it at your place and leave a link below. WFMW guidelines can be found here.
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I browsed through some photography blogs over the weekend and was feeling inspired. We had a gorgeous Sunday, perfect for an evening cookout, so I tried to catch some artsy-fartsy shots of life-as-usual in my own backyard (and I figured I'd better do it QUICK! before everything shrivels up dead in the Oklahoma summer):
There's nothing spectacular about the picture below, except that I love the little yard stakes of the four kids and dog playing cheerfully together. Though if they were kicking each other and the dog was throwing up, it would be considerably more realistic:
I planted this hydrangea three years ago; this is the first year it's actually looked like anything worth writing home about:
Is there anything more calming and satisfying than a big, healthy hosta? I think not:
Shots like this one of our backyard tree make the hours (and hours and hours and hours) of raking in the fall ALL worth it:
Surely it was only twenty minutes ago this big feet were tiny little things, kicking me from inside my rib cage. Now look at them:
No snarky comments about portion control, thank-you-very-much:
Happiness is...a very big and very interesting pile of books on your bedside table.
This lovely picture is my own to-be-read stack, and my heart beats a 
little faster just looking at it. Yep, they're all mine--not a library book in the lot of them.
I think everyone probably knows this already, but just in case--did you know that you can buy used books at unbelievable bargains at Amazon? Just look up your book title, and underneath the details click "47 new and used" (the number is different for each title, of course). Very often you can buy books for--yes, really--under a dollar. Even with shipping (which, domestically, is around $3), that's a bargain for a perfectly fine book. And it's cheaper than the $5 overdue fine I always rack up when I use the library. Best of all, I'm building my own little library here at home.
I've probably ordered 30-40 books over the last couple of years this way, and I've not had a single bad experience. The shipping is sometimes a little slow, but who really cares?
(And an aside right here, because I've always wanted to ask someone this: how are those used booksellers making any money selling some of their books FOR A PENNY? Not that it really matters--as long as they keep doing it, I'm perfectly happy. But I am curious, and once when I asked Hubs, for whom economic theory is--have mercy on me--a HOBBY, my eyes began to glaze over at his complicated answer. Anyone know how to explain this to someone at a fifth-grade math level?)
Anyhoo, that's my story and I'm sticking to it--cheap books from Amazon most definitely work for me!
Have a clever idea you'd like to share? Blog about it at your place and leave a link below. WFMW guidelines can be found here.
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Here's a very old photo of my mom and me, deep in the midst of an important conversation--as always.
With thanks for all those great talks, and in anticipation of many more, happy Mother's Day, Mom. I love you.
