I don’t know about you, but getting enough liquid in my child during the hot, hot, hot summer days can be a challenge. I have tried many tricks, but
I don’t know about you, but getting enough liquid in my child during the hot, hot, hot summer days can be a challenge. I have tried many tricks, but this one works the best. I make homemade jumbo popsicles with a variety of juices and other drinks.
At home we have a nifty popsicle maker thingy, but we are on vacation this week and I had to improvise.
What I discovered, is she likes the jumbo ones more than the little ones I make at home. I like it because she gets more hydration each time and my favorite part is that I used handy kitchen items everyone has on hand (no fancy gizzmos or special clean-up and storage).
Pursue good stuff this summer…
These photos were taken by me – Casey Simmons – “on location” on Anna Maria Island, Florida.
On a Friday night over a week ago, I stood under a tent in a large urban park at a memorial service for no one in particular and for every one on this planet. I held the microphone in my hand and began. Began again. To tell my story of AIDS.
On a Friday night over a week ago, I stood under a tent in a large urban park at a memorial service for no one in particular and for every one on this planet. I held the microphone in my hand and began. Began again. To tell my story of AIDS.
Friday night was a small candlelight ceremony for those who have been lost to HIV/AIDS in our community, and they were celebrated that evening by those under the tent. But I have lost no one. No one I can hold up a photo for. No one I can memorialize on a T-shirt, flag or banner.
I held that microphone as tightly as I hold my son. That was who I was fighting for, I said. Sixteen years ago, I held a newborn boy in my arms as I volunteered for the first time along the route of the AIDS Walk. Months before he was born, a friend had asked me to help. Standing in the grass on a spring morning sounded magical to me in my eighth month of pregnancy. When the day arrived, it was dreamlike. Me, my husband, my new son – all sporting little red ribbons and helping a band entertain walkers and enthusiastic runners in the sun.
Last year’s Walk.
Every year since, I have worked on the Walk and moved up through the volunteer ranks. Route helper, volunteer coordinator, project coordinator, special event committee person, steering committee member, Walk co-chair. Every year since that first one, I’ve had a little hand in mine or a little head in my eyesight on Walk day. My son has never missed a Walk and now joins me as a full-fledged committee member on one event. Walk day is a family reunion for all of us.
My story is short and simple. I desire deeply a world without AIDS for my son. For all sons and daughters and mothers and fathers. Sisters. Brothers. A world free of stigma and hate. Pointed fingers and whispered admonishments will be behind us. Every year I renew my commitment to making that world come to be.
This year I stood in the light rain as my son walked by me carrying a dated memorial flag representing the 25 years of the AIDS Walk. Three long blocks later, I looked up, and there was my niece sporting a flag of her own. This one held the name of someone who no longer walks. She carried it to its final place with the others in a circle of flags that every one of the 2,000+ walkers walked by. My tears were easily covered by Mother Nature’s water show.
They are my future and my chance to live in an AIDS free world. They’ve never known one.
Co-owning a family business is a remarkable adventure. My life intertwined with my family on a daily basis. It works for me. It is one of most enjoyable aspects of my career.
This week my daughter is out of school two days for parent/teacher conferences. We talked about her options for these two days, because Mom taking off two days was not an option. She picked work one day and Nana’s house for the second day.
I loved having her with me. She begged to do “real work” with our team. And, our team was very kind to include her in their tasks.
It is difficult to describe how I feel when I watch her working at the store. The word pride seems limited. Joy, love, happiness, lucky, blessed…and so very much more.
I couldn’t find my happiness this past Sunday. I tried.
I couldn’t find my happiness this past Sunday. I tried.
I wasn’t slated to work that day, but I had gone in early for a problem and then, later, learned that a customer had reduced a staff member to tears with bullying. The day ended with phone line trouble, a saddened and frustrated staff member walking me through it over her cell phone, and another trip from home to work.
Sundays aren’t a day that’s dictated. I don’t have a set schedule on that day of my week. It’s always a little bit loosey goosey. Usually.
But there must have been a subconscious plan in my head for that day that just wouldn’t come true, and by the end of the day I was blue. Sad. Pissed.
But today – another snow day – I found my delight in not wearing my watch, making breakfast for a teen, playing and losing four games of Scrabble, watching two movies, and taking one nap.
I had no set schedule in mind when I went to sleep last night and none when I woke up. It seemed to help.
Pure happiness.
My niece reminded me last week of all that is important about snow days. Carefree smiles.
The children were turning blue in front of our eyes. The same parents that had previously over-dressed them for every snow day were just standing there watching them smile and freeze.
The children were turning blue in front of our eyes. The same parents that had previously over-dressed them for every snow day were just standing there watching them smile and freeze. The same parents that despised making them put coats on over their tiny costumes on brisk Halloween nights in years past. These same parents held cameras aloft and captured all the smiles on film.
I was one of those parents. It seemed like just yesterday I had begged him to get out of the pool because his lips were blue and he was causing ripples just standing still. “No Mom. I’m fffine,” as the sun nestled in tighter behind the clouds. Yet here I was bearing witness to his male friends holding back the shivers while the females of the bunch pulled their uncovered legs a little closer together under short skirts. It was my son’s second Homecoming Dance. Who was I to be the voice of reason and therefore the party-pooper. The “Weird Mom”.
Their lips were almost to chattering, and the cameras clicked along. Yet they ran to the rented bus and its awating warmth when it pulled up.
Then they left us on the lawn of the art museum to find our own way.
Last night I started a journey towards improving my writing. I recently joined a small band of women who will meet weekly and work on each other’s projects of the pen.
Last night I started a journey towards improving my writing. I recently joined a small band of women who will meet weekly and work on each other’s projects of the pen.
This morning, my son – who knew I left the family circle last night to retreat to my office to start my 5 pages that are due this Friday – asked how it went. I told him I was pleased with the piece I had started but that, so far, I was falling one page short of the the 5 page minimum. I am too old to play the “adjust the margins” game or to pretend I didn’t hear the “please use 1.5 spacing” and resort to double spacing. Clearly, I have more to do before deadline.
Upon hearing this news – being short a few hundred words – this was my son’s advice, and I quote: “Mom, just go back and start adding in the descriptive words. Like the ‘deep brown walls’, not just ‘walls’. That will help.”
Portrait of My Genius
After all these years of letting loose with this blog and scribbling in many journals the ideas for my “Great American Novel”, I was finally taking the jump towards opening myself up to the power of other women writers from my own community. This was going to be challenging and thrilling and difficult. I was ready.
I obviously could have just turned to the 15 year old and my thesaurus. And saved myself the extra work.
Our mother has a gentle, giant dog named Lily. She sent me this photo recently with the title “Lilypads”. This is what my daughter was spending her time with Nana doing, “decorating” Lily.
Last night we said goodbye to sweet Emma. She passed peacefully surrounded by family with her head on my lap and my daughter’s arms wrapped around her. The room was full of our loving family. I am heartbroken today. So is my daughter.
