Sometimes a picture explains better than words why we choose to keep something....
Look, mom, I can fly!
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Keepers Shortlist: Easter Sunday
- In an email report from my mother: “We've not seen any great number of ants in the house. Just the daring few that show up in the bath tub and then get drowned for their audacity."
- Watching my two year old grandson crack open an easter egg, carefully pick out the hidden chocolate chips and eat them one by one, all the while closing his eyes, and saying "mmmmmm" with his whole body.
- Dollar store notebooks
- Onion-wine pot roast (Day 1) followed by Italian Beef Ragu (Day 2) - from the Cook Once Eat Twice cookbook.
- Cooking the afore-mentioned wine-soaked pot roast while wearing the red-and-white polka-dot apron I bought in Madrid
Saturday, April 3, 2010
One Trophy I Kept
Scanlon Creek Mountain Bike Race 1995 Mountain Bike Race
3rd place, 1st place
OK, I know this is actually a picture of two: one is mine &one is my husband's. To see why I chose to keep these, out of a pile, see Things I Gave Away
Friday, April 2, 2010
A Password Worth Keeping
I am sitting in front of my daughter’s desktop computer, troubleshooting a virus issue.
“Windows can’t update important files while the system is using them,” the screen says. I imagine a tiny tech guy typing this message. He is sitting at a miniature desk somewhere between the hard drive and the motherboard. The computer elf.
“Save any open files, and the restart the computer,” the elf says. I click the button and the system reboots.
“What’s your password?” I ask my daughter. She is sitting in the kitchen reading an Archie comic.
“I love you,” she says “with no spaces.”
I smile. The elf will love this. I whisper it into his ear and the screen comes magically to life.
My gem of a daughter, who knows the trick to a password worth keeping.
“Windows can’t update important files while the system is using them,” the screen says. I imagine a tiny tech guy typing this message. He is sitting at a miniature desk somewhere between the hard drive and the motherboard. The computer elf.
“Save any open files, and the restart the computer,” the elf says. I click the button and the system reboots.
“What’s your password?” I ask my daughter. She is sitting in the kitchen reading an Archie comic.
“I love you,” she says “with no spaces.”
I smile. The elf will love this. I whisper it into his ear and the screen comes magically to life.
My gem of a daughter, who knows the trick to a password worth keeping.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
From What I Gave Away to What I Choose to Keep
Inevitably, when you choose to examine things you gave away, you end up with a pile of stuff worth keeping. And so I find myself here amidst a stack of favourite books, my great-grandmother's wedding ring (and to think I never knew that, she too, was a second-wife), a scribbled quote.
It might be said that this blog is an online "gratitude journal", a list of things I'm grateful for. That's a fair characterization, but over the years, every time I've tried to "make a list of things I'm grateful for" my imagination runs cold. Somehow I find myself writing "sunny days", "blue skies" and "my cat's personality" over and over. For me, hearing Ryan Bingham ("Up in the Air") talk about filling a backpack with only his most valued possessions was more to the point.
What do I value? If I knew for sure that my house would burn to the ground tomorrow, what would I stuff in my backpack? What mental habits would I keep? What did people say to me that I never want to forget? What song can't I live without? Stuff like that. That's what interests me.
My children are on the brink of high school. In a few years, they may be flying out of this over-stuffed nest of ours and leaving my husband and I behind, so the question of 'what would I keep' is very much in my mind these days. I am not the kind of girl who will leave all the packing to the last minute. So, what do you say? What would you keep?
It might be said that this blog is an online "gratitude journal", a list of things I'm grateful for. That's a fair characterization, but over the years, every time I've tried to "make a list of things I'm grateful for" my imagination runs cold. Somehow I find myself writing "sunny days", "blue skies" and "my cat's personality" over and over. For me, hearing Ryan Bingham ("Up in the Air") talk about filling a backpack with only his most valued possessions was more to the point.
What do I value? If I knew for sure that my house would burn to the ground tomorrow, what would I stuff in my backpack? What mental habits would I keep? What did people say to me that I never want to forget? What song can't I live without? Stuff like that. That's what interests me.
My children are on the brink of high school. In a few years, they may be flying out of this over-stuffed nest of ours and leaving my husband and I behind, so the question of 'what would I keep' is very much in my mind these days. I am not the kind of girl who will leave all the packing to the last minute. So, what do you say? What would you keep?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
