out with the old, in with the new

http://liferebourne.blogspot.com/

pilgrim girl

Marigold Path Grid Blog - Honoring our Beloved Dead

I am working on scanning some pictures to post for the Day of the Dead Grid Blog. Time is short, but any blogger can participate (click above). In honor of my mom, I will share pictures and words about her.

This picture was her favorite, and the one she requested be included with her obituary. My brother and I spent a lot of time looking at old family photo with my grandma when we were small, and this one was in a flip book with pictures of all the St. Joseph's nursing graduates of 1961.

Crazy, but in a good way

Kerouac's Rules for Writing (Learning, Teaching, Living....)

* Be in love with yr life
* Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition
* Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy
* Believe in the holy contour of life
* Accept loss forever
* Write in recollection and amazement for yourself
* No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge
* Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it
* Crazier the better
* You're a Genius all the time

Yes, I am 40

4 days ago I turned 40. This is where I planned to end this blog. And start a new one. Ha! I need some time to myself to gather my thoughts and write, but guess what? It's not happening. I guess this is a commentary on my life at 40. Maybe blogging is not going to be where I put my creative energy right now. Maybe instead I will get to:

do laundry for 5
pour bowls of cheerios
start the dishwasher with last night's dishes in it
wash peed on blankets and sheets
point a fan at the peed on mattress
say "turn the TV off we are going to the park"
create invoices for milk for kids at school and get paid for it
borrow a vacuum cleaner because ours is at the "old house" for temp renters to use
trip over the borrowed vacuum cleaner for 4 days before finally using it
pick up polly pockets !@#$%%$ off the kitchen floor
pick up spouse's !@#$#$ socks off the kitchen floor
feel frustrated because I don't have time to write or plant beautiful flowers


and:

scream "YAAAAY" when Miss Mo makes a poop in the toilet
marvel at the maturity of her older sister, who helped her get the diaper off and onto the toilet in time
draw the letter "B" for Mo, over and over and over again
read Pippy Longstocking to my sweet kids
help Frank look for caterpillars on the milkweed in the front yard
feel lucky to be living with the best bunch of McGuires in the universe

Time's up. Tim is leaving. Gotta go spend my creative energy differently.

Thanks for reading!

countdown

As unbelievable as it is to me, in just 12 days my oldest child will be 7 years old. And in 26 days I will be 40.

I decided recently that June 26 would be a good time to wrap up this blog, and to possibly start a new one. "katesandwiched" does not describe my life any more, and therefore I believe it is time to move on. I want to spend the next few weeks looking back at what has been recorded here and hopefully figuring out what it all means when I try to look at the "big picture". This will take some dedicated writing time, which I will try my best to carve out. wish me luck. (fyi baby Mo was grabbing my hands as I tried to type the last sentences. "no no no!" I said and pulled my hands away from her! this is what happens to me literally and figuratively when I try to write! See what I'm up against here?!)

so little time

I wish I was writing more here, but time is not permitting it. Also feeling a little block, I hate to admit. Started going through boxes of my mom's stuff that I couldn't deal with last Fall when I stuck them in the garage. Here are a few things that have sparked my interest and that I would like to blog about:

!. my mom's career in healthcare. I found a notebook she kept full of accolades she received for her work as a trainer of paramedics in the mid to late 70s. This was also the time that my mom and dad served on a volunteer ambulance service in teh town we lived in. Not surprisingly, I remember that period as the happiest my family ever had together. This backs up the saying that "when the mama's happy, everyone is happy". That was definitely true in my family because my mom had the strongest personality. The flip side, as you can imagine, was that when my mom was having a hard time then everybody suffered. That sucked, now that I think about it. Anyway, looking at my mom's notebook of career accomplishments made me realize that the best part of her work life was over when we moved to Vienna. She never found that mixture of teaching, healthcare and leadership that she thrived in when she was working for Area Ambulance. My heart breaks a little to realize this, and to remember that she turned just 40 when we moved to Vienna in 1980.

2. My mom's brown wallet. Full of interesting tidbits from the early 60s, like pictures of a gay guy who called her "lil sis", and pictures of a military man named Sam Durbin, who I've never heard anything about. All I know is that I found a stash of letters from my dad to my mom before they were married, and an empty envelope postmarked 1961 or 2 from Sam. So where is the letter? did she take it out because she didn't want us to find it, or did she put somewhere special that was closer to her heart? I don't know, and I never will I suppose, but my money is on the second possibility.

3. pictures. Tim has a scanner and I would like to scan a few things onto my blog. Like my mom's 1962-3 permit to buy liquor in Iowa! It's a goofy little book she kept in her wallet, and apparently one had to have the liquor store attendant fill it in for you everytime you bought liquor? The month of March 63 looks to have been a party time for my mom and her young friends. She was just 22.

Sacred Ordinary

The above link is to my new favorite blog. I am finding blogs by middle-aged women that I find very inspiring. Women who are artists and writers and mothers and grandmas. Women who are ahead of me on the road of living creatively. Role models! I need them, they make life seem more like an adventure.

I found a link on Sacred Ordinary that is all about the art of journal writing. An interesting perspective that I hadn't thought of.
If you like this blog, you will like her links to the right.

what doesn't kill us makes us stronger?

"I am not at all convinced that life without conflict is desirable. There's not much conflict in the grave, but while we're alive the only creative choice is the choice of conflict."

Madeleine L'Engle