Tag: life

Today we woke up to this.


And I, who usually try to find something beautiful and inspiring in the morning landscape, feel only disgust.

It’s October, for crying out loud!  We still have soccer games to play!

I don’t have time for snow.
I don’t like snow.
I don’t like piles of wet coats, boots, hats and gloves.
I don’t like driving in snow.
I don’t like trying to run life on schedule when snow ruins the schedule.

If I could live winter indoors, just close up the house, start a fire and spend the winter reading, I might like snow. I admit that it’s beautiful, but having to go out in it spoils it for me.  After all, a snowy road is only pretty until 10 cars have driven on it, and then it’s just gray and dirty and slushy.
I am only interested in being a winter spectator.  I have no desire to be a participant.  I especially hate being the driver.   I’ve spent my whole life driving in snow, but I hate it more every year.  This year I’m nervous about driving a monster space shuttle full of my most precious cargo on snowy, icy roads after years of driving a 4 wheel drive SUV that I could trust.  You don’t want to know how stressed I already feel about driving to Colorado for Christmas.

This is ridiculous.  It’s been raining for days.  We have plenty of moisture already.

Yep, I’m ticked about the snow.
And I don’t feel even slightly motivated to fix my attitude.

The End.

As a mother who spends countless hours each year at soccer practices and games, I’m still amazed at how all of these child-focused activities take place in areas where there is no access to restrooms.  At the occasional park where there IS a restroom, I’m terribly suspicious of it.  I dread it every time, the child who needs to use the restroom (but who naturally waited to tell me until it was already a crisis) in the middle of a game. Yes, this is one of those silly things that makes me stress, especially with 5 daughters.

Imagine my surprise at my son’s  soccer games, to see a port-a-potty standing next to the entrance of the locked up school.


The Honey Bucket label made me laugh, so I had to take a picture.

It’s also a memory because my four year old insisted he didn’t need to use it when we left the game for our hour plus drive home.  A quarter of a mile down the road, however, he needed it.  We turned around to drive back, and naturally he didn’t make it.  Oh, the joys of little boys.

I both love and hate these Honey Buckets.  When there’s an emergency, they are most helpful.  I have my children use them.  But as for me, I can’t stand them.  Simply can’t.  Even as a child I had this horrible aversion to them.  I remember going camping with my family and using the bathroom at home just before we drove away.  I would then walk to the car thinking, “I won’t need to go again until we get home.”  And I didn’t.  Ever.  Still don’t.

I remember camping with my husband and children when I was 8 months pregnant.  When I had to climb out of the tent in the dead of night and find my way to the outhouse without my contacts in I almost got in the car instead to drive away.  (What was I thinking, agreeing to camp in the first place?)  There’s nothing like knowing the only option is an outhouse to cure me of the need to go at all.  They’re something that I can’t stand the sight of, and yet feel relived to spot.

How would I ever have survived a life without indoor plumbing?

I guess I would have made it just fine, not knowing any other option.

And for the record, I never thought I’d see a beautiful picture featuring port-a-potties, until my sister posted a rainbow on her blog a few weeks ago.  Proof positive that beauty lies hidden in unlikely places.  Check it out!

And that sums up my random thoughts on a random subject.  Yes, I know.  Totally random.  Oh well.

HH