Wordless Wednesday: Music

 

 

 

 

Spring concert day at Owen's school...

he's with the band.

100 Word Song: Me Too

 

            I’m linking up with The 100 Word Song Prompt over at My Blog Can Beat Up Your Blog. Our musical inspiration for the week was Lacuna Coil’s “Within Me”.  The song opens with the line, “Something about you/That makes me feel bad/I wasn't there when a thin line/Destroyed your soul”. It was such a perfect fit into Karen’s story, there were a number of moments in her life I could have written about. But I decided to pick up where I left off in the last few posts. If you’d like to read more of Karen, click here.

Me Too

            Karen tucked the woolen afghan around her mother’s legs. “I’ll get you a cup of tea,” she said. Peggy nodded dimly. She hadn’t spoken since she came home.  Karen tried to be upbeat. Tried not to ask questions. The doctors said Peggy would talk about it when she was ready. If she was ready.

            “I’m ready to talk about it,” Karen whispered, putting the teapot down a little too hard. “Was it an accident? Were you trying to hurt yourself? We’re both a little broken inside.”

            She wiped the tears that streamed down her face and finished making the tea.

Waking Up

 

            For the first time in eighteen years, Karen didn’t wake up in the brass bed with the pink chenille bedspread. She turned her head to see Henry’s sleeping face. His head rested on the arm of the worn blue velvet sofa. She didn’t want to disturb him, but needed to use the bathroom.

            Karen slipped out of his arms without disturbing him. “You don’t look any different this morning,” she said to her reflection in the bathroom mirror. “Well, what did you expect? A red A to appear on your chest?”  She had been unsure what to do the night before, but instinct guided her body. In the light of the morning she had nothing to direct her.

Henry was still asleep when Karen went back into the living room. She sat in her grandmother’s maple rocker and looked around the room. The furniture was dated and the lace curtains were hopelessly out of fashion. At least she and Peggy kept it clean.

Karen was afraid of the moment he woke. What if he saw her as the girl he found crying in a phone booth outside the hospital? What if he only saw the girl so desperate for comfort she begged him to take her? What if he saw the tired furnishings of poor white trash family?

Henry stirred, stretched, and nearly fell off the narrow sofa. Karen rushed over and knelt at his side.

“I was afraid to wake up,” he said. “I thought I was dreaming.”

I’m linking up with Write on Edge. This week’s prompt was to “use setting to deepen the development of your story.  You can use it to give insight into a character or a conflict or simply to evoke an emotional mood from your reader.” This picks up where I last left Karen. You can read that segment here. My complete series about Karen can be found here.

The Homework Momster

Today I’m linking up with Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop. The prompt, “What about school do you miss the least?” might have meant for us to discuss what we didn’t miss from our own school days. But what came to mind for me (in large block letters) was what I won’t miss when my kids are done with school in June.

            Monday through Thursday from 4:00 to 5:00 are the worst four hours of the week. We stagger into the house tired and hungry from work and school. There is nothing more I want than to make a cup of tea for myself and a snack for the boys. I want to put my feet up and hear about their day. I want to listen while Owen gets outraged about the Cherokee being forced off their land. I want James to tell me about the reptile guy who came to the school today.

            But there isn’t time. There is too much homework. They’ve been in school since 9:00 and they each have at least another hour of work ahead of them. For a while I tried sending them outside to run off some of their energy before they settle down. I worry that they don’t get enough time outdoors and it’s usually dark by the time homework is finished. Instead of being more focused and relaxed they would run back inside every fifteen minutes to see if their time was up. They just want the homework over with. They know that getting to play beforehand just puts off the inevitable. Homework stretches beyond the dinner hour if they play first. From their perspective, it makes bedtime come that much sooner.

            So while they’re doing their homework, I’m usually emptying the dishwasher and trying to get dinner made. They ask me questions about homework, which I do my best to answer. Sometimes they get distracted and tell me about something that happened in school. I want to hear, but I want them to focus on their work so they’ll get it over with. I tell them to tell me while we’re eating dinner. They’ll bicker with each other; I’ll get irritable and tell them to get back to work. Dinner takes twice as long as it should to make because I spend so much time telling them to stay focused.

Of course they aren’t the only ones who are distracted. Most days we need to be somewhere right after dinner—Cub Scouts, soccer, baseball, rehearsal. So I’m keeping my eye on the clock while I’m juggling their questions and my other tasks. I hate the person I become when my kids do homework. She’s short tempered and mean. She doesn’t have time to listen to the things her kids need to tell her. My fondest wish for this summer is to replace the phrases “hurry up” and “stay focused” with “tell me more about that” and “slow down Pal, we’re in no hurry.”

The Lego Command Center

 

            Way back during April vacation, my sons and I took on an enormous task. It was a task that required ingenuity, patience, and stamina. We organized the Legos. Toys come and go, but the obsession with Legos never dies. Over the years, I had tried a number of bins, boxes, and shelves but nothing seemed to work for long. Legos would be scattered all over the place. The kids wouldn’t want to clean up because they hated the idea of disrupting a battle or scene they were creating. I needed to get the boys input (and labor). The ideal system would be one that I would help them devise, but they would maintain.

Image obtained from Ikea's website.

            So I compared various storage systems at my local Ikea*. I decided to use their Antonius system and add a Vika tabletop to it. I struck gold when I went shopping for my pieces. I found the Antonius frames in the clearance section for two dollars apiece. Normally they go for about ten dollars. It addition to being reasonably priced, the Antonius frames have leveling screws. Our play area is a little pitched, so anything with wheels will roll off a table. Being able to level the play area was a bonus.

Less fun than playing, more fun than homework.

The boys organized the Legos themselves.  They chose to organize by color, rather than type (such as Star Wars or Lego City) since they usually build a set once and then turn it into something else later. They also created separate spaces for specialty pieces like Lego Ninjago, Hero Factory/Bionicle, and mini figures. There is even a place to store the directions!

           The Antonius system allows you to use plastic drawers in two sizes as well as wire baskets. I used mostly the six-inch tall drawers ($8.00 each) because they were shallow enough for the kids to find individual pieces and large enough to store creations they had built. If you’ve spent all morning building the coolest space station in the world, you don’t want to take it apart to put it away. For smaller items, we used wire baskets ($2.50) with divided inserts ($3.00).

Projects like this make me feel like MacGyver.

            The Vika able top ($26.00) is predrilled with holes to attach legs. I was able to fit screw eyes into the holes and attach the table top to the frames with zip ties. The tabletop is just the right height for both boys to play while standing. Because this is a “dedicated” Lego play space, they can leave their projects set up when they’re called away for dinner, homework or any other boring thing a mother can think of.

Our Lego Command Center has been in use for over a month. Because the boys did much of the work themselves, they've  done an excellent job maintaining it. As for me, I’m just thrilled to cut down on the number of times I’ve stepped on Legos while barefoot.

This baby can hold approximately 84 gallons of Legos!

            In accordance with FTC regulation, I am required to disclose that I work for Ikea. However, I am posting this as a private person and was in no way compensated for writing this post.