Day: July 26, 2021

The Mommy Files: Green Grandma

Green is TV Stevie’s least favorite color. I’ve always been partial to it, but after we married, I limited green to foodstuffs. TV is partial to vegetables, so he was content.

Along came the children, who, being green deprived in the house and in their closets, both declared green to be their favorite color.

X-Chromo, I think, rebelled against all the pink and purple in which I swathed her.  Her love of green morphed into a preference for what I call turquoise.  Which TV Stevie insists is green. Men, however, have fewer color rods in their eyes, so he clearly knows not of what he speaks.

Y-Chromo took it one step further.  He invented his “Green Grandma.”

One evening at dinner, Y informed us he wanted to visit his Green Grandma. So I asked him about this person. “Oh, she lives in a green house. Her kitchen is green. Her curtains are green. The stove and refrigerator a green. There are green walls and green floors. All her furniture is green. I love it there.”

The kids wasn’t talking about environmentally correct stuff. He meant the color.

 

 

Mommy Files: Learning the Language

One of the best things about being the mom of very young children was observing them learning the language. Figuring out how to use words when they didn’t have the vocabulary immediately at hand to communicate their meaning.

X-Chromo was a genius at this.

Two occasions come immediately to mind. She was about the same age for both.

One morning I was getting her dressed and gave her two choices of an outfit to wear. “This one or this one,” I said as I held up two dresses. “The housekeeping,” little X replied.  I was confused. She pointed to the one she wanted. “The housekeeping,” she repeated. Duh! She attended a center-based daycare /pre-school and the dress she wanted had an apron on it. Aprons were part of the housekeeping center.  She couldn’t think of the word, but she knew where it belonged.

Another morning, we were standing in the kitchen, preparing to leave for the day. “Squirrel!” she started yelling out the window. “Get off my summertime!” Again, it took me a moment. “Summertime” was the swimming pool we had in the back yard while the children were growing up. She couldn’t think of the word, but understood it was something we used only in the summer.

 

 

 

Thursday Thought: Dishware

I periodically browse on line looking for new dishes: plates, cereal bowls, small plates. I don’t particularly like the ones we use. My husband is very fond of them. I want something bright and pretty. I live in a city where there isn’t much sunshine, so my soul craves something other than mud brown and navy blue.

Here is a question: why do sets of dinnerware still include cups and saucers? My family can’t be the only one in the USA who doesn’t use these things that take up say too much cupboard space.

Granted, TV Stevie has a thing about coffee mugs–he uses maybe two of the ones he owns, and is always bringing home more, but we rarely weed out the mug cupboard. I have my favorite tea mugs.

Instead of matching cups and saucers, I’d like to see  lunch plates or soup bowls.

What do you think?

The Man Fridge

Years ago, Parade magazine interviewed a female private detective, who maintained women make better detectives than men because if a man opens the refrigerator door to look for something, unless it’s right in front of him, he won’t find it because he won’t “move the mustard.”

That phrase has stayed with me.  The truth of it rings in my head at least once a week.

I once hid a bottle of champagne on the bottom shelf, in back of my refrigerator, for six months. No one noticed. Why? Because that would involve moving the mustard.

I have decided my path to riches will be the invention of The Man Fridge. The shelves will be only as deep as a gallon of milk. Initially I thought of using baseball’s “strike zone” as the height, but I’ve concluded that won’t work, because the bottom shelf would be too low. The ideal height would be waist to eye level on a six-foot man.  Even then, the lower shelves might be invisible.

The inevitable problem with The Man Fridge would be the width. It would need to be a minimum of three times wider than an average refrigerator in 2020.  Man Fridges could conceivably take up entire walls in kitchens.  And that creates the problem of doors. How many doors would be sensible? If a man won’t move the mustard, why would he open multiple doors? The doors, I’ve decided would have to be a deep as the shelves. That way, perhaps only twice the width of current refrigerators would work. Many refrigerators do have double doors.

Maybe this could work.

 

 

 

MJ’s Musings: The Next Phase

As the year draws to a close, I’m reflecting on what I have learned these past twelve months. The most important lesson was  QUESTION THE PREMISE.

Several author friends urged me to check out Becca Syme and her Quit Cast on YouTube.  Although the vids are geared toward writers, I think anyone can learn the basics and apply them to their own situation. I highly recommend the first episode where Becca talks about alignment and the third episode (Question the Premise, link above).  All of her videos are wonderful, but more geared toward writers.

I feel good about finishing the third book in the Service for Sanctuary series. It’s going to be a little later than originally planned, but it’s coming along nicely. I want it right, not fast.

After I finish the werewolf book, I plan to dip my toes into the cozy mystery genre. This is an idea I’ve tinkered with for years, making random notes and so one, but late this summer, the ideas have been pelting me, so I think it’s ready to be written. The note taking has become a flurry, and I’m compiling a list of people to talk to and places to visit as part of my research. I’m really excited about that.

I also have my currently-out-of-print baseball books (five of them) that I’d like to self-publish. I have a dystopian novel I want to pitch to a publisher. And then there’s a baseball-werewolf novella gathering dust while waiting for me to get my act together.

Right now, though, I’m going to make homemade soup.