Author name: Sandra Tayler

The other day I wrote how I am taking the good days and good events and treating them like little capsules of treasure. Here are a few that I’ve collected lately.

***

I haven’t done much baking lately, so when I made brownies they tasted extra delicious. Enough that both Howard and I tweeted about it.

Sandra: I have eaten more brownies than is healthy. Since the healthy quantity for brownies is 0, I feel good about my life decisions today.

Howard: Came upstairs to find that there are just enough brownies left in this pan for me to have one brownie before eating half a pan of brownies.

Howard’s brother Randy responded to his tweet: if you don’t slice the half a pan, it’s just one big brownie.

Howard: “We’re gonna need a bigger spatula.” — me and @RandyTayler, reducing our brownie intake on a technicality.

The conversations about the brownies were as enjoyable as the brownies themselves.

***

Gleek: “Mom? I have a question.”
Me: “I have an answer. Let’s see if they match.”

***

The bench at church was crowded because all six of us were sitting there together. I think it has been at least six months since that happened.

***

Curling up on the couch and watching NCIS with Howard. Kids often join us as well. We talk about the stories after they are done. This is not a show that I fell in love with right away, but it has grown on me to the point where I love it and I love the characters. The other day we watched an episode that was so well written and so well acted that there was a scene where massive amounts of emotion and meaning were communicated with almost no dialogue at all. I think those are my favorite moments in a show.

***

I walked up to the front door of an unfamiliar house with a yellow folder of documents in my hands. One short conversation later, I walked away without the folder. Link’s Eagle Scout Application has been turned it.

***

Walking into Gleek’s room and seeing that every day she has added things to the walls and made the space her own. The purple wall is a good thing.

***

I went to the junior high school. For the first time in two years, one trip to a school took care of multiple children. All the paperwork was in order, so I picked up schedules for Gleek and Patch. They have a good set of classes. Though Gleek did need one switch. Fortunately her school counselor agreed that the change was beneficial and made the switch on the spot. I have one piece of pending paperwork for Link, but schedules are finalized, I’ve posted the school A/B schedule in its usual spot, first bell rings next Tuesday.

***

I need to pay attention to these small good things so that I don’t get swamped by worries about the impending school year.

Sound and people fill my house. We’ve had the loud shouts of a Smash Bros tournament between Kiki and her brothers. We’ve had the hollering as Howard and the boys shout back and forth while playing a co-op game on steam. We’ve had siblings kibitzing as Kiki plays through the story of Twilight Princess so that her visiting roommate can watch. We’ve had Gleek detailing the dream she had last night and the characters she’s creating that day. We’ve had the sound of NCIS playing while Howard draws comics. There has been the clatter of dishes and the beep of the microwave as people cook themselves food. It has been a joyous noise and influx of clutter. We are glad to all be together again after two and a half weeks of disrupted schedule and reduced household.

I keep looking at the calendar and measuring next week with my eyes. The week isn’t long enough. When it is done, Kiki will depart for school. The other kids will also leave the house each morning. Quiet hours will return. I do miss having quiet hours in my house where I’m not responsible for children. But I worry that the quiet hours will be accompanied by school stresses. Not an ideal trade for anyone. So I listen to all the joyful noise and I think gratefully about how I don’t have to move forward quite yet. I get a few more days where the kids can play all day.

In April and May we finished a room in our basement which became a bedroom for my two boys. They love their new space. They even got to pick their paint and carpet. The room they vacated got repainted and turned into Kiki’s bedroom. She decorated with all her lovely things and it became a warm and welcoming place. This left Gleek as the only kid without a new bedroom. A few weeks ago she confessed to me that her room felt a little depressing to her, particularly when compared with her sister’s room. I can’t say I blamed her. The white walls felt bare and the wall hangings hadn’t been arranged, they were accumulated. And many of them had been put up with an entirely different arrangement of furniture.

“We can repaint your room.” I said
“Really?” Gleek answered with bright hope in her eyes.

So we spent time over the next weeks helping her sort through her accumulation of things. It was past time for this anyway. She’s a teenager now and many of the collections of her younger years were simply clutter in her life. We had to take it in batches because each box of random objects contained both treasures and garbage. The difference between the two was not always apparent to eyes other than Gleek’s. So we sorted and then we talked paint colors. Gleek confessed a desire to have a bright purple wall. We picked a bedspread that would go with such a wall and then we put up test patches of paint.

Gleek wanted the brightest purple. Howard and I had some concerns about the color, but figured that even if it was terribly ugly the experience picking her own paint would be good for Gleek.

It wasn’t ugly, just bold.

It suits Gleek. And it goes well with the bedspread.

There is still work to do in order to make the room truly Gleek’s space. She needs to open up her box of wall hangings and make decisions about which of them will go up on the walls. We may want to do something about the old, stained furniture. But this is a good start for Gleek to truly take ownership of the room and begin to figure out who she is as a teenager.

I like the purple wall already.