Ten Things

I started out doing a "Thursday Thirteen" this morning, but then it dawned on me that it's only Wednesday, so I stopped at ten.

1. Marcel and I brought home a good-as-new couch from the thrift store last night. I like it, but my oldest two daughters pronounced it “ugly, ugly, VERY ugly” (anyone read Robert Munsch?).

2. We also bought a lovely wing-back chair that needs recovering, so I have a project for the weekend. Or the weekend after that.

3. I can’t wait to get rid of the very ratty furniture currently residing in my living room.

4. When I wandered through the bookstore yesterday, I was filled with a familiar sense of melancholy. It was a revival of my deep longing to have a book published and sitting up there on the bookstore shelves with all those other books.

5. We ordered a laptop recently. (Yes, our income tax cheque arrived.) One computer in a family of five computer-users (including one who’s a university student and trumps all the rest of us) is taxing us to the limit.

6. Maybe once we have a laptop, I’ll be able to find more moments to sneak away and write that book that will some day be on those bookstore shelves.

7. I am SO glad the Canadian women’s hockey team won the world championship last night (right here in Winnipeg). Sorry to my U.S. friends, but our team beat yours last night 5 to 1 for the gold.

8. Tonight, my bike is coming down from the rafters. On Monday, as long as it doesn’t snow again, I hope to ride to work. Oh, I can hardly wait! Now if only the river would go down so I could take the river pathway.

9. When I was in Dallas, I bought Anne Lamott’s new book “Grace Eventually”. Few writers make me feel as much like I’ve come “home” as Anne Lamott. It was the perfect antidote for the strange solitude I felt in Dallas. (I was happy that “Grace Eventually” did not involve as much Bush-bashing as “Plan B” – that got old fairly quickly.)

10. Soccer season begins for us tonight. Nikki has her first practice. Yes, it really IS spring! Yippee! Strange as it may seem, I am one of those parents who does not moan about having to spend every Spring evening sitting next to a soccer field. I LOVE it! I get to sit in a lawnchair in the sunshine (okay, so I’m being optimistic), chat with other parents, watch my kids do something they enjoy, and usually bike to and from the game with my family – what’s not to like?