Around Town

Presidents Day and Jeff the Canadian

February 21, 2019 by Kathryn

In honor of Presidents Day on Monday we fled the country. We live a couple of hours from the Canadian border and poutine seemed like a good idea. It turned out that they also had a national holiday on Monday, Family Day, and we think families are worth celebrating.

Heading to Canada also gave us several opportunities to talk about the President on Presidents Day because, and I’m not exaggerating, every single person we spoke to for more than 30 seconds brought up President Trump.

***SPOILER ALERT***

They do not like him.

Everyone we talked to basically expressed condolences, like our uncle had died. Or, I guess, like a crazy uncle had taken over our house. One of those things. We did the best we could. And we luckily live in a place where I’m allowed to type this post on the internet and where we the people get to overthrow the government every four years without shedding any more blood than might be caused by a papercut from a mail-in ballot.

We ended up taking a detour down a side road and stumbled across this gem. It lives up to it’s name.

We stopped by the temple even though it was closed. It was gorgeous and the kids thought the angel statue on top looked extra huge because the temple was so small. #FamiliesAreForeverDay

From there we went in search of poutine. This was rough because we actually favor the poutine at the Costco food court, but they were closed for the holiday. Apparently, Costco employees have families too.

A friend recommended a little French-Canadian poutine place in downtown Vancouver so we headed there. They… seemed surprised to have customers. And not a good surprise, like your grandmother taking you to The Care Bear Movie for your 8^th birthday. It was more like, “Why are there dirty socks in the cheese drawer?!”

There was a sign as we entered that said, “Please wait to be seated,” but then they seemed annoyed that we didn’t just find our own seat.

Curling was on TV. Thumbs up.

Line cook with an Oilers hat on. Thumbs way down.

Growing up in Calgary, it was important part of my culture to have an irrational and fervent dislike of Edmondton, Oilers, and anything tainted by Wayne Gretsky.

I can’t totally describe it. It was just a funny place. It looked super sketchy from the outside and then the inside was just sort of crammed with stuff. People, tables, multiple full-sized traffic lights, nude paintings, some with lift-the-flaps to see the most exciting parts, portraits of drag queens, hockey memorabilia.

The employees were hilariously crusty, like we were being punked, and I did not see one table get the food they ordered on the first try. We sat at our table eating poutine and laughing as over and over the servers apologized for the mistake in a tone that said, “I’m sorry you suck,” and then went back to the kitchen window and yelled for something to be changed.

Our order came missing Laylee’s poutine and Magoo and Wanda’s hotdogs. Throughout the meal, the server kept yelling at the line cook for the two hot dogs. (What can you expect? He was an Oilers fan.) They didn’t come and they didn’t come. All our other food was done and still no hot dogs.

“I NEED THOSE TWO HOT DOGS,” he yelled, “WITH MUSTARD AND RELISH!!”

Wanda was crestfallen. She and Magoo had asked for mustard and KETCHUP. We told her to cut her losses. Then when the food showed up, the hot dogs came with ketchup and relish. Nice.

Wanda samples relish for the first time and it is a hit!

But the poutine was decent and if it hadn’t taken 15 years to get our food and two more decades to get our check, I wouldn’t have met the super interesting people at the table next to us, a very chatty older French-Canadian man and his friends who had strong feelings about the president, were very passionate about Dan and I taking our kids to Science World, and were giving Laylee the hard sell about choosing a Canadian university.

We tried our hand at 5-pin bowling. It’s something I grew up doing but when I mentioned it to Dan and the kids, they thought I was kidding.

I wasn’t. It’s real.

And it has inexplicable rules. Each pin is worth a different amount of points. Usually you get to roll the ball 3 times but sometimes you get to roll 4 times and you never know why.

The ball is so small that I think it blows around in the wind because it never went where I expected or desired it to go.

Laylee took advantage of the confusion and emerged victorious. She is apparently a Can-natural and I would like to have her try other Canadian sports, curling, bobsled, badminton pronounced correctly.

We rounded out the trip with some sightseeing in Vancouver. It was a city like most other cities but it felt special because we needed passports to go there and because of donuts.

Wanda purchased a stuffed bear-monkey who she named Jeff The Canadian because he “looked like a Jeff” and he is obviously Canadian.

We raided the grocery store shelves for chocolate and ketchup chips and ichiban noodles. And that’s what we eat for breakfast now because we are middle school boys and our name is Magoo.

Snow Problem At All

February 13, 2019 by Kathryn

My kids and I are Canadians real bad and we crave the snow. We’re not Canadians enough to, you know, actually live in Canada or even to have watched a complete hockey game in the past six months. But we are Canadian enough to eat poutine, to wear toques, and to think we know how to drive in the snow.

Except for Wanda.

She is nine and her snow-driving skills are sub-par.

But we live in the Pacific Northwest, where our closeness to salty water and mountains strands us in a sea of grey almost-snow all winter long. Some years we get nary a flake. And we mourn so hard.

This year the Farmer’s Almanac predicted a wet and mild winter and we made peace with our snowlessness. But then the weather channel app started messing with us.

10% chance of frozen joy sprinkles.

30% chance.

JK rain.

And then:

100% CHANCE OF SNOW!!!

But we didn’t believe it. They’ve burned us before. When it finally fell, we were so excited.

We expected an inch or two and that was enough to make us crazy with joy.

We got snow. We got more snow. We got freezing temperatures.

Over TWO FEET of snow fell in about a week in a place where school will be canceled if a rumor circulates that half an inch of snow sent Seattle a spam email once.

School was canceled.

We didn’t get in any driving practice for Laylee’s impending driver’s test. She didn’t feel up to practicing her parallel parking.

We played a Catan mega game and no one even cried.

We drank hot chocolate by the gallon and made cinnamon rolls and did puzzles and burned half an Ent in our fireplace.

The kids made snow men and snow poffs.

Our power went out Monday night and Dan and I got up at 4am to start the generator. And restore heat and refrigerator power. When he went to pull the cord, this happened.

We spent over an hour repairing the pull cord multiple times (it kept breaking) and trying again and again to start the generator. Then we said a prayer. And tried again. And it worked on the first pull!

So we had heat and refrigeration and Minecraft. We were hooked up! And the snow kept falling, even as the temperatures warmed up.

At one point our two-story vaulted metal roof got melty enough that it roof-alanched all of its snow in one massive 5-foot-tall hard-packed mound at the side of the house.

So, of course, they sculpted a sled ramp that ran from the side of the house all the way down and through the forest owned by our neighbor.

There are benefits that come from allowing your fence to be reclaimed by the moss and slugs of the pacific northwest. Those benefits include turning your yard into a deer highway and having easy access to sled-trespass on your neighbor’s property during Snowmageddon.

A couple other Snowpocalypse highlights were:

Dan working from home

hauling wood for the fire using the kids’ sleds in the middle of the night

watching Dan zoom out of our driveway to go help a friend and leave an 11-inch-deep tire tread in the snow

eating “snow” cones at our awesome neighbor’s house next to a driveway campfire

using my thermal cooker when the power was out

reading by the fire as a family

There will be consequences for this week. The kids have already missed five days of school and had one late start and they’re still home until more of the snow melts. Those days will have to be made up at the end of the year. This is going to wreak havoc with summer plans and youth conference schedules.

The trampoline looks unnaturally stretched and the back deck is suffering under the weight of several inches of unmelted snow.

These are just the consequences for our family and they’re pretty minor. I know other people have suffered much more being stuck and cold and injured on the roads and hungry. I feel terrible for them and we’ve prayed every night that people would be safe and we’ve offered to help where we could.

But, there is nothing our being stressed or anxious or mad will do to change the snow or keep people safe or make the school year any shorter. It will just make us miserable.

So, we choose to celebrate it. It’s been a fat party for a week and a half and we have made amazing memories. Thank you, Mother Elsa. We have LOVED the freeze!

The Snitch of Softball

June 7, 2017 by Kathryn

Remember last year when I coached softball based on things I learned off of YouTube? It was awesome. Because the girls were young and I was not a horrible person. It’s easy to be a great coach to little people if you don’t hate children and you have access to the internets for instruction.

That’s also how I became an amateur electrician and learned how to redo the pipes under my sink.

Well, this year I’m not coaching softball but I’m there, cheering and providing snacks and other non-food-related support.

“RUN SO BAD!” “DO MORE OF THE BIG GOOD HITTINGS!!” Things like that.

I’ve discovered over the years that baseball and softball are a lot like quidditch. I’ll tell you how.

This team of 7 and 8 year olds plays hard. They swing the bat so hard. They run so hard. Sometimes they get out. Both teams get runs and everyone has a good time.

However, it doesn’t matter how many outs, hits, or runs you get. At the end of the game, it all comes down to the relay race. After the game is played, the girls line up. One team stands at home plate. Another team stands at second. And they race in a relay around the field, their arms pumping, their faces flushed.

And whichever team wins the relay goes away from the game victorious. It can be 27-1, but if we win the relay, we are champions.

It’s similar in quidditch. There’s all kinds of gameplay that happens during a quidditch match. People get beat in the head. Balls get thrown through hoops. There’s drama and scoring and crazy witches and wizards flying on broomsticks. Sometimes things get lit on fire. But none of that matters.

When someone catches the snitch, it’s game over. That team wins.

The relay at the end is the snitch of softball.

On certain windier, rainier games, a less loving parent might just think, “Let’s skip to the snitch.”

I would never.

But someone might.

A Great Rapper

December 15, 2016 by Kathryn

I like to fancy myself a great rapper. Not because I am one, by any stretch, but because… Actually, I don’t know why.

I just do.

So, kiss my shoe.

See how I spit a rhyme there?

I’ve blogged before about hosting family rap battles. These involve sessions of awkward rhyme around the dinner table. None of us even beat box, although I frequently threaten to. And over the past year we’ve added Hamilton to the mix, so we don’t have to make up all the words anymore, which helps.

You haven’t lived until your seven-year-old has broken into a spontaneous rap solo about the constitution.

All of this is a lead-in to me receiving the greatest compliment of my life a couple of weeks ago. Several friends purchased gifts to donate to the International Rescue Committee in Seattle to celebrate “Winter,” which is suspiciously like Christmas, but for refugees from various countries and religious backgrounds.

I was nominated to drop the gifts downtown because all my kids are in school and I am now a lady of leisure. It took me a fair amount of time to find a non-parallel parking spot near the drop-off point, only about 4 blocks away.

Luckily, I’d brought my wagon, still full of sand from the softball field. So, I loaded it up with food and gifts and started to slowly, slowly, ever so awkwardly, make my way over the sidewalk cracks and crosswalks to the building.

As I inched across one crosswalk, holding the presents onto the wagon with one hand, pulling it with the other, a woman pulled up in front of me, gave me a huge grin and a thumbs up. It was as though she “liked” me on Facebook, but IRL.

She unrolled her window and yelled out, “YOU ARE A GREAT WRAPPER!”

There I was on the streets of downtown Seattle and people were calling out to me about my great rapping skills. I prefer to spell it without the “W”. As does Lin Manuel Miranda.

It made my day.

Make America Engage Again – Santa, McMullin, and Me

October 18, 2016 by Kathryn

I’ve often been asked, “How do you tell your kids that Santa isn’t real?”

Actually, I don’t.

As my kids mature, I just change the way we talk about Santa. When they’re little, they think of him as a powerful entity with endless resources and the ability to make their dreams come true.

Frustratingly, he doesn’t always use his powers to fulfill their fondest wishes. Sometimes he brings socks or a boring lunchbox. And they grieve. But their power is limited so they write letters and wait and hope for good things to happen.

But, as they grow, we have a frank discussion. Santa is real, but he’s not just one guy. He’s millions of people who use their time and resources to make magic happen. I’m Santa. They’re Santa. And they become actively engaged in spreading holiday joy.

It’s an earthshattering and exciting transition.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve experienced a similarly disruptive and thrilling change in the way I think about presidential elections.

As a moderate conservative, human person, who believes in equality and civility, I watched with horror as Donald Trump snagged the presidential nomination before the Washington State primary.

My last choice Democrat was running against my last choice Republican. And I felt completely powerless. It was like hiding and watching Santa fill my stocking with lima beans. Slowly. For months. And there was nothing I could do about it.

Because Santa is in control. And we say, “Thank you,” and move on.

I turned off the news. I blocked friends who posted political rants. I gave up.

The two major parties are like our parents, telling us that Santa is The Man, and we are welcome to write him letters but they probably won’t make much difference.

The major media outlets are like that mean kid in first grade who tells you there is no Santa.

In September I started hearing about Evan McMullin, an independent candidate who’s gaining ground quickly in Utah and other western states. I clicked on a link. And I could not stop clicking.

Evan McMullin actually has the momentum and credibility to say, “There is a Santa. And we’re all him. And if we work together, we can realign America with its founding principles.

His chances of winning the White House are slim. He needs to win enough electoral votes to stop both Trump and Clinton from reaching 270, sending the decision to the House.

It is the longest of longshots, but I have never seen anything like the groundswell of support that follows whenever he opens his mouth. Americans recognize truth. We crave it. And he’s in a virtual tie with Clinton and Trump in Utah and gaining supporters daily. In a tight race, that could be the ballgame. If the race isn’t tight, it still sends a clear message to the Republican Party that we demand candidates who reflect our values.

So, suddenly I transitioned from discouraged and apathetic to outspoken activist. Many of Evan’s supporters are people who have never taken a public stand politically, attended a rally, or drummed up political discussion at the bus stop. But, suddenly we are engaged and we are on fire.

And every day I hear, “A vote for McMullin is a vote for Clinton,” and “A vote for McMullin is a vote for Trump.” The truth is, when you realize your actual power as a voter, you can’t vote the odds anymore. You can’t practice statistical democracy.

A vote for Evan McMullin is a vote for civility, patriotism and a new generation of American leadership. A vote for Evan McMullin is a vote for Evan McMullin.

I don’t tell my kids there’s no Santa. I explain what Santa looks like to caring, engaged adults.

I won’t tell you there’s no hope for change in American politics. I’ll tell you what hope looks like to caring, engaged adults.

Hope looks like Evan McMullin and his millions of supporters who are proving it is possible to Make America Engage Again.

Why I’m Voting for Evan McMullin

October 5, 2016 by Kathryn

If you’re not interested in reading a political post, come back tomorrow and I’ll have a funny post up about Wanda and a journaling post this weekend.

This is not a political blog. I don’t promote fiery rhetoric or enjoy causing friction. In fact, I generally prefer to keep my political views private. To me, the votes I cast are deeply personal and I discuss them only with a few close friends and my husband as we research together. I don’t do bumper stickers or lawns signs.

I also don’t tend to douse innocent strangers with buckets of water. However, if I see a person whose hair is on fire, I’ll happily throw some liquid to put her out.

America’s hair is on fire.

So, today on the blog, I’m dumping out my bucket, right here on the blog. I’m telling you who I’m voting for. You may not have heard of him.

His name is Evan McMullin.

I hadn’t heard about Evan McMullin until recently. I’m not a news junkie and I’m so sick at heart about this presidential election that when I see a link to a story about the race, I’ve gotten to the point where I scroll past quickly.

But, in the past week I’ve seen several links from dear friends about Evan McMullin, a new third-party candidate for president. My first thought was, “This is a stunt.” Next, “This is a joke.” And finally, “This guy is just trying to split the conservative vote so Trump can’t win.”

That last thought was mildly interesting because I really desperately don’t want Trump to win, so I followed one of the links.

Evan McMullin’s tagline is – It’s never too late to do the right thing.

And I spent an entire day watching video interviews and reading news stories about a man who I now deeply want to be the next president of the United States.

His chances are epically slim. All the better for the made-for-TV movie script after he wins, right? Maybe Sean Astin can play him.

Evan McMullin doesn’t sound like a politician. Because he’s not one.

He DOES sound intelligent, thoughtful, fair-minded, well-spoken, and earnest. He sounds kind. He sounds measured and calm but also firm and commanding. He sounds like not a narcissist or a racist. He sounds like someone who deeply wants to unite a divided country.

He is around my age. He’s 40.

He graduated from BYU with a degree in international law and diplomacy, working for the CIA as he completed his undergrad. He was an undercover CIA operative in major world conflict zones for 11 years. He has first-hand experience meeting with and fighting against terrorists and has a strong knowledge of world events, leaders, and people. He is well-versed in the constitution and fiercely devoted to protecting it.

He also received his MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He’s worked in business. And most recently, Evan McMullin served as the chief policy director of the House Republican Conference.

Why did he get involved?

He can’t bear to see what’s happening in this presidential election. I know very few people who are excited about either major party candidate. Many are terrified of one or both of them.

I disagree with Hillary Clinton on most issues and I don’t trust her. Donald Trump’s presidency would be an unprecedented disaster for our country. He would embarrass us daily. He is unstable and unfit and I don’t believe our country, as we know it, would be left when he was done with it.

I’m an independent and have voted for people from both major parties over the years but my views are largely conservative. There generally isn’t a perfect candidate for me.

But I think Evan McMullin is that candidate. He sees himself as an American first. Then a conservative. Party loyalty comes after that. I know it sounds like a line but when he says it, I believe him.

For a more detailed view of his stances on issues, watch one of the videos posted below.

How can Evan McMullin Win?

He says he waited and waited in this election for someone with national name recognition to join the race, to step up and offer a third option, a viable option. When he reached out to contacts to ask if he could help in any way with an independent candidate running for office, they asked him to run.

He is only officially on the ballot of 11 states and eligible as a write-in in 20+ others and counting. Word is, he will soon be a valid write-in in my state, Washington.

His most realistic path to victory would be to win one or two states in a close election, causing Clinton and Trump to both miss the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. There are 528 total votes. If that were to happen, the decision would go to the House of Representatives.

He believes he could win in a three-way contest with Trump and Clinton because his platform is closely aligned with Paul Ryan and other Republicans in congress.

Evan McMullin’s bid for the presidency is the longest of longshots.

But he’s a spark of hope in an election that has been a long, dark road for many Americans.

People have asked me how I can vote for someone who has such a low chance of winning. I don’t think that should even be a question. When I vote, I don’t look for who’s most likely to win and then jump on that train. When I vote, I vote for the person who most closely shares my values and who I feel would do the best job.

I live in a blue state. Our electoral votes will most definitely go to Hillary Clinton. They always go to a democrat. So, does that mean I always vote democrat? No. I vote for the person who I believe could best lead our country. Every time.

And I don’t always feel passionate about the candidate I vote for.

This year there’s a candidate I feel passionate about.

Women fought for years for the right to vote. And so many others around the world do not have that option. I will not throw away my gift by voting “against” someone or choosing the “lesser of two evils.”

This November, I am writing in “Evan McMullin” for president. And I’m voting the heck out of my local elections. Because there are good people in Washington State who are stepping up to serve and have a great chance of winning on a local level.

It’s never too late to do the right thing.

If you’re interested in what Evan McMullin is doing, check out his website and join the movement!

**This blog is a place of love, respect, and encouragement. If you violently disagree and want to flame, feel free to do it somewhere else. I’m happy to have respectful discussion, but I will delete anything inflammatory or hateful.**

Debate Night

September 29, 2016 by Kathryn

I let the kids stay up and watch a bit of the debate I’d DVRd on Monday night. Hillary vs. The Donald. My kids’ excitement at witnessing the event soon turned to incredulousness.

“Are you kidding me?” they said more than once.

Because, even in middle school, they understand basic civility and the need to give concrete evidence to back up your position. And we didn’t witness all that much of either.

Eventually, Dan suggested that we all talk over each other as loudly as possible for a couple of minutes to immerse ourselves in the spirit of the debate and then we sent them off to bed.

There are a few things I liked about this debate.

1. The debate. I like that we still hold debates. No matter how much one or both candidates plan and prepare, in a debate setting we get to see how they react to pressure, how quick they are on their feet, and how clearly and concisely they can state their position. Debates still hold value for me as a voter.

2. The split screen. I loved watching their reactions to each other on the split screen. You want a president with a good poker face sitting at the negotiating table across from Valdimir Putin.

3. No breaks or interruptions. I like that we don’t cut to commercial or give them downtime. The tension builds and the candidates get tired. And they have to deal with it. Watching the second half of a debate is especially telling.

There are a few things I disliked about this debate.

1. The candidates. I’m not a fan of either of these people personally or politically. I am a fan of America. That makes things difficult.

2. It felt like I was already watching the Saturday Night Live spoof of the debate. Both candidates almost seem like caricatures of themselves.

3. Implication by correlation. Have you ever noticed that in the debates, they imply things by correlation? Like listing how many people have been killed since President Obama has been in office. Well, how many people have eaten a burrito since Dan and I have been married? It’s sobering.

When I mentioned this on facebook, one friend said, “I think the more sobering question might be, ‘How many people haven’t eaten a burrito since you and Dan got married?’ Because eating burritos is happy, and not eating them is very sad.”

To this, I responded, “You’d need to fact check that on my website to be 100% sure. Maybe the 400 lb hacker ate them, leaving none for the 99% of Americans who got no burritos.”

I don’t love this election. I really don’t. But I love this country and I’m trying to be as informed as I can about all the candidates and issues and vote for who and what makes the most sense. This year I feel like my real power to make a positive difference comes on the local level. That’s probably where my real power lies every year.

I’m just glad I get to vote at all.

Don’t let frustration over the current candidates get you down. Don’t waste the gift. Remember how many people and issues are on the ballot, aside from the presidential race. Let your voice be heard. Vote!

A Tiresome Day

September 15, 2016 by Kathryn

A few weeks ago I took Wanda and Magoo into the next town over to get some new tires put on the Swagger Wagon. The next town over is awesome. It has a Wal Mart and a movie theatre and a state prison. It has a cute downtown main street district, almost like our town, but with more snazzy jammie retailers, tattoo parlors, smoke shops and places that will pay you cash for gold.

We chose a mom and pop tire shop over the big retailers because we like to support local business and they were much cuter on the phone AND equipped to do both the tire install and the alignment in one visit. Their prices were almost competitive. And they said they could get it done in a little over 2 hours.

So we dropped off the car at 11am and they told me it might take a biiiit longer than they had originally thought. That’s cool, I thought. We’ll walk over the train tracks, along the busy highway, and past several strip malls to the movie theatre and catch a show.

Although the next town over has a dollar store, it does not have Uber. Weird, right?

The walk to the theatre was a little over a mile, my longest distance since the surgery. Woot. And we had a great lunch of nachos, popcorn, and slushies while we watched The Secret Life of Pets. Good. Not great. The kids loved it.

We stopped by the grocery store to pick up a few things, walked past a couple of loudly screaming teens with expletives on their t-shirts, enjoyed the sun, and carried our groceries the mile back to the tire store, by way of a couple of very cool little vintage shops.

Altogether, kind of an awesome day, a bit weird, but awesome. However, it had been three hours and I had super ripe peaches at home waiting to be canned. It was time to get this show on the road.

But the car wasn’t done.

So we stalled at a used book store and bought a few things. They were serving Slytherin Iced Tea in honor of the new Harry Potter Play. Nice people. And when I said we were waiting for our tires to get done, the bookstore owner looked at me appraisingly and said, “The Big Chain Store or Mom and Pop.”

He approved of my choice.

But the tires still weren’t done.

So, to round out our Next Town Over-ish day, we stopped at 7-11 for boxed hot dogs and microwaved burritos. The hot dog box said, “100% Delicious” and Dan later asked Wanda if those words were true.

“Not really,” she said, “Maybe 99%?”

But the kids were 100% awesome. Because we spent the next couple of hours in the shop waiting room. It smelled like a mechanic shop and flies were buzzing everywhere. And the seats were old and dirty.

But Magoo could not get over how comfortable they were. And Wanda happily did magic tricks to herself with an old deck of cards while I read my book.

At one point the mechanic invited me back to show my why he was having trouble getting the alignment right and asking if he could put some after-market parts on the car to help it out a bit. He was kind. And he explained things well. And everyone in the shop treated us like we were family.

When it was time to go, about 6 hours after we’d originally dropped off the car, the elderly owner of the shop pulled my kids aside and lovingly told them how special they were.

“And do you know how you get special kids?” he asked.

They smiled sheepishly and shrugged.

“With very special parents.”

He gave me a warm smile and handed each of the kids an intricately detailed die cast car. They were thrilled. And they are special kids. It’s strange to say, but it was one of the best days I’ve had in a while. Just hangin’ out in a Podunk downtown, eating at the Sev with my peeps.

And the lateness of the hour saved me from having to can peaches in the heat of the day. It was not hot at midnight as I finished up the last batch.

As we left tire shop, my special son informed me that my special daughter had put stuffed her special trash into one of the towers of tires. So I got to stand on a chair and do a handstand inside the tires to fish it out.

Special times.

A bit tiresome. But special, nonetheless.

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. This means, I may receive a small commission if you choose to purchase something from a link I post. Don’t worry, it costs you nothing but it helps keep the Awesome flowing. Thanks!

It All Starts With One Brick

September 6, 2016 by Kathryn

We’ve been promising my kids we’d take them to Art of the Brick in Seattle. So, this past weekend we decided that “someday” had better happen pretty much immediately unless we wanted to pay to fly the kids to San Diego or Milan. Those are the two next stops for Nathan Sawaya’s exhibit.

At $35 each, tickets were expensive enough already.

What we didn’t think about when we promised to drive the kids into Seattle was that it was Labor Day weekend. And it was Bumbershoot. What is Bumbershoot? It’s this festival that might be amazing but we’d rather not know how amazing because traffic is JACKED during it so we stay safely on our side of the lake and the river and the cow pastures when it rolls around each year.

But we’d promised.

So we headed to Seattle.

And the exhibit did not disappoint. The art was gorgeous and exciting and got me feeling all tingly in this way I get when I see someone do something that’s never been done before.

It makes me want to make good art, to write amazing words, to innovate.

Nathan Sawaya was the first person to turn Lego sculpture into a respected art form. He was a lawyer who took his hobby to the next level times ten.

I feel this same way when I listen to Hamilton. What Lin Manuel Miranda does with music and history and storytelling and wordplay makes me want to hide in a closet with a notebook and refuse to eat until I unlock some hidden inner genius I know must be in there somewhere.

Great art inspires. Great art begets great art.

At the opening of the exhibit, you watch a video of Nathan Sawaya building with Lego. He’s building a giant grey hand. The hand is holding a red Lego brick. At the end of his video, he says that every piece of art he creates begins with just one brick.

Just one.

So if I want to make something beautiful, something innovative, I just need to start. I just need to take one small action to begin.

Maybe if we do a reboot of 523 Ways To Be Awesome someday, I’ll add, “Pick up a Lego brick and start creating” to the list of ways you can Paint a Masterpiece… a bit.

Everything we do starts with one brick. One drop. What’s your next one?

Post-Op Grocery Shop

August 25, 2016 by Kathryn

The worst day for me after my surgery came when I went for my check-up a week later and the doctor gave me a clean bill of health. My blood count was up a bit. My incisions were healing nicely and he said the dreaded words, “You can resume normal activities as you feel able.”

This sounds like good news, but to me it was horrible because it turned on my guilt faucet. When I was on bedrest, I couldn’t move. I just couldn’t. Doctor’s orders. But as soon as he said I could listen to my body and decide, I found myself feeling guilty for not being 100%. I was still dizzy when I stood up. My incisions were still painful when I sat upright for more than a few minutes at a time and even walking for short distances left me weak and out of breath.

But I felt bad because I wasn’t up and doing everything. It’s amazing how hard we are on ourselves, right? The heck?!

I told myself it was fine, to listen to my body and take it easy, but it was a real struggle.

Hello. My name is Kathryn. And I have a hard time being nice to myself consistently without conscious effort. I’ve gotten better over the years, especially the last few, but it’s still a struggle and I still have to be mindful about it.

So it turned out we needed groceries (re: kids eat food all the days) but I was worried about walking around the grocery store. I’d had several friends offer to pick things up for me at the store, but I thought of a better idea.

The kids could do it!

Isn’t that a good solution to most problems in life?

Newly free of the narcotics, I drove the kids to the store. We had a pep-talk where I told them about looking for brands and sizes with the best price. I took them down the cereal aisle and showed them how to look at the price per ounce and see if a bigger box might be a better value even if the price tag was bigger.

I refreshed their memory on how to pick produce.

I told them that vacation as coming so the budget was tight and I asked them to stick to the list unless they saw something they thought we actually needed for a good price. If that happened, they were to come and ask me.

On the list, I indicated that they could choose one treat that they all agreed on.

If they got along and showed good grocery manners, they could have a free bakery cookie at the end.

Then I planted myself in a reclined position in one of the comfy chairs in the pharmacy waiting room and read a great western novel for book club.

My 13, 11, and 6-year-old navigated the grocery store beautifully and had a great time doing it.

They came and found me with questions like, “You wrote down red bell peppers but the green ones are so much cheaper. Is there a reason you really need red?” and “We want to get a box of Cheez-Its for our treat but there’s a deal where they are way cheaper if you buy three boxes. Can we please buy three?”

They made hard choices and proudly told me about how they refused to buy the salad dressing brand I specified because it was way too expensive and there was a store-brand alternative that looked just as good.

Seeing the pride on their faces, even though one of them wouldn’t admit she’d had a good time, I wondered why I hadn’t done something like this before.

And when we got to the long lines at the end, I asked the kids to pay for the groceries. They balked. Using my credit card was taking things a bit too far for them. I told them I could really use their help and asked them to try it because I didn’t think I could stand up in line that long.

Then a sweet lady overheard us and asked if we would like to take our massive load of groceries and cut in front of her in line. Drops of Awesome for kind strangers. I meet them all time!