The Musings of a Latte Queen: Narratives of Everyday Life

The other day, my daughter told me I was helping the environment. I did the usual mom thing, hmmm, ok honey, while I was busy hanging laundry.  She kept walking beside me, handing me clothes pins from the bag.  Merrily chatting away about this discovery. So I stopped.  "What do you mean, baby girl."  "Well, mama, you are conserving energy."  At this point, I looked at her because all I felt was completely exhausted and really, really tired of doing laundry "the old fashioned way."  I hung up another t-shirt.  She kept chatting. I learned from my eight-year-old daughter that it is a good thing the dryer stopped working because now I can save the environment.  It is better to hang up clothes on the line in the laundry room than to use up all that "energy."  I smiled.  Her argument made sense if you know me. This is the daughter who goes with me on the twice-monthly trek to the recycling center to deposit the pre-sorted paper, glass...

I never set out to go an entire month without putting pen to paper or fingers to keys.  Like life, it just happened, and before I knew it, a month went by.  Actually more than a month.  Some say it is like riding a bike, just get back at it. Well, let's see. There was also a reason I stepped back.  There was so much that happened that I would've written about, commented on, mused through, but some where just too much. School ended, that was a relief in some ways, all the driving back and forth and back and forth and back and forth in one day was making me a bit cranky.  There were just too many bad drivers for the trek through town to pick up all the kids at different times.  Then there was the whole surviving sophomore finals, thank God that is over! Just when I thought I could breathe, my summer program was kicking in full gear.  I had a few days before my assistant started and about one week to breathe after that before the kids started. ...