keeping it real....

If you walked into my house right now, you might wonder why I am sitting here in my comfy chair with my feet up, wearing my lovely blue and black slippers. You might glance at that Minion slipper on the coffee table on the stack of books, and wonder why there is so much dust. How CAN she just sit there, when there is clearly work to be done?!

Well, shh, I'll tell you why. It's because it's QUIET in here. The space heater is droning, the snow is falling furiously outside...the kids are all still sleeping, except for the two girls who left hours ago for Real School. I have had my coffee...swept floors, cleaned the top of the stove, polished the appliances, cleaned the inside of the microwave...all the while thinking that I wanted to sit down and write in the QUIET. And, I finished my book. It was a good one, it made me cry. It's called, "Lila", by Marilyn Robinson.

Yesterday, after dropping Margaret off at work, Kathryn, Suzanne, and I, went to Kmart. If you ever wonder why Kmart is doing so badly, just go shopping there, and it will become apparent really quickly. Kmart has a special place in my good memories, because my mother worked there part-time when I was a little girl. She worked in the back, in the snack bar part. I remember my father getting my little brother and I a fountain soda there, it was like 17 cents for a small. We could get it ourselves, so we mixed orange and root beer and cola. There were balloons hanging over the cash register...you could pick one if you were buying an ice cream sundae, and maybe get it free if there was a free coupon in the balloon. We never got sundaes there, so we never got to pick a balloon. One could smoke in Kmart back then, and I remember my dad sitting there smoking, waiting for my mother to get off work.

In our Kmart, there was a little deli in the front of the store, too, and sometimes the blue light would be flashing, and the announcer saying, "We have a blue light special in the front of the store, where our sliced baked ham is now only,"whatever, something cheap..."a pound, for the next ten minutes only!" We would see the lady with the blue light cart, and follow her, so we could be the first ones there when it was announced. I remember when my mother worked there, waking up in the morning sometimes and finding a special present that she had brought home the night before. She worked until 10pm, so we were asleep when she got home, those nights she worked.

So Kmart was my favorite store as a kid. (Walmart was a southern thing back then, I had never heard of it.) Our Kmart burned down one time. My father took us there to see it, all ashes and blackened. I cried my eyes out because the doll I had picked out that I wanted for Christmas was all burned up.

Anyway, Kmart now...meh. I bought new quilts for the couches...they are cheap-o. I bought a few lightweight chairs that come in the little bags you can sling over your shoulder, for our next trip to Washington D.C., for the parade, for Grandma.:) and me:). I bought one little Loving Family dollhouse car to put on ebay.

Then we went to the thrift store. It wasn't half price Wednesday, but I did have a seven dollar off coupon. We bought some serving bowls, a nice Columbia jacket for one of the girls, some clothes for the little girls, and a tea pot and cups for Charlotte Claire, still in the box.

Then...to the library for a while.

Home...we had roasted kale with olive oil and sea salt. Jonathan rolled out pizza dough. We had a pepperoni, a bacon, and a garlic pizza. We had a whole pan of zucchini pizzas, too, for those of us who just won't eat pizza dough. :) We had hot sausages, too.

The baseball game was cancelled, btw. Too snowy. Nice April we are having.

Well...my quiet is over, the kids are all up...and we are going to the pool today after our school time...