Goofing Off In The Hodgepodge

Welcome to the weekly Wednesday Hodgepodge. If you've answered today's questions add your link at the end of my post, then leave a comment for the blogger before you. Here we go-

1. Did you celebrate St. Patrick's Day in some way? If so tell us how. Are you a fan of corned beef? Cabbage? The color green? 

We did celebrate, with a neighborhood get together in our clubhouse. Neighbors take turn hosting these once a month gatherings, everyone brings a dish, and it's a fun way to get to know new neighbors and also catch up with old. We had volunteered to host in March and even though it was a week before St. Patty's we went with a St. Patrick's Day theme. Everyone wore something green and brought an Irish dish to share. The food was so good! 

I made corned beef and cabbage for the event and am a fan of both. I only make corned beef once a year and this is the day. I love the color green, one of my favorites. 

2. March 22nd is National Goof Off Day...will you celebrate? Your favorite way to goof off? Last time you had a whole day to spend 'goofing off'? 

I'm retired so technically I can goof off as much as I want. That being said, I prefer to have some sort of schedule in my week, and am happier with at least a little bit of structure. 

What qualifies as goofing off when your time is really your own? My favorite ways to 'goof off' would be reading a book,  floating on the lake, and sipping iced coffee on the porch with my girls or a friend.

3. Something on your to-do list that has been there more than a month? Will this be the month you finally cross it off? 

There is always a fairly long list of the un-crossed on my ongoing to-do list, and quite a few of those tasks have been there a while. We're nearing the end of the month so not sure if any of the big things will be crossed off before the 31st, but I'm trying to pencil some of the more easy to tackle items into my calendar to be done this spring. Not this month, but this season. 

4. In your opinion, what emotion is the most beneficial? Which one is the least useful? 

Most beneficial-joy. Because it's possible no matter the circumstance or situation. 

Least useful-envy. Contentment is the secret to a happy life. 

5. What was your favorite thing to do as a kid? Elaborate. 

So many things come to mind...riding my bike hands free would be one. Except we didn't say hands free back then, we said 'Hey look! No hands!'. Other favorites were the hours spent playing Barbies, paperdolls, and with our dress ups. My mom kept a big box of dress ups in the basement and we loved to make up plays and also play house wearing those clothes.

There were a lot of kids my age in the neighborhood, plus my sister is just a year younger than me, so always someone to play with. Swinging high on the swings, games of HORSE at our neighbor's basketball hoop, tag in the front yard, roller skating and jumping rope on the driveway. 

Aside from school my childhood was very unscheduled. So many hours to run, dream, and play. 

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

I like to see my grands growing up with imagination in the great outdoors too-

"We could have never loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood in it."

~George Eliot

Powered by Linky Tools

Click here to enter your link and view this Linky Tools list...

P is for Let's Pretend

If there is one thing we have always had a lot of in our house, it's imagination. Hubs will tell you my girls come by it honestly...my sister and I knew how to let ours run wild. We liked nothing better than pulling something out of the dress up box my mom kept in the basement, and we could make up whole worlds built around a pair of evening gloves and my mother's discarded high heels.

Are little girls just born with an innate sense of make believe?

Perhaps.

Like my mother before me, I made space for a dress up box in our house too.  It was full of old Halloween costumes, nightgowns, skirts and dresses I outgrew, purses that went out of fashion, shoes too scuffed for me to wear in public, aprons, and a few Bridesmaids dresses, circa 1980-something.

That's Daughter2 (on the right) wearing a dress I wore as a bridesmaid in an actual wedding back in 1984-

I guess it's true what they say...you can wear them again! teehee.

The American Girl Dolls were a huge hit in our house, and my mother bought my own 'American girls' a lot of the period costumes. The minute they unwrapped a package containing any sort of costume or dress up, on it went.

Much more fun to open Christmas gifts while dressed like Kirsten and Felicity, don't you think?  Honestly, my girls could turn anything into a costume, case in point-

Daughter1 has a baby afghan knitted by my mother in law, wrapped around her waist. It's held up with a bathrobe tie and topped with an apron. A headscarf completes the look. Remember when girls wore scarves around their hair just because? I think this was one from my childhood, or maybe my older sister's childhood because that fad didn't last long. Daughter2 is wearing a dance skirt as a cape and an Easter bonnet from a couple years back. I think they were heading out to the garden to play their favorite game-Pioneer. Or as they liked to call it "Poor".

Don't judge...they learned about the pioneers in school and in books and if they read something, saw something, or heard something they wanted to act it out in their pretend play. They, along with some of the other politically incorrect neighborhood children, would get baskets from the house and collect berries from the bushes and set up primitive homes under the trees.  It was all very innocent as childhood games should be.

Anybody recognize the Acteen bits and pieces my youngest is modeling here?

These belonged to me once upon a time, but finding a crown, a cape, and a scepter was like striking gold for a toothless 6 year old looking for a costume. Pretty sure I enjoyed bossing my sister around with that scepter when I earned it back in the mid-1970's.  For the record, I was not six-ha!

Now for one of my faves-

My daughters wearing slips their Mema let them use as dress up clothes whenever they were at her house.  Hi Mema!  I'm guessing back in 1997 my mother did not foresee her slips being displayed in a blog, but here they are. There's also a birthday crown and some ginormous fake flowers thrown in for good measure. I don't know exactly what they were playing, but if I had to guess I'd guess bride.  Silk, crowns, flowers...it works. I must also tell you their faces in this photograph just about do me in.

I'm a big believer in feeding and fueling a child's imagination. I think every house needs a cardboard box filled with pearls and polyester and the possibility of pretend.

"Think left and think right and think low and think high.  

Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!~

Dr. Seuss, Oh The Thinks You Can Think

C is for Create

 C is for Create

I tend to say I'm not creative, but maybe that's not quite accurate. I'm creative, but not talented.  Ha. That sounds worse doesn't it?  What I mean is I love to create, and I appreciate creativity in others, but mine is never anything remarkable. I attempt to bring creativity into my life in a myriad of ways, but the execution of my creative thought is rarely the way I imagined it in my head.

I love to sing, but can't carry a tune. I love to dance, but I'm not a natural. I love beautiful art, but am not a painter. I love to bake, but my layer cakes often sit lopsided on the stand. I admire a flourishing garden, but my thumb is only a very light shade of green.

What I have done is raise creative children. Daughter1 is restless if she has no dance in her life.  Daughter2 is a teacher which requires a level of creativity people outside the profession don't necessarily recognize. Both girls play instruments and have beautiful voices.  Both love to be center stage. Daughter1 writes, draws, designs. She makes original gifts, paints plaques, and is not afraid of mod podge, scissors, and a blank piece of paper.  Daughter2 could and should have her own cooking show.

When you look at that newborn babe in the cradle, her wide eyes asking, "So what are you going to do with me now?" your mind imagines all sorts of things.  Maybe she'll be a doctor. A prima ballerina.  Olympian-President-Mother.  

As the parent you are the first to feed their dreams and encourage their interests...you are the one who first opens the door to a world of possibilities. You provide the tools and the opportunity and the paint and markers. You let them color at the kitchen table, sign them up for soccer, listen to the plonking of piano keys and the squeaky tones of a budding violinist.  

I taught kindergarten for a few years and it always made me a little sad to hear a parent say they didn't allow their child to play with paint or markers because they, the parent, couldn't handle the mess. Creativity is rarely neat and tidy, and creativity contained is not exactly creativity.  

Kids in the digital age feel a kind of pressure I don't think I felt as a child. Compete-join-do and then share it with everyone you know and some you don't. Achieve a certain test score or your school won't get the blue ribbon. Make the team in third grade or you won't get the college scholarship. Think about 'your resume'.

Its hard to be creative on a schedule.

When my girls were young I quite often turned off the television, which was naturally met with no small amount of whining and cries of, 'But we're bo-red'. My response to that was normally to offer up a list of household chores they were welcome to do, and somehow they always came up with something better.

Kids need to be bored now and then. They need unstructured time to figure out what truly interests them, as opposed to a schedule and list of activities mom thinks would be good to try. They need to make up games, spin til they're dizzy in the front yard, lie in the grass and stare at the big blue sky.  They need to draw on the sidewalk and maybe their nose, with a big fat stick of chalk.

Kids need time to find their inner artist, to think about nothing and everything...to dream and imagine and see what they are drawn to when no one is telling them how to fill their every minute.

No matter where that newborn babe eventually lands in terms of their eventual career, I think we all need a bit of beauty in our lives.  The grown up world is harsh and unforgiving. Learning to feed your creativity at an early age helps soften the hard edges of adulthood.

I'm thankful for a mother who allowed my imagination to flourish.
I'm thankful for daughters who still inspire me to try.