Living vs Loving or Is It All the Same?

When  I type  (or try to type) the word "love" on my iPhone, it often comes out "live"! So on an almost daily basis, I find myself thinking about the relationship between live and love, between living and loving, Sometimes I let the accidental "live" remain in an email  because it makes just as much sense  ... As in: "I am living your gift". Or simply and more frequently:
"Live, Dotty."

The living and the living ( I mean loving. It happened again!!) of this week or so has included Father's Day, the birth of a grandchild, the birthday of my husband, the arrival of lots of family and today Independence Day. And while I wouldn't mind independence from the cooking and dishes, we remain in our now-too-big home as the gathering spot for our ever-growing family. This, and a book I am writing, hasve kept me from this blog for awhile. But stay tuned. I'll be back...  I'm living what I'm doing...I mean I'm loving what I'm living...

Snatching Grandchildren -- One at a Time

When my husband and I had young children and were desperate for a break, we could never turn to my parents to babysit.  True, they lived two hours away so it wasn't as if they could just pop on over. But that was about their only excuse.  They had the time and the energy. But babysitting was not their thing.
Much as we yearned for their help from time to time, in one major way,  they made up for it.  When each of their grandchildren turned 10, they took them on a ski trip for a week. The child  would miss a week of school, since their spring break  never landed in  mid march, when the snow was still good and the weather mild.  That's when my parents liked to ski.
More important than the good table manners they learned, more important than the excitement of seeing new places,. More important than nailing ski techniques that would endure a lifetime,  the experience created an indelible bond between each child and Grandma Connie and Grandpa George.
And so, my husband and I decided we would keep the tradition.

We are in the midst  of a ski week with our eldest grandchild, even sharing a hotel room with little privacy. And it is everything we had imagined: a curious, exuberant child, enjoying adventure and happy to be sharing it with us.
Missing is the parental dynamic, one reason George and Connie took the grandchildren -- without us, the parents.
Add in the absence of sibling rivalry -- because there is no sibling there --and you have the makings of a really wonderful vacation.  He wants an extra dessert? Fine with us.  Doesn't want to write in a journal -- his homework --  Oh, well!  We can bend rules in ways that parents can't.
Also, we can foster independence. He's not tied to our umbilical cord. So he's got his own room key.  And if he doesn't eat much breakfast, that will be his problem, not ours.
Such are the joys of grandparenting!  My parents had it all worked out.
A week, of course, will be enough.

How much would you pay?

I just mean for the chair?

 Nothing like having a first birthday deadline to deal with the tag-sale rocker that sat in my garage for two years. I  decoupaged it with children's wrapping paper. I figure my time was worth about $2 an hour.  But my creative satisfaction was priceless.
"Make more and sell them on Etsy," my daughter said.
Hmmmm. I'm opening doors. Not sure which ones I'll walk through.

I might take orders... see another photo...