Rain pounds relentlessly against the windows.  Wind whips billows of sand across the beach.  This is no ordinary storm.  This is a big one.

The small black rectangle sat on the school table looking forlorn.  As I stared at it with intensity my mind wandered back and forth across the great expanse that is my brain.  What do I do with this thing?  How can I use it to further my kid's education?  Is this thing just for fun or does it have a greater purpose?

 

Chores.  Blech!  As a mom I am horrible at chores.  Oh, but this isn't about me right?  It's about instilling responsibility and consist behavior in my children.  Right.

Over the past couple of years I have tried several methods for keeping track of chores.  Paper, stickers, tickets, you get the picture.  Almost all of them have worked, to some degree, for some length of time.  C'mon - 2 days is technically a "length" of time.

 
She had heard the voice.  It was unfamiliar yet there was no doubt who had spoken.  He told her exactly what to do and it made no sense at all.  How many months ago had that been?  Nothing had happened and she had all but forgotten that voice.

Now, as she sat at the table in her barren kitchen she felt very alone.  Her husband was dead and buried.  She had no kin to provide for her and her son was too young to work.  A long drought had wiped out any crops she might have gleaned.  There was nothing left.  This was the end.

It seems like only yesterday my M.O. was to fall asleep on the couch at 9 am.  With two kids under 2, mountains of laundry dotting the landscape of my living room and Sesame Street, the soundtrack of my life, playing in the background I would inevitably hit the wall.