What’s the number one thing I learned from visiting all of you?   More than anything, we bloggers crave two things: comfort and convenience!  The kitchen island, dining room table, and family room sofa were the most popular spots where many settle in for time spent online.   In this modern age of portability, so many of us now create our ‘office’ wherever we plop down.  “Have laptop, will travel” was the dominant theme ~ I love that! 

Who are we?  We are bloggers!  And overwhelmingly, most of us prefer the comfort of our couch when we go online. 

Name 5 Things

We also set up sunny spots in our family room, and we like to have pictures of our loved ones around us. 

Shades of Grey

We carve out spaces in our hallways, and in the main corners of our homes where we can be part of the action.  

 Burns House & Restyled Home

We can also be perfectly frank and keep it very real. 

Perfectly Imperfect Life

Many create stylish personalized spaces centered around a white Parsons desk. 

 Fabulous K

Colour Me Happy

Emily A. Clark

House of Smiths

Made by Girl

Studio Ten 25

We love to read each other’s really cool blogs.   *wink*

 Be Colorful

We connect on our family room sofas, our kitchen tables, and in our bedrooms. 

Megan,  Amanda and Beth

We are resourceful !  We carve out nooks in closets, then pretty them up with gorgeous wallpaper.  

Sense and Simplicity;  I Heart Organizing 

We even blog at tables we’ve built ourselves, yo. 

Funky Junk Interiors

We have stylish eclectic and collected home offices.

 Life at 5 Feet

We blog from our porches too !

 Small Home, Big Start

And when it comes to the end of the day, so so so  many of us blog on our sofas at night while our mates watch TV. 

Eat, Drink & Decorate

Who are we?  We are bloggers! 

We are a powerful community of inventive writers, connecting online in ways previous generations never imagined. 

We are wives, mothers, crafters, sewers, designers, professionals and SAHMs.  We swap stories, we share our homes, we share our wishes and our dreams. 

We share our decorating dilemmas, and we inspire each other with our creativity.  We aren’t afraid of power tools and we harness the power of paint.  We educate and we encourage.

We make each other laugh with our crazy but true tales.  We tear up when we read each other’s heartfelt stories. 

We are a group of creative, unique individuals who lift each other up and celebrate each and everyone’s contribution in this adventure called life. 

We are bloggers.  We truly are an amazing community.

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You’ll have to forgive me for disappearing for a few days – I’ve been busy trying to make time stand still for just a moment.   

With my youngest daughter finishing kindergarten, and my oldest stepdaughter graduating from high school, it suddenly hit me like a ton of bricks when I was watching my youngest twirl with her friends on her last day of school.

When it comes to the time you have with your children, time never stops, in fact it flies at light speed. 

I met my hub and his three year old girl in 1995, and that little angel crawled up on my lap and completely stole my heart.  Over the years, I’ve been blessed to watch her grow from a toddler to a full grown adult, and all it happened in the blink of an eye. 

Fortunate for me, as a stepparent, I’ve been able to experience so much of what comes with the joys of parenting.    

I was there when she brought her first pet home with all the promises that she would care for it always, forever and ever, every day. 

The cat ran away two weeks later, and we never saw it again.

But then there was a guinea pig, with all the same promises. 

And then there was a dog, with all the same promises.  

Yes, we indulged her, fully aware that we were the ones who’d care for the family pet most of the time. 

I’ve watched her play multiple seasons and countless hours of sporting events from middle school through her senior year, even carrying her team to the regional championship this year. 

I’ve been there for the homework, the school projects, even the report on Albert Einstein and the accompanying costume.   I’ve loved watching her spirit and gumption – how she loves to take on new challenges without fear.  

I watched her bloom over time from a pretty young girl to a teenager with braces. 

I’ve loved watching my daughter grow from a little girl who used to play pretend dress up to a beautiful young lady, both inside and out.    

And after witnessing all of this, you realize as a parent that the child never really belonged to you at all.  You were only given the wonderful gift of temporary custody for a brief period of time.    

I wasn’t prepared for the series of emotions from the last two days.  I’ve felt joy, pride, excitement, happiness and sorrow, and I’m already missing that sweet little girl that forever stole my heart.

I am so proud that she is headed off to an incredible university in the fall, but my heart is so heavy with the thought of the empty space in our home. 

So my message today is simply this. 

Forget the laundry and the dirty dishes.  Check your email later.  Close your computer and put down your phone.  Ignore Facebook, and forget all about Twitter today.   

Go make some memories with your child.  Read to them, play with them, hug them and love them.  Be there for them when they stumble and when they are victorious – they will always remember that you were.  And even if they don’t remember it all, you will treasure the memories made.  Make your legacy your presence in their lives. 

Because it’s only a few moments until they go from this . . .

  . . . to this.

And then they fly away.  

Time is an unstoppable force.  It’s become abundantly clear to me that you can never stop time, so you must, without fail, cherish the moments that you are given.    

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So yesterday, I went downstairs to make breakfast for my kindergartener.  As I gathered her homework in her backpack to send her off to school, I spotted something I had never seen before.  The first page of her ‘First Journal’:

Then I got misty.  What honesty, what confidence, what sincerity (and what a fabulous rose garden) expressed by a five year old on an ordinary piece of lined paper.

My mood instantly changed.  One thing I relish more than anything are the lessons learned from the most unexpected sources.

Then I remembered another humble piece of paper that came home with her on the first day of school.  It was a much recited piece written two decades ago, but still rings true.  Many of you moms have heard these words before, but they bear repeating.

All I Ever Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

by Robert Fulghum

“Most of what I really need to know about how to live, and what to do, and how to be, I learned in Kindergarten.  Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sandbox at nursery school.

These are the things I learned:  Share everything.  Play fair.  Don’t hit people. Put things back where you found them.  Clean up your own mess.  Don’t take things that aren’t yours.  Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody.  Wash your hands before you eat.  Flush.

Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.  Live a balanced life.  Learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work some every day.

Take a nap every afternoon.  When you go out into the world, watch for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.  Be aware of wonder.  Remember the little seed in the plastic cup.  The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.

Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the plastic cup – they all die.  So do we.

And then remember the book about ‘Dick and Jane’ and the first word you learned, the biggest word of all: Look. Everything you need to know is in there somewhere.  The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation, ecology and politics and sane living.

Think of what a better world it would be if we all – the whole world – had cookies and milk about 3 o’clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankets for a nap.

Or if we had a basic policy in our nation and other nations to always put things back where we found them and clean up our own messes. And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.”

Why is it that sentiments from kindergarten can grip the heart of a full grown cynical adult and bring her back to the reality of what really matters?

“Hold hands and stick together”

“Take a nap every afternoon”

“Warm cookies are good for you”

“Be aware of wonder”

Bodega Head before sunset

“Share everything”

“The roots go down, the plant goes up . . . but we are all like that.”

Like how when you plant these . . .

. . . this happens.

Wishing you little moments filled with beauty from unexpected sources.

Have a lovely weekend.

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