A Dear Camper Diary Entry... Summer reading is the topic, the book(s) I read were Fifty Shades of Grey, Grey, Darker and Freed.  Wow!  How exciting this story turned out to be.  I mean they were worried about Moms and book clubs reading these books.  What did they think would happen?  Bunch of women in possession of stable libidos reading about a hunky, dark, confusing, Dominant control freak?  Can you be turned off by a description like that?  Certainly Not!!! This description peeks my interest.  We all want to fix the broken Adonis-type guy.  If not for ourselves at least for a friend so we can keep him around to oogle for the next 20 years.

School Bells

We are a two weeks from school starting.  Very important years for my sons.  Twelfth grade and ninth grade. They received their schedules today. No beads of sweat on their brows, no fear of the first day.  All three seem to be a little lax in their view of what is right in front of them.  Was I like this?  My first day of high school was like no other.  New kid, new school, new state for that matter.  I was only quiet for the first week and then I began to feel comfortable. This is a perfect opportunity to reinvent yourself.  Not lie, just give yourself a social boost as to what your triumphs were in your other school.  What triumphs, indeed!  Then I realized I didn't have the same pressures kids have today.  On any given day, my children are staring the down the barrel of a computer, a television, an XBox, a PS3, a cell phone, games on the cell phone, books, friends, swimming, and whether mom will ask them to empty the dishwasher and then empty the sink contents into the dishwasher.  The simplicity in which I spent my early teenage years reflect the same as if Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer were hanging on the Mighty Mississippi.  Now fast forward 30 years and all the advancements made to make life easier have complicated the shit out it.  I remember when I started working and the computer was deemed the greatest thing to happen to the business world.  Intentions were good and then, people became greedy because those beneath them could produce more. The working world was overwhelmed with the progress that was on them.  Every apparatus that has made its entrance in the electronics world has been met with "we can do more in less time and have more personal freedom.  I was getting that.  I was impressed with how much finished product we were churning out.  In a law office, churning out paper is like well... a brew master getting the next batch of ale out for the world to consume.  Although the computer is our children's necessity. It is their teddy bear and security blanket all rolled into one big PC or MAC.  They handle it better than we do.  Its a second skin, no longer the future it is the every day but we are waiting for the next big thing every other day it seems.  I pray my sons will take each day and every problem that comes along and have the good sense that God gave them and their parents tried to build up in them.  Here is to the last year of high school for Kyle and the beginning of four incredible years for Matthew and Colin.  My Lawson boys are growing up and I am trying not to make it too easy for them.  Good luck to us all in the Lawson household. 

Picking Colors

Hey There Campers,

Here is a topic I know we are all involved with at some point in our lives as homeowners.  Picking colors for the house.  I love color, I'm going to admit to you that my brain is probably the most colorful place to be.  But something happens when I give the brain a command.  Pick a color for the living room.  Boom!  Should be easy.  But my brain works along the lines of the an old computer.  You know like the first computer, ENIAC.  Took up about 1/2 of Penn and had to be fed all its information to spit out a card with an answer.  This is what I suffer from.  Information properly given, likes, furniture style, room style, rugs and/or wood floors.  I put all that information in and I am left with (gulp) a choice.  Heaven help me on this project.  Some of my friends/family get a thrill about picking colors, I mean salivating the excitement.  Not me.  I dry up and want to roll with the dust bunnies under the sofa. Go hang out in the corner and just rock, ever so slightly, mantra like, looking for the answer.  Now if I saw the color on the wall in someone else's house, I would immediately like it.  My sister-in-law recently painted her living room.  I walk in the door, I notice immediately and I announce to all as if the earth has openned up "Karen, I love this color, mind if I borrow for my house?"  Then its done.  But when I get home I know this color isn't going to work because the furniture colors, the rugs and the style of the living room just won't work in m house.  Ugh... mercy please on my color-disconnected soul.

A Working Mom's Slight Case of Indigestion

Okay Campers, here's another reason why we should roll up the house in bubble wrap just to let the teenagers walk around.  When you walk into the house in an unassuming manner, that is, just another day, you would think everyone would pick up on this unassuming vibe and play along.  But I walked into the kitchen to find the four most wonderful men in my life standing around as if they were all going to pee themselves.  The reason:  someone broke one of my rooster canisters.  I love roosters! Maybe I should have been born on a farm, I love roosters.  Now one thing about me, I overreact to almost everything.  Almost, but I did overreact when they told me the canister was broken.  Heads were not going to role, but someone was going down.  I looked from face to face.  The only reaction was bigger eyes, more horror and slowly stepping away from me.  I calculated in my brain (I can) that I should shift my body language and facial expression to a kinder, gentler mode.  I did, they stopped and we began the conversation to find out the truth.  The truth in who was responsible.

I arrived home at 5:08 p.m. on Tuesday, June 17, 2012. Nothing happened, all was well.  But you would have thought aliens had set up camp in the yard, strolled into the kitchen and taken all the condiments with them for a barbecue.   All this is about is a trio of canisters with roosters on them in bright, reds, oranges, blues and greens (think Fiesta!).  I never paid extra attention to the canisters. I did clean them regularly but I never told anyone to not touch them.  They were not off limits, no tape, no booby traps if you tried to touch them. No big deal.  But they still went out of their way to make this out to be a horrific happening. 

Needless to say, I read the situation pretty well, decided to play with them and almost started to cry and wonder aloud where I would find a replacement.  I would have to begin my search online and probably have to pay double (got them at Kohl's @ $50.00).  There was no other way around it.  The set was ruined. Two roosters cannot do the job of three.  That was the end of that. 

Apologies were extended, hugs and kisses too.  I rushed them all out so I could begin dinner. But it was a sad, sad time cooking being one rooster down.  This matter will be rectified I will triumph and find replacement canister. 

No worries Campers, campers always survive and move on.  I shall move on to another set of canisters, and if I can't find the ones I like.... color palates will change, and there will be discourse in the Lawson household until my kitchen can find solace.

Housework Trime Trials

Multi-tasking is an overused term.  Mothers/women are supposed to be better multi-taskers than men if I read into the message.  Multi-tasking conjurs up ideas of the turn-of-the-century when families were as traditional and backward as your mind can get you to believe.  Images of women with children in varying stages from maybe 16 year olds down to a new born, with no child more than a year off from the next.  Think Michelle Dugger before she was Mrs. Jim Bob Dugger.  Mom is home with the kids while Dad is out working in a coal mine or mill or anything manual you can imagine.  Sometimes I feel like I should get more done in the 24 hours allotted to me.  So here was my idea for the Housework Time Trials:  I set the timer on the wall oven, because its loud and when it goes off I have to run and stop it before it stops itself.  Your getting it now aren't you; its a game.  How long does it take you to unload the diswasher, the dryer, the washer, etc.  This is the fun way of doing housework.  Let's make a game, let's post some scores.  Making beds, vacuuming, giving your husband a .... now, now, now, ladies that one's not a chore (hehehehe).   Post your times if your interested.  A basket of laundry is tough to judge.  Socks can throw your time off and yet towels don't.  You have to get yourself comfortable and not take this too seriously. It is a game.  Maybe we can have actual times posted.  Let me know your thoughts