Table for Eight

1. Zu's potholder-maker (and the potholder she made me). PS: When I had one of these as a kid, I could never get it right, so I ended up with just the nylon elastics everywhere! 2. Dave's new knife holder/copy-cat Food Network Demo Kitchen. Hopefully tomorrow I will remember to tell you about how duct and Duck Tape(c) has changed our life over here at the Meehan house. (Put it this way, a lot of people are going to be getting homemade wallets in 2014.) ****** PS: Here are a few more of the Things I Learned In 2013 (cont'd): * Don't stand too close to the mirror. (No one over age 40 needs to see their pores magnified.) * I like blush. Like a lot. And as I get older, I find myself putting on more and more. (If I'm blessed to live to be a grandma, I'm pretty sure I'm going to be that grandma with two circles of blush and big costume jewelry. And I'm going to love it.) * I love having a chalkboard wall. * Having your basic needs ...

Our Gratitude Tree: thanks to my mom and Pinterest. (We write what we are thankful for on little tags, then hang them on the branches throughout the month.) This weekend I watched a documentary on NetFlix about ways we can improve or contribute to life on Planet E. And this one quote, or analogy, in it really has me thinking. A lot. So I thought I would share it with you and see if you think it's as DEEP as I do: "In nature, living things don't take more than what they need to sustain life. For example, the Redwood tree only takes the nutrients (from soil) it needs to sustain life. No more, no less. And the cheetah only catches/kills one gazelle to sustain its own life. Not three or four at a time.  So in nature, the practice is 'Use only what you need to sustain life.' And yet, in human society we violate this practice every day: we consistently take/eat/claim more than what we need to sustain our lives. And ironically, there's a word in...

Jr. and Zu--on their way to Trunk-or-Treat. Dust off your Thriller CD/MP3 people because it's party time:  Halloween is FINALLY here.  Heck yeah! We had a kind of "dress rehearsal" for Halloween last night and attended our ward's/congregation's annual * Trunk-or-Treat Party. It was AWESOME. We had soup and pie for dinner, a children's costume parade, and then the traditional "trunk-or-treat." It was tons of fun! (Though we missed Papaya because she was at her team's Volleyball Championships. They came in 4th overall. Yehoo!) ( * For non-Mormon peeps = Mormons like to decorate our cars, park them in the church parking lot, pop the trunk, and have the kids trick-or-treat from car to car. I think in many areas this began as a way to give kids access to lots of candy without making them canvas large, aka spooky, neighborhoods. It's really fun.) Lu as a Native American hunter. (She got the bow and arrow first--because she lov...

Harriet on a walk yesterday in our neighborhood. She's wearing a Halloween friendship bracelet (tied to her collar). Bam made it for her. The kids have matching ones, PS. There's a reason this expression exists: LUCKY DOG. Because seriously, some dogs are so dang LUCKY. They've hit the cosmic lottery and have found tender-loving-care in literally every interaction they have here on Planet E. (In addition to a pretty sweet arrangement when it comes to work/life/family balance. We're talking stress-free living at its finest.) And I'm pretty certain our dog Harriet would back me up on this one--IF she could talk. Because I have never seen a dog so cherished by its owners.  All 6 of our kids--Elder Meehan, Bam, Papaya, Jr, Zu and Lu--SHOWER this dog with love. It is nothing short of incredible. She's a 5 year-old mixed "something" terrier and I'm not sure she's ever known a day when someone ...

Not my photo, but way cool. Yesterday we were driving around Salt Lake City, running some errands, when we saw a really old car for sale. A really old mini-van, to be specific. And immediately one of our kids said, "Who would buy that?" And while I saw this kiddo's point: no one should have to drive a yucky car (IMO), I immediately thought, "Funny how perspective changes everything." Because if you didn't have transportation, I bet that old clunker would be AWESOME. Or if your car was in the repair shop and you couldn't do your normal out-and-about, I bet that clunker would be SWEET. Right? Funny, I thought about that car all day yesterday. Because I think we're somewhat in control of our perspective(s): --We can choose to see things from multiple vantage points.  --We aren't hard-coded to see ONLY our perspective.   ( As author Eckhart Tolle says, you can make room for "competing narratives.") I feel like tha...