The View From Mrs. Sundberg's Window

Plain and Simple

June 16, 2005

Listened to the show Saturday and it was not bad. I'd spent the day making strawberry freezer jam and doing all those little cleaning jobs you do every year or two because that's about as often as you can handle it. Things like washing bed skirts and vacuuming under the beds, cleaning the windows and sills, wiping out all the kitchen cupboards, and putting a fresh coat of gray paint on the basement steps. I even vacuumed out the freezer. The kids were a bit restless with school being done and nothing but storms outside so I promised them I'd take them to the community pool on Monday if they helped me clean. Which they did.

So we got up early Monday and rushed through breakfast and the rain in order to get to the pool just after it opened. Which we did. The kids changed and swam and laughed quite a lot and had a great time while I paged through home improvement magazines Mr. Sundberg left on the kitchen table and dog-eared the pages illustrating things I would include in my dream home. Things like flights of stairs and window seats and landscaping with rocks. Porches and big pantries and decks overlooking ravines. Every once in a while I looked up and waved at the kids and they hollered and waved back.

There were other mothers there, too, and they talked with each other about summer things. Their kids are all on baseball teams and in summer theater programs and they compared notes about how busy they are and what teachers are the ones to request for next year and how their children are growing so quickly. I was glad I had something to read because I felt like being quiet and simply waving now and then. Life is so full of things. It's a rare thing to have a stretch time to just think about all those things and where you are and where you want to be. Usually I rush them along, but his time I let the kids tell me it was time to leave. And it was. I'd just finished an article what I was reading about. Hardwood floors, I said. They laughed and said, "If we put away the dishes when we get home, can we stop for ice cream on the way?" Sure, I told them. And we did. Bubble Gum, Cookies 'n Cream, and Peanut Butter Swirl it was. On cake cones. And vanilla bean for me. Plain and simple.

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