by Heather Plett | Oct 5, 2007 | Uncategorized
I don’t normally post twice in one day, but I’m just SO excited that I can’t resist. You just HAVE to check this out. It’s the website for the new program I’ve been pouring a lot of passion, sweat, and a few tears into the last 10 months or so.
Go ahead – go there. Sign up on our “get connected” page. Watch the 2 videos I “executive produced” from my trip to Ethiopia with Steve Bell. Join our Facebook group. (If you want to make a donation, though, you may want to wait a few weeks – we’re still working on streamlining that part of it.)
And then come back here and tell me you LOVE it – because quite frankly, that’s ALL I want to hear. 🙂
Okay, I’m a little giddy. This is a pretty big moment for me.
by Heather Plett | Aug 30, 2007 | Uncategorized
Eleven months ago, we said good-bye to Brad. 40 years old. Motorcycle accident. Too young to die. Today they will bury his mother. 62 years old. Heart attack. Too young to die.
Are you ever old enough to die?
Are you ever ready to say good-bye to someone who shares your life?
The last time I saw Mrs. B. she nearly crumpled to the ground at her son’s grave. Overcome with grief. Now the only remaining family members – her husband, her only remaining son, and her four grandchildren – will stand by her grave and try to fathom life without her just like she tried to fathom life without her Brad.
There are hardly words to express the depth their grief must be.
by Heather Plett | Aug 21, 2007 | Uncategorized
Yesterday afternoon, while I was trying to do some paperwork, Maddie REALLY wanted my attention. “Mom, can you help me build a fort? Mom can you play a game with me? Mom can you watch a movie with me?”
Getting rather impatient (because I hate paperwork and really wanted to get it over with without further interruptions), I said “Maddie, I just don’t have time right now. You’re going to have to find something to do that doesn’t involve interrupting me.”
A few moments later came her reply. “Mom, I’ve found something to do that doesn’t involve interrupting you. It’s being MAD at you.”
by Heather Plett | Aug 20, 2007 | Uncategorized
– I think the fruit flies are almost vanquished. Almost. One taunted me as I came up the basement stairs this morning, and a few more met their fate in the vacuum cleaner just before my bath.
– I have to go back to work tomorrow. Holiday’s over. Sigh.
– Yesterday, Julie and I collided on our bikes on the way to church. Neither of us was seriously injured, but she took the brunt of it. It wasn’t a very pleasant moment, looking down at my girl lying on the pavement clutching her head and crying “oh – my head! my head!” Especially since the collision could have been avoided if I’d been paying more attention. Later she told me she’d thought she was going to go to sleep at that moment because the pain in her head was so bad. She seems to be fully recovered today though, other than a little stiffness.
– Today is school supply shopping day. Gulp. Does that mean summer is almost over?
– I still enjoy school supply shopping even if the shiny new pencils and markers are not for me.
– This year, Maddie joins the fun. Kindergarten! Somewhere along the line, I must have blinked, because suddenly I have three children in school.
– Because it was the last night I could stay up late and sleep in the next morning, I went to a late show last night. “Becoming Jane”. LOVED IT!
– My sister’s new house is perfectly lovely. I covet her big open kitchen and patio doors to the deck. Perhaps someday, if our remodeling dreams come true, we’ll have our own.
– After our trip and the resulting build-up of dirt and crumbled snacks and unidentifiable substances in the back seat of the car, we thought we’d treat ourselves to a full-service car wash. It felt like such a luxury in these cash-strapped days. While we sat in the comfortable waiting room, I fantasized about a similar service for houses. How could I pull my house up to the building and have it emerge at the other end clean and sparkly? My fantasy was dashed however when I saw what a lousy job they’d done of the car. We had to get them to re-wipe the dashboard because it was still dusty, and re-scrub the bugs on the front end. And then on the way home, we realized they hadn’t even gotten a rag anywhere near the disgustingly grungy cup holders or door handles. And the trunk? Didn’t even bother to look at the crud on the carpet. How disappointing!
– Why is it that I only seem to be able to write rambling lists of random stuff these days? It must have something to do with summer distracting me.
by Heather Plett | Aug 19, 2007 | Uncategorized
I have declared war on the fruit flies. I am a one-woman army with a vendetta. Just picture a female Rambo, but with a vacuum hose and a bottle of balsamic vinegar as my weapons. I will NOT be beaten!
Alas, the flies, they are a-multiplyin’. They are taunting me with their beady little eyes. I swear I can hear them laughing at me in their evil glee. They have taken over every room in my house. There is absolutely NO FRUIT anywhere in my house (other than sealed in the fridge), and yet they have found some place to breed and lay their eggs. And multiply, multiply, MULTIPLY!
Last night, after catching at least a hundred in my traps in various rooms of the house (yes, I made 4 traps and Marcel made one – one of them is sitting on the desk near me, but the flies are simply circling around it and laughing at me. I can hear them!), it was time to pull out the full arsenal and DECLARE WAR.
I searched every website I could find, read every comment on every bulletin board that talked about getting rid of them, and did EVERY SINGLE BLASTED THING anyone suggested.
– Balsamic/cider vinegar traps in cups with paper funnels taped to the top to keep them trapped? Check. (And then, when you’ve got thirty or so trapped, add a little baking soda to watch them FRY! Hey – I didn’t say I was humane!)
– Pour bleach down every drain in the house in case they’ve been breeding in the gunk that collects in the drains? Check. (No, I didn’t pour a whole bottle like some sites suggested – I’m a little more environmentally friendly than THAT!)
– Take out all of the garbage in the house, seal up all food sources, wipe every kitchen surface clean? Check.
– Look behind dressers, in pantry shelves, in lunch bags abandoned since the last day of school for abandoned fruit or vegetables? Check.
– Put a piece of fruit in the oven, leave the oven door open overnight, and then sneak into the room quietly in the morning, close the oven door and roast those suckers? Check. Nyah-ha-ha!
– Vacuum up every single pesky bug you can find? Check. With twisted and rather pathetic delight. Again and again. (Note: If you’re doing this late at night and your bleary-eyed daughter walks into the bathroom to find you looking like a mad woman and waving a vacuum cleaner hose in the air, you may get some funny looks.)
– Clean out the gunk that sometimes collects in the bottom of the toothbrush cup in case they’re breeding in there? Check.
And yet… and YET – the battle continues. They are not vanquished. As I type this, two of them just flew past my computer screen (and I’m in the corner of the basement furthest from the kitchen and any source of food for them). The AUDACITY!
These flies WILL NOT BE THE DEATH OF ME! I WILL win! I WILL! (Whimper.)
(Incidentally, my friend Whippersnapper is fighting the same battle at her house. Together, we are Rambo and the Terminator! Don’t mess with two angry chicks with vacuums and vinegar!)
(No, I am NOT petty enough to bring one of my traps over to Whip’s house, drop a rotting apple behind her dresser, and open the trap. It wasn’t my fault! She had them before she came over to visit, and I haven’t been there for months.)
by Heather Plett | Aug 1, 2007 | Uncategorized
1. Why is it that no matter which direction I’m cycling, the wind always seems to be going the other way? I think while I’m at work, it does a little happy “let’s mess with Heather” dance and then switches directions, just in time for my ride home.
2. Speaking of cycling – aren’t you supposed to lose weight if you exercise in a sauna? Then why haven’t I lost twenty pounds cycling in 30-40 degree (Celsius, that is) heat these past two weeks? Especially against wind?
3. I need a haircut.
4. I tried to check out the liquidation sale at United Army Surplus during my lunch hour today, but the line up of people just waiting to get into the store wrapped all the way around the building. Apparently, lots of people are in the market for cheap camping gear. I’ll pass.
5. Why do hotdogs only taste good when they’re bought from a street vendor outside on a lovely summer day?
6. Do you know how weird it is to live nearly forty years of your life with a mother whose daily longing (not to mention pleading) it is that her children and grandchildren will come to visit, and then suddenly one day you find she can barely fit you into her busy social/travel schedule?
7. At the same time, it is a pleasure to see her so happy after a trip to Alaska.
8. In the final results, Marcel’s dragonboat team came in eighth out of 51 teams. Our team came in twentieth. He claims it’s because of their Metis heritage and all the canoes their ancestors paddled. I claim it’s because he was the oldest person on a team of young, virile university students.
9. Oops – I may get into trouble for calling my husband “old”. He tries to forget that most of the other students in his university classes are young enough to be his children.
10. My children have discovered that if they mix a batch of cookie dough, it’s more fun to eat the batter than to make the cookies.
11. The other day, while I cycled home, I was almost run over by a woman smoking a cigarette AND talking on her cell phone while driving a car. Woman, your lifestyle is NOT compatible with driving a car. Give someone else the keys.
12. Two more days of work before my holidays. Yay!
13. I want to sit on a beach, read a good book, sleep in a tent, hang out with my children, rest from an absolutely insanely busy month at work, help my sister celebrate her new house, go on an anniversary date with my husband, ride my bike WITH wind, glance back in my bike’s rearview mirror and see my children behind me, eat ice cream, enjoy an evening drink on our new little front yard patio, turn off the alarm clock, go on a road trip, sit around a campfire, watch butterflies, get my feet wet, and have a picnic. Not necessarily in that order.
14. This will be one of the first times I’ll take summer vacation without any “projects” in mind. I don’t plan to renovate any bathrooms, paint any bedrooms, or try to accomplish anything more significant than preparing an occasional meal.
15. One exception to #14 – I’ll help my sister move. But that will be a delight, not a chore.
