At long last school starts today in our little neck of the woods. It has been an interesting summer being home every day with all these kids, all the mess, and all the activity. I must say it has been fun, full, and noisy. To some people I am sure the chaos, whining, groaning, driving, running, fetching, forgetting, spontaneous insanity, and hormonal meltdowns that accompany raising a house full of kids from teens to pre-k would be enough to make you want to cover your ears and run screaming into the forest to hide until fall. Well I only did that a couple of times.
They found me both times.
But now school is starting and all the kids are headed back to school. Even the little one starts preschool in a week or so, and she has already started her daily visits to her grandmother and grandfather. So this morning my wife is off to her school to teach (they started a couple of weeks ago), the little one is off to see grandma, and my three bus riders are on their way to school.
So here I sit in the quiet house ready to start the day, the noise and chaos are off to their daily destinations. Now I can work.
It's funny, but the first thing I want to do is turn on music to break the quiet and dispel the urge to return to bed and sleep an extra hour. I have been looking forward to this day for some weeks now.
So one may ask, do I now miss the noise of a full house?
Are you crazy? Give me a couple weeks and I am sure I will miss it a bit. But for now, I want to enjoy the quiet time.
This is not to be considered in any way, shape, or form that I do not love each of them, because I certainly do. But I really needed a break before I would break.
One day, all this will just be memory. All the kids will be gone and each summer day will be just my wife and I. And yet the chaotic echoes of raising these precious children will bounce around in our heads all of our days. We must do the best we can now because the time is short.
But for now, maybe I will sleep that extra hour.
Copyright 2006, Kevin Farley (a.k.a. sixdrift, a.k.a. neuronstatic)
Friday, August 25, 2006
Saturday, August 05, 2006
Brand Names
This morning I had to sharpen the blades on my riding mower. I don't know how to take the mower deck off so I had to take the blades off while attached. But the deck was too close to the ground to get in there. It was too heavy to lift up by hand and put on blocks. So I needed to get my car jack.
Now it occurred to me that what I was doing seemed just kind of funny. Well it did to me, maybe not anyone else, but I smiled just thinking about the oddness of the brand name situation.
I was jacking up my John Deere riding mower using my Volvo jack. I used my Craftsmen socket wrenches to take the blades off the mower and sharpen them on my Black and Decker bench grinder.
And now I am sitting here drinking Lipton iced tea I made, out of a Coca-Cola glass, typing on an Acer laptop, looking at school supplies bearing Crayola, Staples, Expo, Bic, TI, and other brand names.
We are inundated with brand names every day. Some have even come into everyday English to be used as a common name for something. I go to a restaurant and order a Coke. I may get Coca-Cola, Pepsi, or even RC (only in the South it seems). I at times use a crescent wrench to remove a bolt, even though it is an adjustable wrench made by some other manufacturer. I take a tylenol though it bears the Equate brand.
Generically, inline skates are all called Rollerblades, no matter who manufactures them. Most times people refer to cellophane tape as Scotch tape, regardless of the manufacturer. How about all those Sharpies? What about those jeans, are they really Levi's? And the list goes on.
Well, I think I will just eat some dark chocolate M&M's and forget the whole thing. I have to go Google something anyway.
Copyright 2006, Kevin Farley (a.k.a. sixdrift, a.k.a. neuronstatic)
Now it occurred to me that what I was doing seemed just kind of funny. Well it did to me, maybe not anyone else, but I smiled just thinking about the oddness of the brand name situation.
I was jacking up my John Deere riding mower using my Volvo jack. I used my Craftsmen socket wrenches to take the blades off the mower and sharpen them on my Black and Decker bench grinder.
And now I am sitting here drinking Lipton iced tea I made, out of a Coca-Cola glass, typing on an Acer laptop, looking at school supplies bearing Crayola, Staples, Expo, Bic, TI, and other brand names.
We are inundated with brand names every day. Some have even come into everyday English to be used as a common name for something. I go to a restaurant and order a Coke. I may get Coca-Cola, Pepsi, or even RC (only in the South it seems). I at times use a crescent wrench to remove a bolt, even though it is an adjustable wrench made by some other manufacturer. I take a tylenol though it bears the Equate brand.
Generically, inline skates are all called Rollerblades, no matter who manufactures them. Most times people refer to cellophane tape as Scotch tape, regardless of the manufacturer. How about all those Sharpies? What about those jeans, are they really Levi's? And the list goes on.
Well, I think I will just eat some dark chocolate M&M's and forget the whole thing. I have to go Google something anyway.
Copyright 2006, Kevin Farley (a.k.a. sixdrift, a.k.a. neuronstatic)
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