Illustration

Resolutions are Made to not be Made

/ Picking My Battles

So I made a new resolution this year to not make any over the top resolutions. It’s an adjustment from my usual habit of promising myself that, somehow, I will eat no carbs or go oil-free vegan and run every single day because January first will cast a magic aura of average human willpower that I have somehow missed all of the last 40-odd January firsts and seconds and thirds and so on.

So this year, I’m resolving to pick the battles that matter — keeping the kids on track, keeping the house from falling down around our ears, keeping my sanity — and that I have a teeny chance of winning (well, all except for that sanity part).  The diets, the supermodel exercise routines are going by the wayside in favor of something more sustainable – moderation.

(repost of a cartoon from 2015)

Winter Roads

/ Picking My Battles

 

Winter Roads, 12×16 Watercolor

I’m getting paintings together for a winter show at the Spiral Press cafe in Manchester, VT and have been struggling to find a cohesive theme. But shorter days and cocooning are helping me find it.

You’d think the snow-covered mountains would provide obvious inspiration, but I’m an odd duck and it’s the mud and bare trees that get my brush going. There’s something inspirational in the cocooning too – not explosive like geysers and volcanos but soothing.  Right now, soothing is just what is needed.

Brotherly HOGA

/ Picking My Battles

One of the things I loved most about traveling with the kids last week was sharing a room with them and watching them share a room with each other.  Despite heavy protest from Thing2, Thing1 moved out of the bunk room a few years ago (“I need my space, Mom”), so sharing the pullout in our hotel room was a welcome change for T2 and a steep price to pay for T1.

We’ve all been there, right? My sister and I used to squabble over who got the bigger share of the blanket and who had crossed the imaginary line running down the middle of the motel bed.

T1 and T2 have slightly different dynamic.  T2 idolizes T1.  There is a fine line between hero worship and pestering, and T2 is willing to cross that line to spend as much time as possible with his older brother.  So far we don’t have any injuries to report, but T1 is literally marking off days on his calendar until he can graduate and move out despite our assurances that he really will miss his baby brother when he’s gone.

I tried to teach them a little brotherly HOGA, but, I suspect, like my sister and me, neither of them will really be into that either until one or both of them is out of the house.  Hopefully, dear reader, you’ll have better luck with your offspring than I did with mine.

HOGA for Voters

/ Picking My Battles

Our week in Iceland wasn’t just a break from work but a big break from the worst of this year’s electoral mudslinging. If you’re on any social media, you can’t escape all of it, but you can filter out a lot. You can’t filter it out forever, though, and because

Love is better than Hate, Peace is better than War, Dialogue is better than Diatribes,

because of everything an election season in a free democracy should be but rarely is, I respectfully suggest a little Electoral HOGA.

Instructions included.

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