Honestly… I had a whole other post about 70% written but it wasn’t ‘speaking’ to me… it felt forced. Weird. And really just not where my head space actually IS right now. Que up a little family dinner, some epic fart jokes, a glass (ok… maybe 2ish) of vino and a good old “Alexa, play Led Zepplin” sesh… and if you are pulling out the LED then you need a good old CRANK IT UP’ kinda dance party to show your kids “how it’s done”. And THEN you need a whole lotta laughing… because if you can’t laugh at yourself then… and we are back in business…. Why? Because THIS is my life… and LIFE can sometimes be AWESOME… and LIFE can suck, but it’s LIFE and I wouldn’t have it any other way…

I’ll be perfectly honest, When I IG teased this post the other day that I was ready to kick March to the curb. I seriously wasn’t lying. Kicking off the month with ACL repair for our buck-thirty lb fur baby was only trumped by the last few weeks which, have been BEYOND ridic. I wasn’t going to dish it. I actually had grand intentions of keeping it close to the vest. If for no other reason than because y’all don’t need to know EVERYTHING, and I prefer it that way. But then tonight… as I attempted to force a post I realized that these posts aren’t just for YOU. They are for ME too. These blog posts are 1) Cheaper than Therapy. 2) Gets crap off my chest that otherwise might weigh me down and 3)… shit… I don’t know what number 3 is BUT, I am SURE it is super esoteric and poignantly related to numbers 1 & 2. 

Here is the gist. Aside from Hockey Try Outs (which seemed like THE BIGGEST DEAL) we learned a lot more this week that revolved around ourselves. The end result? Vaccinate your kids. (I did!) … Then when you are done vaccinating … wrap them in bubble wrap and seal the package nicely and uniformly with a crap-load of Duct Tape, enough to make Martha proud but not enough to suffocate… and then hope for the friggin’ best. Here is why…

Whilst your AMAZING hockey tryout prayers were SO well received (I mean, you all THREW IT DOWN!!!! And so did the Witzend Wee ones!!!) on the day after, the littlest Wee One awoke with a fully swollen face on one side. I mean WTF is that?!?!? Truthfully, he was thrown into the boards (ILLEGAL!!!) pretty hard at practice and I was pretty convinced it was related to that. But No. Like any good Mom I made an appointment. I know what you are thinking, and you are probably right, but bear with me because, if I DON’T get this out then there may be irreplaceable harm to someone else… and because yes, I have said it before … blogging is cheaper than therapy. 

So, Yeah, where was I …. Dr. appt. scheduled… everyone else put on the bus, life was status quo… WHOA….not so fast… Actually more like a fast and furious call from the Ped. Office on my way back down the driveway. ” the Dr. asks that (baby boy) actually come in at 9 (in 30 minutes!!!) and, would you please mind using the back door?“  I’m so ridic wrapped up in my own hoorahrah that I’m beyond freaking out and just totally complacent… I mean earlier appointment? YEZZZZZZZZ! Booyyah! But wait.. back door?  Just GO MAMA GO mode in full effect and STILL not figuring things out… Urgh, to think that my “issue of the day” was how many hours I was losing to paint Eggs. 

If you have read this far and you watch ANY sort of news, you may very well have figured out where we stood at that moment. What are the symptoms? What are the signs? I actually WATCH the news… but did I know? Nope. But still… Yes… we were a suspected MUMPS case. I mean WHAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTT!?!? Seriously y’all… my kids ARE fully vaccinated! We aren’t supposed to get this Shit. NOT SUPPOSED TO GET THIS!  But here we are. We have had over a week of Quarantine (with an  Asymptomatic kiddo, and still waiting on final test results) who has been bored out of his MIND…How bored? Sooooooo bored that he decided to treat our living room as a Parkour Course and jump from Sofa to Sofa… a sanctioned activity on a GOOD day? NEVER… on a bad day? STILL A NO GO ZONE YO! But he DID it and, ok … go ahead, guess it… 

You KNOW how it probs works out dontch’ya? Yep… missed the landing. A claw foot table base, a small wrist… formerly known as intact… and a full day that otherwise could have ben spent doing oh… I don’t know  EVERYTHING ELSE OTHER THAN BEING IN THE ER!?!? Urgh, 9 hours and a full surgical reset and cast later and this kid… the SWEETEST kid on the planet and the CRAZIEST FRICKIN’ kid on the planet at the same time is on the mend. Me? Still working on the mending part. Life can be such a vicious dichotomy right? Urgh… So yes, Pretty Easter Tablescapes make me happy…So happy that actually I shot this with said quarantined boy in the wings just out of view… Spongebob marathon for the WIN y’all. but truly… there was NO way I wasn’t doing this… and my little patient helped… and that makes everything I do all the more special. 

Cheers to Eggs En Masse…to a “cant miss” Tobacco leaf layout, to seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, to the new start that Spring brings and to casts to match your favorite team colors (Go Flyers!) . May the light of spring shine on you and that your days be blessed with the spirit of a new start, a new season and a new approach to life. Just do me a favor… don’t jump on the FRIGGIN’ furniture. 
XO, 

Pippa

P.S…. a big HUGE thank you to the always amazing Mottahedeh for providing the Pink Lace and Tobacco Leaf plates shown here!

The last of the snow… melting slowly with the finally warming temperatures… a day or two here and there, a teaser… then a few days in a row… then a fresh light coat. Just enough to piss you off. You have pined for a warm up. You are counting the days to the official launch of Spring. You have weathered the storms and bitter cold. Toward the end you force color on everything. You force it to the breaking point and fill the house with early bulbs that blossom brightly in defiance as if to say “it won’t be long now, be patient”…

And you TRY to be patient… it’s not MY virtue… but maybe YOURS. You carefully watch the forecast, as if to predict the timing of the bounty that Mother Nature will bring forth when she is ready to wake from her tumultuous slumber. You scroll old photos desperately trying to determine when the first tree actually buds and then erupts in flames of glory. You watch as the sea of white outside your window starts to morph into the patchwork quilt that tells of the next season approaching… and then it happens…

That expanse of frigid (Eww, dirty) snow suddenly takes a turn and, reveals what was laying beneath for months. The beaten down grass. The peeks of pressed patches of green that in short time will become towering tufts of mowable perfection. But it doesn’t stop there… as the blanket begins to dissipate there is something more hidden beneath that remnant of the tundra…. 

The CARNAGE. The carnage of having children and dogs. The green tinged array that you have longed for to yield hope and blooms looks nothing like the expanse that you imagined when wishing for this vital shift. Exposed, it is a disastrous display of forgotten treasures and, a mine field of canine bombs that suddenly appear untouched and unaffected by months of snow. Poo fossils that have survived the arctic blasts like wooly mammoth carcasses that survived the life ending ‘Snowpocolapse’, only now to be discovered eons later. The 48 golf balls half buried in the brown and green sponge. The lacrosse goal that was knocked over in a wind storm is suddenly revealed. 2 snowboards, a broken toboggan left for dead in the woods, a soccer ball from fall perched among far fallen sticks, And a patio cushion that never made it inside in time to be salvaged… now stuck in the bramble.  

And as you peruse the wreckage that has been left behind, you find yourself inadvertently staring off into space and thinking… FUCK…This place is a friggin’ DISASTER! That hopeful onset of Spring is suddenly and heart wrenchingly replaced by annoyance. You KNOW the battle that lays ahead will be fraught with stomping feet, whining, eye rolling and the endless cleaning of dog shit and squishy mud off of sneakers. The yelling through the now (thankfully) open window… “if I have to clean it up, then it goes in the TRASH”… not to mention the (now) ongoing fear of the season of such exchanges. Which means that, unless you are an “Alaska-esque” kind of remote, your neighbors will hear you airing your dirty laundry, yelling at your kids (because you already asked nicely 45 times) thar this is the ‘LAST STRAW’… and you hope that Social Services isn’t called… or better yet… the Coppers.

Welcome to the onset of Spring my dears. May you fill your abode with joyful blooms to welcome the arrival of a long awaited Spring and ignore every SINGLE thing that remains in your yard for a few more weeks until we can officially run naked around the firepit and start popping the Rosé. 
XO,
Pippa

You know… I was planning on doing a whole ‘back-into the blogosphere’ post waxing poetic about all things gushy and love related to go with this Valentine’s day set up… I PROMISE I was. Poetry in motion kinda thing. Tug yer heart strings… blah blah bah.. Mainly because it has been a RIDICULOUSLY long time since I last posted (Didn’t I warn you that I was a delinquent blogger?). But then, LIFE happened… the kind of life Like, EAT.SLEEP.BREATHE and wonder ‘where THE HECK every stinking hour of EVERY stinking day went’ kind of life happened. Hockey? Yep. Shells? Yep. Crappy weather, awesome weather and back to crappy weather? Yepper. Oh and Family. Oh, and friends who I feel like I haven’t seen in oh… like FOR FREAKING EVER. And, a babysitter with a new (read: REAL) job that makes it difficult to get out for date night.  Urgh. But you know what? It’s just the way. LIFE. And sometimes life GETS in the way. Then sometimes the way to love life is to live life. Am I getting a little out there for ya yet? I know, even I am getting confused. So let’s move on.

You may be wondering what the HECK is going down here at Witzend. But I’ll tell ya… I bought myself Valentine’s flowers. Yep. And Double Yep… guess what… they were only $29…All of ‘em. And before you question my Old Man’s chops just know that I did it ‘Cause my husband is one lucky dude’. Not just lucky because I save him a truckload of duckets on flowers or, because I schlep my own arse to the flower shop but, because heck, let’s be real… He’ s married to me. And I love buying my own flowers – a whole LOTTA flowers. And because He loves me… and I put upwith love him to pieces, and he works a crap load. SO, in order to make sure he pitches up with flowers I buy them myself. And that makes him extra lucky.

Actually, I may have told you before. My husband and I don’t actually celebrate Valentine’s day. It’s not because of the true origin of the holiday (although that would be grounds enough). It’s not because of the crappy Hallmark Cards or overpriced roses that don’t smell like anything or the cheesy gifts like the pajamagram thing (‘cause he knows that if that box ever shows up on our doorstep – that’s it. He can pack his bag and Peace-out yo). It is because a mere 2 days later is a much more important day for us. It is our Engage-a-versary! Bring on the schmoopsie-poo love fest here kiddos. This is our day! That’s the day that my husband (as he says) “put this whole operation in motion”. It’s the day that he asked me (in the nicest way he could) “Can you please Shut the ‘EFF’ up so I can ask you to Marry me?” Yep… that’s actually how it went down. No bended knee, He didn’t have a ring. OH… and he hadn’t yet asked my father for his blessing. It may have been the few drinks deep we were, or the warm Bermuda air. Or the fact that we were sitting on the Waterloo House Patio post dinner and in complete shock of the newly learned news our precious place was going to be torn down. Whatever it was, it apparently was the moment that he suddenly realized that he couldn’t live without me. It was perfectly imperfect and perfectly us. And I said Yes, because I realized I couldn’t or didn’t ever want to ever live without him. And the rest is history. But wait…

… ‘Did she say yet why ALL of the flowers?’ … ‘If she doesn’t celebrate Valentine’s day then why would she go to such trouble?’ … let me let you in on a little secret. Just because I am not the biggest fan of VD (you know what I mean… get your mind out of the gutter) does that mean that there needs to be a lack of all things PANK and gushy? Nope. Sure, you can think “I mean, really? Who entertains for Valentine’s Day like THIS?” Go ahead. I’ll tell ya who… it’s ME.

Here’s another little secret…there will be no additional guests seated at this table. This table is set for my boys. Yes… a truckload of flowers IS apropos for ‘lil gents in training. Why? Because (aside from the fact that I lurv those littles so much I could squeeze ‘em ’til they pee their pants) they need to KNOW that they are loved. And they need to know that flowers (and china, and the company you keep, and maybe wine) are the best way(s) to make a simple farm house table a beautiful place to convene and share love. And that THIS is just one of the many ways that their mom shares a part of her heart. That the part of my heart that is reserved for setting beautiful tables for my dudes is a big part of who I am (and a lot of what you see in my squares). They should know that they should trim stems every day and replace water, and that THIS advice will come in handy when they finally meet the person whom they want to give their whole heart to… because fresh flowers, knowledge and “knowing things” about that knowledge makes a true gentleman… and mark my words, they may beat the crap out of each other on a daily basis, but these dudes WILL be true gentlemen (or else).

I love that they are never surprised to walk through the door to the sight of armloads of flowers on the counter ready for a barrage of vases. I love that they help pick the vases. I love that they help keep tabs on who is dying and who is thriving. I love that they know that when things start to wilt that it’s time for help. And, just so you know, it is not lost on me that this is completely euphemistic for so many other things in life. The boys learn flower names. They are starting to learn how to pull together a bouquet. They are learning life lessons every second of every day. And if it is done through flowers, or homemade food, or a big huge hug when your teacher sends a nasty gram saying you aren’t behaving (ahem… yes … current sitch) then they can come home and know that they will be welcomed with open arms and a sea of beauty to remind them that they are loved. So all in all, Shit. I guess this did kinda turn out to be a smoochy love-fest after all. Funny how that works. I hope that you fill your home with flowers, with love and, with life lessons my dears. Happy Valentine’s week and I hope you go out there and hug someone so hard they pee their pants.

XO,

Pippa