Have you heard of Olioboard?

Hello everyone out there in blog land!  I am popping in to tell you all about an awesome new site I found out about the other day.  It is called Olioboard.  If you have ever seen the design mood boards on Pinterest, then you have most likely seen the work of Olioboard. 

I started using it seriously the other day when I was putting together ideas for our future office.  Right now the office is a catch all for everything we don't want anyone to see.  I was finally fed up with not having a plan at all for this space so I decided to log on to Olioboard and give it a whirl myself!

I was pleasantly surprised how easy it was to use.  It has a similar tool to Pinterests' "Pin It" you put in your browser to choose items/pictures from websites if you browsing the Internet and see something you like.  They already have tons of different design options for you to use on the site itself.

Without further ado, here is the beginning of our future office!




I am still working on all of the details that we would like in the room but I think being able to pull all of your ideas together in one place is, in the words of Martha Stewart, a good thing !

Interior design is not the only thing you can do on this site.  Using the browser clipper tool you can clip fashion pictures to create those lovely Pinterest clothing combinations that everyone wishes actually existed in their closet!  My Pinterest closet sure is more fashionable then my actual one!

 

Has anyone else used Olioboard or a site similar to it? 

What do you think of the site?

If you have used it, what did you make?  

Feel free to link up your olioboards, I would love to see how creative my readers are!

 

Book Club Selection for August

Hello there all!  Happy Friday to you!  I thought I would pop in and tell you all about my book selection for one of the book clubs that I am a part of.  This month I am hosting so you know what that means, I get to pick the book!  FINALLY!  I know you can barely contain yourselves with the anticipation of knowing what book I chose, Right?

Well here she is ladies and gents................

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I have just started reading it so I can't say much about it but I had heard good things from the ladies over at The Everygirl.  They have started a virtual book club and this was the first selection so I had to give it a read! 

For those of you who would like a small synopsis of the book here is the book description care of Amazon.

For fans of Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary and Allison Pearson’s I Don’t Know How She Does It comes an irresistible novel of a woman losing herself . . . and finding herself again . . . in the middle of her life.

Maybe it was those extra five pounds I’d gained. Maybe it was because I was about to turn the same age my mother was when I lost her. Maybe it was because after almost twenty years of marriage my husband and I seemed to be running out of things to say to each other.

But when the anonymous online study called “Marriage in the 21st Century” showed up in my inbox, I had no idea how profoundly it would change my life. It wasn’t long before I was assigned both a pseudonym (Wife 22) and a caseworker (Researcher 101).

And, just like that, I found myself answering questions.

7. Sometimes I tell him he’s snoring when he’s not snoring so he’ll sleep in the guest room and I can have the bed all to myself.
61. Chet Baker on the tape player. He was cutting peppers for the salad. I looked at those hands and thought, I am going to have this man’s children.
67. To not want what you don’t have. What you can’t have. What you shouldn’t have.
32. That if we weren’t careful, it was possible to forget one another.

Before the study, my life was an endless blur of school lunches and doctor’s appointments, family dinners, budgets, and trying to discern the fastest-moving line at the grocery store. I was Alice Buckle: spouse of William and mother to Zoe and Peter, drama teacher and Facebook chatter, downloader of memories and Googler of solutions.

But these days, I’m also Wife 22. And somehow, my anonymous correspondence with Researcher 101 has taken an unexpectedly personal turn. Soon, I’ll have to make a decision—one that will affect my family, my marriage, my whole life. But at the moment, I’m too busy answering questions.

As it turns out, confession can be a very powerful aphrodisiac.

 

Sounded like an interesting read to me so here I go!  I have until the 29th of August to finish so hopefully I will get a good start on it this weekend. 

 

Is anyone else reading any interesting books? 

Have any book suggestions? 

I would love to hear from you!

 

Have a wonderful weekend!

An Unexpected Cry c/o a Like on Facebook!

Well I didn't expect it to happen as I was scrolling through Facebook but it did!  A friend of mine had liked a link to a story called Carrying My Wife.  I started reading it thinking it might have a witty ending but about 4 paragraphs in I was starting to feel the tears and by the 5th I was a mess! 

This little story made me cry but it also made me think about my own marriage.  How many things in my own life I am sure I take for granted on a daily basis.  After I dried my tears and got a hold of myself I went to bed pondering the very questions that the story raises.

I am posting the story below and I would love to hear if and how this story touched you?  Does this make anyone else reconsider their daily interactions with others?

For your reading pleasure I give you

Carrying My Wife

When I got home that night as my wife served dinner, I held her hand and said, “I’ve got something to tell you”. She sat down and ate quietly. Again I observed the hurt in her eyes.  Suddenly I didn’t know how to open my mouth. But I had to let her know what I was thinking. “I want a divorce”, I raised the topic calmly.  She didn’t seem to be annoyed by my words, instead she asked me softly, “why”?  I avoided her question. This made her angry. She threw away the chopsticks and shouted at me, “you are not a man”! That night, we didn’t talk to each other. She was weeping. I knew she wanted to find out what had happened to our marriage. But I could hardly give her a satisfactory answer; she had lost my heart to Jane. I didn’t love her anymore. I just pitied her!

With a deep sense of guilt, I drafted a divorce agreement which stated that she could own our house, our car, and 30% stake of my company. She glanced at it and then tore it into pieces. The woman who had spent ten years of her life with me had become a stranger. I felt sorry for her wasted time, resources and energy but I could not take back what I had said, for I loved Jane so dearly. Finally she cried loudly in front of me, which was what I had expected to see. To me her crying was actually a kind of release. The idea of divorce, which had obsessed me for several weeks, seemed to be firmer and clearer now.

The next day, I came back home very late and found her writing something at the table. I didn’t have supper but went straight to sleep and fell asleep very fast because I was tired after an eventful day with Jane.  When I woke up, she was still there at the table writing. I just did not care so I turned over and was asleep again.

In the morning she presented her divorce conditions: she didn’t want anything from me, but needed a month’s notice before the divorce. She requested that in that one month we both struggle to live as normal a life as possible. Her reasons were simple: our eldest son had his middle school exams in a month’s time and she didn’t want to disrupt him with our broken marriage.  This was agreeable to me. But she had something more, she asked me to recall how I had carried her into out bridal room on our wedding day. She requested that every day for the month’s duration I carry her out of our bedroom to the front door every morning. I thought she was going crazy. Just to make our last days together bearable I accepted her odd request.

I told Jane about my wife’s divorce conditions. She laughed loudly and thought it was absurd. “No matter what tricks she applies, she has to face the divorce”, she said scornfully.  My wife and I hadn’t had any body contact since my divorce intention was explicitly expressed. So when I carried her out on the first day, we both appeared clumsy. Our younger son clapped behind us, “..daddy is holding mommy in his arms”! His words brought me a sense of pain. From the bedroom to the sitting room, then to the door, I walked over ten meters with her in my arms. She closed her eyes and said softly; “don’t tell our sons about the divorce”. I nodded, feeling somewhat upset. I put her down outside the door. She went to wait for the bus to work. I drove alone to the office.

On the second day, both of us acted much more easily. She leaned on my chest. I could smell the fragrance of her blouse. I realized that I hadn’t looked at this woman carefully for a long time. I realized she was not young any more. There were fine wrinkles on her face, her hair was graying! Our marriage had taken its toll on her. For a minute I wondered what I had done to her.
On the fourth day, when I lifted her up, I felt a sense of intimacy returning. This was the woman who had given twenty years of her life to me.  On the fifth and sixth day, I realized that our sense of intimacy was growing again. I didn’t tell Jane about this. It became easier to carry my wife as the month slipped by. Perhaps the everyday workout made me stronger?

She was choosing what to wear one morning. She tried on quite a few dresses but could not find a suitable one. Then she sighed, all my dresses have grown bigger. I suddenly realized that she had grown so thin, that was the reason why I could carry her more easily.
Suddenly it hit me… she had buried so much pain and bitterness in her heart. Subconsciously I reached out and touched her head.

Our younger son came in at the moment and said, “Dad, it’s time to carry mom out”. To him, seeing his father carrying his mother out had become an essential part of his life. My wife gestured to our son to come closer and hugged him tightly. I turned my face away because I was afraid I might change my mind at this last minute. I then held her in my arms, walking from the bedroom, through the sitting room, to the hallway. Her hand surrounded my neck softly and naturally. I held her body tightly; it was just like our wedding day.  But her much lighter weight made me sad. On the last day, when I held her in my arms I could hardly move a step. Our son had gone to school. I held her tightly and said, “I hadn’t noticed that our life lacked intimacy”.

I drove to the office…. jumped out of the car swiftly without locking the door. I was afraid any delay would make me change my mind…I walked upstairs. Jane opened the door and I said to her, “Sorry, Jane, I do not want the divorce anymore”.  She looked at me, astonished, and then touched my forehead. Do you have a fever? She said. I moved her hand off my head. “Sorry, Jane”, I said, “I won’t divorce”. My marriage life was boring probably because she and I didn’t value the details of our lives, not because we didn’t love each other anymore. Now I realize that since I carried her into my home on our wedding day I am supposed to hold her until death do us part. Jane seemed to suddenly wake up. She gave me a loud slap and then slammed the door and burst into tears. I walked downstairs and drove away.

At the floral shop on the way, I ordered a bouquet of flowers for my wife. The salesgirl asked me what to write on the card. I smiled and wrote, “I’ll carry you out every morning until death do us part”.  That evening I arrived home, flowers in my hands, a smile on my face, I ran up the stairs, only to find my wife had been driven home from work early, and she was confined to bed as she was too weak to walk. She died that night, at home in the bed I carried her from every day, for 30 days.
My wife had been fighting cancer for months and I was too busy with Jane to even notice. She knew that she would die soon and she wanted to save my reputation with our sons, in case we pushed thru with the divorce. At least, in the eyes of our son— I’m a loving husband….

What did everyone think?

Back from Vacation

I know people have been wondering if I dropped off the face of the earth.  Well I did for about 2 weeks but I am back.  I swear this entire summer has gotten away from me! 

My oldest is starting school in 2 weeks and I haven't so much as sharpened a pencil let alone went "back to school" shopping.  You would have thought the incessant Target commercials would have gotten by butt into gear but who the heck watches commercials anymore anyway!  That is my story and I am sticking to it!



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We just returned from a week long family vaca to Ocean Isle Beach, NC which was wonderful.  A much needed getaway!  I will definitely have a few posts about that for sure in the near future!  I am hoping with the impending school year and my new gym opening up (finally!) that I can get myself and the fam back on a schedule so life will seem back to normal, though what is normal anyway with 2 boys!

Has anyone else felt like the summer flew by? 

Any last minute getaways planned?