I had my music on quite loud as I was cleaning.
It was a Jackson Browne, Pandora radio station.
All the songs I listened to in my college days were playing.
Cleaning just seemed to go that much faster.

Song after song brought back so many memories.
I had the albums of many of the songs that were being played.
Song after song was a favorite of mine.
It was as if the radio station had my specific music tastes in mind.

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I have a stack of books next to my chair.
One book has already been read.
Three books are still to be read.
Summer is a wonderful time to catch up on reading.

We have eleven bookshelves in our home.
Each shelf is overflowing with books.
What used to be nice, neat rows now has books lying on their side on top of the others.
There is something so comforting about having books around.

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I am not a puzzle kind of person.
Assembling a jigsaw puzzle is not fun for me.
It takes a certain kind of skill and a certain kind of patience.
However, my children enjoyed all the puzzles I had around when they were young.

We kept the our many puzzles in a bin.
There were puzzles with all levels of difficulty.
Small puzzles for the little ones that could be assembled in minutes.
Larger puzzles for the older ones that took far longer to put together.

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We went to the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.
Our fifth child was born in November, 1995.
She was only eight months old when all seven of us drove to Georgia in our minivan.
Our little girl spent the entire week in a carrier on my husband’s back.

Since my husband went to Georgia Tech for his undergraduate degree, Atlanta was familiar.
Georgia Tech happened to be where the Olympic Village was located.
Georgia Tech alumni had many special privileges, which we enjoyed.
An exact replica of the torch was there and each of my older children got to hold it.

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I remember when my oldest daughter came home from school one day.
She was probably in third grade.
Her sister would have been in first grade.
My oldest daughter came home and announced that she had to give a report.

The teacher was trying to get the children used to talking in front of others.
Each student was given a topic.
They were to practice the research skills they were learning and write a report on their topic.
That three minute report was to be given in front of the class.

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We were talking about the definition of a word.
My husband was sure he was correct.
You took Latin so you should know, he said.
I never took Latin, I said gently in correction.

You didn’t? He asked quite surprised.
I could have given a know-it-all kind of answer.
I could have said, You should know; we went to high school together.
I rejected that impulse and told him, No, they gave me Greek instead.

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I could see the blinking lights as I approached the intersection.
The blinking lights were not from emergency vehicles.
It was the traffic lights that were blinking.
One direction was blinking red and the other direction was blinking yellow.

Blinking traffic lights happen from time to time.
Except this intersection is one of the busiest intersections near my home.
It is where two state roads intersect.
It is an intersection that drivers must go through to get anywhere around here.

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It was an assignment in elementary school that captured me.
We were given a word with no explanation.
We were to imagine what that word might look like.
We were to draw a picture of what we imagined.

The word was Jabberwocky.
After the giggles subsided, some serious art work began.
It was amazing how one word could invoke so many different ideas.
It was thrilling to see a word that no one had heard before, come to life.

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For some reason, I was thinking about a psychology class that I took in college.
The class was simply called, Perception.
The visual part of the class, discussing what we perceive, was quite interesting.
The scientific part, discussing why we perceive what we perceive, was not my favorite thing.

I thought the class would be interesting.
I remember, as a little girl, I asked a question about something I saw on TV.
A car moving forward on a street suddenly appeared to be moving backward.
I received a vague answer at the time and never asked a follow-up question.

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I am always amazed at the things people throw out in the trash.
There are lawn chairs that look as if they would not be able to hold a feather.
There are sofas that have seen better days.
I once saw a sofa bed, which had springs protruding from every side.

As I drive around, I take notice of the things that are on the side of the road.
I am sure that people put furniture by the curb in the hopes that someone will pick it up.
There are many people that find wonderful things on the side of the road.
One person’s trash is another person’s treasure.

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