Nice weekend

I have a cold but had a nice weekend anyway.  My sister came to visit, I can always laugh with her because when I do, she doesn't think I'm cured of depression.  We had a community garage sale on Saturday which I was going to participate in but couldn't find the energy to haul stuff upstairs.  Instead we went around to check out garage sales.  What a disappointment!  My sister bought a union jack tea towel (signed in invisible ink by the newlyweds we were told) and I could find nothing to buy.  We took Max with us and he behaved very badly.  He tried to steal a muffin from her hand!  Not something he normally does.  He also knocked over a tray of cupcakes that a little boy was selling.  He gobbled two of them before I could grab him so that cost me six bucks (for the tray).  I'm wondering if he's sick maybe because he also chewed my pin cushion, stole a shoe (didn't wreck it just hid it) and carried dirty laundry down stairs.  He is by no means a perfect dog but this is not something he ordinarily does.  I was at the hospital with my MIL on Friday so maybe we was upset about being left alone.

On Sunday, my loving husband took me to a quilt show.  Wow!  To see these quilts in real life is amazing.  I can't imagine that I would ever have the patience to sew so many pieces together.  For now I'll stick with small crazy quilt wall hangings.  There was a merchant's mall too but low and behold, nothing to buy there either.  Oh wait, I bought needles with two eyes so I can embroider two colors at once.  I think that's pretty cool.  Then he took me to a flea market which was also disappointing.  There don't seem to be any good flea markets around here.

When we got home, both my kids were here which is kind of unusual.  Jess gave me a nice big beach towel, almost the size of a blanket (I love towels) and a new coffee mug and Derek gave me a watch.  A nice surprise from both of them.  I know they love and care about me but sometimes it's just nice to see it. I love them so much.

One thing though, teenagers lie right?  I can usually tell when they are lieing (SP?) but that doesn't really help because I can't make them tell the truth.  I can only let them know I don't believe them.  Any suggestions on what else I can do would be greatly appreciated.

Finally, yesterday and today - SUNSHINE - finally, it's supposed to be nice all week too.  Thank heavens, I hope spring has actually arrived.

On being a parent

I have a big stack of magazines in my bathroom. My sister was saving them for me because I used to like reading them and now I don't want to toss them until I go through them and cut out pictures and stuff that I like. (I intend to make a vision board and some collages - some day)
I was going through a "Chatelaine" from 2007 and came across an article about a mom whose son got a tattoo. (For the life of me I can't find the article but you can find the author Sarah Hampson at "The Globe and Mail") Jessica recently got a tattoo so I started reading and this line smacked me right in the face:
"It's a statement about my parenting skills, this tattoo. Which, if so, suggests the sheer madness we invite by having children: Everything they do, we take either as an indictment or an affirmation of our performance as moral and emotional leaders - as parents, in other words."
That is exactly what I do. In my case it is more often an indictment because I attribute their good stuff to luck, their own smarts or my husband. As in most other areas of my life, I tend to take responsibility for the bad stuff, mistakes and inadequacies and slough off or redirect compliments.
I don't have anything against tattoos, I have one myself, it's about parenting in general. How do you feel when your child makes what you think is a mistake? Do you feel more guilty or more angry? Or something else all together?