Love Notes (or…What Really Sticks)

IMG_5444Our family has a tradition of leaving love notes on post-its scattered around the house, especially when one of us parental units is leaving to go out of town. We stick them on doors and bathroom mirrors, on (and in) the mudroom shoe rack, on cookie boxes in the pantry, under her morning cereal bowl. They go in her piano and in her school books and backpack and pencil case and under her pillow. It eases our guilt when we have to leave her, and she pesters us over the phone the whole time we’re gone, wanting to know how many we left and wondering if she should keep looking. We’ve gotten pretty creative, hoping to stretch the search out over the time we’re gone and, in turn, keeping ourselves relevant even in our absence.

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Regulation 1: Good Conduct

Over spring break, on our magnificent train trip out west, we visited Alcatraz. The island has been on my bucket list for many years, and it did not disappoint. Here and there, the parks department had posted signs and placards with tidbits from the United States Penitentiary Rules & Regulations book that every inmate was issued upon entering his cell for the first time. The more rules I read, the more I realized that these rules are actually pretty good for those of us who aren’t incarcerated for committing heinous crimes. At the end of the tour, when we were dumped into the gift shop (as all tours now tend to end), I felt compelled to purchase a book of 24 Rules & Regulations postcards so I could remember them.

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