groceries: Browse The Strips
Lynn's Comments: When the kids were small, the work involved often filled a day. By suppertime when laundry, cleaning, shopping and meals were done, I wondered where the time had gone. It wasn't until the dishes were done and the kids in bed that I could sit down - without guilt - and enjoy the paper.
It's amazing how "invisible" a housekeeper's job is! For those who share the home and enjoy the fruits of "Mom's labor" things like clean clothes folded neatly in drawers, a tidy, sanitary refrigerator, vacuumed rugs, washed floors, swept and organized closets, prepared meals, answered mail, full toilet roll holders and all the other myriad details that go into running a home seem to occur like magic. If you don't see or take part in the process, you just accept it and expect it all to be done for you. In fact, unless something is NOT done, you don't notice it at all!
This revelation came to me when I hired a housekeeper. My sweet lady would come one day every week. I'd leave things for Janet to do. After awhile, dusting and ironing and clean floors just "happened". Recycling was done, mats were shaken and shelves were wiped clean...and if I wasn't there to have a coffee with her and see her work for myself - I took my clean house for granted!
Being a "housewife" is a full time job. Add parenting to this and you have an all- encompassing career - for which many of us apologize! I was lucky enough to have a job that allowed me to work at home. I had two jobs! Strips like this one were done to support all the smart, productive and caring moms I knew who were struggling to stay sane. These comic strip complaints also made me less resentful of my own responsibilities. It felt amazingly good to confide my feelings to an unseen community of friends...millions of them!!!
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Lynn's Comments: This is another example of something I just made up. In fact, I don't remember my husband taking the kids to buy groceries - this was my job and I enjoyed it. This is a gag that I knew had been done by other cartoonists, and yet, I did it again.
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Lynn's Comments: The kids weren't with me when I rear-ended this guy, but if they had been...I'm sure the secret would not have been safe with them. We are all storytellers in my family, and some stuff is just has to be shared!
Monday, August 20, 2012
Lynn's Comments: On really hot days, my folks would put the sprinkler on, and my brother and I would play all day in the spray. We did the same thing for our kids. One hot summer day, while walking to a friend's house, I saw a sprinkler and thought, "if I was five years old I'd run through that thing in a heartbeat!" Then I thought..."Why can't I do it now?" So, I did.
Sunday, September 8, 2013
Lynn's Comments: The other day I watched a young mother guiding her son around the grocery store. She was letting him do all the shopping. She asked him what ingredients he would buy if he was going to make chili and what would make a nice salad. The child was about four years old and right into the project. This was a shopping trip just for him. He had to think about what he was buying and why. He was told about the cost, how one kind of bathroom tissue might be a better value for the family than another. He made decisions about desserts and treats and whether one kind of bread would be more nutritious than another. I was so impressed with this young woman's insight, patience, and ingenuity that I had to compliment her. She just said, "He was interested, so I thought it was time." As I watched her continue to the checkout counter, I wished I'd had her good sense when I was shepherding my little ones!
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Lynn's Comments: My mother joined a weight loss program for which she needed one of those tiny food scales. After buying both Alan and me a pack of Smarties, she actually weighed them to prove that neither of us was getting more than the other.
Monday, December 9, 2013
Sunday, February 15, 2015
Lynn's Comments: My friend and graphic guru, Kevin Strang, has a dog named Oden. Oden is a large, lovable yellow lab with a sweet disposition. Oden likes squeaky toys--especially rubber chickens, of which he has several. He doesn't bite through them, he squeezes them carefully, enjoying the sound they make with obvious pleasure. He squeezes them in a way that kind of communicates his thoughts. Rapid squeaks suggest playfulness, longer sighing squeaks, thoughtfulness--loud defined squeaks mean boredom has set in or a snack is required. It's funny. I often go to see Kevin and we'll sit in his studio working out a colour scheme for a calendar or an illustration. Oden will sit beside my chair and squeak his rubber chickens to his heart's delight. Kevin will likely not be reading this so I can tell you that as much as I love his dog and as funny as I think the chickens are--I often wish that the *#@**&%$* squeaking would STOPPPPP!!!!!
Sunday, July 24, 2016
Lynn's Comments: This happened. I was glad to have been wearing clean underwear. Old superstitions can bear fruit. In this case, it was Fruit of the Loom!
Tuesday February 28, 2017
Lynn's Comments: My friends used to go to my mother for emotional help. They’d pour their hearts out about everything from boyfriends to schoolwork, to their relationships at home. As a teenager, I found my mother awfully hard to talk to, and I couldn’t understand why my friends went to her for guidance!
Sunday November 25, 2018
Sunday April 7, 2019
Lynn's Comments: The Fasts and the Bergans were friends in Lynn Lake; two of our favourite families. I loved to put the names of people we knew in the strip. It was a funny surprise. After the strip was published, their friends and family would contact them! It was a wonderful, continuing surprise.
Tuesday September 24, 2019
Lynn's Comments: In order to be up to date, I read books on pregnancy. I became very aware of how many weeks along Elly was and how she would be feeling. If you start to think about these things, you start to feel them yourself. The idea of cravings made me want to buy stuff I didn’t ordinarily buy.
Sunday December 8, 2019
Lynn's Comments: Every now and then I did a serious and reflective punch line. I had to. This wouldn’t have been a realistic look inside the home of a North American family if the characters took their good health and good fortune for granted. Not everyone has the luxury of being able to buy groceries like this!
Sunday August 2, 2020
Lynn's Comments: This is that awful, unbelievable situation when a parent leaves a baby in a car. I've done it, and remembered before it was a problem...but I sure understand how a tragedy can happen.