non sequitur /n. / an inference or a conclusion that does not follow from the premises. a statement containing an illogical conclusion. a reply that has no relevance to what preceded it. a remark having no bearing on what has just been said. nonsense.
non sequitur /n./ 1. The premise of making a "word-of-the-week" is that, theoretically, I should be able to write a sentence using any word and apply it to my real life. However after thinking and mulling over this word for an entire week, I can see that this premise is a non sequitur in and of itself...and I find myself at a loss of what to write.
non sequitur /n./ 2. With gas and groceries at ridiculous prices, I find our budget getting tighter and tighter. Much to my dismay. We also have plans for a summer roadtrip to Michigan for which we've been trying to save our pennies. To me this means that we have no room for costly home repairs or new appliances in our current budget. My appliances, however, see this as a non sequitur and have decided this would be a perfect time to stage a revolt. Last week the refrigerator we keep in the garage for food storage and milk couldn't take the heat one more day and died unexpectedly, taking two gallons of milk and 4 pounds of butter with it into the afterlife. And then today my dishwasher, instead of fastidiously washing the dishes as usual, dumped three or four gallons of water onto my hardwood floor, making no attempt to mop it up afterwards. Clearly the appliances should have been invited to our budget meetings.
non sequitur /n./ 3. We have been slow in just about every way this past week. Slow to go to bed, slow to get up, slow to dress, slow to make beds and clean up breakfast, slow to start dinner, slow to do any real chores in favor of swimming and doing puzzles. Just slow. With no signs of speeding up. My sister Rachel was commenting to me that she told my mom to give us a couple of weeks to rest up and then we'd be "back to normal." This may turn out to be the biggest non sequitur of the year, as I can't imagine getting back up to real-life-speed until I absolutely have to. (Sometime in August.)
non sequitur /n./ 4. My parents hosted us for dinner last night, after a whole afternoon of sun and swimming. During this perfect summer supper of grilled chicken and pasta salad and sweet corn-on-the-cob, I commented that I needed to change out my winter dinners for summer ones, and redo my menus. Olivia enthusiastically agreed and chimed in with her non sequitur that we had been eating winter dinners and added the evidence that just the other night David had grilled hamburgers and brought them to the table on one of our Christmas snowman plates. We laughed and laughed at her misunderstanding and my dad commented that we ought to come to dinner more often, as it was much more entertaining with my kids around. I have to agree. Dinnertime is one of my favorite times of the whole day.
We got stranded at my parents' house all evening while David went to help a family move...the kids sat down to read for a minute while we cleaned up the dishes. A quiet, perfect moment in the summer gloaming.
non sequitur /n./ 5. It's dance recital season around our house, which meant dance pictures on Saturday morning this week. This is always a little exercise in torture. The idea of me as a "dance mom" is a complete non sequitur. And if my girls ever need evidence that I love them madly...this is clearly it. I sat there painfully uncomfortable in this giant dressing room with all these other women, with their curled, colored, and highlighted hair and trendy jewelry, all wielding mascara, lipstick, gel, and bobby pins like professionals. I never feel quite so odd, clumsy, and frumpy as I do at these moments. And while all the other moms stood coolly by their portable costume racks and prepped for the next costume change, I scrounged through my purse for a safety pin to hold Olivia's top up because I forgot to alter it. (Didn't even bother to have her try it on before the actual picture time, truth be told.) RIM had a field day with this brilliant oversight.
Oh, yes... I do it for love.