snapshot

I'm sitting in my kitchen/office, sniffling from a perpetual stuffy head. My butt is cold after throwing the ball for the dog outside for twenty minutes. I have Pandora playing a random mix of alt/indie rock kinda loud, and a long list of to-dos circling in my head. Violet and our neighbor girl are playing cheerleader upstairs, and a quilt I made! is finishing up in the dryer, ready for a photo shoot before becoming an everyday item on Violet's bed. Sam is getting muddy and learning a random collection of football rules from the neighborhood boys (and one intrepid girl). Will's off at a challenging job which leaves him tired but enthusiastic. Christmas presents are piling up under the tree and, not coincidentally, the guest room is incrementally cleaner. And I am content, although I need to go blow my nose, again.

Gratitudes

I've been writing little "I'm grateful for . . " type messages on FaceBook this week, after being challenged to do so. Someone remarked that it gets harder over time; I found it got easier and easier. I have so much to be grateful for. Now that Thanksgiving is over I don't really want t give up this little habit because it is a good reminder to myself, especially when I'm blue, of how wonderful my life truly is. So, today's gratitude is for the women I am closest to in my life:

Stephanie, who teaches me how to be powerful and gentle at the same time.

MaryAnn, who consistently demonstrates the path to joy.

Julie, who proves to me that style and beauty are always within reach.

Anita, who helps me find the laughter in anything.

Mom, who taught me compassion and how to love unconditionally, no matter the risk.

Your examples help me become a better person. Thank you.

A sacred time

This time of year is sacred to me, and not just because of my birthday. Like many others I appreciate the inward turning of the autumn, bringing our lives inside from the yard, and spending more quiet time together. I know many people are looking forward now to the holidays, especially Christmas, and I, too, enjoy the gaiety of family get-togethers and sharing presents. But Thanksgiving in particular is sacred to me specifically (or, as Sam more appropriately says, pacifically) because it is a secular holiday about only one thing -- gratitude. No giving or getting, no agendas. Simple, sweet gratitude. Counting my blessings, which are so abundant I can't contemplate them without tears of humility.

This year our family lost three wonderful women. I haven't written here in months because I can't put my feelings of loss and diminishment into words. But this week, I have felt them, and others, near, and today I am grateful for the chance I had to meet them. Today I celebrate the wonderful women who made my family with its long branches and strong roots and astonishing intertwining friendships, and I am grateful.

Eight inches

of snow, people! It snowed all weekend, and this morning the air is crisp and chilly and the sun is reflecting so brightly we didn't need to to turn the lights on for breakfast this morning. I'm awfully glad to see the sun - we had a fair bit of morning gloom over the past couple of weeks, which makes the o-dark-hundred dog walk rather dreary. In fact, I couldn't force myself out of bed when the alarm went off at 6:20 this morning, possibly because the smoke detector chirped all night and worked it's way into my dreams and I didn't sleep all that well, but most likely because it was still dark and who wants to get up in the dark? The dog is staring pitifully at me now, hoping I'll take her out so she can smell every last inch of snow and hopefully find a buried squirrel. What is it with dogs and squirrels? Fortunately I did get all my bulbs planted in the last couple of weeks, so if all goes well in the spring I will have tulips and daffodils and irises and the whole front of the house will be a riot of daylily color. Of course, Violet was "helping" with the planting, so it may turn out far different than I imagine. Things involving our children usually do. I promise pictures, regardless.

Poetry from the back of a notebook

I turned the radio up

until the music echoed

against the glass

shaking the reflections

of the stoplights all around.

I followed the thread

of melody

back through time.

In college there were

so many more

possibilities.

10,000 foot overview

I'm brewing several posts, not sure what will percolate up first. Until then, here's a simple status update . . .

Sam has just plunged into the world of Harry Potter, and we now are on book 2 (Chamber of Secrets). I've ruled that he's not allowed to watch a movie until he's read/been read the corresponding book. I'm not sure how else to slow him down -- some of the later books have such intense stories that he's not yet ready for. Nonetheless, it's wonderful to see him entranced by a story. He's also enjoying school more than ever before, which is a relief and delight. He'll like it even more next year when Violet doesn't get to spend all day with me while he's with his peers. Sibling rivalry at its most subtle. He's also active in cub scouts (which he enjoys) and karate (which he doesn't like but I insist on).

Violet is deep into a Princess/Barbie (commercialized beyond anything I could have predicted. Did you know there are Barbie movies based on tales like "The Prince and the Pauper'? Holy cows.) phase, and often insists I call her Cinderella for hours at a time. I am surprised by how relieved I am when she joins Sam in a Star Wars jedi battle where she's shooting things and "killing them dead!" I guess it's all about balance, right? When she's not prancing around in nearly inappropriate clothing (do the designers at Disney even THINK about the fact that these expensive little fairy/princess costumes will be worn by four year olds? They don't need to show cleavage or bellies!) she is working hard to learn how to read, and is trying to convince Sam that she's ahead of him in the literacy race. Fine by me.

Will is currently under-employed, which I am not-so-secretly enjoying in that he's spending a lot of time playing with me and the kids and even gets so bored as to load and unload the dishwasher. He has found other ways to fill his time (I don't understand why he doesn't get bored playing playing computer solitaire), my favorite of which was teaching Sam yesterday how to split logs for the wood stove.

As for me, I'm 24 hours from finished with the elementary school Directory (a glorified phone book for school families). It's taken absurd amounts of my time, and more money than I dare admit to Will (but I NEED this $800 software to do the directory!) but I am quite proud of my accomplishment, and have learned a great deal about PhotoShop, InDesign, and Acrobat. I've told Will that it's "valuable skills" and "hard evidence" for when I go back to the real world, but in all honesty, it's just plain fun for me. I shall now turn to other projects like actually cleaning the house (oh glory what a mess it is right now) and perhaps even finishing the quilt I started for Violet two or three years ago. And maybe I'll even write a real essay one of these days. We shall see.

Chai, anyone?

I'ts been so long since I wrote anything that I have been feeling a need to write something momentous and monumental. I don't, however, have time for grandiose screeds, so today I am just going to tell you something.

The smell of chai tea makes me think of band-aids. How weird is that?