When I feel this tired, I always plan on writing nothing at all, but here I am. It's the end of a big week and it's Halloween. There have been so many highlights to this week. I connected with an old college friend. During the course of that conversation we both realized how great it felt to talk with one another. We've both changed so much and so little nearly 20 years later. Good friends helped me out with a photography dilemma. It was just such a life saver because the task should have been small, but somehow turned into a mountain. Long story.... not worth going into. I had another conversation with a friend who reminded me how right everything is in my life, even though I worry and wonder about my career winking at me in the past, still "on hold." This decision I've made to be present with my kids while they're young is not always a clear one. I want it all, and that is no easy thing to achieve.There were real downers too this week. A dear friend of ours has been struggling with MS for years. This month, the disease has been kicking his bottom, and it just breaks my heart. He is hopefully receiving some intensive medical treatment even as I write that can get him back to his old self. Send a warm thought his way if you can.
In an effort to avoid some of the things I needed to get done, and some of the things that are dragging me down right now, I got online. What good red blooded American doesn't do that to tune out I ask you? I came across this site and submitted two of the quilts from above in their contest. Why the heck not, right? You can too if you hurry, my quilting friends... the deadline is tomorrow. But surely you have something you need to avoid doing and should spend the time instead submitting a picture of your beautiful work. You can take a look at everyone's quilts... prepare to be inspired.
These are the zinnias that I frantically picked at the end of the day yesterday when my husband said it might snow in the night. Secretly I thought he was surely wrong, but I cut a bunch, not all. Yes, they are in a bucket from the beach and yes, that is lovely designer 50's Formica in the background. No fancy granite back splash for this house.
It was amazing to spend a week together, just the four of us. The whole idea of "getting away" has never really been something we've done as a family before... just us, no other friends or family. It is rejuvenating in a way that I can not explain. It made me realize how great we are together, just the four of us. We have a rhythm that is all our own and it works so well for us. Our way of being together is full of joy, lots of activity, plenty of peaceful moments, sibling squabbles, two year old tantrums... you know.... the whole real deal. The thing that is so precious is that it's "ours". The realization that we're a "family" just bowled me over because I can remember a time just six years ago when I wanted all of it so badly. I think with the fatigue of child rearing and every day stressors I had lost sight of some of that.
A major focus of the week for our entire family was fishing! When my husband does anything, he does it whole hog. I mean this in a good way. It is one of the things I love about him. He is filled with energy and enthusiasm when he is interested in something. I can see the boy, that I didn't know then, in the man I know so well now. It is really incredibly sweet. But, hang on, because whatever he's focused on, the family will be consumed in. So, we all became intense fisherpersons. I caught the first and it was a skate. This looks very similar to a sting ray. Then there were days more of watching that pole to no avail. We waited. The fish laughed. Then he bought a bait net, and kind of learned to throw it. Good technique or no, he caught lots of mullet. Suddenly, we were no longer having to purchase those frozen bait. No... not us experienced fisherpersons! Then, in the last two days we were there two blue fish were caught. He says that each of the kids caught one, and laughs that he never caught a thing. Let me tell you, we ate those fish that night, sorting through the tiny bones, and claimed ourselves full! We were one proud group of fisherpersons.
One of the things I will never forget is the two of them together on this vacation. We plan to do this trip once a year now, but I know that the dynamics between them will shift with the ebb and flow of their development. On this trip, though, they were so tight. They played together constantly. It could be argued that this was because there were no other kids around. I don't think so, though. They played for hours like this together, driving trucks, him following her (for now.) They dug sand, made cakes, played bakery, fished, ran, laughed, and got wet. On the last night there she told me she didn't like her bed anymore. I asked her why. She answered that she didn't like it because she wanted to sleep in the room with her brother like at home. I snuggled her close and marvelled at how often we receive exactly what we need.
