In A Perfect whirly World

Am thinking about how to do life here. Make-do...ya know?(Or is it make-due?) Hmm...all kinds of different connotations with those two words. Do you see it?!... How I wander like that? Forgive me - ugh.

Anyway, I am plugging along. Trying to make the best of what I've been given right now. (and that's not to say I haven't been given many, many amazing blessings....) but being that I tend to be a bit idealistic, things are never quite the way I would envision them.

If I had a perfect world, my child would be in a small, nurturing school where he wouldn't just be a number with a test score attached. Where I would feel comfortable approaching his teachers and principal on an ongoing basis...where everyone cared about nurturing his spirit and his unique mind as much as his ability to memorize his times-tables and stay quiet in class. I just don't know how to get to that without paying a million dollars a year for it.

Anyway, I could paint a pretty picture of what my perfect world would look like as I am sure you could too.

Just some (semi) deep thoughts on a dark and dreary day.

Oh, and I thought TODAY was picture day. It's tomorrow. In my perfect world, he wore a blue and white stripe shirt.

The Vaguer-nater and random thoughts

I have a tendency to say things that people take the wrong way. I am not sure why this is and it's a source of great frustration to me. Maybe words fail me. Maybe that's why a visual interpretation of my feelings is easier and less likely to be misunderstood. I would say that one of the greatest of my desires is to be known and understood. This seems to be difficult....and I do not understand why. Thankfully my husband "gets it"...and he is one of the few. Those closest to me seem to think I am easy to read. Why then do I offend? I really don't mean to....

I go in waves thinking about this...getting sick of hearing myself think and talk. These are the times I want to run away. Hide. Be like an ostrich and stick my head in the sand. (which I found out is purely myth...by the way) These are the times I put in a cheesy teen movie or lose myself in a book.... so I don't have to listen anymore.

Maybe I'll start blogging about books....

Random post, I know.

To hold Infinity in the palm of your hand.....

There are moments in life that just take your breath away. These moments come for me late in the evening when the boys are fast asleep. I have already tucked them in and kissed them once, but I ALWAYS, always have to go back and kiss them again before I can go to sleep. I pick up my sleeping baby and hold his limp, sleeping body close to my chest...close so I can breathe in his sweet smell and kiss his soft cheeks. I can't pick up my big baby anymore...but I still kiss his forehead and marvel at his peaceful being fast asleep. These are the best moments of my day....

"Coldplay's on..."

I made this little slideshow for little j's. 7th birthday. I was taken back looking through our iphoto library and couldn't believe how time flies......it's taken me awhile to get it up here. (make sure you pause the ipod to the right or else you will have competing musical interludes..)

A little story:

When little old j. was around 18 months old, he stayed with J's brother and sister-in-law for a week while hubby and I went to a conference in Orlando. It was the first time we left him and was a bit sad for us....He, however, had a great time. Playing with his cousins, eating their family out of house and home, and just keeping everyone else entertained for awhile. He has always been good at that. Of all the stories we heard after the fact, there was one that we always quote...it's just become one of those sayings in our house...."COLDPLAY's ON..." (in a sweet 18 month old slur of spit and lisp with almost a lilting at the end as if it might be a question? Or an almost statement... sort of?)

So, I guess they were all in the car and little j. (since he was still little at the time) kept saying this over and over again....

From the back of the car, his aunt heard him and asked J's brother what he was saying...... Listening, he said...."I think he said, "Coldplay's on..."

"Well, is it?", she asked. He listened again....turned up the radio a bit...and replied..... "yep."

So, my little Coldplay lovin' sweetness....this is your song. And this is for you.

Beauty

I think this is so interesting. It could certainly spur on some interesting and questionable conversations.

Anyone out there wanna have dinner and talk about art? About reality? About what is beautiful?

Interestingly enough, I have signed myself up or, I should say, agreed to the charming pleas from my friend and neighbor, to chair the National PTA's "Reflections" program at j's elementary school. She knows I am a sucker for art programs. She knows that in a former life, I coordinated stuff like this all the time. She doesn't know all that I wrote about in my previous post. (totally kidding...to be fair, THIS is not what is stressing me out.)

This year's theme is BEAUTY IS....

The idea is to create a work of art: visual, video, musical, interpretative dance, written composition etc. with this theme. Whatever it means to you....

So, I asked j. what he thought about it. What beauty is to him. He proceeded to tell me a story about love. How when we love one another...that is the ultimate beauty. It's relevant to God's love.

Every now and then, an older, wiser sage enters my child's body and inhabits him for a few minutes. When he does, we get these glimpses of the future....a truly beautiful and hopeful one.

Then, just as quickly as he comes...he sneaks away, before we can even stop to catch our breath from the gasp that just escaped.

He may or may not get around to doing this project. He suffers from what I like to call..."procrastinitis". It's a serious disease that is genetic, unfortunately. But, we'll see...maybe with some gentle prodding.

ugh! AGGHH! UGHHH!

How's that for a title? Makes you really wanna read it, doesn't it? Like..."what in the world is she complaining about now?" geesh...

SO, I am just thinking about too much these days. And I have so much that needs to be done...and it's not fun stuff either. It's the stuff that piles up on you and you have dig yourself out...out of the muck...stuck in the muck....stuck like a duck in the muck in a yellow truck. (Yes, I did just say that. )

It's that problem that when it becomes too much, the piles, the "to do's", you just can't do anything. Do you know that feeling? When there's just too much....all you wanna do is bury your head? Or run away? Or is that just me....again? I feel a bit paralyzed. OVERWHELMED.

But, I'll get over it. I'll pull myself out of the muck and finish the lists. Make a plan. Figure it all out. My sweet mother-in-law would tell me that I just need to prioritize it. Do what needs to be done first. Put everything else on hold until I can get to it...and don't think about it ALL AT ONCE.

For real?! Ugh, I know....

Homesick

Do you have a place that makes you feel free? Where you just "fit"?.

I know that might seem hokey....."wherever you are, there you are"...and all that. But... for real people, am I the only one?! Does anyone just have someplace where their heart and soul just soars? Some would say you can find contentment anywhere...it's not in the place, but in yourself. hmmm.............?

My earliest memories are from a time that I lived in Montana. I spent time in between in Nebraska, some vacations that were pure thrill in Florida and a few summers in Virginia. That time in Virginia... I just remember as being hot. There was also some time in North Carolina and Florida. I don't consider Montana home, but when I moved to Colorado when I was 21, something about Durango told me I was home. Maybe it was the similarities in weather, sky, arid climate.....all I know was THAT was it. That was the place I most felt at home. That time in my life was so cathartic. (Maybe that time in everyone's life is cathartic?) I don't know, all I know is that was a great growing time for me...a time of independence, a time of spiritual growth, a time of finding great love.....

So, here I am, back in the South. Where it is.....hot. (although, I must say, we have had some unseasonably dry, and cool days:) But, I digress...again.

Durango was bliss. We often refer to it as Never Neverland...where you just don't really have to "grow-up". Alas, the time came where the "real world" came calling and we moved. Got "real" jobs, got married, bought a house, a car, had a baby.....etc., etc....

Moving back east was another cathartic moment in my life. I learned some hard lessons, grew up some MORE, found more love (little a.) and here I am....feeling homesick. Homesick for a place where I feel free. Where I breath cool, crisp air. Where I see the bluest of blue skies. Longing for WIDE OPEN spaces. Where I see beauty that speaks to me at every turn.

Have you seen it too?

Home is not where you live but where they understand you. -Christian Morgenstern

I long, as every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself. -Maya Angelou