Friday - alien robot outer space Momo OR...we start 'em early. Sammy rowing. After which he said, "I'm having good strength?"; like someone trying to learn English...
Saturday - "I might be a little tiny bit tired"
Sunday - Saying goodbye to Grandma and Grandpa...see you next year!
Monday - We have a pheasant harem that lives in the lot next to us. Sunday morning I looked out the window and noticed the male REALLY close to our fence - closer than he usually gets. I looked down a little more and noticed the hen "stuck" INSIDE our fence. Pacing. Unable to figure a way out. I had Isaac go open the door because I was afraid she would get her head stuck in the railings trying to get out. It seemed to work. The opening door immediately caused both to fly back to the nest!
Tuesday - Deep freckles "taking over" Sammy's sweet face. If anything, I would wish him a lifetime of no freckles...
I never thought I was a gifts-oriented person, but it turns out that I kinda am. Who knew? Not me for the past 37 years...
I've been floating through life assuming that 'things' from the special people in my life didn't matter. It was thoughts and time that really mattered to me. But then I started this entire purging of things, thing, and I realized I was wrong. Yesterday I stumbled onto this gem: This is me and my friend, Lynn, May 1992. Her graduation. Fun, no? I kinda miss my No Shame posts. But I digress...
I sat, cleaning out my chest, and stumbled onto picture after picture and letter and cards by the handful. Some of them I knew by heart, they'd been read so many times. I found letters I wrote to Isaac while we were dating and first married. I found cards from my ex and from college boyfriends. I found stacks of things from college. From high school. And I realized something. Holding these things, actually having tangible 'things' WAS important to me. It proved I lived, was loved. A tangible history that trumps memory. While it reinforced MY memory, it was also a stack of things I can use to tell the stories of my life. How I was feeling that night in 1992, the last time I saw Lynn in the flesh (which, we discussed yesterday, is a CRYING shame). How I thought that outfit was just the best, even if it was a rayon one piece skort worn with white nylons...
While digging through the box of memories, I discovered, oddly, I have few things from Isaac. Call it my 'advancing age', but that has begun to bother me. I have a few things (books, mostly) and some cards (not nearly enough, in my opinion - especially of the hand written variety). It's not that I never get things from Isaac, but I rarely get the simple - meaningful - things. The 'just because' things. Not that it's bad, it's just not who my husband is. Heaven knows he does and gives so much for me and our family and I love that, but...I really did make peace with who he is long ago. Or so I thought. However, after a few weeks of having this bumping around in my brain, I stumbled onto a necklace on Etsy, a locket, that I loved. I forwarded the link to Isaac and waited. And then remembered who I married and sent a second email. In it I told him I would very much want one of the lockets - his choice - from him. One that spoke to him specifically about me. So he did. Picked a BEAUTIFUL locket and ordered it. I absolutely love it. I wear it nearly everyday and it's reinforced this premise I've been working on:
Should something - HEAVEN FORBID - happen, I know I have the love and the memories. But I also want something to fidget with. Something small and from the heart to hang on to when things get tough. I want the small, but meaningful. I'm not big on the grand and the big, the expensive. What I want are the things that people see that remind them of me. Apparently I need those in my life. Who knew? Even if you have to manage how they show up, sometimes.
I need to escape. For longer than an extended bathroom break. I fear if I don't, I may go crazy. I remember a friend in San Diego, shortly after we had Sammy, describing what it would be like when it would just be us at home alone together before school started. The past couple of weeks, all I can hear ringing in my ears is her voice. Her voice of warning. Of horror as she harkened back to those days in her own life.
I can't take the following me everywhere. I can't take the talking. OH FOR THE LOVE the talking that doesn't stop. The potty humor. The mimicking. If you could have seen me yesterday, around 2 pm, you would have seen a grown, 37 year old woman, ON HER KNEES, in the middle of the hallway, begging her child with threat of head explosion (hers), to just go. For a little while. And play on his own, in his room. Please. To just let me be, for a second.
But the problem is? I need more. I crave more. I need a break. It really sucks there are no vacation days for moms. It.REALLY.Sucks.
*Community paintball episodes. May they live long.
*The rain. And the crazy hot/cold mixed up weather in general. But that's most likely because the warm is outweighing the cold, now.
*Figuring out New York. Trying to decide if this is worth the money or if we should just bag a show. Listing page after page of places to eat and see and do. Dreaming of the Fluevog store. And Kate Spade. And...
*The first farmer's market salad of the season. It made my heart happy.
My parents were here this weekend for my nephew's wedding. They stayed with us, which was lovely. Especially for Sammy. He absolutely loved having the grandparents stay. He told EVERYONE he encountered, whether known or not, that his Grandma and Grandpa, "the ones from New Mexico, not the ones from Idaho" were coming to visit. He was so proud. And it was lovely for him to remember them a little more, instead of just through my words and the pictures we have.
There is so much I would love to say about this weekend, but can't, family dynamics being, well, family dynamics. I will say this, however. My parents seem older, but I chalk that up to me actually feeling older. And at one point during their stay, I turned to my brother and said, in full ear shot of my dad, "I sometimes wonder who's kid I really am". I think, at that point, the conversation was centering around guns and hunting and country music. I was only slightly kidding. If the familial resemblance wasn't so blatant, I would wonder more. I seem so different from them and my siblings most of the time, it's a little humorous. But, then, my mom and I got into a conversation about whole foods and eating locally and I felt the balance right itself a little. Whew. The wedding itself was beautiful. And the weather was actually gorgeous for it.
Last night we had our friends, Lora and Dave, over for dinner. Soup, salad and the best brownies I've ever had in my life. I knew a girl named Jane, once, when I lived in Provo, who gave me the recipe. As I was flipping through recipes last week, it was discovered that in the 12 years we'd been married, I'd never made them from Isaac. Which is a crying shame. So we rectified that yesterday. And 'made' Dave and Lora join us in the evil (butter, 4 eggs and 2 bags of chips - one chocolate and one butterscotch...eeep!). It was lovely to just sit and talk to Lora, though. I am blessed with the best of girlfriends.
Saturday, we picked up 100 strawberry starts from a neighbor of my sister. 100, people. And I had every intention of spreading them out, outside this morning to stay until we can get them planted on Friday, but it started raining yesterday and has yet to stop. Sigh. Hopefully they will hang on until we can get the first garden boxes up and the starts transferred in. And then? So many strawberries in the years to come. Yippee!
Today I need to straighten a little and start my new book club book (The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton). And start figuring out a rough timeline for our upcoming vacation. These are the to dos I'm happy to tackle.
