365-33: With a little help from my friends...

Today we had Kindergarten conferences, which meant, among other things, that the elementary school had an early release day. I needed to be there at 1, without kids. Hmm. DS2 gets out at 11:45 on Wednesdays (when there's an early release, it's complicated), and obviously DD doesn't got anywhere. My friend K and I hatched a plan that included her picking up her daughter and DS2 from the nursery school, the older boys would both come to my house on the bus, and she'd come here, we'd feed the kids and hang out.

K was one of my first Littleton friends. Her oldest and my oldest have birthdays about 10 days apart and are similar kids in some ways. She reached out to me during the summer of 2008, before we started at the nursery school and we've been pretty close ever since. She and I, and another friend, were teammates for the triathlon this summer. Today I am feeling grateful for having her in my life. She's a loyal and good friend, someone I can talk to, and count on. I appreciate her humor and her take on life!

365-32: A Moment of Perspective

We headed up to Nashua this morning to do some errands. I had pictures to pick up from our portrait session at Sears, and a little bit of shopping to do. We tend to do low-key present giving so I'm pretty much done with shopping for the boys. I'm feeling really overwhelmed with STUFF right now, so acquiring more STUFF isn't really an enjoyable prospect, to be sure.

On the way home, we encountered the aftermath of this accident. Our traffic was moving fine, but Route 3 was a parking lot going North. We saw the SUV being loaded onto a flatbed tow truck, the front end was completely caved it. It gave me a chill, clearly, it was a bad, bad accident. Tonight, I was thinking about it and looked it up on-line to see what had happened. Reading the description brought me almost too tears.

Life is fragile. Life is precious. While I'm not necessarily a religious person, for some reason, this bible quote* is just echoing in my mind for the families of those men, and for the driver too.

"The LORD bless you and keep you;
The LORD make His face shine upon you, And be gracious to you;
The LORD lift up His countenance upon you, And give you peace."
Number 6:24-26

I held my children a little closer tonight, and I'll give my amazing husband an extra hug and kiss too. And for all in my life whom I love, I hold you close in my heart tonight. Blessed be.

* To be honest, it's echoing in Morgan Freeman's voice as POTUS in Deep Impact

365-31: TJs

Today I am totally grateful for Trader Joe's, especially their tasty holiday treats.

My butt may not be so grateful bit whatever. :-)


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365-30: Kids

This afternoon I took all three of my kids to Trader Joes, and I didn't even have to! We had fun, it was one of the rare occasions where no one whined or got yelled at. It was just...easy and nice.

I am so, so grateful for my children. Baffled at times as to how I ended up a mom to THREE! I try really hard to be present in the moment with them, and my patience is a work in progress, to be sure. But it was so fun to just be with them, enjoying them.


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365-29: lazy day

Today involved many things that I like. Among them included:

• Going back to bed after getting up at 5 with DD (that part I didn't like) and sleeping until almost 9!! It's been YEARS since I've slept that late!!
• Drinking tea with real cream. Yum.
• Reading.
• Waffles for breakfast. Leftovers for lunch. And dinner.
• Another nap this afternoon.
• A walk down to the lake with boys, holding hands and chattering away.
• Putting up the tree and actually being able to put my controlfreak self aside and let the kids decorate it.

It's so rare we get these lovely lazy days, and today I am so thankful for it!!

365-28: Forgiveness

I've been thinking about forgiveness a lot lately, as part of gratitude actually. I'm not sure I can articulate the connection but it does feel like there is one for me. I read a quote from Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair that really struck me last night:

"You have a man you love?" asked Rochester suddenly.

"Yes; but there is much bad air between us. He accused my brother of a crime that I thought unfair to lay upon the shoulders of a dead man; my brother never had a chance to defend himself and the evidence was not strong. I find it hard to forgive."

"What is there to forgive?" demanded Rochester. "Ignore forgive and concentrate on living. Life for you is short; far too short to allow small jealousies to infringe on the happiness which can be yours only for the briefest of times."

I am an intensely loyal person, and I'm coming to understand that one thing I hold on to is pain. Not that I really spend much of my day-to-day life in pain anymore, but rather long after everyone else has left the room, I may still be sitting there saying "but...but...you HURT me."

Today, I am trying to be thankful for the journey I've experienced, as it brought me here, to where I am today and today was a really good day. I had wonderful contact with good friends, I had a fantastic meal with my family (made almost entirely from scratch by husband, by the way, who rocks), I had a lot of energy and go a lot of cleaning and organizing done, and my back was much better. So, like I said, I'm actually really really happy these days, the absolute happiest I've ever been. But thoughts of people I've lost, both dead and alive, to come to me more often than I wish.

This quote seemed really radical to me. Like what if the forgiveness isn't this whole process, what if it's simply letting go. Letting go with...love? Not love exactly, but thanks? Obviously, I need to chew on this some more.

In Traveling Mercies by Annie Lamott, at one point she's with a friend who is dying of cancer, and worrying about whether a dress makes her hips look big, and her friend says something along the lines of "You really don't have that kind of time."

It occurs to me that I really don't have that kind of time either. Not for worrying about whether my hips are too big, or whether the people who have hurt me in the past know it, and care. I'm quite sure they don't, actually, and really, what would it change? I'm happy, here and now. I'm pretty lucky, there's very few people from my past that I wouldn't welcome a hello from, and the others, well, I wish them all the best. Time to let go and move on. There's not enough time to be with the people I love here and now, why continue to worry about small jealousies or forgiveness.

This brings to mind a quote I put up on Facebook the other day, which I've also been reaching for lately.

Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.
Viktor Frankl

And now I have to go lie down because I ate too much pumpkin pie. :)

365-27: Not Quite What We Planned

So, when we last left it, we were still going to try and make it to my hometown for Thanksgiving. Then, while I was folding laundry, I twisted the wrong way and something in my lower back went SPROING and OW. It wasn't quite as terrible as the thing I did a few months ago but it was Not Good. I wasn't feeling too nauseous anymore but a deep pain took over. I was still thinking and scheming about how we might still be able to go, when my DH took DD's temperature because she felt a bit warm before going to bed...and she was at 101. Armpit.

I gave up. I surrendered. Clearly, the Universe did not want us, my parents (who had been planning to come down here instead) or DH's parents (who had been planning to meet us in VT at my folks' house but got sick and cancelled a couple of days ago) driving this weekend and was willing to keep throwing stuff at us until we said OKAY ALRIGHT I GET IT ALREADY!!! So, we made the final call, and I cried. Pain, I will admit, makes me a bit of a baby. It's not that I can't handle it - I've given birth three times. I did 36 hours of hard labor before I got an epidural, I can handle pain, but it does wear at you and I was just so disappointed. I just really wanted to be home.

So, today, instead of driving and being with family, I've been trying to reintroduce food into my system here. DH took the boys off to the park for a couple of hours and I had a couple of hours to play with DD. We have had a completely low-day: no turkey, no stuffing, no delicious sides, no pie. I had plain noodles for dinner, as did DS2 (just because). The others had sauce too. I've spent a lot of time lying still, and my back is definitely feeling better. I'm hoping that tomorrow my belly will be up for a nice dinner, but if it doesn't happen, that's okay. It can happen Saturday. Or not at all.

I am reminded of those lines from How the Grinch Stole Christmas,

"And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice-cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling
How could it be so?
It came without ribbons! It came without tags!
It came without packages boxes, or bags!
And he puzzled and puzzled, till his puzzler was sore.
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before!
"Maybe Christmas," he thought, "doesn't come from a store.
Maybe Christmas… perhaps… means a little bit more."

Maybe Thanksgiving means more than turkey or pie, maybe even more than traveling to be with loved ones that you don't see that often. I think, this year at least, Thanksgiving means basking in that gratitude for all the blessings of my life, enjoying my family and home, and sending out that love into the world.

Knowing how blessed I am makes me want to give back, give more. I'm still not sure how to do it, but it's hard not to feel guilty for all that we have, when so many are hungry, or sad, or alone.

Blessed be, all. Happy Thanksgiving.