Wednesday, April 1, 2015

WAPUPS!

Lilian is really in to flowers right now.

I take that back, she's really in to EVERYTHING.

 

Today after finishing dinner I wiped my brow, threw my hand on my hip and took a deep breath.
"There is stuff everywhere."

I spun a slow circle and realized that there was, indeed, stuff. Everywhere. Every surface of our small house was covered in all the things.


I know Lilian needs to get in to things and play and learn but she does not need to get in to the kitchen cabinets, in my opinion. Spices, glass bowls, brown sugar, and cleaning supplies never did a kid good.

I needed a solution and I needed it yesterday so I ran to the Home Depot and got two dowels. I ran the dowels through our cabinet handles. Problemo Solved.

The best part (other than less mess) is that Lilian loves it! Why? Well, see for yourself.




 A place to put her beautiful flowers all in a row.


p.s. Don't worry, I know she'll figure out the dowels soon enough. Well I'm one step ahead of her. You'll see.

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

March 20th

Robert and I are on a reading streak. The genre is non-fiction. Epic. Survival.

First, we read Endurance an account of Shackleton and his crew's Antarctic expedition and their struggle to live with nothing but floating, melting ice flows and fatty seals. Then we got in to Unbroken, the biography of Luis Zamperini, an Olympic athlete turned bombardier who survived a downed plane, weeks at open sea, and lived to tell about being a Japanese prisoner of war. I recently finished Miracle in the Andes, the first hand account of a Rugby team's story of survival and escape from an uninhabitable nightmare after their plane crashed in the Andes. That one was pretty dark on account of the cannibalism. Eeesh. And I just started The Lone Survivor. ...Pretty self-explanatory.




Talk about page turners. 

It's been an experience. Each book was different, each challenge unique, each individual affected differently, but to me each book was the same experience.

First, I'm horrified at what people are put through.
Second, I'm blown away by the resiliency of the human body, mind, and soul.
Third, I wonder if my own body, mind and soul would survive     (fill in the blank)    hardship.
And lastly, I breathe a ginormous sigh of relief when (spoiler alert!) Shackleton reaches humanity, WWII ends, Parrado sees a man across the river, etc. It makes you wriggle down into your nice soft clean bed and love that your belly is full (of NOT your friends) and your fingers aren't frozen.

I have never been through something so traumatic but every year I experience that emotional sigh of relief. Every year I am sucked in to a dreary place, as are we all, where there seems to be no warmth, no sunlight, color, happiness, or hope for better. That place is called Winter. Now, I can't complain, this winter has been mild and, dare I say, magical thanks to a Christmas storm. But after marrying an Arizonian cyclist I see that winter holds next to no happiness (unless you have the time and money to enjoy winter sports. Ain't nobody got time for that.) and it's hard to see him suffer.

Last week Robert opened our front door and just stood for a while on our tiny front porch. He looked around, took a deep breath, let out that sigh of relief that says so much in so little breath, and with all the fervor of a lone survivor whispered, 

"We did it."

Winter is over.