Embrace The Suck

I forgot how time consuming it is to chase after a little one. I've missed a few days of blogging about Gracie's visit. Today her mom and "Nemo" got home from their trip to Haiti. Sweet Gracie's face lit up when she saw her mom.  It was amazing to watch! I'll write more tomorrow when the house is quiet. Wishing for you a day full of smiles, Merry ME

"A child can teach an adult three things: to be happy for no reason, to always be busy with something, and to know how to demand with all his might that which he deserves." Paulo Coelho One more stroll around the block before going night night. It feels very important to me to introduce Miss Grace to church.  Perhaps I'm trying to make up for what I didn't do with my own kids, or Gracie's mom.  I'm not going to spend too much time analyzing it. I'll just take her with me whenever the opportunity arises. As with most things, timing is everything. And this morning it worked out just right to get to church on time. She was up,  bottled, cerealed, played with and put back down in time for a quick early morning snooze. Then woke up just as it was time to go.  Yeh, it could be just happenstance, but I think maybe I had a Helping Hand. Grace was not exactly sure what was going on, but quickly found her groove. She sang every song...

Astrologically speaking neither Gracie or her G-Pa were born under a water sign. But don't tell that to G-Pa who has one week to turn his granddaughter into a "water baby." Yesterday after her mom and grandmother headed off on their annual mission trip to Haiti, I left Gracie alone for about 2 seconds. In that amount of time Little Miss Speed Demon had discovered the cat's water bowl, made a b-line to it, and splashed water on the floor. Damn if she didn't try to suck it up.  I know, it's gross. But not so gross that I couldn't snap a picture of it. Later, that same afternoon, I dangled Gracie's feet in the pool to help stave off dinner so she could keep on some semblance of a schedule. I know, seems crazy doesn't it? Whoever heard of a staying on a schedule while vacationing in Florida without your mom?  Well before I knew it, Gracie had worked herself off one step, was standing on the second then went for an all out swim with Sweetie. On...

Waiting for the plane. So serious Mirror, mirror on the wall whose the fairest of them all? Gracie and G-Pa Let me touch that hair on your chin. Say Cheese!

William is a young man at church that I have watched grow from a toddler to semi-adult. He looks and acts pretty grown up but his birth certificate only puts him at age 18.  For as long as I've known William his life's dream was to join the military. My dad used to worry that none of the services would let him be a pilot because of his eyesight. And he worried that William's dream would be for naught.  But overcoming obstacles is the stuff making dreams come true is all about. With a little determination (okay, a lot of determination) William's military dream is just over the horizon, almost close enough to touch. In high school William joined the Navy ROTC. That's when I first noticed how the boy was being shaped into a man. He stood a little straighter. He wore his uniform proudly in drill team competitions. Like his shoes, which glistened, his rifle was always clean and polished.  (Do high schoolers get real rifles?) I'm sure when he was with kids his ow...

Last week Sweetie and I were looking for a car dealership in a part of town we don't often frequent. We passed it on the freeway, took a right and got lost in a maze of condominium complexes, medical offices, and a few strip malls. All separated by walking paths and/or retention ponds.  I couldn't help but notice there were very few trees except for the scraggly new ones planted to take the place of the woodlands that were cut down to make the neighborhood. The buildings all looked alike. And the few people I saw seemed to be clones of each other. 30 something, walking a small dog of the yappy variety.They were undoubtedly either coming from the gym or going to the gym. Since we couldn't find the car place we decided to locate a pizza joint we ate at once and really liked. Again our search proved fruitless. Again we drove through a carbon copy of the other place except there were more shops and even less trees. The more we circled the apartments and condos the more depres...

For awhile this year those in the know weather wise were telling us to conserve water because of the drought we were experiencing, partly due to not having much of a rainy season, and partly because we were low on water reserves from last year.  The good news, at least for the grass and flowers, is that the water table is slowly rising due to all the rain we've had recently. It started with TS Beryl. In the last 72 hours parts of town have had 6-12 inches of rain. And its still coming down. Not realizing it was going to be so wet, Sweetie and I hopped (okay, we didn't really hop, it was more like just opened the door and sat down) in the car to do some errands a few days ago. By the time we got to the store the clouds had opened up, the rain coming down pretty hard. A car in the parking lot attached to a medium-sized boat made me wonder if the driver knew something we didn't. At a stop stop light we could see water had almost filled a drainage ditch - not much draining go...

Sweetie left early this morning to go to a GAL training session in Daytona.  I'm alone in the house except for one brown dog and two black cats who are all sound asleep. In my book this day of solitude is similar to Haily's comet. It doesn't come around that often. I feel quite sure it HAS happened before, but not so often that I can consider it a normal occurrence. Please don't get me wrong. I like having Sweetie around. He pretty much keeps his nose in a book or sits at his computer so it's not like he's disruptive or bothersome. And let's face it, he's pretty darn sweet. But there is just something delicious about having a place to one's own. For a day. Or two. So, you might ask, what am I doing with myself to soak up all this solitude? Have I laid in bed snoozing between chapters in a juicy novel and crunching on chips? Have I dropped Michael Bolton into the CD player and turned up the volume? (Ordinarily, MB wouldn't be my first choice of ...

I've been thinking a lot lately about being creative and how creativity manifests itself in different ways in all of us. In my writing group last night we talked about creating. I would imagine .that like most groups that get together with a joint purpose, we are  no different. But since I don't have a lot of experience in group settings (I'm a lone ranger who lives for positive feedback) this group feels magical to me. It's ironic, I think, that right now I seem to be more comfortable with thinking about creating, than creating itself.  [On another subject but maybe related my head doctor suggested today that I could be stuck in "avoidance" mode. Not sure of what, or of who. Letting go? Making changes? Accepting?  Perhaps by thinking about creating, I'm avoiding actually being creative. I think with my writing there is some truth to that. But that's another story (no pun intended.)] I've heard it said before that we all have a song to sing, or...

I've told you about my friend and writing buddy Amy before. She's a cool lady. Funny, gutsy, and in my opinion, just a little bit crazy.  She'd probably probably prefer the word adventuresome to crazy. The girl who rode her bike across Europe for 6 months alone is the same girl who encourages me to take a leap of faith, mix things up a little, embrace change, get up at 4:30 am to write 300 words, or rent that motor home and drive across the country writing blog posts like I'm the woman's version of Charles Kouralt. Much as I love entertaining some of her wacko ideas, I know I'm just too chicken to actually do them. I think that's why I get such a kick out of watching her do things. Amy shows me a side of life I'd only see on the news, and opens my eyes to what life is like from the perspective of a wheelchair  and how it feels to rely on the kindness of others - sometimes for help into a bathroom stall, sometimes to push her across a sandy beach, somet...

June is here. My niece calls it the month of insanity. For many it is  the beginning of a transition from one grade to another, high school to college, or college to the "real" world. One door closes and another opens full of possibility, hopes and dreams.  Adrian DeMeza, 18, was one of those high schoolers. A senior at Stanton College Prep in Jacksonville, Adrian had been accepted at Florida State University where he planned to study biology/pre-med. But Adrian won't be decked out  in his cap and gown, smiling, waving and strutting to strains of pomp and circumstance. Instead, he was buried this afternoon, leaving a big family and a host of friends to wonder what went wrong. Adrian took his own life on Wednesday. I don't know Adrian, would have missed even hearing about his death, except that a school mate told the small congregation that met at church for mid-week services.  One of the reasons I don't read the paper anymore is because the number of children(...