I needed a break from some difficult paperwork I’m doing. The financial kind. Ew. So I did two really great things for fun today. I went to the used bookstore with four bags of books, got store credit, and came home with one bag of new-to-us books. And I made this little mandala from flowers in my yard. It took a few minutes. It made me happy.
I don’t have enough website savvy to go dark today in protest of PIPA and SOPA legislation, but I can encourage anyone who happens to stop by here today to oppose it. Go here https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/#utm_source=googlesem&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=signup or here http://americancensorship.org/ to sign petitions to stop internet censorship.
In other news, things are chugging along here at home nicely. While I went to painting class last night and worked on the painting you see above, my fellas all stayed home and had a great evening together. They got out the erector set and built robots and mechanical whirligigs for fun, played with Legos, and read some Winnie the Pooh together. This is made of win-win. My painting isn’t finished so I get to work on it again next Tuesday.
The little dog Solstice is now officially a member of our family. Ian bought him a tag and took down the signs. He has settled in so beautifully it’s really no surprise. He is exceptionally mellow and does a lot of sleeping and snuggling all day and all evening.
But he’s always ready to play and prances about in a very sprightly manner. He doesn’t like to be left home alone so we take him along as often as we can. This morning he bounded into Ian’s car to go to school with the boys. We had to remind him he was staying home with me today.
And this is about as cute as can be. He barks once or twice when someone approaches the front door, and at this moment is lying on the couch grumbling because the yard guys are here. But he greets everyone with great friendliness and seems to be happy here.
I’m working, but not too much. The kids are healthy. I should be planning Asher’s birthday party but so far I’ve not really gotten anywhere with it. He wants a jungle birthday; last year he had a jungle dragon birthday, so I’m not sure what to do differently. Certainly our garden doesn’t look very jungly at this time of year. It’s bare and a little frost burned.
I went looking for some places of peace and quiet around here and this is all I found. There are heaps of laundry to do and Legos all over the place. It’s an endless stream of chores. And while I’ll soon go and do some of them, I feel pretty good about stopping in here to write a bit just the same. Life is good and I get to enjoy it.
We parents are sometimes allowed to sleep until 7:30 a.m. It has been happening more often lately, especially after a particular recent blowup over the unneccessary waking of Daddy at 5:30 a.m., which seems to have made a difference. Some mornings we wake to find our boys peacefully looking at books on the living-room couch. Other mornings we wake to hear them fighting over something that they both want. We were just telling some friends that lately, more often than not, our mornings have been gentler.
This morning, there was too much excitement in the air. Asher marched around the house shouting, “Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Wake UP!” Lucas was a little subtler, quietly saying, “Oh my! Look what the Tomato Fairy has brought us!” He had to repeat it a few times before his sleepy parents clued in.
We came out to the kitchen to find this bounty, this glorious Lughnasadh gift from the Tomato Fairy. (I had no idea there was such a fairy! Imagine my surprise!) There on green and yellow silks rested gorgeous tomatoes from Lucas’s garden, harvested at their peak in the early morning stillness. A little note from the Tomato Fairy reads, “For The Wilson 18 tamatoo.” I’ve never seen anything cuter.
A few of these were eaten with breakfast, then I took the rest outside where the light was better. My little 8-year-old gardener is pleased as punch. Now I’m on the hunt for the perfect dinner recipe for these beauties.
Happy First Fruits!
