Running Stitch

Moo: Is Dad coming home tonight?
Mom: Nope he is on a trip
Moo: I miss Dad when he is not home
Mom: (all in love with her son and tearing up) I miss him too when he is gone, I sure like Dad.
Moo: Yeah, I miss Dad, but I miss his iphone more……..

*Don’t Worry, Be Happy by Bobby McFerrin

The First Day of First Grade, it came. Even with all my feet dragging and belly aching. Even with him waking up at least three times that I’m aware of to check and see if it was in fact time to get up.

Oh look…it’s raining.

I have yet to decide if it is more difficult so sew patches on by hand or by machine. By hand, you get all the great breaking of pins and needles and the blood. Don’t forget the blood! Of course with the machine you have the running over of your thumb or finger as you try to shove the whole back pack through the machine.

The jury is still out, but the patches by gosh by golly are on the backpack!

It wasn’t until he got home from school that I realized his pants were on backwards…..

Let me be your song-Jim Henson (Fraggle Rock)

The journey to jam, as it were,

starts here. On a rainy summer day. The last day, in fact of summer vacation. Our heroes head out to grasp the last moment of freedom before the big yellow bus come calling, and carts them away for 8 hours each day. Eight. Hours! Here in the Pacific Northwest, we do not let a piddly little rain storm sidetrack our plans for the day.

Because, here in the Pacific Northwest, we have rain gear, no matter our age.

Although admittedly, too young to carry a bucket, or walk. Nevertheless Seymour played a key role in the Journey. The Elfkin woodland baby creature role. It’s a real role.

His role is to eat as many Blueberries as possible including the ones that accidentally fall in his bucket while he is busy plucking others from the Magic trees.

Seriously the coolest place on Earth. I could live here. All the while we plucked blueberries and called back and forth to each other, counting children I dreamed of a blueberry labyrinth and a canopy of my own where I could pluck my favorite berry from the ceiling.

Then after stripping down the very damp children and mama’s we headed home to process the berries. 19pints worth of blueberry jam. Check.

Summer vacation in a jar. Or is it summer rain?

Summer Rain- Belinda Carlisle

Today I got up with the alarm but couldn’t for the life of me remember why I had set it. The outside was dark and rainy. And what day is it anyway?

Monday. The last Monday of summer. Come Wednesday morning I’ll have to rouse my 6 1/2 (SIX AND HALF! I’M SIX AND HALF NOW!) year old and send him off on the big yellow bus to the first grade.

I could tell this morning that the weather knew. Summer is ending! Here comes the fall, with her colors and her rain! Her pumpkins, and her parties.

The fair is over, our chickens are enroute to new homes. Our fish tank is one more fish full. Hello Cutie.

The summer flew by and now I’m on the brink of sending off my guy to ALL DAY SCHOOL. “This is almost my last lunch with you” he said with a serious nod of his head, today at the table “and tomorrow will be my last”.

I have always loved the fall. The leaves, the rain, the wind that brings that crispness down the road. The apples, the blackberries, the rows of canned goods in the pantry, the squash still on the vine waiting to be made into soup, bread, pie.

And yet, this year I’m clinging to the last days, hours of this summer, before….before? Before they head off on their own journeys, which I’m happy and sad for. Quiet days stretch ahead when I will wonder why I ever complained about someone’s elbow in my ribcage, toes on my leg while I’m eating.

Quiet days when I’ll sit and remember what it was like to listen to two boys talk on their ‘foot phones’ to each other in the back of the un air conditioned car.

*Welcome-Phil Collins (Brother Bear) eh.

One day last week. We headed home from The East Coast. The day started at 5am EST /2am Pacific. A series of hijinks later, including a Thunderstorm (in other states, rain bothers people, it’s weird) a car accident (not us thankfully) we found ourselves not on our scheduled flight home.

We hunkered down in the Food Court of the Airport, for six hours. IT ROCKED! Hi! Have you met my four year old? Oh he is in your lap? Oh he is eating your lunch? Oh? Hi!

Four year olds in general are so low energy that they are easy to contain in a situation where the adults are a little bit cranky, and everyone else is in a very big hurry! Must get over there! Must. Get. Over. There.

So anyway. Our flight, the later one, and then the connection (oh how I hate connections) and then finally the landing in Seattle. And the pick up at the airport! And…oh whoops. We lost one.

Eighteen hours into our trip, he just couldn’t take it anymore. See how he is still in the car seat position? The Best Part about this? Is hoy boy! We still have a three hour drive home. Yahoo!

It was rather a long day. Just shy of a 24 hour trip. (Or a three hour tour). We pulled into the Burrow at 11:30pm Pacific (2:30am EST). We arrived home, a half hour before our Tenth Anniversary.

Ten Years, they tell me is a milestone. He says “wow, it doesn’t seem that long” and I say “wow, we have alot of teeth, between the too of us…seriously look..teeth everywhere.

But seriously. Ten years, married to your best friend? Is good. It’s really good. But I think the best thing I can tell you is after sleeping a very long time, last Thursday, I woke up. And laying next to me was, well my four year old, but on the other side of him? Was that tall drink of water I married ten years ago.

I won’t say our marriage is easy, because though it feels easy, I believe that is because neither of us are afraid of work. We know, marriage is work. Not the hard kind, but work, nonetheless.

I work every day at being a mom, and a wife. Not because I have to. But because I want to.

We have been lucky, he and I. Very,very lucky. And we know it. And at the end of the day, even if that day, is very very long, and spent in a car that is not moving, then frustrated at an airport,with two small boys, in a plane, with two small boys, in an airport, with two small boys,in another plane, with two small boys, in a car, with two small boys, another car…..

I want to be stuck with him. Cliche, but true. He is my rock, I am never afraid when he is near, because of him I find it within me to the hard things. He is the one that sets me straight, the one that encourages me to believe in myself and the person I want to talk to first in the morning and last at night.

Seriously….teeth, a lot of them.

*Say Hey (I love you)-Michael Franki and Spearhead

All good things must come to an end. Sadly. As we pack our bags and head to the airport I can safely say that the beach is still my most favorite place to visit.

To recap..

Philadelphia

Great Grandma taken by Moo

Eyes.

A boat.

The seashore

*Just Keep Swimming-Dory, Finding Nemo

Every parent has a life journey plan for their child. Right?! The things you must teach them so that they will excell in ‘Life’. My plan includes minature golf.

It is my summer vacation legacy. That I am honor bound to pass along to my children.

They even had an old friend at this course!

Why it’s a bad idea to stand under and elephant? We’ll work on that next summer.

*Summer Lovin-Grease

Usually as the days dwindle on the Jersey Shore, and the Burrow beckons from across the country, I feel ready, Trembly almost, to get on, get going, get on back to that snuggly log cabin alongside the creek.

And while the blackberries call out for jammin’ and the plum tree entreats me to come! quickly! home. To grab up the last of those plums before they plummet to Earth. I find myself, dragging my feet, in the sand.

I came to this thought suddenly one day, watching the waves crash on the shore. Why didn’t I feel that need to pack my bags and run home, refreshed as usual form the sea air. And the process of getting the Burrow ready to sell, popped into my brain. I realized how stressful the whole not really moving but readying the house for moving was for me. I’m a comfort girl, I like routine and schedules. I don’t like the limbo of getting the house ready. Emotionally I’ve started to distance myself from the Burrow and that is hard, especially while living there.

The thing about the beach, is that sand is everywhere it gets into everything and so though I am one to always take a book or a project everywhere with me, just in case, I can risk those things at the beach and I find that I sit quietly on the sand and actually think. And relax.

And I realized that instead of mourning The Burrow before it’s time. I need to enjoy these last few months? Years? There, on our sheltered road, where the temperature is always 10 degrees colder than anywhere else in town, where the blackberries are two weeks behind. The road where we live…

I find I’d like to linger..
Dream a little Dream(of me)-Bing Crosby

Running Log
Tuesday: Run 10 min on 5min off (40 min)
Wednesday: Yoga 1.5 hours

Inspired by Monday’s run I laced up and headed out Tuesday, as usual first few minutes were heavy and painful, but the second ten minutes I got my groove on, decided to push the ten minutes to fifteen. Tripped, fell down, lay on the ground for awhile. got up and walked home. Twisted my back a little. This getting old is for the birds.

Wednesday my whole right side throbbed from my fall, I went to Yoga (last day, sad) and felt like a million bucks afterwards. Yoga. Good. The Ground. Hard.

I gave up on running this week as I continue to have weird back pain at night, only at night. I feel fine during the day although my left heel is feeling a little bruised. Mostly I have continued to stretch and try to remember that I’m on vacation, and injuring myself should not be part of the plan..

*Summer Breeze-Seals and Crofts