Sorry for the accidental elitism..

I have had patchy internet the past two days, and while playing around with some things on my settings I appear to have changed the privacy levels.
Some of you sent emails which reminded me that people actually read this thing. Thanks for that.
My apologies for the abrupt disconnect.

Small Hands

I got this from Daniel. It's great.

Fridays are for wasting time..

I saw this Google game on a blog and decided to play. I typed "Katie is" in the search box and here's what came up. I thought the image search was more fun:

Katie is furious over what she sees as the hijacking of her domain name

Katie is Satan

Katie is just plain cute

Katie is probably packing on the pounds to make it look more real

katie is exactly like joey

Katie is here because mom can no longer take care of her

Katie is magically transported into the painting

Katie is still trying to keep up with her Girl Scout troop and is the vice president of the PTA

There is no remedy for love but to love more~Henri David Thoreau

This morning I was driving with Ginger after dropping Willow off at school, and as we crested a hill we were surrounded by brilliant sparkling light from the rising sun, reflecting off every surface which would allow itself to be reflective..
snow, fence, road, vinyl siding, frosted branch, passing car, metal roof..

And it was ALL made beautiful(in varying degrees, naturally..as far as I'm concerned there is only so much beauty that can be shared by vinyl siding, no matter what) by the prismatic beams of the January sun.

We knew we were seeing something divine on our ordinary commute, and Ginger seemed just as connected to the experience as I was.

For me, love has a similar effect on life's ordinary landscape. It bathes the ordinary with prismatic light, and makes things which were already beautiful all the more brilliant.
As for things that previously sucked the beauty right out of their surroundings like so much vinyl siding..well, they still suck, but have less ability to rob the beauty around them.

I'm learning to be more comfortable with the coexistence of light and darkness(joy and sadness, ease and pain), and as I do I'm becoming more grateful for life; especially the parts that matter most.

I haven't read much Rumi, but intend to change that this year. This thought helped me to take a very deep breath once when I really needed it:

"Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek & find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it."

More than ever in my life, I feel prepared to embrace the challenge of that introspective work.

I recently accepted Daniel's marriage proposal with great happiness, and we are in the process of preparing our home to be filled with the noise of four growing children and LOTS of music. The place is surrounded by trees and close to Lake Michigan..for these and countless other reasons, I'm looking forward to the rest of winter.

Zach Braff is Speechless

Fat Chix Coffee Cantina

This is the best find I've had in a long time. Tiny, colorful, eccentric building that makes you want to stop in and see what's going on..
Inside, the place is really small and filled with an ecclectic mix of interesting textures and trappings. Unlike anyplace else around here, and worth a visit just for the visual experience.
Mary, the owner, is a permanent fixture..and will have you talking the moment you walk in. You sort of feel like you've walked into her world, and she immediately sets about putting you at ease there.
The coffee is very good, and she trusts her customers enough to make the airpots self-serve with a can nearby for payment. That's really rare these days, and endeared the place to me immediately.

The customers, obviously regulars, were warm and welcoming, which is good since they are never more than five feet away from you. My favorite customer was the companion dog who quietly melted my heart with doleful brown eyes. Her owner could tell and invited me to pet her while telling me that the coffee shop pretty much belonged to this dog. That made me smile.

I left with a great cup of coffee feeling like my morning was better for having stopped by. I will definitely be back soon(just not when I'm in a hurry...because conversation is guaranteed).

Preschool Angst

This month Ginger has been having a hard time with preschool .. couldn't figure why she was not liking it, but the mere mention of going would cause her to cry lately.. finally the other day it came out that she doesn't like it because "the rest time is TOO long", and worse, because 'Biff' hits her in the back when the teacher isn't looking and calls her names. grrrr....
We walked into the classroom yesterday morning to be greeted by the sneering voice of Biff yelling from across the room,"I hate your dino hat Ginger!"..(she was wearing this insanely cute green spiked dinosaur hat)..and it took all my restraint not to turn into a dinosaur and roar him around the room..then I remembered that he's four yrs old and that moms can get in trouble for turning into dinosaurs at preschools. And that one day I might find out it's *my* kid terrorizing the class.
So I let the teacher know she was having a hard time and as I was talking to her another mom walked by and said, "yeah! my kid said Biff hits him and calls him stupid too!" and the teacher said she'd keep an eye on it.
At the end of the day a worried/hopeful Katie went to pick up Ginger. We spotted her green dino head over by the tree in the play yard and to my surprise she flew into my arms all smiles, talking about her great day. She paused to cheerily call out, "Bye Biff!"
OK, I thought. This is better.
"So Ginger, did you have fun at school today?", I asked.
"Oh YES! It was just fine! And you know what? Every time that Biff said something mean to me the teachers made him say something nice - so by the end of the day, I had LOTS of compliments."
And she trotted to the car, dino spikes bouncing.