Wakeup Call

Every morning, whether I’m up early and sitting in front of my laptop, bleary-eyed and trying to form coherent sentences between gulps of coffee, or hiding under the covers trying to catch a few more minutes of blessed sleep, I’m listening with one ear. One moment there is utter silence coming through the monitor from the girls’ room, the next moment there is full-on chatter, often accompanied by laughter. How do they do this? Go from loose-limbed sleep to wide awake exuberance in 0.5 seconds. It’s baffling. That explosion of noise is my alarm clock, pulling me from bed to get the day started.

Our mornings in Kenya started much the same way. Our apartment building didn’t look like much when you drove up; six apartments on three levels with at least one of the garages used as a home for a seventh family. However, walk out onto the back porch and you entered an expansive shared and manicured yard that bled into a wild jungle, at least that’s how it felt for us kids. Towering jacaranda trees, bougainvillea vines, exotic flowers, and thickets of bushes made it a play paradise for us. What solidified the belief that we were, indeed living next to a jungle, regardless of the fact that we were in the middle of a city of one million people, was our group of morning visitors. A troop of monkeys.

Backyard Jungle Paradise

Each morning we could hear them coming, shouts of morning enthusiasm heralding their arrival before they finally descended to our yard, the fig tree a perfect snacking spot in their morning tour of the city. For twenty minutes they ate, hooted, and hollered outside our windows and then, at some unknown signal, they swung out, jumping from tree to tree, on to their next destination until they came back around the next morning.

Purple Therapy

As part of my recent retail therapy I picked these up.  I thought they were fun, and practical!

Turns out they are absolutely mesmerizing to the two small ones I live with. They CANNOT stop talking about my purple shoes, watching carefully and providing complete commentary every time I put them on.

Choose Wisely

Pardon the lack of posts, its a combination of a bunch of life stuff that culminated in me choosing, in the midst of ABSOLUTE RAGE, not to throw my laptop out the window and, instead, drive to Best Buy and get some "genius" from the Geek Squad to fix it for me instead.

I pride myself on my self-control.

I came very, very close to throwing self-control right out the window too.

I did a little retail therapy instead and am hopeful that my pretty new purse that isn't ripped to shreds on the inside will help remind me of the merits of making good choices - with self-control though perhaps not the credit card...

*meanwhile I'm using my old ancient laptop, which is actually a step up at this point so I guess they can keep it as long as they want and maybe I'll meet my deadline!

Day of Love

May your day be filled with love.

Peaceful Gray

Taking a trip to the ocean is good for the soul, especially one feeling a little battered and bruised.  The cool breeze that blows away cobwebs, the cleansing mist, the crash of the waves that muffles the worry in your head and settles your heart to its natural beat.

 

 

 

And then there are the rocks. The massive edifices that I remember from childhood and still stand unmoved through all of the storms, wind, and rain. Of course, not even massive rocks are impervious to the battering the receive. And, if I compared photos I'm sure I'd see the changes, the whittling away of a side, the slow opening of an archway, the carving where the wind has spiraled over and over. It makes them more interesting and more appealing, those scars that speak of strength and perseverance.





The Heart is a Scary Thing

I thought I'd do a little decorating for Valentines. Something cute and sweet...

I was too scary though. We had to take it down after about 20 minutes.

This coming from The Princess who once had a giant skeleton on her wall for months...

The torture of waiting for the inevitable

I know that the actual flu is horrible, but waiting for the inevitable has its own kind of torture...

One down, one inescapable fall, and me just hoping it waits until next week is over because I have way too much on my schedule! (I'm leaving Steve out of the count - he has his own immune system issues that I just try to ignore. I know, I'm heartless.)

More torture to come.