life around here...

is just downright odd sometimes...and sometimes it's just downright normal...

depends on the day...

today is just a normal day...i think...i'll let you know how it all pans out...so far, the 100 year old neighbor came to ask me to pick up his mail, then came back under the auspices of bringing me something from his wife's garden, but judging from the look on his face and where his eyes traveled, he was probably over again just to check to see if i put on a bra yet...and much to his delight, i'm sure, i had not...

oh, and wingman said my feet smell like brownies...

we have completed the first week of a brand new school year...

wingman can almost write his whole name and i have a science experiment involving the intentional growing of mold in my kitchen cabinet...

the duke has informed me he would like to learn how to fence and collect stamps...this along with homeschooling and chess club should make him an instant hit with the ladies...

on the heels of a "how lucky are we" evening with the lord of the ring, i have to say i am lucky...

lucky in my life in so many ways, but especially lucky to be doing what i want...and, despite the shrieking you may hear when calling my house, being home with these boys is just about the best...it really is...

sure, i complain and gritch...who wouldn't! (plus there's way more comedic value in complaining than gushing)...but in all honesty, i wouldn't have it any other way...

it's funny, by taking on the added responsibility and time commitment that attachment parenting and homeschooling and the like brings, i have actually freed up myself...no longer do i have this anxiety about *what i'm doing* or *where i'm at*...because i'm doing it...and i'm enjoying it...well, hell, i could do without the constant housework!...but you get the idea...

and it's not an excuse not to be in the *real world* (will someone PLEASE tell me what that is!)...it's just a conscious decision to be here...and to enjoy what the day brings...

bah, this is becoming more *journal entry* than i would like so i will cut it short...well, shorter...

but before i go i will leave you with this little tidbit on just how good life around here is...

yesterday for our anniversary, the lord of the ring came home with this ridiculously awful card for me...i mean big and pinky purple ribbony violins dressed in bows awful...and if you only knew what the golden words so artfully scripted throughout said!...it's the kind of card you call friends just to read it aloud to!...really, that bad...

and we are laughing at the card and the lord of the ring explains that all the cards to choose from were really really bad...so what does he do?...

"i figured i would choose the worst of the lot...because i knew you would like it the best"

and there you have it...it is very simple, but speaks volumes...to have someone beside you who knows you so well, who knows that it truly is the little things, then what more could you want?...a couple of healthy kids, some good friends, family...what more could you possibly want???...

the lord of the ring standing in a store and deliberately choosing that card for me based only on it's horribleness and the happiness that horribleness would bring me, is a far bigger statement of his love for me and a far better present than anything else he could have brought me...because more than a present, that card was a gift...

the gift of true love...the gift of knowing that yea, this is it...who i truly am is truly known and *gotten* by another...that the leap made so long ago wasn't such a leap...that we knew it all along...

so, dear readers, on this day i wish for you all the best...may your love be true and your endings be happy...and if it just isn't happening, move on and make up the ending yourself...

because when push comes to shove, the horse lying more lifeless than before, and hell starts freezing over just about the time the camel takes a dive, all the shit that can and does happen between first kisses and last rites, all you've really got is you...and if you don't love yourself and better yet, like yourself, then it's all for naught...

trust me on this...i've been to hell in a handbasket more times than i care to think about...and the only reason this trip is so fabulous, no hot spots in sight, is because i finally learned that a pilgrimage doesn't have to have a destination, only intent...and that you may not know where you are going until you get there...and that's okay...sometimes even preferable...

and, after all these years i have finally learned how to choose my traveling companions...and realized that in the end, half the journey was in learning how to travel with myself...

x.