sorry, no picture.
too tired to pick up the camera.
my calcium's not coming up,
so after three days of feeling better
(which after a low, feels like the top of the world)
i'm sitting the trenches again.
but it's not so bad.
i'll be seeing my endo for my quarterly check up in a week or so,
and then he can figure out what's going wrong.
or not.
either way, i have no more answers until then,
just lots and lots of new calcium pills to squeeze in throughout the day.
yippee.

ps: at least my sis is coming today.
she always makes me feel better.

barcelona, 2010
almost all of us.
much better quality in a bigger file.
this is just a peek.

a morning in the life of...

we started out with a little extra dose of love,
which was essential after spending the first half hour of my morning
vacuuming up 3 lbs of mini chocolate chips out of every nook and cranny of my kitchen.
thanks charlie for trying to sneak into my bulk storage,
oh, and for getting up and staying up from 3 to 5 this morning.
but back to the love, check out their toast.
i know, i rock.

and we had our usual dose of semi-nudity.
hey, count yourselves lucky that he has shorts on.
definitely not the norm.

and then we headed out to do what we do best.

cover the entire planet with chalk drawings,
one surface inch at a time.

charlie's finally progressed beyond inciting blind fury in her brother,
by following him around and scribbling on all his masterpieces,
to drawing a few of her own.
that's a girl.
so much less screaming and fewer blood baths this way.

they really get around.
this is their gramma's driveway.
good thing she's a sentimentalist.

even elmer, our lovely portuguese neighbor, got in on the action
and drew us a cow.
and then tried to convince luke that gramma must get really angry when she sees all the drawings,
and wouldn't it be nice to hose them all off.
elmer's a bit of a neat freak.

now and then, munchkins would come over and try to cover my lenses in kisses and fingerprints.
this was taken seconds before she marked her territory on my precious baby lense.
we had words.

and then we ended up in the backyard playing "short circuit" with the old train and farm trucks.
it involved lots of running and shooting and jumping down the slide.

oh, and in case you were wondering about where school went this morning...
no worries, once i realized the kids weren't going to come in on such a glorious morning,
i moved school outside and we made it up to the letter N, continued to work on our numbers
and went over our vowel sounds and kept memorizing our consonant poem.

i don't know if it's the weather,
or the fact that i feel so good after the last two weeks,
but my days have taken on a magical quality lately.
i'll blame it on the breeze.
the wind always makes me happy.

yes, i know, that sexy beast is mine...

nick on his way to brazilian jujitsu
making kung-fu moves
after he drove away five minutes before bedtime,
it occurred to me that he is missing four nights at home this week.
um, who got the raw end of that deal?

just so you know,
in spite of/because of extreme states of exhaustion,
the kids dragged bedtime out by an extra hour and thirty six minutes...
someone's going to owe me big.

it's going to be one of those days...

i feel like someone has driven a icepick into my head, right between my eyeballs.
charlie was like a newborn infant last night.
she moved back and forth between both her bed and ours.
well, actually, i moved her to her bed every hour or so -
and every other hour or so, she would pick the lock on my door with some new tool she's concocted,
and let herself in to cuddle with us.
listen, around 3 this morning, i would totally have caved and could have given a flying crap if she slept with us until she was twenty
(probably still sucking her thumb and cuddling her blankie)
but that wasn't an option.
cause charlie was coming to our bed and then having some sort of creepy night terror-screaming-crying-thing.
sigh.

and it was already going to be a questionable night sleep,
because i didn't go to bed until midnight because i'm trying to get a better grasp on our food budget,
and spent an hour planning a months worth of menus, shopping list to go with it, and coupons to correspond with said list.
i've never been much of a coupon lady,
but when you have month long shopping list and know what you need,
just google a coupon for as many items as possible...
i'll let you know how much i save.
it should be interesting.
just so you know,
still tired and still sporting a symbolic icepick wedged into my skull.
someone might actually be twisting it now.
maybe i'll stop by the hardware store for an unpickable lock on my way to the grocery store.
though, i have yet to see that little girl stymied by any lock.
she can pick anything.
so weird.

oh, and i'm three hours behind on my medicine.
yippee.

it's two in the afternoon and everyone's in their jammies...

what a full morning.
we woke to a crockpot full of steel cut oats, agave nectar and cranberries,
ready and warm.
then a few hours of "stations" and play with Lindsay,
while sue and i firmed up some work.
and then we walked downtown with lindsay,
to bid her adieu and head on over to the airplane,
(an old wwii airlplane retrofitted into a cute little hot dog stand)
we ate and talked and laughed
and headed home on the walking trail,
accompanied by the warm sun and a perfect cooling breeze.
it was one of those "this is why i'm a mom" moments.
and then charlie started limping and i had to piggy back carry her 1/2 a mile home,
while luke and i lectured her about what makes a proper walking shoe.
purple polka dot french shoes do not make the cut.
luke ran up and down the horse side of the trail
and climbed back and forth over the fence a million times
and only slowed down enough to pee on a neighbor's fence.
and when we finally made it home,
we were hot and sweaty and our feet were black.
so into a warm/cool bath they went
and then everyone barely had the energy to get into snugly cool clothes
and make it to the couch to watch harry potter for their quiet time movie.
i'm betting one of them doesn't make it past the thirty minute mark.
and i, who was just barely able to figure out my meds after two days of hellacious lows,
really shouldn't have been carrying 40 pounds of sweaty cute all the way home.
shaking a bit and muscles cramping, i immediately popped a few pills,
and now am waiting.
we'll see, maybe i'll lay down and get some shut eye myself.
all in all, a perfect morning so far.
soul satisfyingly perfect.

alone

i've been on my own since i was legally a child.
i've traveled the world on my own.
i've lived amongst a great big family, all by myself.
alone is my preferred state of being.
i fell in love with and share my life with my darling dearest -
mostly because being with him is like being with myself.
i find this sweet, telling and true.