hiking list

trekking poles
Tilley hat
dry clothes
buff
get rain shoes today
backpack
trail mix
waters
equipment check


Today I am grateful for a list and ability.

attempting to avoid challenge turns into we can do this

The fear is that first cave. You have to go through it in order to stay on trail, and I don't know if I can take my backpack off, turn sideways, possibly laying on my right arm, and push myself with my feet through what was a very tight space eleven years and countless infinity pounds ago.

He says, "That will be the best. Do it. Get stuck. I hope the rescue is televised."

Today I am grateful to know that surely there is a way to get off trail and get back on.
They say face your fears. I say, then climb over them. But can I even do that?

what's new, pussycat?

Today I am grateful for my brother.

annual ritual recordings

I have two recordings of the same song because I am just going to force people to do things and I should feel bad about that because don't they have lives to live. Yes.

But then he came over and we listened to this.


Today I am grateful for more than five, less than twenty and all I've ever needed.

smug

At first glance it's just an old crazy woman who has found a place to sit and rest across from some dogs locked up because they got too big. It's like they've begged her to say something, and she's always looking for someone to beg her to say something so she kindly wishes that they will have a good day but doesn't even really know what that means.



On the other hand, what a bitch. She just sits on the outside of the cages in some smug, never missed a feed that face, telling us what? What did she just say?

Have a good day?
We have each other?

Gee. Thanks.



Today I am grateful for two reasons to go to town, the talk of a walk, her chicken call, a blanket, a coon, what felt like a reprieve.

home sweet black bottom pie home

This is my most royal blue piece of clothing. It even has a hood in case it's raining. He's not wearing socks, and she has a stain on her shirt. We're three river rats held up in a fancy saloon, and there's talk of next week's trip. I take a photo of him walking in, a confident strut.

If you can climb those mountains, you don't have any problem walking in here. The last time I saw him his back was turned. "That was a long drive," he admits.

"Oh you're telling me. I drove home past that."

"It was painful."

"Yeah. It was just so good to get home."

"You know they're selling that house."



Today I am grateful to understand the simplest nature of markets and people.
Last night our home was the restaurant we were sitting in.

what if what no can't

The smallest of things can make you giggle like a girl, not the least of which is a man who can write.
The most of which is a man who can make you stop writing because that's how good.


Or not.
but.

what if what no can't is how that one goes. and it's perfect.


Today I am grateful for a fellow writer. a parent. a husband. a friend with whom I share a soundtrack and a history and whose life and wife I now love.

dinner plans

It is only slight disappointment when he chose something which I did not choose for him. He lives his life and I pretend that being my age makes me an expert at something but I don't think it does and he's smart enough to know better. I didn't know that any of this was coming. Computers, cell phones, art shows, the kid getting older, the moving,


remember when it was just us,
and we listened to music.
Or I listened to it and forced it on you.



I am grateful for that music and you.

want to

There are warm cookies in her office but I miss the chance because I go home to rest. That loss is a good one. And it's possible that every day is another day of pushing past a loss of you didn't think you could breathe. There are obviously no answers here.

But last night she pushed past some fears and into bleachers and in front of people and there she was doing the best she could. It was good.

Today I am grateful for a kid with a camera and a want to.

push day is not a holiday

Her birthday. Her death day. All in one day which is no different than living with her and without her any other day last year. Let's just call this one a push. It's push day.



Today I am grateful to know teachers, who are/will never not remain as remarkable women.

a walk with a friend, the evolution of a day

He is scared. "Do I need to bring a gun?"

"A gun? Do we think we will cross the Vantasner Danger Meridian?"

"I heard it had been already crossed twice."

"I think it will be alright."

"You can't be sure."

"Never. Of anything. It's just a walk."


I am grateful for a walk, a dinner, his family, my family, and some Vitamin D.

irony

Today I am grateful for a cloudy day of games and a midnight filled with music.

picnic

So grapes maybe. bananas. fruit, water.
Glass bottled Yoo Hoo.
Animal crackers with icing on them.
Thin carrots with a dip.
We'll sit in the stands and cheer for them.


Today I am grateful for clouds and kids.

there's a heart there

awesome it will be. he says.
it already is. I think.


Today I am grateful for a guy who writes no problem with two exclamation marks, a group of morning people, and another late start.

Happy Love Day, a day early

I think I'm supposed to say something about Valentine's Day and it's frustrating and crazy and who has time to acknowledge one single day which is supposed to be every single one of the days. We're never not to love except I have threatened to punch someone in the hysterectomy a few times this week. And that's not nice and there's been less sleep and a date cancellation and I get to go to a class and sit through three of them.

In four hours and twenty-eight minutes we will celebrate love, but for whatever lucky star I am sleeping under I got to party with it a day early. I am so very grateful for that.

rainy Tuesday

Today I am grateful for a ride and a game.

a long walk

Today I am grateful for a long walk and a comfortable talk of cloudy days and parents and children. There are people who bring calm to this world. May I always give them what they need from me.

science Saturday

She almost got me thrown in jail and it was my fault. There's just something about sunshine on a Saturday to a girl who needs her Vitamin D and has to deal with movie stars and learn about horse poop, roots, ants, and sugar ants. At one point she had three walking sticks and still only two hands.

When the sun is shining you gotta make plans to ride with the windows down and the sunroof open. Play the theme song to her sister's season and make sure she hasn't climbed out of her seatbelt and has her head hanging out the window. 'Cause at that point you could get stopped and the guy who stops you may have to be like me and try to hold back the laughter when those kids are guilty. Her hair all wild on her head looking up at him with a left sided glance. We got off with a warning but she'll probably look back on that day as an obvious set up.


Today I am grateful for the sun, 57 degrees, and a bunch of wild kids.

pranking back when you could

The house is a mess of a mark of a week which feels like a blur. So many said that. But now it's a five forty-two in a still, dark home of a heater working. Quiet hum and then not. Then you can hear the refrigerator running. And let me age myself here.

Kim and I would make prank phone calls to people. We never considered that the phone was all the way across the house attached to the wall and then it could be that the person we were calling was having to get up from a couch or desk or wipe their hands from washing dishes. We never thought about that. We just thought we were hilarious when we would dial a random number is our county's yellow phone book. We'd pick a town, place our index finger in the plastic hole, push clockwise, and listen as the dial turned back.

Life was slower then. It seems to be getting faster now.


Whoever it was, we never knew, would finally answer that phone and sometimes admittedly in an elderly voice, but we were ten years old. A thirty year old was elderly to us.

"Hello?" in the whatever is old to you voice you can imagine.

"Hey. Is your refrigerator running?"

"Is my refrigerator running?" The voice may seem younger and stronger now.

"Yes. Is your refrigerator running?"

"Yes, my refrigerator is running. What business is that of yours?"

"Well you better go catch it." I'd look at Kim and she'd look into my eyes and know that we weren't pranking anymore that day.


Today I am grateful to consider how sometimes I'm just not all that funny.

good day

She is the voice of the car tonight.
When I tell her that, she, as the car, replies, "You're such a dweeb."
That word came back, people.
Dweeb is a really amazing person now.
I know that's what she means.
We're going on a Valentine date to Jackson.
It's an adventure.




Also spending a day with little inside jokes of you know what that laughter was and he just writes those little pushes to start your day. A theme, if you will. It's a fairy tale without ever even having to be near a guy which I mean I don't know what I would do but it's also nice just as it is. I'm fine if it stays like this, but it is nice to play and he hasn't said stop or no or ohgoodgosh.




I just know that when we went to lunch seven months ago, something changed in me. He should have to take no responsibility for such change. I just sat there, mouth open, drool creeping over my bottom lip, wheezing from all the smoking I had been doing and watched. He asked,

"Do you mind if I ask for my food to be blessed?"

"Oh please, go right ahead."


Oh, honey. 
I did not close my eyes; I didn't even care about mine.
I just wanted to watch that man ask something of God.
He closed his eyes and bowed his head and dang.
It was beautiful, and I should be ashamed of myself.



Today I am grateful for shame.
It kept me from driving to New Orleans in a week I was already not sleeping.

list for the wilderness

In the photo I send him there is a daddy and a son,
and I would swear that's me and him planning an adventure,
but it's not us.

What's the temperature going to be? How many days? How much food? Footwear? I remember plenty of water there. It was beautiful. Now we'll be back ten years later like some type of my mother forced herself into our ten year class reunion.



Today I am grateful for a call, a book, a life of massive plenty, and a back that hurts so that I'll get out of my seat and start running. I'm grateful for a day without envelopes. I'm grateful for a plan to walk out into the woods.

quotable quotes of keep it simple, stupid list for yours truly

It's that middle of the week he said thanks we shook hands she smiled we laughed and Jason threatened to throat punch me again. I told him that I felt as if I had been put in a time out in a corner where I had to write I will not talk out of turn again for 5,000 times.

He smiled, "Nah. You know I just give you a hard time. But seriously, thank you."

My teams won. Your teams won. Just for a moment we are all winning.
Everyone is still alive, right?
This day can be short, right?

Today I need to make a list of all the articles and emails and stories and photos and videos and interviews and praying they'll make it and how in the world are we going to get this done? I am grateful someone said don't worry and stop acting like you're the only one with something to do or feel around here.

Play some music.
Publish those photos from last week.
Say good morning.
Put on your headphones.
Get to work.

we have reached zero so now we start

We have reached zero so now we start.

making the money

It's an intrusive announcement, this changes will be made.
Feels like a punishment for something bad I did.
Like you are not bringing in any money.
What ad have you sold lately?
If you're going to be part of this company, we got some things we need to talk about.

I do wonder what it will look like when I get up one morning and the whole world has changed, though I try to stay as consistent as possible. I understand. We need it.



Today I am grateful for some inconsistency, for some laughter, the workout buddies who were wonderfully bad for me, a back porch, and the fact that she won $500 off the $10 she borrowed from me.

maybe I'm not so good at honors leadership papers

It's a leadership paper. 500 words. 2 pages. I mean seriously. Writer? I don't think, but I thought maybe I could give him some insight on his honors leadership paper. It was about his philosophy but aren't we the same. Poor guy. Seriously.


I think I threatened his life several times yesterday afternoon. I cussed like a fool, and he laughed and smirked and it took us 3 hours to construct, develop, create, and whatever other synonym the internet could find.



I am grateful for that kid. He is a good guy.

last night's football game

The last time I watched one of these things Young was passing to Rice while Smith and Sanders made me love and hate the Cowboys at the same time. He was a Redskins fan and didn't so much like that I was for the 49ers in that game. But last night was not about football. It was about seeing two ladies who I don't ever see.

With a kitchen of making groceries and how do you say pecan and he made his own t-shirt last night. I have no idea who won or if Jeep took the commercial race.

But I do know that he flew as close as New Orleans, and I didn't attempt to make the drive to see him. But he didn't ask. And I am too old for the crushing that young man could give me.

I was already invited to a feast. If only he could have been there with me.

Mr. Leon walked by my plate and said, "Well help yourself."

"I did. Thank you," I laughed.

Today I am grateful for the invitation.

it's him

The show is Patriot on Amazon.

I told the kid, "You have to see it."

"How many episodes before I know?"

"I'm saying the first. It's the writer, the photography, the guy, the characters are.   they're just so beautiful. It's just gorgeous."

"Okay."

Today I am grateful for a ridiculous but then again lovely, so lovely way to spend an hour each morning until I run out of episodes and have to wait however long they make me to see him again.

afternoon spray - not for kids, this blog

I have been trying to figure out why people don't like T.I.
He's harsh. He's tough. He's smart. He's a writer, and I do like this song.



But the CD cover I was going to send you was from a show I'm watching.

Good game.
Good music.
Good show.


I am grateful for that look on that kid's face, yours, the horses, the feed, the conversation, and I'll be okay if you leave. Sometimes it just feels like you are a required guest. But right now I have him.

And the month of February. Walk, bitch. (that's the T.I. in me)

daddy time

It's dark. Me and the cat are carrying apples cut into quarters. Pasture is empty, but he said there was feed in the barn. Just gotta get there and pour half a bucket apiece into their feed pails to feel good about yourself. Oh forget it. Just feed the dang horses.


A girl needs her daddy. Today I am grateful for mine.