The Weekend.

We drove out to Maple View Farm on Saturday for some mid-afternoon ice cream.  It was somewhat dreamy.  While dining on ice cream, I discovered that I could sign the children up for a series of farm lessons, on the farm!  My children, may or may not soon find themselves in farm class. 

Henry's about to turn 11, and sometimes I feel like I'm about to cry about that.  Except that he's so helpful and great, so then it just makes me proud.


I'm going to do it.  I'm going to run a marathon before the end of 2010.  I just mapped it out after I came back from my 9-mile run on Saturday.  It won't be my best training ever, but it's possible, and that's all I need right now.  It's been three years, and I need to do it again.  It's time.  On my run, I was trying to aquaint myself with the Avett Brothers, because Darin really wants to take me to their concert for my birthday.  Sometimes I act like I'm not listening to Darin.  And sometimes I don't want him to have better ideas than me.  I'm really mature like that.  You should be jealous.  I'll happily go to the Avett Brother concert with him on my birhtday, it will be beautiful.  Here was my favorite song on Saturday, the title alone is worth something, "Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise".  I love a title that can't quite decide what it wants to be.  That is totally my kind of title.  The lyrics were haunting and lovely, and when accompanied by the talented musicians it's enough to bring a tear to your eye.  Poetry set to music.  That, and it made me want to sign up for piano lessons again:

"When nothing is old, deserved or expected
And your life doesn't change by the man that's elected
If you're loved by someone you're never rejected
Decide what to be and go be it.

There was a dream
One day I could see it
Like a bird in a cage I broke in and demanded that somebody free it
And there was a kid, with a head full of doubt
So I'll scream till I die or until the last of those bad thoughts are finally out"

-The Avett Brothers

I and Love and You (album)

Nothing to say.

Somehow, I just don't feel like there is much to say these days.  I do believe it was Darin who said to me the other day, "Do you somehow feel like the girls going to school was somewhat anti-climatic?"

And I think I agree.  They just trot off to school each and every morning with nary a backwards glance.  They come home at the end of the day all full of exuberance over their activities and lunches, and recess adventures.  And I suppose that means that I've done my job well.  I've gotten my birds to the edge of the nest, all ready to fly when I pushed them out.  Because they really seem to be soaring.

And if you don't mind indulging me for just a moment, I do think these girls are rather easy on the eyes too...

In other news, George is teaching himself to skateboard, and needs more afterschool activities.  It seems I will not get to bank on his vivid imagination to carry us through this back-to-school season.  He seems to have worn himself out of entertaining himself at home through this summer, and he's ready for some Karate, or drawing lessons, or even, I think he'd be happy to even start piano again!  That's when you know he's totally bored.  Poor George, on my list this week, get him another activity.  Scouts on Wednesday is simply not enough to look forward to.

Henry is busy being Henry.  Reading, getting his homework done on the bus ride home to free up his afternoon schedule with more time to do "whatever".  His new 5th grade friends seem to ask him as a first introductory question one-to-another, "do you have a Facebook account".  I have had to hurdle my fear of letting him have any Facebook friends not in our family.  I feel like we are in uncharted waters here, and I will readily admit my fears of inadequacy.  "Please keep him safe, please keep him safe" is a constant prayer in my heart.  Is it too much to ask?

I have finished the Hunger Game trilogy in about two weeks.  All three books.  That was kind of a lot of Hunger Game drama to ingest in such a short period of time.  But I obviously must have found it entertaining that I went ahead and "read" (www.audible.com) all three.

I accepted the call at church to serve as Primary President for the second time in my life, thus far.  How many more times will I be shocked by this calling?  I should have seen it coming, but really?  How could I?  Today was my first day "on the job", and yeah, it's going to keep me busy.  This is by far the largest primary we've ever experienced.

This was also our first full week of all four kids at school, as well as Darin.  But Darin doesn't have classes on Thursday or Friday, so Thursday we were out to breakfast at Elmo's, and Friday we were out to lunch at the Indian buffet at Mint.  We followed both meals up with random in town wandering, a bit of shopping, and visiting a few antique shops.  I've threatened him a few times with couples tennis lessons, but if he'll keep taking me to breakfast and antique stores, I'll hold off on signing us up for the tennis lessons.

We may have overindulged though, as it's nearing 1am and he's still plugging away at the dining room table realizing he should have been doing homework on those days off.  Oops!  I guess I might just have to sign up for tennis lessons alone.

And that's it. It all feels so ordinary and normal, and simultaneously so foreign and bewildering.  How have we gotten here?

I think sometimes of what my dad told me once, about his dream to go to Harvard Law School, which he did.  I forget how old he was when he first formulated his dream, but from that point on, he was pretty singular in his focus to achieve it.  But then he told me how strange it felt once he found himself at Harvard Law School thinking, "well, this is it, this is the end of my dream, I haven't really gone beyond this point".  I had a similar dream about my life, for as long as I can remember, to grow up and make a family.  I think I was pretty singular in my focus to achieve it as well.  All of my actions and choices had my ultimate dream in mind.  And sometimes I have that same sort of thought, "well, I'm here, so now what?!"  There is a constant struggle to make sure we don't just put ourselves into auto-pilot, because everything is good enough.  To stay engaged, to stay focused to push the dream out further and beyond to the next point, so that I keep pushing forward with the same sort of focus and determination as I did to get to this point.  And maybe if I'm brave enough I could even have the audacity to dream for just a little bit more...

So those are my thoughts on this Sunday night when I feel like I've got nothing to say.