found photo (idk)

Last night Sammy barked pretty much all night.  He barked himself hoarse.  I kept on thinking surely he will go lay down any minute now, but ... I wound up parking him in his crate and putting a quilt over it around 0400ish ... still he barked.  It's the light rain ... as it falls to the ground, dripping down the leaves, plinking noises of who knows what ... putting him on active alert.   Sammy is asleep now, passed out on the back porch with his belly showing.  Finally the rain became rain.  The sky is grey-white with it.   I haven't looked at the weather yet, but I know here locally we will take a soaking today.  Being awake most of the night (my ear is soppy again too) gave me time to reflect on what I wrote about yesterday.



Maybe I am too tired to feel annoyed this morning.  This morning I just feel grateful that I can get the day started with a cup of delicious coffee.  I can count on that and I realize that most of the planet probably can't.  I could sit right here all day long if I wanted to ... reading about the wonders of our known universe, trying to work out the correct pronunciation for the names of stars, trying to sort out which constellation is where and when I might hope to see it from here.   If I do get out today I will shop for a new shower curtain for the bathroom where I removed the glass sliding doors last week.  The tile and porcelain underneath is refurbished and looking good.  Right now I don't have to worry about the same kind of stuff that a lot of people have to worry about.  Truth is ... we are very blessed.

Soon we will celebrate the birthday of one of my sons ... a son who reminds me of my dad.  He favors him physically,  dark Welsh good looks and mischievous pale blue eyes,  potentially a fortunate roll of the genetic dice.  Good looks can be a curse, but I think this one wears them lightly.  There was a day in his childhood that I smile to remember ... overcast like today ... he and I  stood at the window looking out in to our back yard.  Some birds were bathing in the up turned lid of his sand box and I made a quick dash through the house for my camera.  When I got back for the shot, the birds were long gone and my toddler was sitting, naked as a jaybird, smack dab in the middle of that green saucer with a huge smile on his little baby boy face.  I love that picture.  Maybe he will too some day.  Now he is a man.  I used to scoop him up in a hug, careful not to squeeze him too tight.  Now when he hugs me I feel his strength.  I can look in to his face and see him all the way back to those first few moments.  I was afraid to be a mother.  Somehow he communicated to me that I wasn't going to have to figure it out all by myself.
That's what relationships are to me.  Some I hold close ... some I'm careful not to squeeze too tight ... some I lean into needing to feel strength ... lives overlap and are shared.
I've been thinking about relationships a lot lately ... lately being especially this last year or so.

I paused in my musings this morning to take a call from my brother.  Perfect timing, as usual with him.  He is making the arrangements to move our mom nearer to his home.  She has agreed that it's time.  So ... we discussed that.  We did the follow up talk on something important we were talking about last week ... he apologized for dumping some of his private stuff on me and I said don't worry about it.  I have come to realize this past year that I should have known I could talk to him about some of my own stuff.  Who on the planet loves me and mine more than him and yet might be able to maintain an objective view.  I've needed advice on occasion that he coulda helped me with had I asked.  I would say that he knows my character as well as anyone ... including where the flaws lurk.  Last summer we spent some time together ... out walking and talking ... he is one of my best friends.

What I  realized last night is that spending as much time alone as I  do is encouraging  me to spend too much time thinking about myself.  I think that's a huge mistake.  I've seen how that can evolve to just plain ole selfishness ... where everything revolves around that person.  It's not pretty.  I am very fortunate that I have several important others in my life ... and ... I need to find a place where I can contribute.  I should be praying about that.  I like time alone and the peace and quiet is really good, but I need to be careful not to get side tracked in to fretting about this or that ... it's foolishness really.

I'm trying to figure out how this time in my life can be best spent.  I'm trying to figure out how to be "good" at this ... I can see so much to be thankful for.  That's what I'm reading up on right now, cause I also see a lot of women in situations similar to mine that just get more and more self-centered and less and less "happy".  I see a lot of women like me wasting away, and it doesn't have to be like that I think.

penelopetrunk.com "your family would be better off with a housewife so would mine"  A little article about housewifery statistics

and this excerpt  fromThe Feminine Mystique: Chapter 1 "The Problem that Has No Name" Betty Friedan:
There was much sympathy for the educated housewife. ("Like a two-headed schizophrenic . . . once she wrote a paper on the Graveyard poets; now she writes notes to the milkman. Once she determined the boiling point of sulphuric acid; now she determine s her boiling point with the overdue repairman....The housewife often is reduced to screams and tears.... No one, it seems, is appreciative, least of all herself, of the kind of person she becomes in the process of turning from poetess into shrew.")
...
The problem was also dismissed with drastic solutions no one could take seriously,. (A woman writer proposed in Harper's that women be drafted for compulsory service as nurses' aides and baby-sitters.) And it was smoothed over with the age-old panaceas: "love is their answer," "the only answer is inner help," "the secret of completeness--children," "a private means of intellectual fulfillment," "to cure this toothache of the spirit--the simple formula of handling one's self and one's will over to God."1

Being busy flying airplanes was supposed to leap-frog me over figuring this stuff out! 

Well ... for today ... I traded in my pedicure money for 12 very attractive little clear glass "tastings"or tapas bowls. Already like that choice better. If my family loves what I'm going to serve in these I may go back later for the ceramic ones (cause they can go in the oven for hot tidbits) ... I am planning on preparing a dinner party quality meal at least once a week.  I am a good cook.  What I'm trying to do is step away from the tried and true family favorites towards a culinary adventure ... ummm, slightly less then that, but towards that.   I'm excited about what I'm going to make, and I'm excited about providing a nice surprise.