Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened…..

Oh, Dr. Suess, I love you.  And I love this quote.  I was reminded of it today as I was helping pack up a good friend’s house as she begins a new journey.  This afternoon was spent with dear friends who are more like family, wine, stories, laughs and hugs.  Putting someone’s whole life and history into the back of a U-Haul makes you take inventory yourself somehow.

One of the things I realized while cleaning cabinets and talking was that sometimes we do not SEE what is right in front of us.  When we put our heads down and are just getting by ourselves, we are missing gifts and glories that could be received from so many others.  My dear friend who we were packing up today has been here for years, but, as so many things are, was possibly taken for granted by me.  She is a light and a love and to spend time with her is to come away feeling lighter and brighter.  But again, the head down, move forward, self focused place we inhabit sometimes does not allow for the connections we need.  And connections we need indeed.

I am so excited for my friend.  This will be a great move and I know that success and happiness will follow in her wake.  But it is a lesson for me that my life is only partly mine.  My life also belongs to those I chose to share it with.  And I hope to choose wisely.  I have been so blessed, lucky, lightning struck, whatever you chose to call it, with the people inhabiting my circle.  True friends, true love, truth.

So, Paula H., I will be with you in love and in spirit, I will be sending my heart and my hope along with you and I will be smiling for the times we had and breathing for the times to come.  Xxoo

Technically Day Forty Two since it is 1:22 in the morning!  So tired, long day, Mark’s first football game, I’ll catch you all up tomorrow (or technically today).

Smiling and snoring (it’s a type of breathing) xoxo

All good days should start like this:

Include some of this:

Lots of this:

Even a little this:

And deep breaths and widening smiles xxo

Oh today was a good day!  It started with the three mile loop my friend Suzi and I have been doing several times a week this summer.  I am going to miss those walks when school is back in and she heads back to work.  I have really loved our morning walks and talks!  Then I got to have lunch with another amazing woman, JJ, at our local bar, sitting in the sun on the patio.  I’ve missed having time to slow down and discuss matters that really matter these last few years.  I am encouraged and emboldened by these women 🙂

Then it was home to pack up for Zip’s cabin.  Aaron and I were on the road by 2 and pulled into the driveway of Zip’s by 4.  The first thing we noticed when we were unloading  the car was a huge number of butterflies all around the front porch of the cabin.  I have been in butterfly gardens in zoos and such before and this was just about the same.  They were landing on our shirts, our heads, our hands….it was truly magical and totally unexpected (as all good magic is).

After communing with the butterflies for a while, we set up a card table on the front porch and played Uno.  The cabin guests before us left us a beautiful bouquet of fresh wildflowers which we kept on the table near us.  After Uno, we crossed the creek to explore the woods and found a ring of stones in the ground.  What a perfect place to make a fairy garden.  So using plants and sticks we decorated up the little ring and made sure to note it in the cabin guest book so the next occupants could go find it.

We spent the evening working a puzzle and then slid into bed around 11.  There is nothing better than the quiet that comes from leaving “civilization” behind.  True dark at night.  True quiet in the house.  True smiles and true breaths.  Xxoo

Gotta love the Gap!  Today on a whim I decided to see if there were any forest service cabins available for Labor Day weekend.  Usually these need to be reserved at least six months in advance, but I was hoping that perhaps the smoke had scared a few people off of their plans.

I looked up my favorite place to be, Zip’s Cabin by Marias Pass and lo and behold, it was available not for Labor Day, but for tomorrow and Thursday night!!  Incredible :). These cabins are usually impossible to get and there it was waiting for me.  So after thinking about it for about two seconds I went ahead and booked it.  I get to spend the next two nights in one of my favorite spots on earth!

One of my favorite spots on earth with no internet service… so again, I am going dark.  I’ll be back on Friday for a quick catch up and then we are off to see Mark’s first football game of the season.  Smiling and breathing and so flippin’ happy xxoo

Simple.  I have been thinking of that word a lot today.  I love the word simple.  It is a concept which I seem to strive for in my life.  I want simple days.  I want a simple house.  I treasure simple joys.  But even while striving for simplicity, life can get complex.

It is that time of year.  A time when it feels like everything I will have to do in the entire school year is happening all in seven days.  There are football pictures to order, senior pictures to schedule, school supplies to buy, dentist appointments to attend, parent meetings to sit through, booster kickoffs to cheer at, and so on and so forth.  So I drag out my trusty calendar (the old fashioned paper kind) and I pencil in and cross out and list and log.

As I lean into this Gap year, I am more aware of events and situations that cause me to become uncomfortable or cause me to want to shut down.  In the past, I have always been able to attribute being “tired” or “overwhelmed” to the fact that I was working full time.  I would think that when these cluster bombs of busy times occurred they were too much to take because I was short on time and exhausted from my job.

But now, stripping away that excuse, I find that I am feeling almost the same about trying to get everything done.  I wouldn’t say I’m overwhelmed this year, but I certainly do not feel like I am breezing through this time with zero stress.  So what this is telling me is that this stress, this feeling of pressure, is an internal reaction instead of an external cause.

Aaaaannnnd…good to know, but what do I do with that?!  Learning truths about yourself and your personality is great and all, but does it help anything?  I guess knowing that internal pressure is just a truth of me can give me some relief.  It is apparently just the way I am wired.  But why find out you are wired that way without being able to ease your way out.

I really do not have an answer to that.  But as the days get busier maybe all I can do is simplify where I can.  Eat better, ride my bike, read when I get a moment and get some good restful sleep.  Maybe knowing that I am internally rough on myself will cause me to be externally easy on myself.  Maybe a little balance, breath and smiles are what I need xxoo

So we are now entering the time of smokey skies that begs the question “What else can we do inside?”.  Today I went to a movie (I went to one yesterday, too), Aaron went to the bowling alley, we have watched hours of the Little League World Series and paced the living room.  I could deal with a little smoke.  Wouldn’t slow me down in the least.  I would still be tubing rivers and hiking trails.  But this is some apocalyptic shit.  The mountains we are surrounded by are invisible to us now and there is a thin layer of ash on our cars.

So we will have to get creative.  In a small town, small valley for that matter, options are limited.  There are no arcades, no Dave & Buster’s, no Chuck E. Cheese, no Main Event.  We have a mall (kinda) but it is only stores, not a large mall like in metro areas.  I swear, the last time I went to a mall in Austin I think I dropped $50 with all the activities they have in them now.  There is a trampoline place in Kalispell, 10 miles down the road, but I don’t think they have air conditioning and usually have the large garage door open lest we all melt from the heat of sweaty, little bodies flying through the air.

We haven’t hit the indoor pool yet at our fitness center, so that may be on tap for tomorrow.  I also have to grocery shop, so walking around the store will fill some time.  But I’m tired of being cooped up.  Dare I say it?  I’m crabby!  Trying not to be, but crabby all the same.  And I know I am being silly.  We are safe from losing our house, my husband is not on the front lines fighting these blazes and in the large scheme of things we are talking about a couple of smokey weeks.

I think what I will do to improve my attitude tonight is sink into my tub with a  book and a beer, realize that in the measure of life this is only a blip and smile and breathe.  The reason I always finish these posts with those words are that when needing to get a lift for whatever reason, I point my eyes skyward and smile while inhaling.  And even if it is just for a split second, when I do this, I have a moment of joy.  A lift of heart.  So I will be looking upward a lot tonight and smiling as I do, while inhaling and focusing on the fact that it will all blow over eventually xxoo

Photos from my friend Paula H.  Same spot, different view