7 Takes Friday

Okay, so it isn't Friday and I'm late on this but I'm still trying to commit to adding this to my regular blogging schedule.


1. We're on day 36 and counting of Lent. What's lovely is to notice little moments when the temptation to fall into old habits, the ones we fight against, get resisted. What is discouraging is the five minutes later when we sometimes succumb.

2. This weekend, we're going on a date; out to dinner. Why? Our son has a date. We figure, his social life shouldn't be better than ours.

3. Watching the Olympics, it's hard not to feel like somehow, one's life at 43 is unremarkable. I haven't scaled a mountain or opened a school or saved the whales or seen a whale or honed my body to battle the elements and win. So today, in a triumph of woman over nature, I went down the sled run we made in the front yard three times and did ten push ups. Look for me in London in 2014.  (Note, I didn't say anything about the Olympics, but I hope to get there before then...on my book tour).  As long as we're dreaming, why not?

4. Wrote a few pieces and submitted. Right now, the rejection fairy has been beating my articles with a stick but writing is the triumph of hope over experience so two articles went out to seek their fortune this weekend.

5. Wishing my parents a happy anniversary. Their model of marriage in good times and bad, rich and poor, for better and worse, in health and in sickness is exactly what real love and devotion means; it inspires, it deepens with time and it is beautiful.

6. Taught my seven year old a bit of piano and recognized of all my children, she has the fierce heart to put everything into anything she does. Nothing comes easy to her, but nothing stops her either. She practices beyond what people ask and she cares deeply about whatever it is she chooses to do.

7. With nine children, every day you look back and wonder what you could have done better, who you could have done more with, what you should have said or not said, and you worry that you haven't done enough or said enough or been there enough because there are so many. But when you get a call from the high school telling you that your daughter's essay was beautiful; and what's more, it was about you, it's hard to do anything but sigh, melt and thank God you didn't screw up too much so far.