On My Mind Monday

Sometimes the littlest things take up the most room in your
heart.
Winnie the Pooh

Scenes From The Weekend

Grateful Friday

Today I give thanks for...

Air conditioning, authenticity, accelerated math and foreign accents. (I'm intrigued by the accent of Little Bee's narrator.)
Boys so excited to play ball. To give it their all...their best.
Carpooling, chicken drummies, Camp Grandma, concerts coming up, cheering sections and cheddar aged to perfection.
Dates...to play, to swim, for the movies or for dinner, and dropping dew points.
Eleven: 11 fantastic boys on the team.
Fireflies, freezy pops, French tablecloths and frosted mini wheats with fresh fruit especially blueberries and nectarines.
Grandparents who come to cheer on the team even if it means long drives in the heat and humidity. Good luck charms, goodness and grace.
Heatwaves only because I'm reminded of why I don't loathe the long winter. Hospitality, honesty and humble hearts too.
Iced tea, imaginations, ideas, individuality and ice cream.
Jewelry. The gift of a new pair of earrings in the mail for me yesterday.
Kindness, kinship and kismet.
Librairies where I get me my books for free. Lakes where we can cool off.
Mosquito repellant, memoirs and memories.
Nice people. New friends.
Owls. Old friends.
People who say please and pardon me. Playing hooky...both kids did at least twice this week.
Quintessential summer days and nights. Quiet, quirkiness and the word quince.
Rain.
Seven days of no video games, slushies, swimming, sleep, shade, scaredy cats and sugar snap peas especially with pancetta, romano and a bright lemon vinaigrette.
Team spirit.
Uniforms even if they always are waiting to be laundered again.
Vacation...1 month until we are lakeside. Victory, Vintage hair clips, vim and vigor.
We made it through the week. Five days of work for me...3 baseball games and counting. The team won 17-10 lastnight and now face the #1 team tonite. Walks in the early morning, wishes and wisdom.
X-tra money in my paycheck since I've been working more hours this stretch.
Youth.
Zest and zeal.

Winning

The Lowdown

Reading...

Christina Haag’s, Come to the Edge. The voyeur in me is enjoying this memoir, but I’m finding it more tragic and sad than romantic and captivating. Clearly since she never made the name for herself she hoped for as an actress, she didn’t get the prince or the prize. Is it really telling that John John liked to live on the edge…every edge?

Thoreau’s travel itinerary, Cape Cod. I’m hopelessly nostalgic for the beach vacation we had last summer.

The Paris Wife, Crossing to Safety and Cutting For Stone are all in cue.

Watching...

The Bachelorette although I cannot say I am much of an Ashley fan. I do like Constantine and Ben. My money is on Ben, but I think Constantine is better suited for the wannabe bride.

The news which is 9/10 weather and did you know it’s Dante’s inferno outdoors? I guess it’s better than recounts of fiscal disaster and non-guilty verdicts for murderous mothers.

Best of all baseball. Lastnight the team pulled off the victory they needed to advance to the next round!! Well...at 11-2 I'd say they more than pulled it off. T. Bone pitched 5 innings of the game and he threw 50 pitches. I expect the MLB scouts to be calling any day now.

Listening To...

Little Bee while I walk. I’m loving the words, the wit and the humor woven in with the raw tenderness and brutal reality. It’s wonderfully written, and smartly told.

Rickie Lee Jones’ first two albums which I will hear her play live in 8 days from my seat in the front row.

97.3 The Brew which means everything sounds alike whether it’s Bruno Mars, Black Eyed Peas, Adele, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Adam Lambert or Taio Cruz, yet my kids can differentiate.

Eating

Often too late and not as healthy as I like thanks to summer spontaneity and more specifically baseball.

Lots of summer fruits like nectarines, plums, cherries and green grapes.

Too much cheese.

Fresh picked produce from my Aunt’s garden and kindly shared with us.

Ice cream for dinner.

Feeling...

Like I wish there were more minutes in an hour, hours in a day, days in a week and weeks in the summer.

Just a little guilty for taking reading breaks in front of the fan that turn into literal cat naps instead of whittling away my to do lists.

A little anxious about our north woods vacation since it will be our first without my mom. I know I’m going to miss her terribly in a whole new way.

Dreaming...

About my Mom. A little over a week ago I had a dream of her that didn’t feel like a dream at all. It was at daybreak and I was coming in and out of sleep. I turned to see her smiling beside me and she looked like her best self radiating beauty and happiness. I caught my breath and asked if she was really here..if this was real. She came to hug me and as we wrapped our arms around each other she said, “It’s me. I’m here. I’m always here and this is real.” I woke up suddenly and wiped a single tear of joy from my cheek. I could still smell her and I felt euphoric as well as completely at peace. It’s taken me this long to put the experience into words.

Of what it would be like to pack up and take off to spend the whole summer in a beach front cottage on the Cape.

Of where we’ll go next year.

Of enough time to read all the books I want to and visit all the places I yearn to see.

Doing...

Reading as much as I can, writing a little, thinking a lot.

Looking for resolve, finding some peace and making my own happiness.

Taking time, making time, not forsaking time.

Soaking up summer and sitting with the sunshine.

Shotgun

After the game on Sunday, T. Bone opted to ride home with me instead of his Dad...the coach. We traveled side by side in silence for a few miles before I asked him if he chose to ride with me so he didn't have to talk about the loss. He looked at me out of the corner of his eye clearly not sure how he should answer so I prodded, "It's OK." He then admitted, "Yeah, I guess so. How did you know?" I assured him that moms just know...it's our job. He grinned and then his bright blue eyes turned brighter yet as he asked, "Did you see that throw I made from home to second? It was a laser!" "I sure did, but barely it was that fast," I told him. "Moms see everything," I added. His eyes softened as I suspect he realized that I'm not just any fair weather fan...I'm an ardent , all weather aficianado. Always will be.

two day pass

the word of the weekend was baseball without a single doubt.
the days and nights revolved around this good old, all american pastime we love so much.
our team was victorious friday and should have been sunday as well.
if only we'd remembered the lucky lanyard...if only the ump would have worn his glasses...if only one of the better players hadn't been pulled from the game at a critical time due to over-hydration...if only we'd had fewer errors and a better groomed field.
t. bone may have had his best game ever...his best game yet...friday.
now the team just has to win under the lights tomorrow and should.
no pressure at all.
whatever the outcome...it's been fun and i'm proud of all the boys - big and bigger.

after much time spent on fields, in dug outs and in the stands, there was plenty more summer goodness to be gotten.
always...always time with family and friends.
friends new and old.
enjoying sugar snap peas straight from my aunt's amazing garden and fresh-picked lettuce so soft and sweet it's hard to believe it's good for you.
and a pig roast even if we opted for the less identifiable and equally as tasty roasted chicken.
my girl ate 3 whole chicken drummies lickety split!
time for reading, walking and talking, and swimming.

the weekend ended with a splash in my in-laws pool.
the water was as warm as the air.
that'd be 95 burning hot degrees.
what can i say...we're in the middle of a wave here.
yet we had fun playing marco polo, having diving competitions and keep away.

the van was unusually quiet during the ride home.
t. bone and miss bit were zapped from the activity and the heat.
the littles surprisingly refrained from a game of i spy as we passed many a field full of life on the way home at twilight.
all i could see were fireflies flickering and then fading away...
just like the last two days.