A Good Place to Be

 

All week I've been wanting to check in here. Not because I have anything big to report, but just to capture the everyday joy moments...and they are everyday. I finally made it on the last day of the week smack dab in the middle of July...in the middle of summer. This is the sweet spot where we realize these days won't last forever so we make them last as long as we can. We're all going in a myriad of different directions, yet somehow we're making it work. Last night I picked Ted up from the train and after he recounted his several day work retreat, he opined: I can't remember the last day I didn't have something to do. Multiple things to do. Yep, welcome to adulting kid. And to having a job in Chicago, a girlfriend in Madison and a triathlon in your near future. I'm still the mom and I would've pulled the you're living in my house card, but he finally acquiesced that going for a solo swim at dusk in Lake Michigan was not going to happen. Oh, and there was also a severe weather warning. Instead I cooked us steaks and we watched Golden Buzzer videos on YouTube and I'd say we both would say it was a good night.

Lily went golfing and then to a party when she got back at 10 o'clock. Mike came home from The Harley 120th festivities. Last night was Green Day and he said quite good. More than anything he is jonesing to be face to face with colleagues. All of this work from home isolation, and Teams and Zoom contact are going to be at an unfavorable human cost. Ted went to bed so we cued up Game of Thrones, which my guy is watching for the second time as I enjoy my first. Lily got home at 3 o'clock because... 10 o'clock, and now the house is slowly waking up for a new day. Me and my girl Hazel are today's earliest risers. Notice I did not say early.

This weekend will be a little livelier than last because...full house. The kids are back from great summer trips. Teddy spent a week lakelifing it on Lake Erie with Meryl and her family, and Lily fell in love with New England. Next stop is Webb Lake, but we'll take our time getting there because... be.here.now. Here is a good place to be.

It's impromptu trips to the Farmer's Market with my parents and then a post haul happy hour on a nearby patio. It's baby zucchini so sweet and tender that make the perfectly summery soup for a week night girl's dinner with mother daughter friends. It's saying yes to a last minute invite to bbq on my brother and sil's patio on a beautiful Saturday night. It's cold rose, ice cream cake, hummingbirds on my feeder and baby bunnies on my walk. It's flowers and flip flops and fun. It's a full house...messier than I like, but I'm learning to live with it. It's light until late and fireflies after dark. It's country music, card games and the casual cadence that marks these days. It's space buns, salads, cold showers and seeing the sunrise. It's watermelon margaritas, dirty shirleys and Moscow mules. It's hearing the camaraderie of the neighborhood kids, the roar of bands of Harleys, the roll of distant thunder and at long last the pounding rain.