Cooking is more fun than playing with toys...

Tonight Finley helped me prepare dinner, chopping up cilantro with our handheld (child safer) food choppper, pouring in ingredients and mixing things with me in the kitchen. As he stood on the chair at the counter next to me he said with delight, "Cooking is more fun than playing with toys!" We agreed that cooking is like playing with food as the toy. It made me smile and I wanted to remember that moment always.

A little glimpse into our life: Tonight the kids were so adorable running over to Todd when he got home. He sat down on the floor by the kitchen with them and they both sat on his lap and Finley told him all about events from the day. Later, after dinner Evelyn brought books over to him and crawled into his lap for him to read to her.

A while back I was in a foul mood and the day hadn't gone so well. Todd was late getting home and I was really needing him to be home to relieve me from my self-pitying. When he came in the door I pounced on him with all sorts of demands and resentment. I'm sure he wanted to walk right back out and go get fast food somewhere by himself and eat it in peace and quiet. Afterwards we talked about it and how unwelcoming and selfish it had been. I vowed never to do that to him again, no matter HOW bad my day had been. I think I've kept to that pretty well. Now, our routine is to greet him when he comes home with "Daddy's home! Hooray!" The kids love it and they run over to him. Even Evelyn does it now and is trying to say "dada" and waves when he comes home. With the risk of sounding like some kind of Leave It To Beaver idealism, those are some sweet moments in our lives. Our lives are far from perfect, but I think of everything going on in the world, where families are torn apart by violence and war, economic demands, refugee situations from political and social upheaval. We have a little slice of heaven to be sure.

This picture was from last Christmas. Another year rushing by...

September 11th Tribute to Love

I can't help acknowledge today's infamous date and yet also its bright happiness as my nephew, Blake's birthday. I thought I'd share a favorite poem about love and music; the two things that transcend tragedy and loss in profound ways. Here's to life and making it worth living!


Nightclub
By Billy Collins (of course!)
From his Sailing Around the Room: New and Selected Poems

You are so beautiful and I am a fool
to be in love with you
is a theme that keeps coming up
in songs and poems.
There seems to be no room for variation.
I have never heard anyone sing
I am so beautiful
and you are a fool to be in love with me,
even though this notion has surely
crossed the minds of women and men alike.
You are so beautiful, too bad you are a fool
is another one you don't hear.
Or, you are a fool to consider me beautiful.
That one you will never hear, guaranteed.

For no particular reason this afternoon
I am listening to Johnny Hartman
whose dark voice can curl around
the concepts of love, beauty, and foolishness
like no one else's can.
It feels like smoke curling up from a cigarette
someone left burning on a baby grand piano
around three o'clock in the morning;
smoke that billows up into the bright lights
while out there in the darkness
some of the beautiful fools have gathered
around little tables to listen,
some with their eyes closed,
others leaning forward into the music
as if it were holding them up,
or twirling the loose ice in a glass,
slipping by degrees into a rhythmic dream.
Yes, there is all this foolish beauty,
borne beyond midnight,
that has no desire to go home,
especially now when everyone in the room
is watching the large man with the tenor sax
that hangs from his neck like a golden fish.
He moves forward to the edge of the stage
and hands the instrument down to me
and nods that I should play.
So I put the mouthpiece to my lips
and blow into it with all my living breath.
We are all so foolish,
my long bebop solo begins by saying,
so damn foolish
we have become beautiful without even knowing it.

Harvesting Our Crop of Italian Prunes

We've been watching our plum trees as the fruit's been ripening. A few green ones falling off the past few weeks and now the ones falling are dark purple, burnished with that wonderful iris and periwinkle blue. This afternoon we decided we better pick some before the birds got all of them. We got out our old ladder and I held it while Finley picked all the prunes he could reach. Evelyn watched in awe from the ground, since I wouldn't let her climb the ladder. I wish I had taken a picture of Evelyn, a plum in each hand, juice dripping down her front all over her little green onesie.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Happy 75th Birthday Mom! We enjoyed a little birthday celebration last Sunday for Mom's birthday at Emily and Rogers. For her birthday on Saturday two of my brothers and their wives went to a Mariners game with Mom and Dad.

Evelyn enjoys a roll on the floor in her Hawaiian dress that Todd brought her from his business trip to Hawaii.

My niece, Jennifer, serving up birthday cake for Mom!

Finley and Todd enjoying dairy/egg/wheat free chocolate fudge cake for Mom's 75th birthday at Emily and Roger's home.

A Dip in the Snoqualmie River, August 16th

Saturday, August 16 was a HOT one, in the 90's so we headed to Olalla State Park off of I-90 to cool off in the Snoqualmie River. It was wonderful. Finley played with his boats, tied to a kite string so they wouldn't drift away and Evelyn loving all the rocks to sit on.














Snoqualmie River, view from Olalla State Park off Interstate 90.