Gratitude 25, Take Me Out to the Ballgame

Today I am grateful for: The fact that even though baseball really is quite boring and even though our seats were way up in the gods and even though he did not understand at all what was going on, M really did enjoy his very first baseball game today. We cheered when they stole bases, [...]

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Gratitude 24, The Misadventures of E2

Today I am grateful for: The fact that when E2 fell off backwards off a kitchen chair today, and landed with a great thud flat on her back and the back of her head, and then would not stop crying and couldn’t be consoled no matter what we did, it was only because she had [...]

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Gratitude 23

Today I am grateful for: A day at home to recuperate, forced indoors by stormy weather. An evening stroll as a family, up to town for a quick drink. E1 using a ‘big girl toilet’ at the pub, listening carefully to every instruction I gave her and doing so well at it, and wearing a [...]

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Hunting on the Edge of Impossible

When the realtor and I finished our hot and humid day of househunting, and I poured myself a cold glass of water and sat down alone in the quiet house, I felt so disheartened and down that when M got home and immediately asked me what was the matter, I couldn’t put it into words [...]

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Gratitude 22

Today I am grateful for: That when the realtor and I ran back out of a house that I had chosen to view without realising it was a foreclosure, after having been completely freaked out by the blood red walls and ceiling in the living room, the incredibly rancid smell, and the canopy of cobwebs [...]

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Gratitude 21, Summer Nights and Fireflies

Today I am grateful for: The fact that my husband kept his good humour even though he was shattered from work, red from the sun, and near keeling over with hunger, and came out and looked at two open houses with me as soon as he got home from work That when I realised what [...]

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Gratitude 20, Small Things to Big

Today I am grateful for: The first lightning bugs I have seen this summer… this year… these fifteen years. I was at my mother’s friend’s house tonight, standing alone on the patio with a glass of wine, relishing the peace of a twilight garden whilst a dozen ladies chatted loudly in the house behind me, [...]

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Lost in a Television Wilderness

“American television sucks!” M announced the other night and I can understand what he means. Every night we flick through the channels but find nothing we want to watch. He ends up settling finally on some movie on cable that he’s seen three times already and I go off to do some chores or surf [...]

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Gratitude 19

Today I am grateful for: The fourth day in a row of thunderstorms — gentle, rolling, growling, grey storms that just say summer to me in a way I haven’t experienced in 15 years. That I am able to feed my daughters really wonderful healthy food.  Tonight E1 had lentils and basmati rice, mixed with [...]

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Gratitude 18

Today I am grateful for: The fact that when the pain came back, it was fairly mild. I don’t know what I ate that brought it on but my reminder, while effective, was not too difficult to endure. That my husband, after spending most of Thursday and Friday down a 15′ ditch replacing an damaged [...]

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