Time For Change

I’m to that point. The point where I start rearranging furniture like a madwoman, hoping it will satisfy my cravings that have a very real possibility of turning violent if not addressed. And I’m not gentle with my poor furniture either. I think maybe it’s because I hate it. I totally destroyed my file cabinet that has been on the brink of destruction for years now. I don’t know why I’ve been babying it. It’s just a piece of junk. In fact, it’s such a piece of junk that once I took the drawers out to move it, the top disconnected from the sides and they all just fell outward. In slow motion. I didn’t even try to stop them. I watched them and then I took what still somehow stuck together and I ripped with all my might. Wood splintered and screws went flying. Then I hauled it all out to the curb in one load and threw it on the ground. I would even go so far as to say that I hucked it. I hucked it so hard that the lady two houses down who happened to be taking out her garbage at the same time looked up at me in alarm.

Then I moved the couches.

Then I broke my back moving the piano.

Then I moved pictures around, putting the ones I’m really sick of in places where I won’t have to look at them so much.

Then for good measure, I switched the curtains in the family room with the ones in our bedroom.

I don’t know if it worked though. I still hate everything. I mean I really, really, really hate everything.

And just when I’m good and ready to wallow, this happens:

Singing this:

Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be this hard
Oh, take me back to the start

Dang it.

The Great White Snow Day

We woke up Friday morning to this:

With no work or school for anyone in our entire household, we slept in, had a nice banana, chocolate-chip pancake breakfast, bundled ourselves up and headed to the local neighborhood park. See that slope on the far side of the park? That’s where we were headed, with about 200 of our closest friends.

We passed a trash can, overflowing with make-do sled attempts of those who had gone before us.

We headed up the “hill” with our blow-up swimming pool toys, in our Converse and Sunday boots.

Thus began a super duper fun day.

We found some of the cutest people in the world on this great, white snow day.

I love the Texas winter clothing

And the Texas sleds. Not to brag or anything, but mine worked waaaaay better than the girl’s behind me.

Two things I love about this picture: The look of utter delight on my nephew and his daddy’s face and the bare legs and tennis shoes with no socks in the upper left corner.

Baby, it was cold outside.

What an absolutely spectacular couple of days. What a way to spend the day of the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics. My kids had never seen anything like it in their entire lives. And they may never again. We got a record 12 inches in 24 hours! Luckily, our household was not one of the hundreds of thousands who lost power. But we did experience a little damage, just like the rest of the city. There are trees down everywhere. In the seventeen years I’ve lived here and experienced countless spring storms with damaging winds, I’ve never seen as many trees down as I have in the last couple days. And they went down with no wind at all. Just a little bit of white stuff. Wimps.

And now, our back patio has been raining for two days straight. It’s not raining anywhere else in the city. Just on our back patio as the snow melts and has dripped a solid rain off of our roof for 48 hours now. Snowmen all over the city are falling over and dying. And boy, does the grass look nasty as the beautiful white goodness vanishes and reveals what was under there all along.

Sigh.

It sure was fun while it lasted. And I believe Spring just might be extra beautiful this year…..

Happy Whiteness, from our family to yours!

(To see all 170 of the ridiculous amount of white pictures we got, click here)

Snowball Fight!

Grace was the first one home from school and she built herself a little cute Grace-man, all by herself. She wanted no help and wouldn’t let us see until she was done.

When Sadie got home, we all came out

And things went crazy from this point

Jacob even got in on it

Maya enjoyed watching from the porch

We let to Togo in on the action. He went absolutely berzerk. He moved so fast, I couldn’t get an unblurry picture of him.

Then we saw Callie and her friends pull up, so we “hid” so we could pummel them.

They pummeled back

Well, some of them did anyway. Callie fights like a girl.

My camera started to get really wet, but I just kept shooting through the water

Come to think of it, Bethany fights like a girl too…

Yep – they’re all girls.

At some point, Callie went down and she just laid there.

And laid there…

…until she got cold enough to take some action. Boy, was my lens wet by this point.

And somehow, in the midst of it all, we built a Mrs. Frosty

I know this is a lot of pictures. But twelve inches in 24 hours! In Dallas! It’s amazingly, breathtakingly beautiful. And school is cancelled. And we’re soaking up as much of it as we can. Even though we have no good coats or gloves or boots.

Next up: Sledding on cookie sheets.

The Ride to School a la Sadie

I drove. Sadie rode shotgun while shooting. Callie ate toast and banana and coffee in the back. Grace talked about building a snowman after school in the other back. Sarah Brightman sang Pie Jesu to us while we marveled at the beauty.

Winter Hope

It’s eleven-thirty pm and I head to bed. I wake up at one, two, three, four-thirty and five. At five, I decide that I am not going to the office this morning. I’ll take the kids to school, then come back and work at home. That decision feels good. I fall back asleep. At six-thirty I get up, wake up my littlest and then go out and make sausage and coffee and turn on Good Morning America. It sure is snowing on the east coast. I wish Sam Champion would put his hood up instead of letting the snow accumulate on top of his head. They say it might snow here tonight.

It’s a good morning. No yelling about clothes or curling irons or the bathroom and the older two are actually in the car before the little one. The little one runs out to where we’re waiting in our pre-heated car in the near-freezing temps in her bare feet, carrying shoes, socks, coat, scarf and backpack. She gets in breathless and rosy-cheeked, eyes still a little puffy from sleep. We pull out and the old one asks if she can pick the music this morning. I say yes and watch her in my rear-view mirror as I drive. She looks beautiful this morning with her straightened, chestnut hair and eyes as blue as the Texas sky. The sun that is beginning to rise reflects the hope in her eyes as we pull onto the concrete jungle, crawling with metal animals, bathed in morning light. I am amazed at how she shows no signs of tiredness even though I know she was up working on homework way after I went to bed. It is morning and the sense of new mercies is there on her fresh, fifteen-year-old face. I’ll take it. It’s a beautiful counter-balance to the mornings filled with desperate hopelessness and tears.

She picks Kelly Clarkson, The Police, Travis, Over the Rhine and Coldplay. I can hear the middle one sing every word to every song, quietly. I can’t see her there on the other side of the back seat but I can picture her eyes that are as deep as her soul as she looks out her window, unaware that she’s even singing. The music lives in her. She hears something once and she knows it. Across the genres. She can’t help it.

My heart is full as I remember their audition for the Spring Talent Show yesterday. Three sisters, singing in three-part harmony about how they’ll come back for each other whenever they’re called. They made the judges a little emotional. They made me a little emotional.

I drop them off and head back home. The sun is now fully up and I put on my sunglasses. I listen to the theme song from Cast Away and pretend I’m walking on a deserted winter beach instead of slithering through a sea of school zones and semi-trucks. I think about what I want my discipline for Lent to be this year. I wonder if it will really snow tonight.

I pull off the freeway and sing along loudly to Carrie Underwood. I’m almost home. I pull in the garage, walk in the kitchen, load the dishwasher and start it. Then I grab my computer off the kitchen table and go back to my darkened bedroom where the fan is still going, drowning out any sounds of life. I get under the covers, propped up by pillows and begin to write. Who am I kidding? I’m not going to be doing any work today.

I hope it snows tonight.