10 posts tagged “life”
My heart pounded as I watched a lone two year old boy, diaper sagging and scraggly dog in tow, make his way down the driveway and into the street. Jon and I stopped the car right away and turned around to check on the child. I got out, walked over to him, he looked up and met my eyes with a smile. He had a band aid on his left cheek and he reached towards me and said "hi". With a sigh, I took his hand and looked up and down the street for any sign of family. I walked him over to the sidewalk, away from the traffic and then I heard her. I had expected a young mother in hysterics to come running out of the house in tears and panic, instead I got a 300 pound woman in a mumu bitching indifferently as she hobbled her way down towards us. She seemed more upset by the fact that she had to leave the house to come and get the child. She thanked me under her breath while she complained about having to add a lock to the gate but not once did she seem to love or care for the child or his well being.
It's been a few hours and I still see his face when I close my eyes. I was there by chance to be the helping hand he needed but I can't be there for him again and it breaks my heart.
When Jon said he wanted to go ride the mountain bike trails at the park, I asked to go with him. I'm not a person built for mountain biking, I'm terribly awkward and not your most graceful of ladies. I would possibly survive three minutes on that trail. Instead I grabbed a bottle of water, the mp3 player, Luna with her leash and walked/jogged the paved path while Jon fought the dirt trails along the creekside. It was one of the hottest days so far and the locust were engaged in a screaming match. Though summer isn't official for another couple of weeks, I can feel its here in full force.
Months ago I never would have wanted to take a walk let alone jog in the park. I would have considered myself slightly active, because I love to hike but it wasn't for the physical activity, it was just to see the scenery and animals. Here at the park I walked along at a quick pace, Luna panting two steps ahead of me, and I realized that I'm starting to actually like to exercise. I took a break by the creek to let Luna cool off in the water and I stood under the shady bridge sweeting, red-faced and smiling. I couldn't believe it, no one had forced me to go to the park, in fact Jon was used to going by himself and seemingly shocked that I had asked to go along. Here I was enjoying exercise, just Luna and I alone on the trail.
Another step in the right direction of my life.
I've been talking to a girl online for a while, we travel in the same circles and there are some eerie similarities between the two of us but we've never met in person. After many months of online comments and close encounters at art festivals and music concerts we finally decided to set a date. I've met a few people in real life that I had originally met online, my husband included. So this should be old hat, but I can't help but be nervous.
So tonight I'm off to my favorite coffee shop, ironically called "common grounds", for a chit-chat meet-up and a possible friendship.
What's on your holiday wishlist?
All I want for Christmas is a sewing machine. I know... how domestic of me! Though really it is one of my hearts desires to learn to quilt and I'm sick of not being able to hem my pants (no one makes adult pants to fit someone who is five feet tall.) I've been asking for a sewing machine for years but we hadn't any room in our little apartment for another hobby. So now that we have a beautiful new house with room to spare, I'm patiently waiting.
* Dear husband, if you did not get me a sewing machine for Christmas, I still love you... and there is still time. <kiss> *
Other than that I have my eye on more realistic cheaper goodies like an ogoSport sports disk set for $29.99, tea candle carver for $8, reusable bags from baggu for $22, Lomography Fisheye Camera for $38.99, pot de creme ceramic hummingbird feeder for $38.00, and the always handy hancock fabrics giftcard, to use with my new sewing machine * cough *
What is your daily commute like?
What is the weirdest thing you've seen on that commute?
Submitted by E.
My daily commute is simple; I hop on the beltway. It's an 8 mile drive to the office, times range from fifteen minutes in the morning to thirty minutes in the afternoon. Not bad at all and I cant complain much because I only go to the office three days a week.
We are looking at relocating in the new year and the place we have our eyes on is literally five minutes away from my house. It would be fantastic.
I don't see much on my commute, I'm on the road at 6am and 6pm so its dark while I'm driving. Nothing much but break lights and blinkers.
The rains have come, two days nonstop and I'm driving on bald tires. I had a few scary skidding moments yesterday and came home dreading the thought of driving on the upcoming winter ice. Last night I priced new tires, my rims can only use high performance tires so I'd been expecting to spend a small fortune. I was planning to raid our small savings because its just too dangerous to risk driving on bald tires but today in the mail I received an unexpected check from our escrow account saying that we'd paid too much into the account for taxes and they've refunded us $500! That should be almost enough to cover the new tires and a huge weight off of my shoulders. I just couldn't believe it, I love it when life surprises me.
Wednesday, out of nowhere I received an email for a freelance gig. Not just any gig but one for a little girl and her band of parents and friends who are raising money for her to fight childhood diabetes. Her father was the one who had contacted me and had told me that they had found my monkey illustration on istockphoto and had wanted me to do a rendering of that same monkey riding a bicycle with the name of their team for t-shirts and a banner for the Ride to Cure Diabetes which is a 105 mile road ride in Death Valley. He insisted that he was willing to pay full price but I just couldn't take that much money from a non-profit organization that was helping children, I bid the project at $50 and told him to consider the rest, $250, a large donation. I completed the logo for him within two days and he was thrilled and I was so glad to be able to do something for such a great cause.
The next day when Jon came home from work he had a large box wrapped with a duck tape bow and a card in an orange envelope. Jon is a carpenter and he works for a high end remodeling company that is doing a job at a house just outside of town, the man who owns this house (the same guy who lent us his trailer to use for our move) is one of the nicest people he has ever met. To show his appreciation for a job well done by Jon and his crew (2 coworkers) he had given them all boxes and cards. In the box was a 10x10 outdoor gazebo/tent, the orange card was filled with thank yous and $250 cash. A shock and a strange twist of events. What goes around comes around.
Its summer and I'm quickly falling back into old blogging habits, lazy days reflect in my writing and I cant find much to talk about. This partnered with the fact that I'm happy seems to bring about a hogwash of half-ass blogging topics, and I'm sorry... but thats just how things are at the moment. I'm happier than I have been in years, not to say I wasn't generally happy then either, but it seems I'm spewing happiness. Things are going well, work, life, family... its all coming along so easily, of course I'm expecting the "downs in life" to come back into play and jumble things around just to make life interesting, but for the moment... its bliss. I have time for things, I'm wanting to learn, I'm laughing (a real deep happy laugh), and it all feels great.
