Nothing Is Lost

1.  [                                                                                         ]  Your servant is listening.


2.  Tonight Nora informed me that she would like to do without a mommy because she gets tired of all my commands.  I thought this was a good thing.  I mean, no mom likes to hear that, but at the same time, Nora seemed to be expressing some pretty clear ideas about why she gets mad at me.  From her perspective, I boss her around at night:  go potty, brush your teeth, pick out two books...  From my perspective, I'm making sure she takes care of herself.  So, I asked her what she'd like me to do instead.  And she said, "Raise your hand, and I will call on you."   


2.  Put simply:  stomach flu.  Ug.  I am covered in many, many blankets right now.  My sisters and I used to sleep together when we were little.  The three of us shared a room in a small trailer, so I grew up sleeping foot-tangled and blanket hogged.  In the winter, we'd layer Grandma's quilts with the one with cotton backing on the bottom and then work up from there.  In a single night, we probably dreamed under 300 work shirts, 75 pairs of jeans, and 34 night gowns, all of them with their own stories and days and hours.  And the story is still unfolding and then folded again as I place them on the shelf above my own shirts hanging there in the story of their first life.


3.  Before the sick hit, we replanted some of the garden, planted seeds in the flower boxes, did laundry (beauty of hanging the line outside, birds singing, guys moving hogs, cats running free under legs, breeze that reminds me to feel), got groceries, made two passes at the "free cookie" station at the Pac N' Save deli.  Nora can hardly fit in the little police car cart now.  Crime at the Pac N' Save has increased by 23%.


4.  I wish when I woke up in the morning, my first thought was "I would really love to make some pancakes right now."  Instead, my thought process goes something like this:  "Uuuuuhhhhhh...." and then I have some coffee and by then it's lunch time.