So busy...

I'm still steaming from my hard drive loss, but slowly simmering down, partly because I know, as an adult, I have to let it go and move on, and partly because Mr. Never-sits-still (except for this photo op this morning) simply won't let me stew on one subject for too long. In the span of two hours this morning, Gus has already managed to break one (more) plate (there goes my wedding china), scribble highlighter on our (still blank) tax return forms and fall face-first off his little red flyer wagon (the wailing was epic).

I'm already exhausted and it's only 9 a.m. Jacob's at work all day today, so we better head out and find some less fragile environment for us to blow off steam in. I'm thinking hiking or perhaps the playground...

I don't know if all Moms go through this phase, but I find myself more and more often now, wistfully thinking back to my single life (the life I remember at the time, I thought inconsequential and low on meaning). Ah how I would love to sit all morning in a fancy cafe and read the New York Times cover to cover, while sipping a steaming hot latte...now I would get exactly two words into it before the aforementioned latte would go flying steam trailing prettily behind it and foam splattering on everything.
How I loved those lazy unfocused Saturdays when I would go for a long run and then plot a craft project or a shopping trip. Nowadays my craft projects are limited to scrubbing unwashable ink and marker off of unwashable surfaces, and shopping - well aside from costing money - would quickly disintergrate into me chasing my son up and down some isle, while he flails a cashmere sweater here and there like a majorette's baton...

I don't really want to be that unattached single woman anymore, Lord no, I love motherhood, but now and then a single Saturday would be lovely.

Burned out

I wish I had my friend Brynn's subtly positive and generous outlook when it comes to technology-induced malaise. Well, I don't. I'm still sputtering from the news given by our computer guy that my hard drive is - and I quote - "a goner"...
A goner? What do you mean? I'm thinking to myself, while fury rears it's ever-attentive head for some impromtu sommersaults around my brain. Where did it go with all my pictures, my songs, my books, my beloved podcasts and -drumroll, please - my year's worth of Quickbooks accounting for Jacob's business and our personal finances?
...and can I file for looting charges?
"Nope" my computer guy said in that typical deliberate-chattiness so rampant with techonoly-gifted people. "You could get a new hard drive and start all over again," he suggested on second thought in response to my inquiry if anything - ANYTHING - could be done.

Well. I'm still mad. Mad at my friend Brynn's memory fairies who came and took all our stuff without asking...and unlike her I'm still thinking in terms of revenge...so I'll be doing our taxes by hand AGAIN (that serves you right stupid hard drive) and I'll be starting all over BUT NOT ON A NEW HARD DRIVE...instead I'll be on the laptop...yeah, I feel like a winner...move over, dear husband watching a Netflix movie...I need to enter some receipts, or move over dear husband, researching the best porch decking on the Web, I need to update and post a new cute picture of Gus on the blog...

We'll be back...right now I'm going to go scrub the bathroom floor...that always helps the fury settle back down from it's gymnastics practice.

Snow Day

It's been cold and icy in the Blue Ridge Mountains, aptly named around this time of the year I might add. Jacob, Gus and I ventured up to the Blue Ridge Parkway Sunday - closed because of 1 inch of snow (as former Coloradoans, this still makes us chuckle) - and frolicked in the snow for a while...Gus loved the icicles, we all loved the good clear air and the absence of any noise, safe for the slight chrunch under our feet...we had brought our telemark skis, but that was a bit too hopeful...this is the time of the year when we would love to be somewhere else...Vail to be exact...ah well ...

Get your knit on

"Pick me, pick me!" that's how I picture myself begging little 4th, 5th and 6th graders who tonight get to "shop" various 4-week courses...it's our church who is putting on this crafts program and a couple of weeks ago I over-confidently volunteered to put on a knitting & crocheting class...again, it's my church, so they don't say no easily.

But with the actual show-and-tell just hours away I'm suddenly worried that no one - especially no cool 6th grader - will want to be seen anywhere near a skein of yarn - no one except our church program coordinator's daughter, who will have been instructed to pick my class...

Anyways, it's my hope that I find a couple of quirky kids to share my love for this simple craft with, a couple of kind souls that will find my little projects (put together in the car yesterday while dropping off my parents in Atlanta) fun or cute...

Would you pick me?

Scenes from a sunny Sunday

An unexpectedly sunny Sunday afternoon led us all to kick back and pursue various saviory and unsaviory pastimes...while I knitted and manned the camera, everyone went busily about...

Note to the worried: Gus didn't go far on the Moto Guzzi, but he enjoyed every minute of it and, yes, he and Groma ate way to much Chex Mix while sitting outfront of the cottage...she likes the mix, the Chex not so much...

A day in the woods...

We spent the first day of 2009, doing chores in the morning then we treated ourselves to a relaxing afternoon hike in beautiful chilly Pisgah Forest. More Cove trail, is ideal for kids...short, easy and there is a waterfall and a rocky overhang at the end of it...

My folks pose in front of the waterfall...

Gus and Jacob go exploring...

Gus negotiates roots and rocks like a champ...all that in-utero hiking helps...I'm serious...

Like Jacob, like my Mom

Jacob poses after crossing the creek on the "unofficial" bridge.
...this is an inside joke in my family...ever since my Mom laid eyes on Jacob she has decided that whatever dare-devil thing he does, she can do it, too...which is really funny, because normally she is not much of a risk-taker...so here she comes...also crossing on the "rough" bridge...
...tatahhh...she made it! Just like Jacob...