Happy Sugar

I surprised myself by being able to post a second time for Happy Week. But honestly, who could resist sugar cookies disguised as the perfect summer dress with red polka dots? Not me. And not my three girls. I love sugar any day but these made me really happy.

Happiness

Curious Girl is hosting a week of happiness. Every day for a week she will be posting something that makes her smile. Everyone who is playing along has been listed in her sidebar. I love it when she does things like this.

My crazy week isn’t allowing me to participate the way I would have liked but I couldn’t resist posting at least one happy thing. The hot, humid, stagnant air that has been hanging around here for days is finally being chased out by a hot, dry breeze. That’s enough to make any girl smile.

A Day at the Beach

I really needed that. We all did. No work and no watch. Just swimming, laughing, french fries and ice cream. It was the perfect day.

Dreams

I used to think that most dreams are one day thought up and through a series of events, both planned and accidental, the dream comes true. I still believe this but there are a lot of holes in this version. This is what I think happens in the real version.

In the real version I think up a dream, fantasize about it, embellish it, fall in love with it and then ignore it. Romanticizing the dream is a lot of fun but I usually just return to my relatively predictable ways. If the dream was a really good one, it will flicker in the back of my mind. Just these tiny little flashes, almost subliminal. They appear more frequently and for longer periods of time until they evolve into really long daydreams. The daydreams become so rich and beautiful that I can’t imagine my life any other way. The dream has to be a really good one to get this far. I need to make the dream a reality.

First I try luck but plunking my loonies down on the convenience store counter in hopes of becoming the next millionaire never works and I am forced to deal with the realities of dreaming such a wonderful dream.

This is where it can get ugly. This is the part of dreaming nobody likes to talk about. Living out a dream is a stinking lot of work. It’s a reality born in spite of dinner preparation, sibling rivalry, bill payments, headaches, setbacks, deadlines… life. It sounds obvious enough but I really underestimated what life could throw my way. Still, day after day, I plug away at this very special dream. Some days I feel like I’m sinking under the weight of it all but on others it feels like I’m zipping along and it’s just around the corner. It’s these zippy days, the ones where everything just seems to click into place, where I effortlessly move closer and closer. These are the days that make it all worthwhile.

I’ve Looked…

In the book pile.
On the bed.
Under the covers.
In the bed crack.
Under the bed.
On the dresser.
In the folded laundry.
In the dresser in case it went in with the folded laundry.
In the laundry hamper.
In the bathroom.
In the medicine cabinet.
In drawers that haven’t seen the light of day in months.
With the cereal.
And even the crackers.
In the fridge next to the milk.
And the drawer with the fruit.
The freezer.
The recycle bin.
And finally the garbage can.

I have lost the Harry Potter book that I was in the middle of reading to my Harry-Potter-obsessed daughter. I left her room with it in my hand and we haven’t seen it since. I always put it in the book pile before I leave her room and I don’t know what happened on that particular day to change the routine. As soon as that book crossed her threshold it was a goner. My brain had already moved onto the next task and that book became an arbitrary pile of papers that I undoubtedly “filed” somewhere. If I wasn’t considered crazy before I lost it, I certaintly will be by the time I find it.