Focus

First off, thanks for the kind words, the calls, the comments, the suggestions. Its nice to know that you can count on your family and friends when you need them most.

In the midst of stress at work, meetings at school, frustrations with life in general, I have been trying to focus on what's important; both the little details and the big.

Essential: catching up on laundry -- it is satisfying to see my piles of folded laundry grow.

Necessary: I've been working on recognizing when a home cooked meal is just the right thing for everyone: Chicken Elaine; homemade mashed potatoes; veggies and salad. It hit the spot. (The night before, Brad didn't even wait to see the exhausted look on my face. He said "Honey, I ordered a pizza, it will be ready to pick up when you're coming home from Owen's soccer practice." That night pizza hit the spot.)
{Note: I love to cook, and generally do most things from scratch... but there are those nights, or weeks... when it just isn't going to happen.}

Needed: Brad and I have focused on getting the kids to bed on time, so we can have a bit of the evening to ourselves, (when he doesn't have to work) before I head to work. Why is it that zombie movies, cuddled with my husband are comforting to me?

Perspective: I have had to remind myself lately, how lucky I am. I really am. And this week a sobering news story has put that all into perspective. This week a suspected drunk driver, speeding through a residential street, right next to a school, ran over a mother (around my age) and her 4 year old daughter (a year older than Lauryn) on their way to preschool (at the same time we take Lauryn to preschool every day.) They were both killed. They had just gotten out of their car (the same make/model as our car) and were walking across the street to the school, when the suspected drunk driver, allegedly trying to crash and hurt his passenger, sped up as they reached the intersection. The little girl's sister was in 4th grade at that school. (Owen is a 4th grader this year.) The students heard the crash and the sirens.

My mom called me that night -- saying she knew it wasn't us that was hurt, it was outside the wrong school, but she just wanted to let us know she was thinking about us. And all I can think about, is what that 4th grader now has to go through. All I can think about, is how devastated Owen would be to lose his little sister. She thinks the world of him. She follows him around everywhere. She thinks every little tiny thing he does is the coolest thing in the world. Every night she sings him one of her new made-up songs as he crawls into bed. He smiles with that genuine smile that makes me know, he thinks its pretty damn special to have a little sister.

So my frustrations at work, the meetings, the long hours, the endless pile of laundry, the soccer games, the dirty dishes and the mums in the front garden that *finally got planted after sitting on the porch for 2 weeks -- they're all worth celebrating. They're all worth joy. They're all worth the sweat and the tears and the collapsing-into-bed-tiredness that I've felt every day this week.

I can't imagine life without a single moment of it. I hope I never have to.