Plead your Leaf

Fall--a year or two ago!


I'm so lucky to live in an incredibly beautiful place--especially for being classified as a desert. Yesterday I coerced my children into going for a Sunday afternoon walk/hike. Although the idea of exchanging the afternoon nap for breathing fresh air and looking at scenery is not always viewed as a net positive exchange, I think that most participants would say that it was a repeatable excursion.



I walked with the slowest, youngest walker and the oldest child who kept wandering off to take pictures of great branches or striking trees. I was beginning to wonder if the other two teenagers and my young 20's brother had circled back to the car to avoid the boredom of the walk.... then rounded a corner to have them ask "isn't this where we've seen wild turkey before" and to find them comparing "the best" fall leaves and declaring that there will be a best leaf contest complete with voting and "pleading. Turns out when two equally amazing leaves come up against each other and the the voters cannot agree on the best one--the finder can "plead" to have one of the leaves sent to a special category such as "most intense color", "half and half", "spotted", "most interesting" etc. I think college life is beginning to get to my brother who was creating the elaborate rules for the contest and that maybe he should ditch accounting in favor of another popular occupation held by two other brothers....Pleading!

We made it to the abandoned mill, searched fruitlessly for a spot to cross over the water, and decided we will have to wait for a lower water year to cross over and really investigate the old mill. For now we can let our imaginations run wild with how all those early settlers built the bridges, walls and conduits that are now crumbled remains of all their efforts...and we thought it was exercise to walk there carrying only our treasured leaves!



As a crowning glory to our day--the youngest set the table while the comfort food cooked in the oven and the Mom took a "stave off the allergy headache" nap. We sat down in the dining room to a creative display of our hiking treasures as the centerpiece and I soaked up the joy of having another busy day with some of my greatest treasures--my kids and family members. Sorry Dad had to miss out on this one because of his trip to Chicago (that I had to miss out on!) 

So many adventures...so little time, but we'll keep trying to “plead” in as many as we possibly can into our 24 hour day!!!

Amazing Spontaneaity

My brother is the cutest dad ever.

We just spent the evening at his house having yummy potato bacon soup and eating a yummy chocolate cake to celebrate the 2nd birthday of his foster son. Don't think that his wife isn't amazing too, but that's for another blog, another day....see my brain is always thinking faster than I can actually function!

So back to the "cute dad" issue. We enjoyed dinner, cleaned up a little, chatted with a neighbor and then I realized it was getting time to get my kids and head back home--but where were all the kids, and where was my brother?

Since the two year old was freshly put to bed, after the thrill and excitement of opening his presents and blowing out the candles on his cute "CARS" cake, all the kids had headed to the basement to create a restaurant commonly known by the cousins as the "Cousin Cafe". My cute brother had them all enlisted in the effort to clean up the basement and restore order so Mom didn't have to deal with it in the morning....and all the kids were happily helping him. Somehow once the toys were cleaned up a spontaneous round of square dancing began and my cute brother (maybe we should call him DOTY--short for Dad Of The Year) began singing a square dance song from his 5th grade square dancing program.

Suddenly DOTY, my teenage daughter, youngest daughter, niece, nephew and a neighborhood friend were dosado-ing their partners, promenading, and grabbing hands to circle the ring. Up and back they'd go and collapse into giggles on the floor and the hop up to grab a new partner and do it all again. Not sure how many times the scenario repeated itself, but I got to be the couch sitter this time...just watching and smiling and enjoying the joy of the moment. And as far as I could tell it was pure joy--from the DOTY to the youngest child in the room.

I think Mom was smiling down and thinking she was a success as a mother because Mom loved any spontaneous, happy, giggling moment even if the hour was late and it meant we were giggling and falling off our chairs around the dinner table instead of eating and heading off to bed so she could enjoy a moment of peace and quiet in our house full of chaos (lots of kids create that with no effort at all!). She taught all of us that the little moments of sitting and reading a book, or telling a story, or sailing sticks down a stream were the important, sweet moments of life.....and no matter how crazy or busy, she made time for those kinds of moments for each of us during our childhood.

Thanks DOTY for being a reminder of the legacy of joy in the spontaneous moments of life--it's been almost 9 years since we lost Mom and the grandkids performed the first of the family productions to help dispel the gloom of a funeral on the day of a granddaughter's birthday. Mom knew how to smile through the most difficult times and how to create joy with the most simple things--and you obviously learned that lesson well!

One more Hike

November 2011

For the last ten years that we've lived in our neighborhood I've wished that I could fit more outdoor adventures into my daily routine...and the time has finally arrived for that to come true.

It helps, of course, if you have someone who calls you up and says "let's go". And I'm definitely motivated by an invitation to exercise with a buddy. It's the idea of getting up early that doesn't work quite so well with my internal clock. For all the years of my marriage, my hubby has been the one to rise in the wee hours of the morning and head off to work while I try to sleep off the "interrupted a billion times in the night,not quite enough sleep to feel rested" feeling so that I can be nice to the 4 busy kids for the long day ahead.

I've tried to convert to being a night owl at lest a dozen times over the years...but my happy time is after 10 pm when all the kids and the husband are asleep, the phone doesn't ring, and I can't see all the projects in the yard, and no one is knocking on my door....it's my time to crank on a project or read a book....but sometimes that means it's hard to get moving in the morning.

That explains the WOW factor in the early morning hiking that I did with my brother this summer. He too must be to work at a reasonable time so that meant we had to rise around 5:15 (gasp!!) to head out the door by 5:30 for a hike to the first waterfall in Bell Canyon. I might mention that my bro suggested that we "run" up the canyon, and I cautiously agreed...remember, I'm not a runner and even exercising hard is very difficult for me these days.

I don't say no very well, and I do have a little competitive spirit, so off we headed up the trail for a run/walk with my bro patiently waiting for me when I needed to stop and gasp for air. He'd time us and report whether our progress between stops to gasp was sufficient to keep us on schedule (meaning he could get to work at a respectable, non-eyebrow raising time). When I'd be gasping for air he'd be patiently waiting and talking about all the other times he'd hiked to the waterfall or above....I'd gasp in response just so he'd know I was still alive!

In spite of the fact that my physical progress has come to a complete standstill and perhaps even went downhill by the end of the summer, tonight my brother suggested that we repeat our Bell Canyon early morning jaunt one last time before the snow flies. This time we will require head lamps for the majority of the hike and jackets to keep us warm while we enjoy the mist of the waterfall at the top of our hike. I think I better stock up on calories, rest, and do nothing to exert my muscles for the next day so that I can hike at a respectable pace-- I really want him to invite me to be his hiking buddy again next summer....is that too much for a sister that is 10 years older to want?? I know it's not too much to sacrifice my night owl productivity or my early morning sleeping in....and hopefully it won't be too much for his athletic ego to slow down for either! Love those brothers of mine!