A Friday ritual.
A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week.
A simple, special, extraordinary moment.
A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.
…And another year of NaBloPoMo ends.
Thanks to all my fellow Cheer Peppers for keeping me motivated!
I have a problem with the cats.
In general I rather like cats, which is good, we have three.
(Well she’s a year and a half older now so she only is willing to be smothered in love for so long and then she bites Jane on the nose. But that’s a whole ‘nother problem.)
There is this one that is still young and cute and willing to be smothered in Jane’s love on a daily basis.
There is this one that is aloof and completely uninterested in me but causes minimal trouble and loves Ivy.
There is this one, my favorite one, that comes every night and crawls in bed with me and purrs for an hour while I read.
For all I like cats I’ll admit that they come with a pile of unsavory things. Litter boxes, food stealing, hair that sticks to everything, kittens that climb legs as though they were trees, tripping you as you walk down stairs and their continued insistence on seeing if Louie the Dove might taste as good as he looks.
I’ll forgive them for all those things because of the purrs and the snuggles and the way they love the kids.
But there is one thing, I’m just not sure I can get over. Sometimes, when they meow it sounds uncannily like “Mom.”
This is not okay.
At.
All.
Three girls calling, sighing, yelling, screaming, sobbing, demanding, pleading, and asking “Mom!” all day is plenty.
I’m quite sure the cats are smarter than they let on (for instance, I know that they know that they aren’t supposed to jump on the counter, they just don’t care that I know that they know. Got that?).
So when a cat meows, “Mom!” at me it shouldn’t act so surprised and affronted when I round on it with a giant, fed up, “WHAT?!?”
Yes, I have a problem with the cats.
I just haven’t decided if it’s because they are demanding me by name now too or that I’m demanding answers of them.
Either way, it’s a problem.
I’m so busy, people.
Today I did the mom thing and the hobby farm thing and the author thing and the athlete thing and the swim coach thing and the president of a capoeira group thing and the lets spend an inordinate amount of time taking slow motion videos of my own feet while I jump thing followed by the Instagram thing.
I’m so busy, people.
It was super time consuming to even find a spot with enough light. Did you know slow-mo videos need more light than regular videos? Took me ages to find the right spot. And then I had to take like 20 videos to get all the jumping figured out. I mean I had to check out all the videos in between shots. But it was super interesting because now I know that my right foot lands differently than my left. Every. Time. I had no idea. I also discovered that my toes help push me around in a circle. I thought that one was a fluke so I re-did it another couple times and yup, happens every time.
I’m so busy.
I gotta do the blogging thing now, I don’t even have time to do the folding laundry thing or the dishes thing or the picking up the rotten pumpkin thing.
I’m just so busy.
Moral of the story. We are all “busy” in our own way. #dontjudge #priorities
Other moral of the story: GMB fitness is fun! They are doing 12 days of play with fun challenges and giveaways and if you join the fun via this link: https://wn.nr/rSPDdn I’ll get extra entries because they’ll know my friends are awesome too!
Siblings…
Just when you think that you can’t take it anymore, when you are certain they can’t take it anymore, about the time that you forgot what they sound like when they aren’t whining/yelling/crying/screaming about the other one and right when you are about to pull out the big red marker and divide the house down the middle for them yourself just to get a break from it all…
…they giggle.
They make up silly games.
They play
They appear to be the best friends and sisters you hope they will remain.
But you know better.
You enjoy the happiness but you know, in your heart of hearts, that they are still siblings and it’s all fun and games until… “she’s looking at me!”
“Well Granny,” asks Uncle Jim, “after 94 years, what have you learned?”
“It’s hard work to get to be 94 years old.”
Happy Birthday Granny!
You make all that hard work look good.
I had a glass of water until a cat took it.
Unlike a dog there were no liquid eyes begging for a drink.
The cat just claimed my water glass and dared me to oppose her.
Brazenly, sitting on the table, repeatedly dunking her paw and licking it off. 
As if there weren’t multiple bowls of water for the cats and dogs scattered around the house.
I had a glass of water. 
And then a cat took it.
My cousin taught Ivy and I how to make deer hunter candy this weekend.
Only handed out to deer hunters during the gun season, the recipe is simple: equal parts of four ingredients, covered in chocolate, cut into slices and wrapped in wax paper.
We made the traditional treat together laughing and snitching bits as we did so and then, of course, we had to sample the final product. We wouldn’t want to give all those cold hunters a sub-par product.
I ate a few pieces but I still remember Grandma telling me I wasn’t to take any candy, it was only for the hunters. She didn’t reprimand often and her corrections stuck. I still had a twinge of guilt when popping a piece into my mouth and it came with memories of Grandma’s scolding so vivid I could taste them on my tongue.
Some people scoff at tradition but I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who tasted memories when we handed out that peanut butter treat.
I don’t remember wanting to be a writer as a kid. No keeping dairies, at least not for more than a day or two, or writing stories or anything else that required spelling.
But today my cousin and I spent hours going through old photo albums and letters from my grandparents house and there was a little story I wrote to them.
” Once upon a time, there was a cowpoy. He had a hevon. But he was very sad. One day the cowpoy came home with a surprise!! It was another hevonen!! And they lived happily ever after. Love Jessie”
I feel that in defense of my spelling it’s important to note that Grandma taught me Finnish words out of a Richard Scary book. Hevonen is the Finnish word for horse and, while google translate doesn’t think cowpoy is Finnish for cowboy, I clearly did. The only word I actually spelled wrong was hevonen and that’s far better than I’ve done so far on this post tonight. As far as my formatting, that was clearly done by typewriter and I’m not sure I ever figured out how that worked.
In conclusion:
Maybe I have always liked telling stories. I’ve forgotten a lot in the last 38 years, (Like what year my brother was married and, apparently, how to spell married). I could have forgotten that too. It’s completely possible. And thank all that is good and true in this world for word processors and spell check.
A Friday ritual.
A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week.
A simple, special, extraordinary moment.
A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.
Behind the Willows 