Beautiful Works In Progress

"How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.  What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing.  A schedule defends from chaos and whim.  It is a net for catching days." - Annie Diard, A Writing Life

When random facts:

"Mom. Puffins' eyes have a nick-a-tay-ing (nictitating) membrane and a gland that separates the salt from the ocean water and then drains from their noses!"

take over what we are "supposed to be" learning...

This is my life, right.now.

When we have to cancel plans with friends in the afternoon, because the darn kids lose respect for mom in the morning...

This is my life, right.now.

When the cereal bowls remain on the coffee table, and the laundry STILL ends up on the floor...

This is my life, right.now.

But, when the wonderment of learning the moon's phases is reflected back to me in a 7 yr old's gleaming, thoughtful eyes... 

This is also, my life, right.now.  

And when that same 7yr old learns the definition of infinity.. and then uses it to judge the amount of humor she finds in her sister's Just Dance dance moves... 

This is also my life, right.now...

Friday morning, I stepped out of the shower to the sounds of two pajama-clad youngsters journaling aloud.  I peeked around the corner, into G's bedroom and found them pouring over their notebooks.  I adore how they pile into a bed and throw their thoughts down.  Soren, just scrambling to get his ideas committed to paper, before they escape him, and Gressa, ever the perfectionist, continually double-checking herself for spelling proficiency and errors

Gressa: "How do you spell...."  

Soren: "Just SOUND it OUT!" and then, "This is only your 'rough one', anyway..."   

Soren: "Gressa, there is more than one, 'there'."

Gressa: "What?  It is spelled, t-h-e-r-e."

Soren, "It depends.  It is also spelled, t-h-e-i-r.  Like, 'their socks'. And yesterday my English lesson said that 

there is also t-h-e-y-'-r-e."

Yep.

excerpt from "Alice In Wonderland"

Gressa, "Well, I know t-h-e-r-e, so that is what I am writing."

Unplanned, fantastical, little English lessons, 

happening all on their own...

This is my life, right.now.

And then, my awesome discovery of the phrase, "how to get my book published" in the google history...

This is my life, right. now.

Lunch and chit-chat before work with the one and only, Ava D...

 and a boy who skeddaddles to read, if only motivated (sometimes) by more screen time...

This is my life, right. now.  

It's messy.  It's loud. It isn't always fun.  It isn't always beautiful, and it often isn't easy.  But it IS a gift.  And it sure is 

a marvelous one.