The Package

UPS delivered a much anticipated package last night at 6:15 PM. It is now 6:27 AM. My husband finally gave up on all conventional means of opening it. He is in the garage with a hacksaw. No wonder it cost $11.50 to package and ship.

Go Cats!

I am an extremely proud Northwestern University grad who lives in Texas - far, far away from most Big 10 football action. I miss Chicago. I miss Evanston. I miss Buffalo Joe's. I miss the El. I miss the weather (only in Spring when the crocuses bloom). I miss listening to NUMB (Northwestern University Marching Band) play the fight song.



Now we can all enjoy it and practice for the NU football game. My friends think I am a little crazy to be so excited, but I haven't seen my beloved Cats play in over 10 years. Go. Wear Purple. Beat the Owls!

And Another Photo

You know you wanted to see another photo of Glacier National Park in Montana ... I know I did. Did I mention this was July 14th?

iPhone Dependency

I broke my iPhone. I broke it 8 days ago. I have been waiting for my new iPhone 4 to arrive at the store. Did you know that 7 to 10 business days is an eternity?

I remember when my oldest child was born. I didn't even have a phone.

Heck, I remember living in South America the year after we got married and I didn't even have internet in my apartment. How times have changed. I think I could almost live without the internet. I know I could live without facebook. But my phone. Come on AT&T and Apple ... could you please speed up production, processing, shipping. I can drive to Fort Worth to pick it up ... it is only 4 hours. I am not sure I can take this much longer.

I think I may soon need a support group for people experiencing withdrawal from the iPhone.

Ready for Vacation

I am deep in the middle of planning next year's summer vacation. You think I am crazy? Hotels in the National Parks book up a year in advance. Easter will find us in Big Bend and August will find us in the Dakotas visiting Mount Rushmore, Badlands, and Theodore Roosevelt National Parks.

We take a lot of vacations. We don't drive fancy cars. We don't spend a lot of money on our interior design. My kids don't wear designer clothes.

We travel. After 15 years of marriage and many, many moves, I can't sit still for long. Besides, my husband just found out he is eligible for one more week of vacation than he thought he was. We will now have to fill five weeks instead of four. We also have to use those two carry-over weeks sometime.

Just for Laughs

Check this out ... Catalog Living.

Many thanks to Laura at 11D for sharing this. I needed to laugh out loud.

So two weeks became ...

almost a month without writing.

To be perfectly honest, I have settled into a mild depression. I don't want to live in Houston. I don't want to raise my kids here or drive here or shop here or eat here.

I want to live here.



O.K. so this would be tough as it is accessible only by a 4 mile mountain hike. Close to here would be nice. Close to here so I could visit and take my kids to see this more than once a year. Close to hiking and white-water rafting and skiing in the winter.

I want to be far away from the maddening rat-race of our lives.

I'll get better. I'll snap out of it. I'll reengage in my life and start reading and teaching and participating. But I don't want to .

I want to move to Montana.

Excuses, Excuses

photos by David Restivo

Not that I have been busy blogging a lot this summer, but I won't be again for about 2 weeks. I am going to Glacier National Park. Aren't you jealous?

I'll have photos of my own to share when I get home.

This Time He Has Gone to Far

My husband, that is.

He left 5 days ago and went to Paris and Antwerp.

Soon he will be on a plane bound for Columbo, Sri Lanka.

Please do not get any ideas that this is in any way glamourous or fun. It is work and he hates it.

Sri Lanka is, however, a new country for him. I can't remember if it is number 40 or 41. He could also add Qatar and U.A.E, but when we count countries we believe you actually have to leave the airport. Well, I count Japan even though I never left Narita, but I spent 14 hours in that airport with two young children. I paid my dues there.

To get home he will take two planes and fly 21 hours. He will leave Sri Lanka at 3:15 AM his time and get home at 4:25 PM my time.

That is too far away from me and the boys. We miss him. We have been trying to fill our days. It doesn't help much.

Best Photo

I don't know this man. He works at our favorite bar-b-que restaurant. I would like to know him. I bet he has some interesting stories.

Summer Reads

I finished The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo last night at 11:37 PM. I then stared at the ceiling for a good hour or so processing what I had read. I started out slowly with this book, not sure I was going to like it, but the momentum built quickly and once Lisbeth was more fully introduced I could not put it down.

I will be driving to the bookstore this morning to pick up the next two in the trilogy. These are perfect summer reads.


I was recently called a "book snob." Yes, I am. I WILL NOT read Twilight. I WILL NOT. Funny, the comment came from someone who hasn't picked up a book in months. She couldn't remember the last book she had read. And she is surprised at how well my children read and what they read. Go figure.

A Masterpiece

Despite my general enjoyment of life, I have been a little frustrated lately. Always one to lead, I feel like I have just been buffeted by competing forces. I have been in a few situations that robbed me of the power I usually have over my life. I couldn't get out of a rut. I have been living in a never-ending dress rehearsal.

I was finally able to turn things around and have been having a great summer. While not giving 100% (you were right, that would be off-balance), I have been living deliberately. I have been making the decisions in my life. I have taken the power back.

It has been so enjoyable. Each day, I have woken up knowing what my responsibilities were and what I wanted to make of the day. I have done what I needed to do and what I wanted to do. I have taken some steps to insure my children are insulated from the crazy people I am forced to live near.

We have travelled. We have had fun. We have spent time with real friends. We have created. We have even played a few video-games.

As I was driving home from dropping my husband off at the airport early one morning, I missed the NPR station and landed on the Christian radio station where I was lucky enough to catch a taped interview with the late Coach Wooden. What a funny guy with his homespun poetry and sayings. What an amazing leader and teacher. How he loved his wife.

Make each day a masterpiece. That's it. Same concept as my "there are no dress rehearsals," but I think I like the Coach's words even better. A masterpiece. A thing of beauty. Something enjoyable.

And guess what. My masterpiece is not yours or my neighbors. So if I am something you aren't and if I do things differently (from almost everyone else around me - which is not a way to win a popularity contest, by the way), then that is o.k. This is my masterpiece.

Bookbag - May

If April was "finish 15 books month," then May was "don't finish books" month. I started quite a few books, but I didn't seem to like very many of them. Living the belief that there are too many good books out there to bother with the bad ones. I moved on.

Anthill - E. O. Wilson
This was probably the highlight of my month. Wilson is the Pulitzer prize winning author of Ants and On Human Nature. In his first attempt at fiction he manages to weave a tale that educates while it entertains. His writing is lyrical and bewitching. In the end I cared as much about the ants as I did for Raff. I have recommended this book over and over. Now I get to do it again. Read this book.

How Lincoln Learned to Read - Daniel Wolff
I just found this one boring. I didn't get past Sojourner Truth.

Life After Death - Carol Muske-Dukes
I thought I would like this when I started, but by the time I got to page 93 I no longer cared what happened to the characters. I put it down and picked up something different.

Simplicity Parenting - Kim John Payne
More of the same old thing. I'll spare you a few hours of unnecessary reading ... turn off the t.v. and cut out some of your child's activities. Spend more time with them. There. That is the whole book. Don't bother.

The Red Pyramid - Rick Riordin
We love Mr. Riordan around here so we were very excited to jump into his newest series, The Kane Chronicles. I liked it, but J. loved it. He said the Egyptian gods are even better than the Greek gods. I thought he tried to hard. The Percy Jackson books seemed to flow from a real love of ancient history and story telling. This seemed a little contrived.

Great Expectations - Charles Dickens (Audio Book)
This was my in-car audio selection for May. I really enjoyed it, but I am not sorry I waited until now to attempt it. I would not have liked or understood it when I was younger.

Let the Great World Spin - Colum McCann
Well, I finished this one, but I had to force myself to do it. I joined a new book club ... actually I started it with a close friend of mine and this is the first selection (I did not make it). It was o.k., but I was bored. Some of the characters were intriguing, but I would have gotten more from the book if the connections had been more obvious earlier. I did not enjoy trying to flesh them all out on my own. The most interesting man was the one I thought McCann should have spent much more time on ... Phillipe Petit. He wrote him into to the story, but only as a connection. Six degrees of Petit. I think his story was more interesting to me than McCann's book.

The Broken Teaglass - Emily Arsenault
A mystery that wasn't really mysterious.

Reflections In A Golden Eye - Carson McCullers
Needing a book to restore my faith in the American novel, I turned to old friends at the end of the month. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter would probably rank on my personal Top 10 list. This, McCullers second novel, did not disappoint. I did not enjoy this one as much as the first; but here, her writing was wonderfully concise. The story moved and flowed. It made sense to me. It is so nice to have those authors that you can turn to when everyone else seems to be failing you.

Busy Days

Expect a flood of posts in the next few days. I have been saving up my thoughts to pour out to you since the end of May. So much has happened around here, but I have been too busy with life to write about it. It's a good thing to be busy in the way I have been. I celebrated my 41st birthday. My sister, her husband and her three kids visited us for six day (not long enough). The boys finished another school year (with straight A's). I have been reading. It has been wonderful.

Yet today I was wondering, what would my life be like if I gave 100%? What if I gave even 90%? Life has been pretty easy for me. I am relatively intelligent. While I'll never be a super model, I am not ugly. I have great eyes and a wonderful smile. I attract mostly good people. My husband is brilliant, kind and generous. My children are healthy. I have achieved all of this while running at about 30% most days. Sometimes I bump that up to 40% when I have a lot to do. What if I gave even more ... I don't mean gave more away. I mean what if I gave more into my own life? What if I put some real effort into it? What could I accomplish?

I have always written that my life is guided by the truth that you never get to live this day again. That there are no dress rehearsals. I have kind of always lived so that there are no regrets. Even things I wouldn't do again, I don't regret. Everything I have done has shaped where I am today. I like where I am today. But what if?

What if I gave 100%?

Some Gave All

USS Arizona Memorial

American Cemetery, Manila

Marine Corps Monument

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

U.S. Cemetery, Normandy