It's Friday, the last Friday in July... where has the year gone? Everything is going pretty well. We're strapped for cash but it's because we're throwing it all at our credit card debt. Knowing that you're pulling yourself out of debt makes throwing all of your money at it okay, right? Right. So, broke, but not really broke.
We're already thinking/planning/dreaming our next vacation, two summers from now... wondering if we'll have 3 of the kids with us or just 2... or just 1.
Busy being a total mom about Matt heading off to college early next year, Zach graduating next summer, Ian starting middle school. I feel like I walk around perpetually proud and anxious at the same time.
Trying new things. I never want to lose my curiosity about food/art/love. I want to look at my husband every day and know that no matter how well I know him, he is an individual with depths of feeling I will never truly grasp. I want to appreciate him.... and his spaghetti. That was not a metaphor. Tasted cucumber soda yesterday. Mmmm. Thinking about making my sister a windchime out of the bottles.
I found out that Pete is not my biological father. My mother and I talked for more than an hour about her life, her family and my conception. I love my mom. I feel reconnected. I want to buy her a present, I want to send her something nice that will tell her "I appreciate you".
I want to sing for my grandma.
Right now, though... I just want lunch.

Today my sister would have been 32. I don't think of her often, the way I did once. I always think of her today, her birthday. The years tick by and I count them the way I did when I lost my grandfather. I count them against things. He died the year I was graduating high school, right about the time I had the measles. I wasn't yet 18. Matt wasn't yet born. My whole life has happened since then. She died when she was 21, on the cusp of her adult life. Ian wasn't even a year old. I hated my job then... but loved my friends. Ian's whole life has happened since then.

It's been 20 years since my grandfather died, and 10 since I lost my sister. To think of either of them is to feel acutely the loss of time... the time I could have had with them, the time I let go by like it was something I'd have later. I'm happy that, on most days, I don't take the time for granted anymore. Sometimes, because that's the nature of what we are... but I try to remember. It can be the difference of just a day, just an hour... just a moment.

Well, clearly, I'm back from Disneyland. I'm also, less clearly, working.

First the Disneyland update: It was so fucking crowded I almost killed one random guy who, when I told him his stroller was on my foot, kindly told me there was no place else to put it. Yes, yes... really. The food was awesome if expensive. The cast members were 98% awesome. The Grand California Hotel was beautiful and we had a great view but, as I always feel with Disneyland Resort Hotels, the housekeeping was lacking. Overall, the experience was fantastic... just a little bit exhausting. I only had to threaten the children with painful death once.

Work is just like we left it and then some. Nothing exciting. I can say that, between Mike and I, we left for vacation with a hefty bonus. Everyone loves a hefty bonus, right?

It's been warm here. It's raining in the afternoons like it used to when we moved here 6 years ago. It's beautiful. It's lush in the summer rains. The shades of green form a patchwork on the mountains until, turning to granite and snow, they hit that blue-bird sky that Colorado is so known for. The clouds drift like smoke over mountains and into canyons in different shades of white and gray, dropping water into the swollen rivers. When it rains it can pummel you until it hurts or, like today, barely touch your skin. I never get tired of it. I live here in the same wonder I felt when I visited so many years ago. How lucky am I to be so in love? With my husband, my children and my home?

So lucky.