Time just keeps plugging along and I am always behind
it. I just never seem to be able to do what I would like to do. An appointment
comes along, someone is sick or someone has a need and what I was going to do
that day or evening is put on hold while I take care of life.
We are all in the same boat, floating along on this
ocean we call life, sometimes the seas are peaceful, sometimes we are hit with
huge waves, nonetheless, we keep afloat, try to do the best we can and keep
trying to reach our destination.
I have been in a very reflective mood all week. Last
Friday we went to a church meeting for the youth and I wrote two different
poems during the meeting. One was about Jesus Christ and the other about Fito
and I.
When poems come to you, you have to write them down
quickly or you will lose them. These came in phases and now I need to work on
putting it all together in the right order so that the lines flow. Saturday, we had a perfectly delightful day. Fito,
Rebeca, and I woke up early and went to the flea market. It was windy, but that
is just part of living in Oklahoma. My hat blew away several times and Rebeca
would chase after it. I decided to buy a scarf, cut it in half, and sew the two
pieces to the inside brim then I can tie it.
Fito has taken leather straps and put them in other
hats, but I do not like the feel of the leather.
We did really well. I guess you could say luck was on
our side today. First of all, we stopped at a garage sale that a church was
having and found a beautiful oval mirror in a base made of Maple. We bought it
for $20. The base has 3 narrow shelves. We just need to find a narrow hall or
entry table to set it on. Maria is going to use it in her house for her entry
way.
We also bought a matted and framed picture of an
elephant. The frame is a gold bamboo. We bought an elephant table a few months
ago at a thrift store, so this picture will go great with it in our living
room. The picture was $5.
At the flea market, we found a double stroller for Maria.
It was an Eddie Bauer which is a nice brand. It is in good shape and opens and
closes easily. We paid $37. (Double strollers new are around $150-300). We also found a small plastic car for Alexander for
$12. I also bought two kerosene lamps for $25, Fito found large spool of
weed-eater string, $25 and an old antique vise, $75. We also bought a wood
bench, $10; a pogo stick, $15, and some other small items. We went to two different flea markets and a couple of
garage sales and just found treasure after treasure…and at the right price,
too! Several months ago, Maria, Rebeca and I spent one whole day going to
different thrift stores looking for a double stroller. The cheapest one we saw
was $189. And this one was $37! Wow!
Then this past Saturday, we went to the Oklahoma City
Art Festival. It is one of the premier art festivals and is always a neat place
to go. It was cold and rainy earlier in the week and Thursday, when it was
finally nice, we could not go because I had a service project at the church. Saturday, it was so crowded that it wasn’t as
enjoyable. Maria went with her baby and Alexander and it was hard to maneuver the
stroller among the crowd. Then we had insisted that David go (Felipe came on
his own) and of course, they were complaining about the whole thing.
We finally left, bought some pizza, and headed to Maria’s
house. This past week, I de-cluttered some of the rooms which
is always a good feeling. But I have really had the blahs lately. I have had
such a nagging, almost depressing mood of not being able to accomplish what I
want to accomplish.
I keep looking at my schedule to try to see what I can
delete from it to give me more time, but it doesn’t happen. I know what it is:
I have a book in my head (on Critical Thinking) and if I do not spend the time
to let all the thoughts come out…I will go crazy. This is a personality function or dis-function of
creative people. We can only go for so long with those thoughts in our head,
but the point comes when you have to make time to allow the creativity to
express itself. When I was working on my dissertation, I would “disappear”
for 2-3 days at a time. I need to do that again, for when I stay at home,
something always comes up that I have to take care of. Like right now, I am
home alone writing…but I need to go to my mom’s room to bathe her and clean her
potty, etc.
Oh well, someday, my home will truly be empty (hummm…will
it?) and I will probably not know what to do with all that time. At least that
is what people tell me, but I do not believe them for a second, because I have
enough books in my head, and projects planned, and places to go, and people to
visit; to last three lifetimes.
I tell my children, if you are bored in this
incredible, wonderful world…well…that’s your fault. May each of us be blessed with enough crazy projects to
keep us busy till the day we die. (My hope is I die in my garden…or with my
husband as in the movie “The Notebook”.)
But my prayer, too, is that we may have the wisdom to
say “no” to some of those projects and take the time to meditate, ponder, smell
the new rain, look at a Harvest Moon, count leaves on clover, and lie on a
blanket on the grass, and enjoy the earth, our loved ones, and all the
blessings we enjoy. Rebeca's feet and Alexander. Alexander loves balls more than anything else. I was baby-siting him and Greyson one evening and he did not want to watch, Mickey Mouse Club. I switched it to basketball and he was happy. then the researcher in me decided to see what other sports with balls he liked. No to hockey...is that because it's not a ball? Tennis was so, so. Football, yes, but his greatest reaction was to golf. He oohed and aahed as the ball sailed through the air, and clapped his hand when they hit it. Isabella pulling all the tissues out of a box. She is definitely a Sagastizado...well...her dad or uncles would then have tried to flush all of them down the toilet to "hide" the evidence...so maybe she is a better model... |