sick day

i've been home the past two days with a sinus infection and laryngitis. yesterday, i laid on the couch all day, feeling as if someone had hit me square in the face with the back of a frying pan. today is a little better. i'm still fighting the urge to actually get some work done around here. i have serious issues with resting and doing nothing else. all i can see is clutter that needs to be picked up, laundry that should be thrown in the washer, and beds that need to be stripped and changed.

charles shultz wrote the following in his 1967 book about happiness:

i discovered yesterday that daytime television pretty much stinks. thank goodness for the bob ross (joy of painting) episodes i have on dvr. i pressed 'play'on those and never looked back...

today i've been grading papers and trying to work on lesson planning for next week. piddling on my blog is my break for now. so i'm going to spend the next few minute posting a little bit of this and that...

here is my adorable husband around the age of two (with my mother-in-law, martha):

what a cutie! this is the same man who sent me a dozen roses last monday, who convinced me to stay home and take care of myself this week, and who left the following note for me yesterday morning: not poetry, perhaps, but the thoughtfulness and love behind it have caused me to tuck the note away in a special place.

speaking of poetry, i recently rediscovered the poetry of robert creeley. my three favorites: for love , the rain, and the hill. i'll close this post with both the text of the hill and an invitation for you to comment on any of creeley's work.

It is sometime since i have been
to what it was had once turned me backwards ,
and make my head into
a cruel instrument .

It is simple
to confess . Then done ,
to walk away , walk away ,
to come again .

But that form , I must answer ,
is dead in me , completely ,
and I will not allow it
to reappear -

Saith perversity , the willful ,
the magnanimous cruelty ,
which is in me
like a hill .

livin' with deepak chopra

i don't consider myself a pessimist...but lately, by comparison to my husband, i certainly sound like one.

the 17-year locusts, or periodical cicadas, are in town...or rather, i should say, in the woods. and they are annoying as H - E - DOUBLE TOOTHPICKS. i know what you city folk are thinking: they can't be that bad. oh yeah...they be that bad.

do you remember when the grinch (you know, the one who stole christmas) griped: One thing I can't stand is the noise, noise, noise, noise! good grief. dude hit that one on the head. seriously guys. i am not exaggerating...it sounds like a spaceship is landing behind our house. a LOUD spaceship. we sometimes have the radio on by the pool while swimming ~ we can't hear it over the cicadas (yeah, we have the volume turned all the way up). supposedly, the cicada chorus is known as the "song of summer". not.

while mowing the grass today, three separate locusts flew into my hair. these suckers are big. and UGLY. and after doing some research, i've yet to discover what purpose they serve in life.

i'm not going to bore you with details on the life cycle of the cicada ~ you can click on one of my links and do that yourself. but i will tell you that they are aptly named; their eggs have been burrowing and maturing underground for 17 years. a fact, my husband thinks is absolutely magical. leo's become uber-spiritual over the past year or so, which don't get me wrong, is a magnificent thing. but he's so darn optimistic all the time. while i was bemoaning the cicadas, leo described how fantastically miraculous the entire experience is, and how god is in the details, and isn't it amazing, "we'll be 58 years old the next time they come back."

nope. i ain't buying it.

ick.

three brothers (out of five)

at the reds game on july 3. guess which one belongs to me!?

selective multi-tasking

kate's home sick. i'm pretty sure it's the flu (we are heading to the doctor's in a couple of hours for confirmation). i am staying home with her today, which is a very good thing. as her mommy, i believe that no one can take care of her the way i can. this includes her daddy.

leo stayed home with kate yesterday. and i love him for being such a hands-on daddy. he really is a wonderful father. (he's also a wonderful person; he's just very selective about who he lets in on this fact.) he has no problem staying home from work to help with the kids. but in actuality...he didn't stay home from work.

he worked. at home. on business stuff. nothing else. never mind that it looked like my house had imploded. he was even still up at midnight, reading. business stuff.

arggghhhhh.....

now this is gonna sound like i'm tooting my own horn, but i gotta tell ya, it's only 9:15 am and i've gotten a ton of stuff done this morning already. three loads of laundry have been taken care of, the kitchen and laundry room floors have been swept and mopped, dishwasher unloaded and reloaded, beds made (except for mine, which kate is lying in...i can't wait to change those sheets!), and i could go on. and i've done all this while going in to kiss kate every three minutes or so and tell her how much i love her.

she's already tired of me. i'm walking in to check on her now, and she's rolling her eyes and going, "i know, i know. you LOVE me."

indeed, i do.