Crimson Star

I love taking pictures. I will take pictures of just about anything. I can't drive down the road without seeing how the light is cast across a field, or noticing the reflections in ponds. I always imagine spending hours snapping shots of the picturesque fences that line the local roads.
Today was an absolutely scenic day. The skys were clear and a brilliant shade of blue. I was rushing out the door to pick the kids up from school when something caught my eye. There in a bare, twiggy tree was a crimson, star shaped leaf all by itself blowing in the wind. The sun was shining through it in a way that made it seem to glow. I just *had* to take some pictures of it.
I wish I had some kind of profound metephore to describe these images, but I don't. I guess i'll leave it up to you. Oh, and if you 'click' the pic's they get bigger, just in case you didn't know.

Preshus

Emma was in a spelling bee today. She made it through the practice round with ease. Then it was time for the official first round. She was student 24 of 24 students. I watched as kids dropped like flies, one after the other. Poor kids. Then it was finally Emma's turn. I was nervously waiting to hear what her word would be. "Precious" This could be tricky. "P-R-E...." Good start! "S-H-U-S". Uh oh... That's not good. Pardon me, judge? My kid got a hard word. That's not really fair. Can she have a do-over?
Ok, you know I didn't really say that. I was proud of her just for qualifying. You had to be one of the top three spellers in your class just to take the test to see if could be in the bee. That's quite an accomplishment in itself. Oh, and she got a medal and that was enough to satisfy her.

And speaking of "preshus", Jonah made a train out of two boxes and a tote today and he and Jaden played in it for hours. Every time I would say his name he would tell me "Jonah's not here. I'm the conductor." He even called himself (talking in to his hand) and said "Hey Jonah, do you want us to come pick you up?" I think he thought the whole act was convincing me that he really was the conductor. He is such a silly boy.

Why am I here?

I have a horrible memory. Ask anyone who lives with me. Almost daily I leave a room and by the time I arrive to the next one I find myself questioning why I'm there. And not in a deep, meaningful, purpose of life kind of way either, it's more of an absolute blank brain phenomenon. I hate it. I have to write myself notes to remember what I'm supposed to do tomorrow, or next week or a month from now. I forget where I put the notes and by the time I stumble across them again they are obsolete. If I just met you, you can pretty much bet I've forgotten your name before we even finished with our introductions. It's not because you weren't captivatingly interesting. I just can't absorb a name until I've heard it associated with a person 52 times. Maybe I have a condition. I do have the ability to remember some things, obviously. I don't have to look at the keyboard to type, I can spout out lyrics to a song I haven't heard in 10 years and I can identify the brand of almost all children's clothes without seeing the tag. Some information sticks naturally, which is nice and I'm thankful for the wee bit of brain function I've retained over the years. I'm hopeful that documenting random daily stuff will be useful in two ways.

1.) It will give me something to look back on and remember the wonderful, silly, bazaar, happy, sad, etc. things my family and I have experienced over the years.

2.) To give those of you not lucky enough to witness the daily antics of my life a little glimpse of euphoria. Is it not euphoric? As far as I can recall it is.....

My Lovelies