Beautiful Day

Today has been beautiful for many reasons. Mainly, I have friends and a the beauty of nature to thank for that. Look at the treats Mother Nature gave me this morning when I stepped out my back door that leads to my garden....

What a beautiful thing to wake up to! Thank you Mother Nature for the sunflowers, yellow crookneck squash, Roma tomatoes, cabbage, squash blossom and butternut squash.
Also, you'll notice...my blog is beautiful again. A big thank you to Lyndsay (again)! She had me test adding an html code widget to set my background (rather than her logging into my blog to fix things) to see if it worked and wha-la, it worked perfectly. Please visit her new site HERE.....if you are looking for someone to beautify your blog, she's your girl!
There are certain days when one would be remiss to not mention certain things or people that need to be mentioned. So today I hope you won't mind me highlighting a friend (I hope she won't mind for that matter)!

T has been a friend of mine for as long as I can remember (we're talking elementary school here so 20 plus years). We recently reconnected thanks Facebook (where else)?

Today her son would have turned 18. She lost him a few years ago due to circumstances I'm not quite clear about. What I do know for certain is that it was beyond tragic, as any loss would be for a mother. He was a beautiful boy with his mother's eyes.

I don't know how she's getting through it, but she is. She's as strong and as beautiful as she was when I met her as a spunky girl at Sirrine Elementary School in the late 1980's. Some people just have that spark- that fire inside that keeps them going when others would just give up. She's one of those people, an inspiration in my book.

Tonight I feel really grateful for my friends and family. What a blessing it is to learn that it's people, not things, that make life happy (and yes, I know some people have the ability to make life not happy...but you know what I mean, the people who build you up, who love you and support you).

The people in my life mean more to me than gold...the old friends, the new, the locals and those across the sea, the chosen family, the blood family, the besties, the sisters, the casual ones, the old school friends, my church friends, and of course blogger friends....the lot of you. ThAnK YoU for making my often rocky, bumpy (and of course hilly) life much more joyful than it would be without you.

Remember: today is a gift...that's why the call it the present (I know, I know, feel free to insert an eye-roll at that catch phrase, I can see some of you now....but, it's true).

Temporarily....

.....life decided to take over, leaving me almost zero time to write (or do anything else). But this week I will be back. Just wanted to say thanks to you all for stopping by! Have a beautiful Sunday evening!!

Much Love,
Hily

Kaboom: Story of an almost house fire

This week certainly started with a bang and hasn't let up. First of all, the kids, OK, my son opened the door onto my head the other day at full speed and I had a huge bump, now a nice green bruise that really hurts. But that's OK, nothing I can't live with. It's good to have some sense literally knocked into one's head now and again right? Another count-your-many-blessings moments happened this morning but it could have been a lot more disastrous than having one's head hit with a door.

This morning....a sock caught on fire. Yep, one little sock that almost burned the entire house down. It's a long story. But basically, because I dry my clothes on the line and do not own a dryer (and they are often still not dry the next morning with the cold weather), I sometimes throw a pair of socks in the microwave for say, one minute to warm them up for whomsoever's tootsies they will be covering.

Well, I did that this morning.....put a pair of the husband's socks in for one minute to warm up and I heard the timer go off and I just left them in there to sit for a moment. It sounds weird, I know, but it works (and I even put them on a plate just like food).

I went outside to bring in the rest of the socks to finish warming up in the house during the day, and I walked in to a house full of smoke and the kids saying "what is that smell?" Mr. Awesome (aka the husband) was running around looking for something on fire. He found it- in the shoe and sock basket.

A sock, like a glowing ember, smoking and literally singed with fiery red holes with the fibres burning and spreading, smoking more and more and growing into a flame. I grabbed the sock and carried it to the sink, turned the water on full blast and then drowned it in a full sink.

Mr. Awesome probably would have kept holding the burning sock until it caught his hand on fire- he one time set himself on fire in England while lighting a barbecue but that's a story for another day. He likes fire....a little too much and so do a lot of other English people I observed while living in England. There is a town not far from where we lived where people run through the streets carrying barrels on fire! I have no idea why; I should find it on Wikipedia.

Anyway, I'm guessing Lilz pushed the "quick on" button on the microwave again and started the socks smoking....and then she took them out and put them in the basket by the front door (she's really into putting things where they go) and once the oxygen/air hit the almost on fire sock it actually started to catch on fire. If we hadn't found it when we did the whole basket would have caught on fire....it was starting to burn a hole in the basket, and who knows from there what could have happened.

The basket with the little burned hole

I'm posting some photos to show all of this...because it almost sounds made up. But seriously, this is how life goes in our house. There's never a dull moment! It reminds of the time last year when Lilz put a plastic plate from her tea set in our real oven (I had no idea it was in there), I went to turn it on to bake a cake, the plastic melted and set on fire and we had to call the firemen for the first of many times now.

What remains of a once white sock

This morning after the sock on fire incident, Mr. Awesome said to us, "you guys are determined to burn this house down aren't you?" Ummm, no, we just have a very imaginative little girl who mommy obviously needs to watch like a hawk a little bit more.....because she of course must have inherited the pyromaniac gene from her British pyromaniac father. The microwave is now going to be unplugged unless in actual use by the way.

All I can say in closing is...thank goodness for small miracles.

Some Days

Let's be honest, some days are really, really not the best (even if we are grateful for every day we have in life). Things could always been worse though, which is something I like to always tell myself (a billion times over) when I have a bad day. But, if life had a rewind button I'm sure many of us would use it. Wouldn't you? Or am I wrong? Maybe I should create a poll on that. Yesterday was a day like that for me, today hasn't been much better....although I haven't managed to upset someone (not that I know of) today yet so that has one up on yesterday.

To that certain someone that I love very much who I kinda missed completely at the light rail station last night (despite driving around looking and subsequently that certain someone feeling like he'd been forgotten and then walking home 2 miles only to be locked out of the house wondering where if his wife and 3 children had been car-jacked, kidnapped or killed in an accident), all I can say is....forgive me. There's nothing quite like a self-esteem killer than disappointing the person you're meant to make happy. Those are the days I want to go live in a dark cave and not come out but that's a rather defeatist attitude as my husband would point out.

So, that was last night, and then today my body of course let me down, again. If my body were an actual seperate person, I don't think I'd like her very much....I'm glad my inner-spirit isn't as hard as my body is on myself (if that makes sense). I ended up with yet another medical situation that came somewhat out of the blue that landed me promptly in the doctor's office around 1pm this afternoon. I'll be ok, and I'll spare you the gory, boring details....but it is something that makes me as a mother a little sad and also a good reminder of how fragile life is. I'll let you use your imagination. No, nobody told me I only have 4 weeks left to live THANK goodness.

My lesson learned from the past 48 hours is just how quickly life can change. I guess that yesterday maybe we could have been killed in a car crash (rather than just missing our Englishman at the station...or maybe he could have just as easily gotten hurt along the way home), or today at the doctor as hard as it was, could have been worse (there I go with my age old adage again).

As much as I'd like to erase certain mistakes I make, I wouldn't ever want to not be here to mess up royally because how else can we learn to be better (or in my case at least try to be) or fully appreciate life and all sides of it? I'm still mad at myself for making my husband full of fear last night, but sure am glad we are both still here to keep each other company. With that being said, if anyone finds a remote control where I can rewind yesterday....let me know because I still would have rather not upset anyone at all, ever.

Darkness and Light

I know, I know, I already wrote a novel once today so promise this will be short especially as I have a sinus headache.

A study in darkness and light, just taught to me by one person, a lifelong friend who learned some bad news this afternoon.

On the darkness front, I knew immediately that it would feel like a punch in the gut for her family and the why us questioning would surely follow.

On the light front, I saw how she reacted to the news and thought about how much I admire her for not turning immediately to anger but going and seeking solace at the temple. I know a lot of you reading this may not be LDS like she is (and I am) but no matter what your religion, or even if you aren't religious, I just admire anyone who chooses to lemonade out of lemons.

To turn to something, anything positive (whether it's your family, charity, church, etc) that will take your mind off of the immediate unfairness of a situation is a lesson I know that I need to learn for myself.

I thank this particular friend and all my other friends who are a good examples of being graceful and appreciative of life even when it seems it is at it's worst.

Life is so short, it may not be fair, but I am trying to remember to enjoy the ride.