The house is quiet, my guests have all gone home. The sleeping bags are not quite put away. Neither is the Clue game. New Year's Eve was spent with family and friends...it was filled with ping pong, hot tubs, card games, a newfound minor addiction to Words with Friends, talking, laughing, eating, and lots and lots of cousins.
Needless to say it was wild, even by Vegas standards.
Since then and throughout the holiday, I have been to Home Depot about a zillion times. I am on a first name basis with many of the associates. They all know me as Miss Indecisive.
Today I took Izzy to a three hour rehearsal for an upcoming music competition. This week is going to be a full court press of preparation for the event. Tons of practicing. Tomorrow she will perform her entire program for the students in her school orchestra. On Wednesday, a lesson. On Thursday, a late night rehearsal. On Friday, a dress rehearsal. On Saturday, it's game on.
School starts tomorrow.
So does club volleyball for Sophie.
Caroline has her cello lessons, schoolwork, and practising. I do believe she and I will find ourselves over at the new house now and then to scrape old sunscreen coating from the windows.
Life is busy. It rolls on.
I want to be more organized this year. Meaning, I want to keep better track of time and not be the person who vaguely assumes a particular event is a week away when it is actually in three days. Like, say, Thanksgiving (true story).
Is there such a thing as clueless chic? No? Maybe? Is it just my imagination, or does it become less stylish in one's forties?
There's other stuff I want to do. I won't unload the list here because I prefer to keep it to myself and hope I accomplish things in my own way.
But I do believe in change. I do believe in improvement, even in the most unlikely of places.
For example, the other day I crossed paths with the death squad and it became rapidly apparent they'd familiarized themselves with my post on cairns. Who knew? And while they weren't sure whether to take what I said as an actual insult, they were decidedly emphatic it could not be construed as a compliment.
Apparently that went down like a stale energy chew.
At any rate, they were full of new theories regarding the origin of cairns. Theories involving the Vatican, crop circles, underground passageways in Washington, D.C., and the secret identity of the Mona Lisa. It got a bit shrill and paranoid there for a moment, but I was nothing if not entertained.
At the end of it all, when every theory had been exhausted and we finally figured out who assassinated JFK, one of them offhandedly suggested perhaps a cairn appeared whenever the ancient Norseman shed a tear for his true love.
Now that got my attention. I mean, conjecture like that is very telling. It says much more about the person than it does about the theory. It puts him at the same table as Shakespeare, Keats, and Donne. I mean, maybe not sitting at the same table, per se, but definitely as the busboy.
Believe me, I took a hard second look at the person who said it, but he was busy elbowing his friends and violently clearing his nasal passages, and so the moment passed.
Still.
What is the message here?
It means there's hope for us all, dear reader. Tons of it. A veritable surplus. Whatever you envision for yourself this year, whatever changes you hope to make, nothing could be so unlikely as hearing a member of the death squad utter a touchingly romantic sentiment.
Nothing.
So with that bit of wind beneath our wings, I think the future looks bright. It is rife with possibility. Every door is open. Every opportunity awaits.
All we have to do is go for it.
