Writing

So...I'm writing more consistently on this blog, but there's not a lot here that is extremely profound. Apparently, I'm writing just to write and if something great graces these pages, then so be it. :-) It's a rainy kind of day today, not too bad though. The clouds are dark enough to have gone beyond dreary into interesting. The breeze has picked up enough that I can see the trees gently moving acorss the way. It's not raining right now, but I have small puddles on my driveway and patio -- great for little boys to splash in, throw sticks in, and generally just revel in. What joy can be found in a puddle! Right now all I hear is the dog snoring at my feet, the whir of the bathroom fan (white noise for Annabelle as she sleeps) and the occasional car or jet outside my house...oh, and the click of the keys and hum of the laptop, of course. There's peace in the relative quiet. (Please understand with two at and under 2, it's ALL relative.) I am OK right now. I take the moments when I can be ok and wrap them around myself like a thick, fluffy blanket of comfort. I scootch into the coziness and allow myself to just breathe long and deeply. I haven't allowed myself to think anything more than surface thoughts lately. I know this will come back and bite me in the a**, but I need time away from the pain and the loss and the sadness. Last Sunday was Mother's Day. Rachel came over and we acted like it was just another Sunday. Andrew played it down, though he did take Will to get me a couple of gifts -- jukebox music, "Cowboy Country" and "Soda Fountain" -- nice, light, fun gifts. Watching Will dance to "You Ain't Nothin' but a Hound Dog" made us all join in and laugh, laugh, laugh! This coming Sunday is Rachel's birthday. I hate that her birthday had to be the first one we would go through without Mama. Rachel's HUGE on tradition and doing things the way we've always done them. Mama was a big birthday person. On your birthday, you got to choose everything we ate that day, and, if it wasn't a school day, everything we did. In the past few years, she took Rachel shopping for her birthday so she could pick out her presents. There's lots now that we can't do the way we've always done them. So, we're doing things really differently. This weekend, Rachel, Michelle, Daddy, the babies and me are going to Santa Fe. Hopefully being away will help. Hopefully being all together will help. Nothing's going to make it all right, though. It will never again be the same. I'm so sorry, Rachel, that yours had to be first. So...this post has rambled through the terrain of the mundane and pointless to the more poignant and life altering. Maybe that's what this blog is for. Hopefully, it will help.