Small Snapshots

 Do you ever feel like you're in a spiral?

Or maybe a better analogy would be those crazy tracks they build for marbles, where the marble goes up and down and around and out at the bottom, or else in a circuitous loop?

I do.

Kind of tagging onto the post at the first of the week.

I had a cry via text with my husband this morning.

Telling him how I hate how I go up and down.

A couple weeks of feeling great, and then a couple weeks (or more) of kind of feeling like I am on and off PMSing.

Yuck.

I get in the track, caught trying to analyze what triggers it or if I can help it.

Is it just part of being female?

(Blast those hormones!)

I wonder where my focus needs tweeking.

Where my mothering definitely needs to improve.

How I can be a better wife.

If I am making any progress at all at times.

And sometimes, when I feel I'm out at sea, I just want to send up a white flag and call it a day.

But there are just lovely moments that I savor too.

This week, for example, I've had several feel-good moments.

I loved going on our outing earlier in the week.

To the art museum, and the fine arts building at the local university.

We looked at art and talked about it.  Viewed it from far away and up close and compared.

We played in the museum's book store with cool toys, and I wanted to spend a bucket on educational stuff for the children.

I love sharing such beautiful things with them, and my heart jumps that they respond!

We got a valentine treat in the bookstore and went downstairs to the children's nook and spent an hour reading, whatever books they had picked out, and some I had picked, too.

We walked and talked.

We stopped and looked at the stuffed cougar, behind the glass.

They wanted to know if he was real.

We had a simple conversation on taxidermy.

I _LOVE_ spending time with them.

And sometimes getting away from home and out doing something reminds me just how much I love our conversations.  These are charming children we have.  And I feel blessed.

We're reading Where the Red Fern Grows at night.

Last night after cleaning up dinner, I lit the candles on the mantle, and the valentine luminaries I made.

(Yes, I'm a fidget butt and already put valentines up instead. I'll post that next week.)

We sat there in the quiet, reading the story.

They loved it.

So did I.

I love that quiet time with them.

I love the quiet in the night, when the lights go out, and I snuggle up next to Scott and he puts his arm around me.

I love his texts saying I love you.

I love knowing that he's there.

I appreciate conversations with him: his perspective is often enlightening or challenging to me, inspiring me to be better.

Or like last night, before reading.

I was cleaning up after dinner.

I had on this cd of my father and another artist.

I watched Benji start dancing with Mia.

 It was so cute.

Then Isaiah came up, pink dress and all, and they were all twirling around.

 I pulled out the camera and started snapping away.

They inspire me so much.

I understand more why the Savior likens our inner changing to becoming as children.

So quick to forgive.

So honest in their emotions.

Heartfelt.

Beautiful and simple.

Unconcerned by the world's messages.

Quick to believe and trust and forge ahead with faith.

I am so grateful to be surrounded by these beautiful little people.

They challenge me to be better.

They forgive me for my imperfections.

They love me anyway.

They are the ones doing much of the teaching here.

I remember reading Graham Swift's Waterland in one of my senior English courses in college.

I was intrigued by it.

One of the things he says is that "...we are always stepping into the same river."

I think it's true.

All of these emotions and experiences.

Blessings, hard times, good times, understanding and depth.

We're in a collective pool, on a circuitous root, becoming what we are intended to become.

Following a path of those that have gone before.

We stop and breathe, take it in, look around, and try to make sense of it.

Trying to live up to the best in us, and continue to what lays ahead.

I hope you have a great weekend.

We're going on a family date tonight to see an exhibit put on by our friends at the museum.

Having a girls day all day with  my mom and sisters tomorrow.

Church.

Yummy dinner.

Time with my kids and Scott.

I love the weekend.

(And, p.s., I was talked about HERE today.
I beg to differ. It's really the other way around.
I'm the one that's inspired by her. ;)
She is one of my top blogs to read.
I love her so much, too.
I guess it's one of those mutual feel-good, inspiring relationships, and I want to meet her in real life!)