Celebrating the Ordinary: San Francisco

I celebrated my 27th wedding anniversary on October 15th 2017.

How do you even process loving the same someone for that many years and still hoping that you will get a million more?

Not sure but I still do.

This poem is just exactly:

You ask me today if I love you,

If I take you as my own to have and to hold,

and my heart relies Yes,

Always, evermore, even after,

Still.

Not just today before a crowd

but when we are alone,

you and I,

through years, through pain,

My heart will answer again and again,

still.

Ask me in a million seconds, ask me in

a billion years,

Do you still love me?

And I will say say still.

Ask me when we toil, when we rest,
when we fuss and fight.
With the taste of anger burning my lips,
I will say still.

Our love is a great river,

the Amazon, the Nile, the river

Euphrates,

and my hear is a violent churning in my chest

swimming upstream,

defying every odd, accepting any dare

To reach you.

To rush you,

to hold you,

to keep you.

You ask me if I love you?

God, yes.

My lover, you are the single star

in the universe void before you came.

And when the years have passed

and we have watched a thousand

sunsets,

and we are bent,

our bodies crooked with age

ask me again.

In the twilight

in the shadow of the life we have

shared,

ask me is I love you.

and my heart will answer

before my lips can part,

My love, my life,

my heart never left your hands.

Always, evermore, even after,

Still.

I didn't write this... it was in a book I read but it is everything I feel sitting here thinking of my love.

We still love any excuse to go play and not that we even need one but 27 years got us eating donuts and heading into the city for brunch at Plow. We usually go to Napa but with the unfortunate fires we headed west and were rewarded with our new favorite day.
They have the best breakfast in the city and my french toast will be a craving for the rest of my life.
With my new iphone 8 plus in hand I had fun taking tons of pictures.

Nicholas and Natali were flying in that night to go with us to Carmel the next day so we ate dinner in the Whole foods food court on the way to the airport.
It was fitting sitting there eating a salad talking about our life, our family and our love. It doesn't matter what we do as long as I am holding his hand.
It's true. It fits perfectly.

So after 27 years and some days later I still get excited to wake up beside you...

every single day.
I love you...
Thomas Call forever and
Still

Summer is the annual permission slip to be lazy. To do nothing and have it count for something. To lie in the grass and count the stars. To sit on a branch and study the clouds.

Regina Brett

My own permission slip to be lazy...

I love it!!!!

And oh my goodness we are so stinking lazy it is ridiculous.

I even start out thinking I won't be lazy and I forget about my permission slip and I tell my kids we are going to have a little homework and we are going to read every day and we are going to do a couple of chores every day and I tell them that we are not going to have a summer brain slip and we are not going to be lazy.

( Holy wow... that sentence was even bad by my writing standards and I really don't have any... my English teachers would really hate my constant run ons but I love them because they are keeping with how my brain works. I rarely take a breath when I am speaking why should my writing be any different. Now where was I? Oh yea being lazy...)

I have been saying this plan to myself and the kiddos at the beginning of every summer for as long as I can remember.

Everyone believes me...even me.

They moan and complain when I tell them the summer plan because I am their mom and they always think it just might be for reals this time.

I even have this mentality for 2 whole days and for those 2 days I am a tiger mom. I sit them at the table with their new summer homework books and then we have reading time and then I have them help me clean the house and maybe do something seriously painful, like heaven forbid, weed a flower bed. I commend myself with a head nod and a pretend pat on my back on making sure that we are that family. The go get 'em family that tells the stories when they are older like how their mom knew the value of work and they are where they are today because their amazing mom had them do all the things. And now they know why she made them do all the things because they are like president of the United States.

But on the third day I just don't care about any of it. I don't care if they finish their library summer reading chart or if my house is a mess or to be quite honest if they forget everything they have ever learned in school and they start out their new year learning how to do basic arithmetic and learning how to read basic words like "cat" and "hat".

I just can't seem to care.

This probably says way too much about my psyche and why I will never have kids that aren't lazies themselves and will never say they had the best mom that taught them how to work but I simply can't do it any other way.

Do I get parent points for trying?

Is someone out there giving out parent points because I want some. I want 5 whole points each summer for trying.

But is what we get on the flip side is extra long cuddles in the morning.

Reading Harry Potter because we want to and it is one of the most magical books ever written.

Swimming and making up games all day long.

Riding our bikes to my kids favorite ice cream in Danville.

Picnics.

Tennis and

Ping Pong too.

Barbecues and ending our nights with fires and smores.

Day trips to the city and week ends in Carmel.

Cereal for dinner because I still have my fake permission slip to not do anything at all.

Plenty of time for them to be sooooo bored that they almost want school to start..almost but not quite. And then thank goodness, there is always time for them to fight, because fighting is their favorite.

Have I said how much I love summer???!!?

I mean seriously.

I want to be in one of these bug's...

Who are the joyous people that are traveling this way?

I bet they are all best friends. For sure they are best friends.

We grabbed cardboard boxes and headed into san fran for the slides.

This is what your "17" year old looks like when you have a day of forced family fun.

He might hate us just a little bit. I'm hoping he comes around.

We buy bi-rite each and every time hoping they will always like us.

The kids fell in love with bubbles all over again. Every day this was us.

Nicholas was home for two whole weeks..

Hallelujah!!!

Tennis is always a good idea for about 1/2 hour and then it turns into a huge fight between Ella and Benjamin. She is soooooooo much better but somehow he almost wins and it gets Ug. Ly

Ping pong is another one that starts out so innocent and can turn on a dime to a competition that could put Olympic athletes to shame. These two are dead serious and it really matters who wins...I mean really matters.

I'm always a touch scared or laughing my guts out.

We dog sat Magnus and Benjamin had a summer crush.
I realize Magnus looks like he is saying,
" someone please help me"
but he really did love Benjamin right back.