New Growth

Spring, glorious spring. "It's a beautiful morning!Now mom, you sing 'It's a beautiful day!'" says Jude on the way to church this morning.

Today was a wonderful, incredible tease. The kids were antsy, and I had the best morning spiritual practice in a while. Still not as focused as I have been, but despite my broken toe, I forged onward, further than Jake and I have walked for awhile. I could feel something different about the sun rising behind my back; about the quality of the light. We heard and saw red-winged blackbirds, and I've seen some amazing red tailed hawks lately. The snow geese seem to be done with their migration but I'm still seeing scads of Canadian geese every morning.

The littles and I headed off to church; I was teaching Sunday School today, which was nice, but I heard a tantalizing snippet of the sermon when I stepped out for a moment; I will definitely be listening to the podcast when it's uploaded. Something about abortion...

Then we went to pick up our new doggie. We are trying out a little beagle mix. She is feisty, fat, and four. She fits right in! (A four year old, four kids...feisty...not so much with fat). So far so good. Jake is kind of pestering her but she's got no patience for his immaturity and promptly stole his bed. I kicked her out of it of course, and he pulled his blankets around him and is snuggled in now. The kids adore her (all but my oldest, who doesn't seem to much care).

We spent some time outside raking and cleaning up the yard, since it was so warm and lovely. I'm itching to clean out our studio and make it usable space for crafts and art work, but that's going to take some trips to the dump and Goodwill. I did get the front yard raked and Tom pruned some of the apple tree, and chopped some wood. I think we'll just make it through the cold weather with what we have.

We had a nice visit with my ex, his wife and his dad . We ordered pizza and hung out; he worked on the kids' computer (the ex, that is), and his wife and I laughed at his overprotectiveness of the girls around boys. It was fun!

unfortunately, right before the arrived, I started experiencing cold symptoms and them Emma started up. Perfect timing, since I haven't been sick all winter and I start back as RE Assistant at First U tomorrow morning. Hopefully I will feel less foggy in the morning.

Anyway, like the crocuses and daffodils that are peeking up, I feel primed for new growth; ready to move forward into a new phase of my life (seminary) and immerse myself. Once this head cold goes away!