I was born to live the simple life...

Happiness is...

• sitting in a comfy chair on a simple, open dock on a lake
  


• warm sunshine & refreshing breeze
  


• relaxing sound of calm waves against the dock & shore line
  


• having everything we need and little more to keep track of
  


• kids successfully fishing
  


• family hiking & letterboxing together & alone
  


• good read enjoyed from start to finish
  


• being 90% unplugged (100% would have been even better)
  


• half a tank of gas round-trip
  

Sweeping out the garage...

So far, that has been the highlight of my day, and by highlight I don't mean sarcastic at all. Yes, I am home on involuntary house arrest while the van is being repaired...and I HATE being stuck at home. I love being home, but there's just something about knowing I can't leave which makes the situation completely intolerable.

So I decided to tidy up the garage.

I emptied the ice chest from this weekend's neighborhood event. While I was at it, I also emptied the ice chest from this weekend's baseball tournament. OK, I also emptied the ice chest from the day trip to DC...yeah, we have a few ice chests and are pretty lazy about emptying them, but fortunately they all only held drinks and bags of ice (well...water now.)

I put all of the errant baseballs, footballs, ping pong balls and basketballs in their respective corners and stacked up all of the goodies we're collecting for our upcoming yard sale.

And then I swept the floor.

Colin keeps the garage door open while playing outside sometimes, and sometimes it's really windy when he does that, so I must have swept out an entire tree of leaves and petals. Plus dirt from cleats and snow boots.

And with that, I prepared the garage for another season of toting ice chests, playing ping-pong (because the table is almost cleared off once again), and tracking in dirt. And I feel like I actually accomplished something.

A year ago, we decided to close our business. The business which consumed our every minute. I am thankful now for the opportunity to savor moments like this...when I find sweeping the garage floor therapeutic as opposed to a distraction.

It would be easier to look for Sonic than a real hedgehog!

In case you haven't heard (which would mean you either live under a rock, aren't my Facebook friend, or have blocked my posts), we're in the process of finding a hedgehog for Kayla for her 16th birthday (yeah...the age of surprise birthday parties and gifts is apparently behind us.) So let me tell you what I've learned.

1. Searching for "hedgehog" on craigslists gets you lots of video games, a trimmer, and one hedgehog home (which we're planning to buy...which will prove to be the easiest part of this entire process.)


2. You can't just go to the pet store and pick one up the morning of said birthday. According to the local pet stores "yes, we do sell hedgehogs but we only get them occasionally, we never know when we're going to get them, and we already have a waiting list."


3. From what we've learned, we should be trying to get a hedgehog from a licensed breeder. Yes, licensed. By the USDA. As in the federal government. So in a bass ackward way, we the taxpayers are paying government employees to oversee the hedgehog industry.


4. To me, buying from a licensed breeder is much like buying a race horse; the selling point is that they track lineage to insure there's no inbreeding. I wonder who the "Secretariat" of hedgehogs is, because I really want one of her offspring! But, I also know that they handle the hedgehogs from birth and tend to provide happier hedgehogs, and isn't that what this is all about?!?!


5. Hedgehogs are not cheap. Our budget went from X to 2X and now 2X+T+M where T=time and M=mileage.


6. But it's not just about finding a breeder. We need to find a breeder who actually has a litter or one on the way, because apparently this isn't a year-round business. And, again, there are waiting lists. Plus you to have wait for them to be weened from their mothers (anywhere from 8-10 weeks.)


7. So off to hedgehogbreederalliance.org I go to find a local breeder. Silly me, I thought local would be Richmond. Turns out THERE ARE NO HEDGEHOG BREEDERS IN RICHMOND!!! As a matter of fact, there are only FOUR REGISTERED BREEDERS IN VIRGINIA. Good Lord this is not going to be an easy process.


8. So now we're in the process of finding a breeder within reasonable driving distance (and reasonable has begun to include parts of North Carolina) who has a litter which will be available sometime between now and the end of May because we want hedgie to be adjusted to it's new home before Kayla heads to Florida for her one week of summer vacation.

This is proving to be NEAR IMPOSSIBLE but I'm not about to give up at this point! What started out as a pro-active exercise assuring that we had Kayla's gift in time for her birthday has turned into a full-time job learning more than I ever wanted to know about the breeding habits of hedgies, creating a page of notes about various breeders & hedgehog availability, and accepting the fact that her birthday gift is likely going to be late.

But I've also learned that hedgehogs are adorable! I'm in love already, and haven't even found one yet. They are teeny tiny (especially when they're born) and I just know he/she is going to bring a lot of love into our house.

How one night changed everything

In September of 2000 I was working full time, had a 9-month-old baby, and my daughter had just started kindergarten at Echo Lake Elementary School. A flyer came home from school about Girl Scout Recruitment Night. I remember walking into the school cafeteria that night and thinking "I'm going to be a part of this." The part of the Girl Scout Promise "to serve God and my country" resonated with me.

Looking back, it is amazing to see just how much my life is still impacted by my involvement as an adult Girl Scout volunteer. I haven't been directly involved in Girl Scouts in a few years now but people still associate me with the organization and scouting in general (cub, girl & boy) because of the connections I made as a leader and service unit director.

It is amazing how the relationships formed through Girl Scouts are intertwined with my life. I have worked with fellow leaders in the "outside" world, socialize with them, volunteer with other organizations, etc. People call on me for scouting advice or contacts. Sitting in the stands at Tucker football games, I am surrounded by fellow Girl Scout leaders. I am comforted with the prospect of going to Holman Middle School next year knowing I am familiar with so many Springfield Park families because of my involvement in Girl Scouts.

Unbeknownst to me when I registered my daughter for Girl Scouts so many years ago, I was planting roots that would become MY community.

Are you listening?

God has spoken to me. I have no doubt. And it's happened more than once.

The first time that I remember God speaking to me I was in my bedroom one night standing beside my bed in our house in Dunncroft. It was in 2000 and I believe it was in August of that year. I still remember the warmth of His touch and the comfort of His guidance. His command was clear "ask her to forgive you." I was not afraid. I was excited! I was relieved.

A very dear friend of mine was going through a traumatic event and I wasn't there for her. I could list the many reasons I wasn't able to be there physically, but they were all excuses. Because of my absence when she needed me most, our lives were drifting apart and that didn't feel right. If it were only because our families were growing, interests were changing, and time was limited, I could accept the change. But I knew in my heart that I was letting this happen and it wasn't right.

That night, God put His hand on my right shoulder and told me: "ask her to forgive you." I went to sleep knowing what had to happen first thing the next morning.

Fortunately, circumstances happened that I was able to go to her house the very next day. And just as God had told me, I simply asked for her forgiveness. No excuses for my choices. No explanations. Just an apology for not being there for her and a request that she find it in her heart to forgive me. She did.

It's funny. Our families have since grown and our time is more limited than ever. But I always felt like our lives would intertwine again. We've stayed in touch as best as possible and sure enough, our interests are becoming similar once again, and soon enough our kids will even been in the same school. God works in mysterious ways. Thank God!

Some things never change...

Do you have any unusual household habits that seem so natural you don't think twice about them?

This is going back a few years, but I remember my good friend Sharon suggesting to my friend that they get us a set of dinner dishes as an engagement gift because we were using recycled containers (I think they were butter containers and the like.)

We didn't really mind using the recycled containers. Nowadays you could say were were being "green." But at the time, it was nice to receive our first official domestic gift.

But guess what!?!?! Come to find out, we STILL use butter containers on a regular basis! We use Country Crock and get it in the small tubs. We have a stack of those empty tubs in our cupboard and frequently use them for dry snacks - a handful of pretzels or dry cereal. I don't even think about it, but imagine I've gotten some weird looks from visitors and in-home employees the first time they saw me prancing around with a butter tub ;-).

And to those of you who bought me that first set of Corelle dishes, thank you for helping me into domestic adulthood. Now I use the butter containers because they're convenient, not because we can't afford real dishes ;-).

Do you ever wonder why some friendships end?

Have you read that "article" about friends coming into our lives for a reason, a season, or a lifetime? I can't find the source, but found plenty of reprints online.

I fully agree and understand that some friendships are not forever (or that some remain forever in our heart even if we're not still in touch.) Ironically, Facebook has changed that philosophy a bit as some long lost friends have been brought back into our lives, so I guess we weren't fully done being friends yet. But it's obvious that some people will no longer be part of our lives once we've moved on from our commonality - be it school, job, neighborhood, church, etc.

Yet I have also experienced the end of some friendships that puzzle me to this day. Perhaps it was a misunderstanding that we could never quite straighten out, or lost contact information (because hard as I try, there are some people I simply can't find on the Internet!). Maybe it was social or parental influences or simply losing track of time and then losing track of each other. No matter the reason, I feel a void for those lost friendships and they're on my mind today.