When Life Gets in the Way

You know, I try and write here consistently. At the very least, this blog is a journal for my family and me to see how this year goes of living on the Compact. It's fun for us to re-read things here and will be even more interesting in a year. Beyond that, it is a conversation (sometimes one sided) about things that I find very important about life--compact and otherwise. It's a place for me to spill out to all of you my ideas and fears and hopes about our lives and the world.

But, guess what--sometimes life gets in the way of commenting on life. We're just living it here, and have been too busy for me to post this weekend.

Yesterday, we went to our weekly homeschool Park Day where the kids and the adults played and talked, respectively, for about 5 1/2 hours. We do this every week. We have built this amazing, supportive, interesting community and I think we all have grown to depend on the weekly get together as a means of connecting with people, perhaps for the only time during the whole week, who really understand us. We get each other. We get it.

We had to scramble home just as the rain started to come down. My husband had joined us in the park on his way home from work on his bike. He commutes to and from work on his bike almost every day, except when there's a lot of snow on the ground or if there's going to be a huge downpour. A little snow is fine and so is a little rain. My husband has a rain poncho that he drapes over himself and the handle bars which keeps him relatively dry. But, he didn't have it yesterday, and just as he was starting to peddle hard to go home, our friend Mr. B. offered to put husband's bike in his van and give him a ride home. I should explain here that we have a tiny 2 door Saturn. Do you know that it is possible for a family of 4 to live in a suburb without a van? Also, it's possible to only have one car. Except, when we need to get lumber and then we borrow our friend E's van. Or, when there's a downpour, and Mr. B. can give you a ride home. We don't have a van, but there are times when we really appreciate that our friends do.

At home, we had just enough time to get our kids ready for their show. They belong to a performance group and put on little acts about once a month that collects food for a local food pantry. As an aside, we visited a food pantry last year as a field trip for our homeschooling group. It is one of a few in neighboring communities. The one we visited served 600 people a month. Wow. That seems like a lot to me for a population comprised of mostly middle to upper middle income families. There's a lot of need out there and people slipping in between the ever widening cracks. The kids had a wonderful performance last night with their friends and were well appreciated by the audience and everyone brought in food for the food pantry.

Today, we went to my daughter's soccer game. It was very cold and my daughter really wasn't in the game heart and soul. She's at the point in her soccer career, as was my son at this age, where she's pretty comfortable with others hustling for the ball. She doesn't have a whole lot invested in it. She kind of thinks that she's just sharing the ball with the other team rather than being the shark she needs to be and insist that the other team never even touches the ball. She likes to notice how the other girls are all running and who is on the sidelines and interesting cloud formations may catch her eye. While she was goalie today, she did do a great job. To sum up, and no offense to those of you who adore it but...soccer sucks. From the game, we went to the annual Bike Swap, where I got this suh-weet ride.

Check it out.

That's right. It is a Royal Scot which is really a Raleigh in disguise. 10 points bike lovers!

We came home, had lunch and then went to a community center in another town to see one of the kids in our group dance . She was wonderful! As was my friend M. who is the dance teacher and also danced today.

Then...we came home and then dropped the kids off at their friend's for a little while and my husband and I went to Half Priced Books and got a couple of books for M.'s son who is our kids' friend and we're going to his birthday party next week.

We all got home, had dinner and I read two chapters of On the Banks of Plum Creek to the kids and they went to bed to read to themselves.

I love it when life gets in the way.