if you read this, leave me a one-word comment about your day that starts with the third letter of your LJ USERNAME. Only one word please. Then repost so I can leave a word for you. Don't just post a word and not copy - that's not as much fun!

Personally, I don't update here much, so I wouldn't expect anyone to see this, much less comment. And that's ok too. Be well friends.

Two weeks ago I was digging my toes in the hot sand and dipping them in the pool but today I have them swaddled in socks. God help me, it's in the 40's this evening. Someone please give me forty pounds of flesh and furs. It's time to repeat my mantra, "I can't do this again."

I just finished reading T.C. Boyles' Drop City, I never want to go to Alaska, I fear I am almost there.

Clarifying the days, dreams, dharma.

Illuminating the pieces, culling the mosaic.

Seeking Beauty, Finding Beauty, searching attaining forgetting not seeing, realizing,

after clearing and sorting through, reviewing, but seeing for the first time. It's a reverse deja vu. I've already seen it yet seeing it again I see it anew.

The Universe is getting more mysterious. My innate Shaman remains activated. at times.

Now that breathes new Life into things . . .

Will i ever write in this journal again?

Over TG weekend, it was cold and blowing outside, so we made a fire in the fireplace. One night after the kids were in bed Balage and I settled down on the floor before the fire. We were burning really large logs from a massive Poplar branch that fell in a wind storm the previous week. A smaller log burning under one of the doozies crumbled and the big one shifted and rolled, right out of the fireplace, pushing the screen doors open and onto the floor in front of us! I've lived almost my whole life in Florida but I'm from NY. For 30 yrs our FP equipment has been up in my mom's crawl space attic. Last year Balage and I were using large sticks to manipulate the firewood, thank G-d! we asked my dad to drive up the equipment this past September when he drove up for a visit from Florida b/c I don't know how we would have saved our house from burning down if we didn't have the cast iron tongs that we used to grab the behemoth log and return it to the pit. There were a few scorch marks on the wood floor but the rugs we were sitting on didn't catch and the house was full of smoke (so we opened the doors).

A few nights ago I dreamt that a huge log rolled out of the FP and did burn our bedouin carpets. It's so scary b/c had we been upstairs (as we were on 20 minutes earlier) putting the boys to bed, we wouldn't have heard the innocuous sound of longs settling and maybe not even of the screen doors being pushed open.

It's cold and blowing outside, tonight we decided to burn one of the last monster logs. I was nervous about going upstairs to put the boys to bed and came down once or twice to check on it but Balage felt it was secure. Amiel tripped going up the stairs and bloodied his lower lip--an end to a rather peaceful and uneventful day inside at home--so I had some extra adrenaline coursing through my veins as it was. The house was smelling smoky, even with the bedroom doors closed. I kept one ear out as Amiel nursed (still tandem nursing almost 2.5 years and 4.5 yrs all together).

Then I heard it, the sound of sirens, a fire truck, getting closer and closer. I jumped up, opened the door, it looked smokey, my heart raced, was it smokier than before? I was coming out into the light from a darkened room. The fire trucks were approaching my house. O.MY.GOD!

I did not see a fire at the bottom of the stairs, but it was smokey. I threw open the front door. The fire engine was approaching very slowly, a flood light illuminated the truck--Santa Claus was ridding on top, waving.

Xmas has arrived and my neighborhood is lighting the giant fir tree that stands at the entrance. It's a Sudbrook Park tradition.

I'm purging many of my friends.

Oh, don't worry virtual buddies, I'm talking about IRL only!

Gitan was climbing up onto a chair last week with a bag of pita chips in his hand, slipped and bashed his left eye on the edge of the table. It began swelling immediately and then blackened over the next few days. Tonight he and Amiel were having a blast running in out and through the long velvet curtains, then Gitan comes running towards me (I was laying on the couch resting and watching their antics), trips on the Bedouin carpet and literally does a nose dive into the low coffee table. I hear a crack and he's holding his nose/right eye/forehead, I'm thinking he lost an eye or a broken nose at best, but I think will just be seeing another black eye. He looks like he's been in a car accident. Thank Gd this didn't happen yesterday during the blizzard or that he didn't need to go to the hospital at all. We gave in after this and let him watch more Thomas. With 2 back-to-back blizzards (6" already on the ground from Wed + 26" this weekend + 20 more yesterday) there's been more tv then we usually consent to. Our flight to Fla was cxld, we're rescheduled for Sunday and of course Gitan has a facial injuries in time to pose for family pictures--it always seems to go like this.

In other news, Amiel is a cool kid, starting to "talk" (baby, moon, animal sounds, bupup (his "puppy" lovey). He had an explosive tantram tho last thursday, I've never experienced anything like it. Writhed on the floor nonstop for 30 minutes sucking up air and lettling loose screams on top of his lungs ending with full body quivers before beginning again, he was cut up, toenail ripped off and bleeding from his struggles, all I could do was to sit there with him and be present and calm for him. His last molar (btm rt) appeared the next day, then he was totally cool and calm and funny again.

We were totally snowed in for Balage's bday yesterday, something completely different every year, and we didn't schedule a party (was going to call it a Mid Winter's Eve party) since we were supposed to be in Fla, but then the 2 blizzards anyway.

What's next? How about boring uneventful times?

Today Gitan walked away from his very intense train table game and came up to me all worried about where Adam and Eve were going to live. I told them they were doing just fine harvesting the bounty of the rest of the Earth and he returned to his new crane at the train table.

Amiel is 18 mos, Gitan is 3.5 yrs, both still nursing. That's almost 43 mos of continuous lactation. I tried to look up the record (I know I'm not even close, there are women out there who are pregnant and nursing for 20 yrs) just curious.

Amiel discovered today that he could stick his finger up his nostril, and then the other one, and then came after my nose with his little finger. Life is such an adventure! and yes, my belly button is still there from 30 seconds ago. just checking. object permanence. I really love this age. still sweet, still malleable (somewhat) still awestruck at the mundane.

i went through some of my collected body of work from grad school, i impressed myself, there was some very good writings there (despite critiques from profs). Mostly, I am grateful that I continued to be so productive and inspired after I graduated so as to create a foundation for future projects while the material and ideas were still fresh. According to the dates of these late works, I was creating from the time we returned from Spain after school had ended until I landed the teaching position at Notre Dame, which coincided with the start of my first pregnancy, at which point my focus and interests diverged. I don't think, no, I know I could not have created what I have from scratch now, so thank God I was rolling with it then. It almost makes me ready to pen again. Almost.

My brain remains mushy even if all the baby weight is gone and then some--go lactation!

I wish sometimes that I lived with another woman with kids to share the responsibilities though. I think plural marriage is useful.