The Bryn Mawr Graduate!

Emily and Jessica, her "Garden Party Girl" at the Garden Party following Saturday's Convocation

The three big loves of my life! ( The fourth, Jake, wasn't allowed to come...)

My Jake is 2 yrs. old today!!! Happy Birthday to my favorite big boy puppy!!!

Cyclones. Earthquakes. Wild fires. Tornadoes. Floods. Drought. Famine. Genocide.

We are being presented with so many opportunities to step up and show our humanity and love.

So many...

Geez Louise.

So I was walking through K Mart over my lunch hour, and was more than a bit surprised to see a bag of candy (I think it was Nestles -maybe not - but some name brand anyway) with each little candy bar in the bag sporting a camouflage wrapper.

Camouflaged candy bars???

Yessireebob! I'm sure those will make all the men and women in uniform feel just dandy. Especially those serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. I mean there ain't nuthin' that says "I support the troops" like sendin' 'em bags o' cami-candies.

I truly believe they'd feel a lot more support if we finally got our act together and just brought 'em all home.

As in: NOW.

I'm making progress. I have moved from whining about my weight to whining about my wait. I'm chairsitting. Like I used to make the girls do when they misbehaved. But I haven't misbehaved...at least I don't think I have...

I can't, as strange as it sounds, take chairsitting sitting down. I have places to go, things to do, people to see, rooms to clean, gardens to weed, dances to dance! So instead of sitting, I basically bounce in my chair. And when the going gets really rough I switch the chair out with a desk-height exercise ball and sit/bounce on that.

And I'm here all by myself. The faculty is off grading or testing or doing whatever faculty do when they aren't here. And our department administrator took the rest of the week off. And the students aren't anywhere to be seen either.

Just me here. Passing the hours bouncing as I chairsit.

Augh.

Thirty years ago today I married my wonderful husband! We're celebrating by enjoying a lovely dinner at a little restaurant we can walk to from our home. I made a 4"x4" black and white print of the rose I've used in the banner for this blog and have matted and framed it as my gift to him. The rose looks like and unfolding heart to me - just as my heart continues to unfold the longer I'm married to Dean. It will be an early evening since I have to work tomorrow...

At work, which is maddeningly quiet and slow (I'm so glad I have only 21 workdays left!!!), I'm taking advantage of the last few weeks I will have access to PhotoShop for a while:

Okay. So maybe it's time to quit the kvetching. Quit the whining. Quit the whole "woe is me" scenario.

The past day or two I've been fortunate enough to noticed people who have crossed my path. People who are morbidly obese. People with cerebral palsy. People in a variety of physical bodies which, for one reason or another, provide definite challenges to the soul who occupies them. Or at least it appears so.

It's been humbling.

I'm in a body that has a propensity to retain roundness. So what??????

It is in generally good health and has seen me through a good share of insults - both real and imagined - and it's done so without very much support from me.

So maybe it's time to reconsider the whole issue.

Ya think?

Round and round and round I go... getting round, rounder, roundest... (But today I do sense a change - in spite of all my misgivings and false starts. The quiet fluttering of Hope?) I wrote this yesterday: