Sunday Spark: Spring Break
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As our Spring Break comes to a close today, I'm looking back with fondness on a week that we didn't really go anywhere, butwe had a grand time all the same - relaxing, witnessing the many Spring flowers in bloom, planting and finding geocaches, and just enjoying tons of family time. Okay, yes, and enduring the stomach bug too (fortunately, that passed quickly). And with today's weather in the 80's, the kids put up a lemonade stand (They made $3.75!!). I hope your Spring break was as agreeable as ours (less the intestinal flu). Happy Spring!
Lemonade stand and chalk drawing in April!
Clematis in our front garden, in nearly full bloom!
Swinging...
Iris in our front yard. So quickly they come & go...
One of many geocaches we found this week!
Ah, tulips - the sure sign of Spring!
Serious egg-dying at Grandma's house.
Eggs on the lawn after the fifth or six hide & seek game.
Fetching a ball from the pond.
The stunning beauty of nature & why I love New Jersey - the pines.
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A few evenings ago, Adam & I decided to watch a quick movie before heading up to bed. It was quite late, but we wanted to try to settle our minds a bit after a hectic day – as family, work, and life can sometimes – often – be. The title of this one struck me, as did the length (brief), so we settled in…
(okay, deep breath, because I just watched it again before writing this post…)
I will tell you firstly – in retrospect – this might not be the best thing to watch right before bed. Secondly, if you’re a parent, or soon to be a parent, or want to be a parent, and you watch this… you’re likely to find it deeply affecting.
I can hope it will affect you in a positive and uplifting way, as it did us.
See… I often think about my “bucket list”, and/or the things in our life I’d like to do differently – tomorrow, some day, when I have the chance, when I get the opportunity, when I’m in a better place, or frame of mind, or situation, or whatever. I think most of us do – it’s part of the human condition. But when you’re faced with death. In an instant. Like Mr. Elias was, and will describe… I imagine those things we’ve back-burnered, come rushing to the forefront.
So it really makes me wonder: what am I waiting for? Why not make the best of what I have RIGHT. NOW? Why not try to enjoy each & every moment – small or big, good or bad? If I’m putting out energy, why not make it as positive as possible? And IF I’m putting effort into parenting, why not always do my best to be the most excellent parent I can? I often find myself being okay with “enough” or even surrendering to the “bad parent” character – because yes, we all have those days, and not everyone can be perfect – but. But what if that day, that one day (that maybe is actually a week or a month, because it’s become a habit to just do enough to get through the day, and the next day will be better, right?), is THE day? The last day? What if that day, I KNOW I didn’t go after life with gusto? That I didn’t choose to be happy? That I didn’t try my best as a parent? What if?
So with that, I’ll let you watch the video… Ric Elias: Three Things I Learned While My Plane Crashed
To recap (or, if you can’t see the video for some reason), here’s what Ric Elias learned in those last moments:
1) I no longer want to postpone anything in my life.
2) I decided to eliminate negative energy in my life. I no longer try to be right, I choose to be happy.
3) Above all, above all - the only goal I have in life is to be a good dad.
I was given the gift of a miracle of not dying that day. I was given another gift which was to be able to see into the future and come back and live, differently.
I challenge you today:
How would you change?
What would you get done that you’re waiting to get done because you think you’ll be here forever?
How would you change your relationships & the negative energy in them?
And more than anything – are you being the best parent you can be?
So my readers… I have decided to accept his challenge, and hope you will too. Think about what you would change, and start today – now – to take steps towards that change. Commit to trying your hardest, being your most positive, making the most out of each moment as it comes, and always being the best parent your kids could want.
Sunday Spark: Hiking in the Woods
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When Adam asked me what I’d like to do for my birthday, naturally, I said I’d like to go for a hike.
(Leaves had fallen all along the trail... beautiful!)
We’ve been hiking together for 17 years. I’ve hiked through two pregnancies, hiked with a newborn, hiked when the snow was up to my hips and when the wind blew so hard and cold that the water was freezing in my drinking water line, hiked when the mosquitoes have bitten my ankles til they’re swollen. Together we’ve woken with the sun, put a tent up in the dark, and the rain, hiked on the Appalachian Trail, in Canada, Mexico, and several US states, and have carried everything we needed for days on our backs. Our children have been along with us for much of the journey. So when we say we’re going hiking – they shout joyously: WHEN!! It warms my heart to see how much they love the woods, too.
See, nature is my second language. When I’m out in the woods, everything is clear, right, and okay. We could be cold; it’s okay. We could be lost; it’s okay. We could be tired; it’s okay. The energy of the trees, the synergy between sun, air, ground, plants, animals, humans… the world is condensed, tangible, reachable, when you’re in the woods. There aren't any hard, fast schedules, no expectations, no limits. Everything seems possible, and life, perfect.
(Starting off up the AT)
Yesterday, as usual, nature didn’t disappoint! We chose a circuit trail at the Delaware Water Gap, on the Pennsylvania side – a favorite spot since it’s not too far a drive for us, and the elevation increase from base to peak isn’t too great, so the incline is gentle – perfect for hikes with children.
(View across the gap - Mt. Tammany straight ahead, Mt. Minsi to the right)
We climbed Mount Minsi this time, which was a gentle incline on a mostly clear, not-too-narrow, and well-marked part of the AT. We crossed streams, past a couple of ponds and rocky outcroppings, and were treated to several beautiful views of the gap. At the top, Mt. Minsi opens up to a glorious view of Mount Tammany – still very green, as you can see!
(View of Mt. Tammany from the top of Mt. Minsi)
We’ve hiked Mt. Tammany with the kids in the past; it was a slightly shorter loop. The Minsi loop we chose was a ~4.25 miler up the Appalachian Trail, and down a fire lane. It was a beautiful Fall day, warm, bright, the leaves starting to fall – it was absolutely perfect for a day hike.
(Heading down the fire lane)
I hope you had a lovely weekend, and are enjoying the Fall. If you hike with your family, tell me about your favorite hiking spot - I'd love to hear!
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Tuesday afternoon, August 23rd, while outside gardening with my children, we experienced an earthquake. Just typing this makes me feel alternatingly giddy and faltering (pun sort of intended). I only remember ever feeling one other earthquake in my life, and it was a teeny tiny one, as a teenager, and relatively unmemorable – nothing more than a bit of a shimmy. But Tuesday was so much more. And, as exciting as it was – living history! – it left me feeling vulnerable, all the same.
We had been out back, sweeping off the porch after trimming back our tomato plants and putting down some soil on our pumpkin patch, taking advantage of the coolness of the afternoon shade to start preparations for the Fall. Adam was inside, working from home (what a lucky thing, we’d both said, later). I began to hear our wind chime ringing, which, in and of itself, wasn’t a big deal, and my mind didn’t pay much attention – it was a normal sound for the back porch. Only, in retrospect (moments later, retrospect, that is, as little things began to fall into place as being connected and part of a bigger picture of EARTHQUAKE), I realized that there was no wind. That’s when we started to hear a clicking sound, all around… sort of like hail, only, there was no hail. I was looking around, up, down, trying to determine the source of the sound – it was like a crackling or snapping and it seemed to be coming from everywhere – when my husband came to the back door, shouting: "Did you feel that? Was that an earthquake?"
The force of that word brought the clicking sounds and the ghostly ringing (now loudly jangling) into sharp focus: the clicking was not hail, but rather the house shifting and creaking, along with bits of things falling from the trees (we're backed right up to the woods), the windchime was chiming because the entire building, from which the windchime was hanging, was moving. Just as I took a step towards the back door, I felt a dropping in my stomach, like the sensation of being on a boat in rough waters, or in a car, going too quickly over a dip in the road. I was suddenly dizzy, disoriented, and just then – a good bit scared. We gathered the children and moved quickly inside. Then, as the woman-of-the-21st century I am, instead of rushing upstairs and out front as my husband and children did, I decided to hop on to Twitter, and tweeted:
And also:
The moment my feed refreshed, my suspicions were more than validated. Nearly every other tweet in my stream mentioned an earthquake! It was surreal. From as far south as South Carolina to as far North as Canada, people had felt the earth move! Interestingly, @Twitter had this to say, later in the day (making me feel a bit better for rushing so quickly to my computer):
I grabbed my phone and stepped out front where I was greeted by the sight of the largest number of neighbors I’ve seen since moving here five years ago. Once we determined that yes, we all “did feel that”, and weren’t feeling it any longer, we ventured back inside to turn on the news. Already every local station had reporters on the street in Philly talking to folks who’d been evacuated from their buildings, and the national news stations were reporting from DC. Within minutes we knew the epicenter, and the magnitude of the quake: 5.9, near Mineral, Virginia.
In spite of knowing – both in numbers, and in experience – that the quake was relatively minor, and no one was injured, and that it was over… we stayed glued to the set (and me to my iPhone) for the next half hour or so; answering the kids’ questions, and maybe, in the back of our minds, waiting for the other shoe to drop. It felt eerily reminiscent of 9-11. I did feel a bit dizzy about a half hour or so later, as did the rest of my family. Aftershocks, or, sympathetic vertigo of sorts.
In the grand scheme of things, this earthquake was a brief moment in time. Tuesday afternoon is nearly two days past, and #earthquake is no longer trending. The news of the world has moved on to another event. We weren’t hurt, nothing near us was damaged, and the rest of our day proceeded relatively uneventfully. My children experienced their first earthquake, and I experienced a feeling of helplessness and insignificance and awe, moved as I was by my minisculeness; pushing headlong through time, magnetized to the unstable crust of our great earth, rocketing through our infinite universe. I’m humbled, and grateful that we were able to experience a bit of the wonder of the earth without any injury. I’m amazed by the technology that allows us all to be so far from one another, yet so connected. I’m sleeping well, but maybe I checked on my children just a few more times than usual Tuesday night.
Did you experience Tuesday’s earthquake? I’d love to hear your experience. (by the way, you can report your experience, here. I did!)