All the things I didn't do today

I had big goals this morning. A long list started forming in my head the moment after I found out that school was cancelled because of snow (my school, NOT the boys' school!) ... and I'm often found to be ambitious when I'm still cozy under my covers. There's something about setting goals and feeling completely confident that I can accomplish them while still not moving. There must be a diagnosis for this: I-think-I-can-do-everything syndrome? Delusional syndrome? Anyone else suffer from this? It leads to a great feeling of failure at the end of the day.

But then I got distracted: by reading other people's blogs, by drooling over the new Nordstrom catalogue that just arrived in the mail, analyzing my grey roots, taking a nap, playing Words With Friends, picking dog hair off my coat, wondering what my life would be like if I never had to go to work, and watching my neighbors shovel their walks...

Then five minutes after I dropped the kids off at school, I had to pick them up again, only to be disappointed by how fast my day seemingly passed me by.

I still had the afternoon!

But. Instead, I did this:



Because. Well. They're only young once. And I have a dreadful thought that the next time I blink, it will be snowing and they'll be in college, or married, and calling only when they want to do laundry or have me babysit their kids. And the days when I can help them build a castle will be The Past.

I don't want to be in The Future and wish I hadn't been in The Present.

While we were building, a nice looking early-30-ish guy stopped his work truck in front of our house and walked toward us.

Guy: "Hi. My name is Nate. My Grandma lived in this house. I haven't seen it in years and I saw you out front, so I just thought I'd say hi."

Me: "Get lost, creeper."

Just kidding. (But that did happen to me once when I went to visit my childhood home in Bellflower.)

Me: "Hi." Kind smile, you know, that one that got me free services on my Mac. "Come on in. Take a look around..."

He shared all kinds of memories and was especially shocked that it was so well preserved (meaning, we haven't done any remodeling, and it still looks like it did in the 50s). But he said that in a nice way.

And then. I remembered my own Grandma's house. The one where we ate Grandma Buns and watched her iron. Where we found her old gloves in her drawers. And marveled at the fact that she and Grandpa had separate beds. Where we sat with 40 people in the living room having cake after Church and listened to Grandpa's corny jokes. And Grandma's laughter.

And Nate and I shared a smile. Memories. Place gives them more power than we may have realized. Or maybe anticipated. Place forces us to take stock and realize how much we are the ones that have changed and moved on. For better or worse.