Busy week last week and I haven't done a personal blog in a while, so here's a catch up blog.
We had thunderstorms and pouring rain all day. Lola got a quick walk when it let up a bit around 3:30 but it took me 10 minutes to dry her off when Michael brought her in. Of course, being rubbed with a big fluffy towel is not something she dislikes...
I gave her a baby carrot this afternoon to see what she would do. She now loves baby carrots. I doubt she loves them as much as Ritz crackers but I am trying to snack more healthy... so she can snack healthy too!
I thought I was going to spend most of the afternoon grocery shopping and then reading a new book. I forgot that I have a child in school. A child who hates to write. SO... I spent most of the day helping Michael with a project for school. It's either due this Tuesday or Tuesday December 1st. He doesn't know which day.
One nice thing about technology - He can email the project to his teacher. Yay.
BOOK REVIEWS
I finished the book An Invisible Thread yesterday. LOVE that book. Very well-written. True story. This is a synopsis:
She was a successful ad sales rep in Manhattan. He was a homeless, eleven-year-old panhandler on the street. He asked for spare change; she kept walking. But then something stopped her in her tracks, and she went back. And she continued to go back, again and again. They met up nearly every week for years and built an unexpected, life-changing friendship that has today spanned almost three decades.
Whatever made me notice him on that street corner so many years ago is clearly something that cannot be extinguished, no matter how relentless the forces aligned against it. Some may call it spirit. Some may call it heart. It drew me to him, as if we were bound by some invisible, unbreakable thread. And whatever it is, it binds us still.
I felt that thread so strongly when I met each of my kids. It was like getting hit by lightning. THIS IS MY CHILD, my innter voice said the moment I saw my daughter, and the moment I saw my son's photo.
It's impossible to describe that feeling any other way except recognition. Your heart knows your own child, just like your heart knows when you meet someone you are going to fall in love with. It's an incredible thing. I spent most of the day yesterday reading the book.
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I read a book recently called The Cuckoo's Calling, by Robert Galbraith - but not really. It's by JK Rowling. I'm not a big reader of mysteries but wow, it was powerful and absorbing. I am now reading the second book in the series, The Silkworm.
The lead detective in these books is Cormoran Strike, an ex-military private eye with a lower limb difference. In other words, he's missing the lower part of one of his legs and wears a prosthetic. I've never read a book where there was a limb difference main character. It's not made into a big deal, but she does mention it occasionally. As in, Cormoran has to walk a long way across London because he can't find a cab or take the tube and he's in great pain when he gets to his office. True stuff.
Unfortunately, there are plenty of vets with limb differences in England and here, now, after being at war in Afghanistan and Iraq for so many years.
The good thing about having a lower leg missing is that it's easy to disguise in pants. The bad thing is that it makes walking and running challenging. Anyone looking at my son instantly sees his limb difference, but he can walk and run easily.
That just bolsters my belief that nothing is a total curse or a total blessing. Everything is a mixed bag.
below, Michael's 11th birthday... just because it's so cute
