No title, just ramblings

no picture either. I sent our new camera to Sweden with our men. the battery is dead. I haven't had the time to find the charger and plug it in the wall. I usually have a camera in my purse. I've been using my iPhone lately, but my pictures ALWAYS come out blurry.

This week we had another basement flood. Not as bad/catastrophic as the first one. But still, large fans blowing on wet carpet and walls, and large bills to pay for repairs(the major disappointment of this isn't actually the flood, its the fact that the dollars which will pay for its clean up were going to be allocated to new paint for my very boring kitchen walls. Darn! Foiled again!). Large feelings of discouragement about owning an old house and filling it up with young kids are haunting me. This flood was preventable, if the toilet had been flushed right and the leaky valve given proper attention I would not have had gallons of (at least it was clean!) water sucked off the floors....sigh sigh sigh and sigh---

Because of the flood John and I gave up our bed to our kids, and took to sleeping in 'fun' places like out on the trampoline and downstairs on the big leather couch. I'm not sure if I have mosquito bites from the trampoline or spider bites from the basement, but either way I'm looking forward to making my kids sleep with those fans blazing outside their closed doors so I can lay on my side of my bed with my pillow and have a decent night's sleep tonight.

I went to a 'beyond the barre' class today at the gym. This is a toning/strengthening class 'trend' in lots of gyms around the country. Ballet words are used like 'rele-ve' and 'tondu' which are graceful terms for squats and lunges. But it is fun to actually pretend you are graceful for an hour while sweat is dripping off your face. And, since as a child I was told not to come back to ballet class because I had no 'natural grace', it is kind of fun to hold my arms like a ballerina, look in a mirror and try really hard to believe for just an hour a week that I can 'walk lightly' and with poise and femininity if I stick to this class instead of thundering through life as I do, walking like a football player entering the stadium (foot pounds and heavy legs; that's my natural gate).

Finally, you might be interested in seeing the delicious dinner John made for our anniversary. I had a conversation with some very dear friends this week about my insecurities surrounding John's incredible culinary abilities and affinity. Is it true love to provide opportunity for the person you love most to spend time doing something he loves, even if that something in the end benefits me? And is it true love if this gifting of time comes with the stipulation that in the end more time will be taken to right the wrong of kitchen disaster that takes place when any great chef is in the flow of creating delicious masterpieces? Or is that 'conditional love'? A conundrum I ponder when John takes to the kitchen...

Just a few random things on a Friday. I'm sure Monday, when my flood -ridden house is put back together again and my camera battery is charged and I've had my own turn in the kitchen to bake and cook I'll have fun things to show you and even funner things to talk about. Until then, Happy Weekend!