Seeds!

Although we haven't been, officially, homeschooling yet (this may start in the next few months), we are constantly trying to teach Claire (and Ashlyn, too) things about her world.  Claire "helps" with dishes, loads the dishwasher, helps me with simple things with dinner prep and "folds" clothes with me.  A friend of mine, years ago, introduced me to the concept of "tomato staking."  Short version, you keep your children close to you most of the time, involving them in everything you are doing and in the process are training them in what you are doing and in right behavior at the same time because they, hopefully, see it in you!  It's not always something I can do, since I work part-time but I do try to involve them in most everything.  I take my girls everywhere (around their nap schedules, usually) and it's great to watch them be a part of our lives rather than a "drain" on it. They are a part of our lives and we love sharing it with them.  
Recently, on a trip to Target, I made a swing through the dollar bin.  I found a couple plastic greenhouse kits.  Our yard is not "plant habitable" (I'm hoping to post another blog post about the yard and my garden I'm planning in the next month) so this little greenhouse had to do.  I bought Cilantro and Basil and had a planting party with Claire and Ashlyn.  Claire loved it and learned a bit, for sure!  How God grows plants and give us food is number one (helpful since both the plants we picked can be eaten.  The discussion question also centered around "What do plants need to grow?!"  Water, sunlight, soil! We said this over and over as we prepped our greenhouse and everytime we go out to check on our soil/seeds to see if  they are moist.  We are also talking a bit about "patience" :-)  Hopefully, my little dollar seeds will spring up.  Otherwise, we'll be trying the lesson again later, with seeds I'll probably pay a little more for. . .
In the meantime, I keep planting seeds of my own with the girls.  Planting memories and ideas and love into the fertile soil of their hearts and praying the good stuff takes root, that our little green tomatoes grow into beautiful vines and that they forgive me for the times I may stumble and plant a weed or two.

Our Holy Week

I wanted to make a bigger deal out of Easter/Holy Week than I did but I was able to get a few things in that I wanted and I think it turned out great.  I have stored up lots of fantastic memories from this past week and I'm hoping Claire is starting to hide a few things in her own heart and that the wonder of Christ's love and who He is and His work for her becomes more and more evident as we continue this journey.
For Palm Sunday, I decided to get a craft together for Claire and her little buddy, Logan for church.  The children in our church are with the parents in worship, for the most part, but in the last year or so, a few volunteers have put together a short Sunday School class for the kids during the sermon.  Thus far, we have put all the kids together, but I thought I might pull the littles out for a Palm Sunday Story and craft.  Pinterest to the rescue. I found a easy, cute craft for the kids using their handprints to make palm branches.  We read the story and practiced saying "Hosanna!" (Which is really cute with 2 year olds) and made our branches.  I know they are "getting" everything but I keep working to build this foundation.  Our house didn't look like a house when it was a concrete slab but without the slab, it's not a house.  So for me, Palm Sunday was about teaching my little one that there's only One fit to worship.

The rest of the week I tried making sure we talked about the crucifixion (age appropriate of course).  We read the story out of her story Bibles a couple times.  She's known, "Jesus died on the cross because He loves us"  For a while.  She associates the cross with Him, for sure.  We were coming up on a Methodist Church which a huge cross on the steeple and she just about went ballistic from the backseat not long ago.  "Look mommy, look!  Cross! Jesus"  Apparently, this is all sinking in, which is good.  So for the resurrection, I thought I might go ahead and do Resurrection rolls with Claire and see how it goes.  I knew teaching the Resurrection to a small person who really doesn't quite understand death was going to be interesting but I decided to do it anyway and reminded myself of the whole "building a foundation" thing.  I've been having her help with cooking dinner, lately, and thought she could also get a cooking lesson out of it as well.    So Saturday night we started after dinner.  These are so, so easy.  I pulled out the marshmallows and melted the butter and put cinnamon and sugar in a second bowl.  Told Claire that we were going to pretend the marshmallow was Jesus.  She seemed okay with this.  So we continued.  "Now when Jesus died on the cross, they took his body and put oil on it, since that's what the custom was in the place He lived. Can you take our pretend Jesus and roll Him in the butter."  "Oh, yes, mommy!"  So she took the marshmallow and rolled it up and got butter all over it.  "Then they took Jesus and put spices on Him so he wouldn't smell in the tomb, can you roll Him in the cinnamon and sugar?" "Okay, mommy" and she rolled the marshmallow in the cinnamon and sugar.  So far, so good, right?!  Then I gave her a triangle from the package of Crescent Rolls. "Okay, this is going to be our tomb.  They put Jesus' body in the tomb and sealed the tomb up tight"  And together we sealed up our marshmallow (I helped with this one since it doesn't work well if the marshmallow isn't completely covered).  We put the rolls in the oven and talked about how His body was in the tomb for 3 days.  After the allotted time (12 minutes, I recall), we took the rolls out and I gave one to Claire. We opened the roll up and "voila!" the marshmallow had vanished.  Perfect object lesson.  Empty tomb, Jesus isn't there's He's risen from the dead.  Claire's first response: "Where's my marshmallow?!" "Honey, Jesus has risen! He's not in the tomb!"  Claire looked at me quizzically.  Then, with a big smile she said, "Oh, yeah! Yay!" Then the smile disappeared and her concerned look returned.  "But where's my marshmallow?!"  I think she asked for that marshmallow a good 10 times.  So, she got a marshmallow and a Resurrection Roll that night and when to bed a little sugared up.  I kept telling myself, "You're laying a foundation, you're laying a foundation" and got a great memory out of the whole thing.

Easter Sunday, itself, was a little crazy. But a good, good crazy.  Saturday afternoon, I prepped the house for my family and Christian's family to come for Easter, finished my shopping for the egg hunt, baskets and dinner. After the Resurrection Roll event, I put Claire to bed and began working on her basket then got all the eggs ready for and Easter afternoon egg hunt.  So when Sunday morning rolled around, I was really, really glad we opted out of Sunrise Service this year.  We got the girls dressed in their blue dresses and got to the church at around 9:15 since we had to be there early for choir rehearsal and since Christian was leading the choir, we thought being on time should probably be a priority.  Service consisted of singing, sitting a bit, talking littles to the potty, and singing again.  At one point the the service, Claire was asked, with a couple of other children to answer the question, "What does Easter mean to you?" She's getting pretty good at figuring out "Jesus" is a pretty good answer to most church questions and for this one, she was spot on. Later, I took Claire and Ashlyn out for the sermon to Claire's class. Stayed there a bit, but went back into service with Ashlyn so I could sing again (our pastor had me doing something at different parts of the sermon, each time I passed Ashlyn to a willing church member to hold).

After church the kids enjoyed an egg hunt on the lawn.  The church put out a small bounce house.  Claire thus far, HATED bounce houses. So it
was pretty surprising to me to find her squealing like crazy and jumping around in the bounce house with her cousin, Marisol, who joined us that morning for church.
After naps everyone came over for dinner.  I made my first ham, which really wasn't that hard but it was one of those things that made me feel like an adult.  You know, have the whole family over for a major holiday and cook the main dish meat. Maybe it's just me.  But, everyone said it turned out grade.  I did a shank, made a glaze, stuck cloves in it, the whole bit.

Making a wonderful mess

Uncle Jeff and Ashlyn

When everyone arrived, there was a bit of down time.  Claire hasn't gotten to color eggs yet, so I went ahead and pulled out the dye and the eggs I'd boiled and let Claire and her cousin, Lila, color the eggs until dinner was ready.  They made a mess but it was a good mess and they were happy and having fun. Now we have a bunch of eggs just waiting for me to turn them into egg salad.  Later, after dinner, the girls had an egg hunt in the park across the street before the sun went down.  The whole group left around 8 or so. It was all exhausting, but I wouldn't have changed a thing.  That's that kind of "holiday stress" that I think I can handle; when afterward you sit on your couch with your feet up and sigh and think, "I'm so, so tired but that was so, so great."  Celebrating the resurrection. . .not sure what is more worth the work and more exciting than that. . .
  

School Decisions

Christian and I would love to homeschool our girls.  Most of you may already know this. You've heard me outright mention this or maybe you gathered this from the "likes" on my Facebook page.  Maybe this is new information for some of you.
I get a wide range of responses when this comes up in conversation.  Everything from, "That's great!" to "Whoa, I don't think I could do that. . . " to "That is the worst thing you could possibly ever do to your kids. . ." People are not neutral on this topic, apparently.  But I suppose I'm not either.  I feel pretty confident that this is what we'd like to do and what would be best educationally, socially and spiritually for our kids. We do have a Plan B, C and even D in case finances don't come together or something happens that is beyond our control but right now, this is what we are planning for and working towards.   

Claire's "T"

Thus far, Claire loves all things academic and soaks it up like a sponge.  Normally, I'm not into pushing that sort of thing, especially since she's so young.  I think that only breeds kids who hate learning.  But she loves it and sometimes begs to "practice letters" before naptime instead of reading a story (she LOVES reading stories too, don't get me wrong).  So, we went with it.  She knows her letters, her letter sounds, is starting to grasp the concept that these letter sounds make up words, counts object to about 20.  It's so much fun watching her understand things.  She's great at memorizing.  She knows several questions from her Catechism and we are working on Psalm 23.  It's all so fun.  We sing, we read, we look at letter cards, we draw with chalk.  I'll never forget the day when Claire yelled, "Mommy, mommy!  I draw 'T'"! And she had! Her huge grin took up her entire little face.
I loved that moment.  That is a huge part of the reason I want to keep her home for school.  I want to be the one to teach her to sound out the letters and to read.  I want to guide her when she writes her name for the first time.  I want to introduce her to her first lines of poetry, sing with her, teach her logic and discernment and stories and ideas from the Bible and even teach her about numbers and how they fit into God's perfect order.  Of course, I can't teach her everything.  Christian will help and will guide her they way her Daddy should.  She will learn things from people in our family and outside our family who will teach her things I do not know.  I understand this.  We take her to swim lessons, are considering ballet and she will learn piano. But I don't want to send my kids away for 8 hours a day to learn inside of the walls of a classroom where the Federal Government (not merely the state government), since the adoption of Common Core Standards, is now dictating what my children should learn.  Life and learning is happening outside of all that.  Sure there are some great schools and when Claire hits kindergarten we may be sending her to one, depending out our finances and life situation (we never know what each day will bring) but our greatest desire is to give the kids in our family a love of learning, of family and and understanding that learning can, and usually does, take place just about anywhere. I'd love to give them opportunities to be with people, not just their peers in a classroom, but adults, older children, younger children in all walks of life and, most importantly to us, I want to train them in faith and teach them about the love and mercy of God and follow Deuteronomy 6:4 when it admonishes the people of God, "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates."

Claire at Fullerton college's "Joyful Parenting: Music and Art" class

So back to the issue at hand.  Claire will be 3 in May.  Many of my friends are starting to tour and register their children for preschool at various schools.  Thus far, we have not.  I take Claire to a Parent and Me Music/Art Preschool Prep Class every Thursday afternoon.  They do art projects, sing songs, learn about right and left, have a "letter of the week," play, dance, do counting and it's all so FUN.  She loves it. I love it. The lady that teaches this class is FANTASTIC.  But beyond that, we aren't considering sending her to any sort of formal preschool.  Instead, I've looked up a few preschool homeschool curriculum packs and thought about doing them.  One that's really caught my attention is Before 5 in a Row.  I love that this is literature based, that it's pretty low stress and that it has a BUNCH of cute activities you can do with each book.  A friend of mine who is sending her kiddos to preschool is planning on using it as a supplement to give her kids fun stuff to do at home.  It's great!  But I also realize I have a smarty-pants on my hands and she enjoys learning writing and reading etc.  So trying to decide how I can get that in as well.  I've been bugging my homeschooling friends and have been getting some good feedback.  I'm considering supplementing Heart of Dakota's "Little Hands to Heaven" but it focuses a LOT of letters and sounds.  I love how it teaches the Bible everyday in every lesson, but not sure I need to hammer the other.  But maybe!  Another is Covenant Home and their curriculum.  Looks promising and looks like a great fit for our family but might use them when the girls are older.  Confessions of a Homeschooler has some PreK and K4 stuff that might also work (and for cheeeeaaaap!) AND of course, there's also the dollar bin at Target, which always seems to stock prek worksheets, which Claire totally loves.  But this is what I love about the possibility of teaching her at home!  I can do this! I can sit here and consider what might be the best learning tool for HER and what we desire for her to learn.  Anywhere else has their own prescribed curriculum and she will either fit into it or she won't.  I love this freedom. So, as of March, 2013, we've decided NOT to enroll her in a formal preschool.  Maybe in September I will have changed my mind.  Maybe I'll find some fantastic Christian parent participation program and I'll blog about that then, but for now, we're planning this.  If I continue to work part-time at the school, I will be teaching her in the afternoon. It will be crazy but with a LOT of discipline and organization, I anticipate a good, albeit, stressful year. Still hoping, though, something new happens next year. But more on that later.
Someone at the school recently asked me if I was going "full time" next year.  I said "no." I've got way to much to do with the girls, if anything, I'll be scaling back.  They have a lot to learn and I have even more to learn.  Can't wait to do it together!

The Weekend That Wasn't

I've been trying to come up with a post for a few months now that could cover the last several that I have missed while on my apparent blogging hiatus.  I didn't plan on leaving Halloween and Thanksgiving and Christmas undocumented.  Didn't mean to just disappear-- I just did.  I think one of my New Years Resolutions was to "Blog More."  Happy February.
Anyway, what finally pushed me back in front of this screen were the events of this past week.  Totally unexpected and totally awful.  Last Tuesday I started to feel a little "cold-ish."  Scratchy throat, stuffy head.  My nose was running by the end of the day.  Annoying but I thought I was dealing with it naturally and that it was just a cold.
I woke up Wednesday morning feeling like I had been run over.  Multiple times. My back ached.  My head was pounding.  I thought I might throw up.  But it was 5 am and there was no way for me to get ahold of all the parents of my musical theater kids at work.  So I went in.  I managed through 0 period.  Taught period 1 but by 2nd period, I had thrown up twice (outside of class, thank God) and I just wanted to go home.  I stayed the rest of my morning, but period 2 unloaded large sets from the Sea Container and period 3 watched a totally non-music related movie.  I didn't care. I went home and slept while the girls napped but then they woke I was back to work with them making messes around me.  I'll spare you the gory details but it wasn't too pretty.  I couldn't eat anything.  I had no energy and couldn't stop the quick trips to the bathroom that always came when one of both girls required attention.  My dad dropped supplies off on his way home from work once and played with the girls for about an hour before Christian got home one evening, another day, they picked up Claire and brought her home to let her play at their house for the morning.  Ashlyn was growing fussy and I was so afraid that I was beginning to lose my milk supply for her.  At night, I was either waking to feed her or running to the bathroom.  I needed sleep badly but it just wasn't happening.  I didn't go in to work either Thursday or Friday morning, but I couldn't rest at home and felt terrible about how I was ignoring the girls. But by Friday morning, I felt well enough to eat some saltines and for dinner on Friday, I asked for real food and kept it down. 
By Saturday morning, I was fine again and ready to take Claire to swim lessons and go to a family birthday party with the girls.  While it was miserable, I felt blessed that it only lasted 3 days. I was getting Claire ready for her swim class. She seemed 100% fine.  I was putting her shirt over her swimsuit and she threw up. Again and again.  It was awful to see the look on her face.  After it happened she said, "But I go swimming! I go Grammy and Papa's!  I not want to throw up again!"   Sweet girl.  That's what we wanted to happen too, love.  So Christian went to the birthday party by himself and I stayed home with a little girl who got sicker by the hour. I have decided that there are very few things that are harder to watch than your toddler throwing up.  I have friends with chronically, seriously ill children and I have no idea how they deal with watching their child in so much pain all the time because this weekend was heart-wrenching and it was only a weekend. 

Sunday, we skipped church.  Ashlyn, uncharacteristically, slept through the night Saturday night.  She usually wakes up a few times to nurse and Saturday night I didn't hear a peep out of her.  In the morning, I picked her up and she was burning up.  I nursed her a bit and she threw it all up.  Sunday was the worst day for both girls.  I've never seen Claire so listless. She spiked a fever of 103.9 (on a underarm thermometer) while Ashlyn hit 101. We discussed Urgent Care a few times but went with tepid baths and lots of sleep.  Potty trained Claire was in a Pull Up all weekend and sat next to an empty soup pot at all times.  Ashlyn slept on one of us all day, Claire was on the couch.  She would only speak a few words and only in a whisper.  I worried constantly about dehydration and their high fevers. It was pitiful.
And so Monday, which was the only day both Christian and I had off until May, was spent making sure the girls got better.  It wasn't the "family togetherness" we were hoping for (a hike, trip to the beach, or a picnic in the park was more what I was thinking) but it was togetherness nonetheless.  I am blessed by a few things, however, when I look back at this difficult, messy, sometimes scary, weekend.  I love that we are a family. That we have us.  That we love each other. That I have a husband who cares about his little girls, who didn't think twice about stepping in an helping care for them even though there was a real possibility that he too could have come down with the same illness and he has no sick days at work. 

By Monday evening everyone was well enough to go outside --or I, at least decided they were.  The girls were still pretty weak but we all needed the sunshine and so we took everyone for a walk around the block in the stroller before dinner.  It felt good to be out.  I realized I hadn't been since the Wednesday I came home from school feeling so terrible to begin with.  The girls went to bed right afterward.  Ashlyn recovered much more quickly, I'm guessing, due to all the benefits of breastfeeding. Claire asked to go to bed at 6:30.  Didn't want dinner. But I didn't have to go into her room once that night to change her or give her a bath.  The illness had taken it's toll and she was coming out of it, exhausted, but well again. 
Today I finally got my girls back.  They were, mostly, themselves.  Claire was tired in the morning for her sitter, is still eating less than normal and her nose is runny and Ashlyn had her last VERY messy diaper but they were smiling again.  Claire joined us for dinner for the first time since last Friday.  We missed her.  I'm not interested in doing that again. But I'm thankful that, so far, our prayers were answered and Christian didn't catch this terrible virus.   Odd thing to inspire me back into the blogosphere but I'm pretty grateful for my family and that gratefulness was heightened during this nasty bug. Who knew? :-)  Regardless, I'm glad to be back from both the Herman President's Day Plague of 2013 and from my absence from this site. 
Praise Him from Whom all blessings flow. . . hopefully, you'll see a bit more of us in 2013 :-)

2012: Summer in Review

Thought I'd take a break from the heavy stuff I've been posting on here the past few months and point out what a blessed summer I had, despite the huge turn in the road in the beginning.  I had a difficult time going back to work this year.  Ok. Difficult is an understatement.  I loved my summer.  It was hard, although, I really can't stand it when people attribute this to "getting used to two."  They are not my problem.  They are amazing.  They are not perfect, but they are why going back is so, so hard.   I am blessed that I love what I do (95% of the time) and that I'm only away from home in the morning (minus concerts and extra meetings) but I always think that even a day with my screaming, colicky baby with my baby at home is better than worrying about the girls while I'm away. . .  The beginning of the summer was tough.  Getting used to our new reality post-Ashlyn's birth trauma (processing this isn't over, of course), Ashlyn's reflux and trying to figure out how best to help her and the pain she was having just to eat, as well as my getting over major, emergency surgery took it's toll at the end of May and June.  However, by mid July, I started feeling better, Ashlyn's reflux was starting to get under control and I really started enjoying my girls and my summer.  I can't tell you how many times I yearned for time to stop.  Claire this sweet, funny, little two year old forever and Ashlyn- my sweet, smiley squishy baby and me, home with them to watch them play and grow. . . it was such an amazing time. 

Claire's 2nd Birthday Party- June 9th, 2012
We had Claire's party a couple of weeks after her actual birthday due to the fact that baby sister was born 10 days before her birthday and we were all still recovering from everything.  Claire loved Hello Kitty (she still does but not with quite the same intensity :-) ) so a Hello Kitty party it was.  We, mostly, invited her little friends and borrowed a bounce house from our church.  Fun, simple little party at our park across the street.  Claire had a blast and talked about all her little friends who came for days afterward.  

Independence Day- July 4th, 2012
For the last several years we have always done the same thing for the 4th.  Generally, the day begins at home and then in the afternoon we head over to our friends, The Samson's for a BBQ and then everyone walks over to the City of Yorba Linda's Fireworks Show.  After we had Claire we wondered if we could keep this tradition up since it begins way past her bedtime, nor did we know if she could handle the loud noises.  But Claire handled it like a champ and this year, taking Ashlyn was so much fun.  When we brought Claire the first time, first time mom panicked because of the firework noise.  This time, I came prepared.  Ashlyn wore earphones set in hopes some of the noise would be drowned out.  Whether they worked or not is up for debate but the pictures of my tiny baby with those earphones on are hilarious.  Momma's got to do what momma's got to do. 

Bekah and Claire

Justin and Claire

Claire's first babysitter, Bekah and her husband Grant.  She loves them. A LOT. :-)

Claire ready to walk to the park

Claire and her buddy, Logan

Ashlyn's headphones

Jane's Birthday Party- July, 2012
Our friends, the Schulert's, have two girls and their, now, 5-year-old Jane's birthday party was this last July.  They had just moved into a new house and it was the first time we got to see it.  So much fun.  Here are the girls.  Poor Jane was stuck smiling and posing for the picture while the two-year-olds on either side of her managed to wiggle and squirm and take forever to take the picture.  She was a good sport about it though ;-)

Claire goes to Build-a-Bear with Grammy Herman
Claire (and my) first trip to Build-a-Bear was this summer!  She picked out a brown bear who wears a turquoise shirt and white skirt and white sandals.  Grammy helped her pick it out.  Very special gift and very fun day!

Grammy and Claire

Fixing up the Bear!

Ashlyn and I tagged along too!

The finished product! I think I'll call her, "Bear." :-)

Cousins in Town!- August, 2012
My aunt and uncle and cousins as well as my cousin's kids came out in August for a family get together for my uncle's family.  Claire LOVES her cousins.   Wish we all lived closer. . .

Knott's Trip-August 18, 2012
Christian's company outing this year was at Knott's Berry Farm.  It was hot. . .really hot that day.  But we had fun and wore both girls out, completely.  Claire came home with her very own Snoopy t-shirt and she slept all the way home.  I think that means it was a good day :-)

Summer included a few other things.  Trips to the park and the pool, Mommy and Me preschool with Gramma Christie and swimming with Papa Christie, swim lessons and trips to the Splash Pad at The Shoppes in Chino Hills.  I wish I took more pictures.  I'll always wish I took more pictures. . . All the while we watched this sweet little one. . .

Grow . . .

and grow. . .

and grow!  

 

 

 But September loomed above my head the whole time. Now I'm back to the crazy schedule I started last year when I agreed to take on the Vocal Music program at the middle school. We are thankful that Christian is on a normal schedule this year.  None of this "coming home at 9 every night" and that he's completely done with school. . . Big blessings.  Things are crazy!  Loved my summer.   Grateful I get to continue to be a part of this family and watch it continue to grow.    So. much. to love around here :-) 

Heart shapes and little miracles. . .

Another short post.  Just working my way through my thoughts. . .

Diagram Bicornuate Uterus

An idea I glossed over with Ashlyn's birth story post was that I had a heart shaped uterus. . . That gynecologist I saw as a teenager briefly mentioned that she feared that someday I'd have trouble getting pregnant.  I don't remember.  My mom does, though.  But I didn't worry about it much.  Then, or even now.  Didn't think about the "bicornuate uterus" that I once had, only to consider how sad I am/was that it is gone.  The reality of what Dr. Dix suspected years ago was confirmed in the pathology report.  I fleeting mentioned it to a woman at church who has a nursing background.  Her eyes grew huge.  "You carried two babies to term with a bicoruate uterus?!"  Yeah.  I mean, yeah, I guess I did. 
This struck me, not really understanding why this was a big deal.  I thought about it all that afternoon and when I came home dropped "Bicornuate Uterus" into Google.   Wow. Just, wow.  "Several studies show that women with a bicornuate uterus have about a 60% success rate in delivering a living child but have a higher risk of cervical incompetence," said one site. 60%.  60!   "Premature labor, a breech presentation and/or a retained or trapped placenta are also common complaints with a bicornuate uterus," (italics mine) warned another.  I couldn't believe it.  I'd had no problems. None getting pregnant, being pregnant (minus the usual several weeks of nausea) and until the accreta issues with Ashlyn's birth, no issues with delivery.  But that trapped placenta. . .
Reality is, though, I've got two little miracles.  I mean, I already knew this.  I really did. But I'm a little stunned by this, this thing I never knew.  Still working it all out.  But love these two.  A lot.

Poetry

I've liked Mary Oliver's work for some time.  For some reason, this stuck out to me and thought I'd put it here.  I've got some more thoughts and more posts for the next few weeks but thought I'd check in with this.