a gate of togetherness

The week has gone racing past.
With one of our college boys home for a quick week-long break, the dynamics of the household have changed again.  I love how the kids rally around each other and long to just "be" as a complete entity in as many moments as possible.  Dinner time together, a quick game of Yahtzee, a spontaneous trip to the High School musical... I take none of it for granted.  Some of my favorite moments so far this month:

Watching Mesquite redeem a "One Dance-Off!" coupon she got from her sister for her birthday.

Discovering you CAN make a delicious meal out of JUST vegetables.

Feeling separate, somehow, from the kids at an activity we attended together, and then enjoying a well-timed embrace from Mr. Dub.  The kids will eventually fly the nest...  harbingers of this process of independence stare me in the face at every turn.  I feel thankful EVERY day that I have an anchor in Dub-who-I-love.

Driving to seminary at 6:00 am and spotting Tommy Lee Jones out walking his dog.  We made eye contact, and somehow he knew he'd been discovered.  I swear!  Who knew TLJ lived in OUR quiet little town?

The greenhouse is alive!  Bursting with little sprouts that can't wait to get their feet planted on terra firma... it's all I can do to wait until Memorial Day weekend.  But I must. It's the unwritten law of the sowing season in New England.

Chalked up another book to the finished list:  The Zookeeper's Wife A War Story by Diane Ackerman.  A World War II memoir that takes place in Warsaw kept me captivated with Antonina Zabinski's impenetrable need to survive and desire to help others.  She and her husband are keepers of the Warsaw Zoo.  When Germany  invades, the zoo is bombed and most of the animals are killed or taken away by the Nazi regime.  The Zabinskis smuggle hundreds of Jews into animal cages, an underground tunnel and their own home.  What I loved about this book was the fascinating way the author writes in a way that seems to point out the human tendencies of the animals loved by Antonina, and the way many humans seemed animalistic in wartime Poland.  A fascinating (and horrifying) glimpse from an angle I hadn't yet discovered; this book (like the war) seemed to go on forever.  I laughed out loud at many of the adventures with animals (badger was my favorite), but groaned as page after page of war time dreadfulness spread out before me.  Will this war never end? I felt guilty thinking it, when so many lived the horror and wondered the same.

We're enjoying a gate of togetherness (minus one) and there are exciting things pulling us through to the other side. 
There's a reason to celebrate every day.