Efforts

Phew.
What a week.
What a couple of weeks.
Sometimes you feel like your life was sent through the shredder - the scraps of it dumped in your lap and you're not sure you really want to put it all together.
Car, health, emotions, work - none of it has been safe.
I sat in my car last night at 11:30, my sleeping daughter in the back seat, waiting in an empty parking lot for my husband to come rescue us as steam sputtered and poured from under my hood. And I decided that I would sleep in this morning, then begin making efforts to get things going right again.
What was I doing out that late? Oh, I was babysitting. You will almost never hear me say that. But some old friends, who I know to never have left their two children (ages 3 & 4) with anyone other than their parents, asked me to come and play with the babies while they went on a night out with their family. Of course, Kiki cannot say no to babies she loves, nor can she say no to old friends. So Emma and I trekked out to the other end of town, Hungry Hungry Hippos in hand, and we were a babysitting dynamic duo. We baked cookies and played games and sang songs and those sweet little things went to bed on time with no complaints. I may have worn them out.
So, we had a long drive home, late at night, Emma and I. Fortunately, Chris was on the road too, on his way home from Orlando, where he's been spending the last few days chaperoning at Andrew's TSA conference. We only had to wait, well, half an hour or forty minutes in the dark with a sick car before he could get to us.
When we woke up this morning, Chris back in Orlando with Andrew, and decided on a girls-only day of fun to cure the blues. We went out for breakfast and met my mom, who took us to the nursery where I've been buying my garden stuff. She bought me an upside-down miniature watermelon plant and a jack-be-little pumpkin vine for Mother's Day. Then...
Then!
Then we went blueberry picking.
Ah. Perfection.
Emma pretended we were wild girls, foraging for our food, living on the "farthest coast of the universe." Of course, I played too. It was a delightful. Have you ever eaten a fat blueberry, still warm from the sun? If not, you must.
Go. Go now! I beg of you! Seek out a local pick-your-own farm.
You will not be sorry. I'll wait for you to get back.

Wasn't that great? Now...where were we?
We ate blueberries and cream for lunch and baked an apple tart of Emma's devising in the afternoon. I put on a favorite apron and peeled the apples with my grandma's knife. Its blade, sharpened faithfully for decades, cut right underneath the translucent apple skin, paring it off in perfect, long, curly strips. It was such a meditative, calming act. You can keep your vegetable peelers, thank you.
Dinner out and shopping for a dress for Emma's first piano recital tomorrow rounded out our very long day.
My house is a wreck.
I'm not sure if I have a clean dish left in the kitchen.
We have people coming over for church tomorrow, a recital in the afternoon, and somehow, we must find a car if I am to get to work on Monday.
Tomorrow promises to be busy.
But our boys will be back home and we girls have made considerable efforts toward starting up a normal, drama-free week. Here's hoping it works.