thoughts

And this is how the vacation weeks fly by...

Monday: Water park 'til we couldn't water park no more, then overnight at the Courtyard by Marriott next door.
Tuesday: Courtyard by Marriott American-style buffet breakfast (woohoo), then home, then back out to lunch and a movie (Dora the Explorer. tee heeee.**)
Today: Dan went to work, the kids occupied themselves, and I did laundry.

I was supposed to be noticing when I exaggerated (Monday), when I gossiped (Tuesday), and when I used unhelpful language (today), but I think I'll have to re-do these exercises during a week when I interact with someone other than the other three Blochulays. Mostly what I noticed was how very, very nice it was to spend meltdown-free time together as a family. For example: at the end of the water park trip, the kids and Dan went up to the hotel room and I stayed and went to the "hamam" for an hour. And I didn't feel one bit guilty because I knew the kids would just turn on the TV and veg out and Dan would turn on his phone and veg out and hey cool, we are all old enough to veg out for an hour in our own ways and it no longer ends in tears! Maybe next year Dan can even come with me to the hamam. Goals...

In my unusual amount of electronics-free musing time on Monday I decided to pose myself the question: what would I do if I could fix my life any way I wanted to? Here's what I came up with:

• I'd ditch the job at church. I don't want to burn the few (and hard-won, if rickety) bridges I have here. But it's time to wrap it up and make time for other things.
• I'd stake out a lot of writing time and try to get the mess that's in my head down on paper. Chances are good that it's far less important, far less coherent, far less original than it feels. But it feels important, original, and like-it-could-be-coherent-if-I-spent-some-time-with-it. I think it deserves a chance. 
• I'd work on being a better (and by "better" I mostly mean "less bitter") stay-at-home-mom. No, I wasn't cut out for this. But what's more important than loving my kids? I can do better here.

I've got a new meditation mantra, too: "I am an insignificant speck of the universe." It's freeing, somehow.

** extra funny because the movie is about Dora as a teenager, and Caroline-the-newly-minted-teenager was a huge Dora fan when she was five. She learned a lot of German in her early days of kindergarten by watching Dora cartoons. Backpack! Rucksack! Rucksack! Backpack! Fun fact: in American-Dora, Dora speaks English and teaches a bit of Spanish. In German-Dora, Dora speaks German and teaches a bit of English. But the cartoon characters are the same, obviously, so you get the improbable Tico the colorful-vest-wearing squirrel speaking the Queen's English.