Friday.

I’m not feeling well today, but the boys are home all day, so they keep me on the go…

We took them to “brunch” at Denny’s this morning (actually, it was more “morning-ish” - hence, the choice to go to Denny’s…). They had pancakes. Ethan and I spent a good deal of time in the bathroom, but at least I got to hear about this nice lady’s ordeal with her parrot. Apparently, if you smile at someone in a public restroom, they will tell you all kinds of interesting facts about their life…Like the fact that she used to carry her parrot around in her purse, which caused people to look at her funny when she chewed up food, spit it out, and put it in her purse…at this point, I was trying not to look at her funny - and I kept saying “Buddy, are you almost finished?…Do you need some help?” (Pretty much hoping that he would say “yes, Mommy, stop talking to that lady and help me.” but he didn’t.)

Then, we went to Lucas Nursery to get some trees. I wanted pretty and exotic; Byron wanted huge and fast-growing. We also had to be able to fit them in our SUV…

They were out of the “sweet gum” and “purple flowering plum”, so we got two sycamore, a lemon and a lime tree, and best of all, a mango tree! I love mango, plus the tree has nice flowers. So, we’re all happy with our choices, but I still have the place reserved for that sweet gum tree whenever they get another one in…

I didn’t even look at the rose section. I ordered some more from Heirloom last night, so now I have to slow down my rose obsession…unless I want to not shop at all for Christmas (as if…). I am going to have to pace myself - we do have to teen-aged girls in the house. Plus, Byron told me this morning that he has been working on a new budget - So, I know I’m getting ready to have to get more serious about our financial situation (blah, blah, blah…).

I’m a poet. I don’t do numbers.

Although, when we were hanging curtains last week, I used some fancy words like “calculate” and explained how Byron needed to find the center and divide that in half and then in half again…He looked at me like there were lobsters coming out of my ears - and then, when I started talking about fractions, I knew that I had let the cat out of the bag...

You see:

It’s important for the smooth dynamic of our marriage, for me to “be” ignorant about things like money and anything technical (like astro-physics or…batteries, for instance) - and for him to consistently misspell words and load the dishwasher “wrong”, so that I get frustrated and just do it myself. We both know our incompetence is somewhat exaggerated, but it works for us. We don’t need to disrupt the delicate balance of our environment…

We need just the right amount of sycamores (2 is a good round number) and roses (a gazillion sounds right to me).

It’s all about balance.

So, it’s the beginning of another weekend…

I need to start feeling better; there’s a ton to do. I’ve been focused too much on my roses and songbirds and not quite enough on laundry et cetera…I could just let Byron do it.

When I was pregnant with Kayleigh, I had to be hospitalized for a while - so Byron decided to wash ALL of our laundry. He even washed the things set aside for the dry cleaner. He really meant well. Afterwards, I could ‘ve saved them for when Kayleigh was born, as most everything was a shade (or shades) of pink and doll-sized…Did I say he meant well?

It’s all about balance.

Isn’t everything in life, though?

Of course, to me true balance is just the right amount of obsessions and compulsions tempered by enough of the mundane…sounds like balance to me.

…Peace.