Learning the Meaning

Happiness is Bee on a swing. And Bruiser in the Man's jeep.

Community is our neighbor buying said swing while we provide the rather sturdy oak tree. I feel like we came out on the better end of this deal.

Euphoria is lapping the two super fit dudes at the track.

Humility is when they finish warming up and start running for real, and you realize you weren't as cool as you thought originally.

Sore muscles are when you take the kids for a walk the same day you did intervals...and Not-So-Tiny and Bruiser park themselves in the stroller while Bee decides to ride on your back.

Snaggletooth is when playing tetherball, your final front tooth (that's been "hanging on by the skin of its teeth") gets knocked out...and you look like this.

Persistence is looking for said tooth in the grass of the back yard in order to make sure that it came out in one piece and also: tooth fairy.

Going above and beyond is when your awesome neighbor is the one who actually finds it.

Defeat is when your cat decides that its a good idea to spend the majority of her day sleeping on top of your newly planted cuttings. I hope that aloe vera stabs you in the eye.

It's also occurs when you finally conquer the unconquerable wall that bends nails and breaks drill bits by using adhesives... only to have your pictures fall off the wall two days later. Is it sour grapes to say that I didn't love it much any way?

Sadness is getting sent to time-out.

Sadness is also pretty much anything that occurs after a really bad nap time.

Leadership (or maybe just being a big sister by 8 minutes) is the words, "Hold my hand! Brother, hold my hand!" and the resulting capitulation.

Art is risk. Like painting over a picture you didn't really love in the hopes that you can make something that will actually spark joy in your life. Maybe.

Art does not, evidently, include editing any of my pictures. At least not this week.

And one more, back to happiness, it's books (for me, always) and holding on to hope and hopping on a swing myself and going on dates with my boys (especially the one I married) and making the choice to look and see the good that is there, the good that is always a gift, while trying to understand that the hard can be a gift too depending on what our goals are.