Ordinarily so.........

It's early Saturday morning.....the house is quiet, I'm sipping my chai latte and I'm contemplating my day. Although I don't have little kids running about anymore, the house still has a certain hub-bub when everyone is up and getting on with things. So, these early morning hours on a weekend.....when I have no place specific to go.....are kind of nice. From my computer, I can see the sun peeking from behind the trees. Right outside my window, there's a wind chime. At the moment, it's softly stirring. My sister and brother-in-law brought it over right after I had my Lapband surgery. It's come to remind me of those early days of my journey...in late summer....when I'd sit on my deck......dreaming of being thin and wondering what the road ahead of me had in store. And, here I am.....today...on the edge of Spring.....almost 8 months after those early days of wonderment.......listening to the quiet melody of those same chimes. Still wondering and dreaming. Filled with hope. Even on a day when my life feels so ordinary. We've been working on our dining room renovation since the beginning of the year and today is the day we are promising to finish it. Later on, I have to take my dad to church and then we're heading out to a family dinner at a nice restaurant across town. So, as far as thrills go---the most I can expect is to be able to open the buffet drawers for the first time in 4 months and maybe my little nephews will say or do something outrageous at the restaurant. I'm not expecting any package deliveries or checks in the mail. I have no plans to go shopping for amazing shoes or size 14 pants or bathing suits or anything more than a few bags of lettuce and maybe some chicken. Yes, a very ordinary day. So, I'll sit and look out the window....if just for a little while.....until someone bops down the steps......

There's a peaceful quality to the backyard......the trampoline seems to be the only color sitting amid the barren trees and browned grass. Remembering the day we bought that trampoline for Toni....oh how she always wanted one. But, the backyard of our other house had rolling hills and terraces. When we moved to this house....she spied the flat backyard and from then on---nothing would get in the way of her getting her trampoline. God may have taken her away from her childhood neighborhood but He delivered her to a flat backyard. Life was once again good. Yes, God does work in mysterious ways. Even though Carmen and Vince were completely opposed to having a trampoline in the backyard, I soldiered on. Toni and I went to the store, picked it out, called home and announced that we were the proud owners of a trampoline---"so get ready to put it together." And, put it together they did......while Toni stood by with a look of joy on her face. Funny thing.....once it was completely put together and inspected by our resident engineer---Carmen---Toni wasn't the first one to bounce on it. Vince was (he always likes to "be first"). Once Toni joined him.....Carmen and I enjoyed a rare moment in time---watching our two children playing and laughing together---Vince, our big son, headed off to college and Toni, our petite little miss not even a teenager yet. They bounced on that thing all night long as Carmen and I went about our yard work. It was a merry night.....me, digging up weeds to the sounds of my children playing and Carmen keeping his ever watchful eye on his children as he bagged the messes I was making. One very hot lsummer night......in the after midnight hours...... Toni and a few girlfriends decided to jump on the trampoline in their underwear. Vince was off at college, Carmen was sound asleep---it was just us girls. I sat on the deck, sipping wine, watching their silhouettes bounce up and down and listening to their musical voices as they laughed. I can still smell the sweetness of that moment.

Oh, and there's a bench at the far end of the driveway....I remember buying it at an estate sale last May. It makes me smile when I remember the look on Carmen's face when I told him we had to carry it up the road to our van. He gives me that look alot....come to think of it. The look of "are you half crazy?" As if I'm doing something so extraordinarily wild and bizarre---buying a very nice bench that would have cost 4 times as much at a store. You know, I wish I would have bought the matching bench. I just hate buyer's regret. But, if I recall my thinking at the time---I knew that one 75 lb bench would agitate Carmen.....2 might have sent him over the edge. So, I bought just one. But, gee, I would have liked two.

And, right there on the deck railing.....there's the brown twigs that were once my beloved, much-heralded, award quality basil crop. The smell of that basil is so wonderful. Watching it grow into huge, green leafy masses brings me an amazing feeling of joy that I can only describe as parental. I can picture myself standing there gazing upon it with adoring eyes, breathing in it's spectacular scent and imagining the killer pesto I will make. That spot has to be the best place in the universe to grow basil. The sun just beats down upon it and the rain can't miss it. I am the queen of basil. There's no doubt about that. And, with Carmen's heirloom tomatoes, slivers of a smooth buffalo mozzarella, my basil and a tangy glass of red wine on a hot summer night.....could life get any better than that?

Yes, my life is oh so ordinary today. But, that's okay. A girl can't be wild and crazy all of the time. Just some of it. You know, I have this very sneaky suspicion that I'm really not wild and crazy at all but my friends won't tell me.....they just let me live out that fantasy. I'm probably just an ordinary girl, living an ordinary life with ordinary things happening to her. My basil is probably the only thing that's extraordinary. And, having extraordinary basil is not something that constitutes wildness. I mean, it sort of sounds very Hazel-ish. Have I become a middle-aged woman who wears an apron? Okay, okay.....please....let me continue to believe and let me continue to tell you to believe that I am no ordinary woman living an ordinary life. Let me be wild and crazy. Let me tell you all about my adventures using crazily descriptive adjectives and wildly active verbs. For, if nothing else......I can write.....extraordinarily so. Oh and yes.....and grow basil.