we are stronger than we know...

I'm amazed by how hard and then how good life can feel, all within such a smidgen of time. I'm so familiar with the roller-coaster riding by now, you might think I'd be better at remembering that another high is always around the bend... Those moments of plummeting are just so breath-taking, though. Such velocity. But here I am, chugging skyward. Standing, at the very least, at the top of a big pile of gravel.

My nephew, A, is pictured here on that very gravel pile. He got me to run/fumble up it with him and then sort of ski back down many, many, many, many, many times the other day. I only see my little sister and nephew a few times a year, so it's a very special treat to spend time with him. He's an amazing little person, and he's been awesome at having conversations for a pretty long time, considering that he's not yet three.

When we were all together the other day, my 14-year-old brother, M, was working on a writing assignment at the computer. He'd been given a character prompt: Tiny-foot Johnson. I thought that he should be a winner of sack-races at family reunions, but my brother thought that he should be a mafia boss in Chicago. He managed to find a particularly hideous image of a body builder on Google, and he stuck the image right into his document so that his teachers could fully appreciate what he had conjured up. When A saw the picture, he ran in to tell us about it. "That weird man on the computer has nurses!" Nurses = breasts. I am beside myself just thinking about it.

Today I was out in the palatial yard of some people I work for, playing with two of the cutest children you can imagine. The five-year-old takes on different characters every day~ Harry Potter, Pharaoh, King Tut, Buzz Lightyear, etc. Today she was Robinson Crusoe. She was swinging -her new favorite thing- and all of a sudden, she hollered, "King Tut is in my pocket!" I laughed and asked if he had shrunk. She gave me that grown-ups are ridiculous look and said, "No... he's really just a piece of mulch, but I'm pretending that the piece of mulch is King Tut." Ha!

Tonight there was a family-friendly Dia de los Muertos event. I made sugar skulls for the kids to decorate, and they were a huge hit. I ran out quickly, so now I know to make about four times as many next year. (Everyone was very groovy about the skull shortage, and we made clay skulls after the sugar ones ran out.) I adore this holiday and am thrilled that more and more people are celebrating it each year. Since I'm on a roll with the kids' comments, my favorite snippet from tonight was:

"Audrey licks pennies."

"I do not!"

I get so much energy from events like this that I have trouble winding down afterward... and I have an early, early start tomorrow, but I'm too buzzy to go to bed...

Before I go and try to be appropriately snoozy, there's one more random thing that I wanted to share. I was looking at Craft magazine at Borders (hooray for free looking, especially when a magazine costs $15) and this woman's dolls were featured. I am in love.

Happy everything to everyone~

*A*