It's a Somewhat of a Fortunate Fault

Felix culpa.  

Latin for "fortunate fault."  

Finding the good.  

Felix culpa and I like it.  

I'm not even sure where to or how to what to say seeings as how there's been a void of written words since before I ran 13.1 miles with my sister-in-law and ate zebra cake on Mother's Day.  Well, there's been words.  A great many words.  Just not the kind which are easily wrapped up and placed on a page.  

I've read more than once from several different spots this summer about how a person cannot actually process nor intelligently discuss all that is going on while it's happening.  But rather, the brain wrapping has to get a high five after it happened.  The places I read this nugget made it much more fancy schmancy but that's the jest of it.  One has to be through the woods before one can remember why they were in the woods in the first place.  Or something like that.  

A slight sidetrack note here.  It's the oddest thing to me that when you need to see or hear words, you do.  My summer reading has included everything from Bossypants by Tina Fey to The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion to A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess to more...and yet?  Yet the words find you.  The Felix Culpa?  Came from a book.  The notion of not being able to substantially process until after?  Came from a book.  It's amazing, books and their power.  

Sidetrack another note here.  I had a professor during grad school who once answered a question with, "I don't know enough about that to speak intelligently."  That has always stuck with me as a class act way of saying how in the hell do I know?  Remain quiet until you do know.  Good plan Dr. Walking Stick.  I'm not kidding, he had a walking stick. 

Back on topic in three, two, and one...I mean here, I'll just say this for now.  

It's been a summer.  A summer with a capital A.   

And when I say that, I mean it.  

My life today looks pretty much not a whole smidgen anything like it used to, other than I still read a lot, take a lot of pictures, run a lot around my house, run a lot around my town, run a lot around my head, and like pretty.  See?  I can't wrap this up and put it down intelligently...probably should have remained silent but lucky for you, it's ramble time.  There's so much to explain from my career head to my feeling heart but for now I'll say this.

I'm single.  It was a process that took awhile and it's for the best.  The very best for both and that's all I say about that as it's not just my story.     

And in April, I quit my job.  On a Thursday morning I walked into my principal - whom I love dearly - and had a heart to heart and when I walked out, it was official.  

I didn't have a plan.  

I didn't have a back up.

I did, however, have a feeling.  A gut feeling it was time to find some new.  To push myself to grow and change and grab the wheel of my life by the horns.  I think I mixed two metaphors there but I kind of like it, therefore it's staying.   

Quit and then a whole other pile of change occurred...you know, the unraveling and becoming alone. 

Now fast forward to dang near the middle of August and here I sit.  In a hotel room with a new job.  A job which requires travel.  A job still in education.  A job which involves the meeting of different people pretty much every single day.  A job which has me to drive into a town, find the school, walk up the stairs - schools most certainly always have some form of stairs you walk up or maybe that's just the last couple I've been at but still - and face a room full of strangers.  Yep.  That's it in a nutshell.  And so far, I freaking love it.  

Quitting.  Quitting is a necessary evil sometimes.  It's a fortunate fault.  A Felix Culpa.  

Now let's see if I can start to figure out a way to back the track up some and do some woods talking about the woods walking.  We shall see if it comes.  If not, please know that the zebra cake did indeed turn out and the table was indeed pretty and my sister-in-law and I did indeed run that half marathon. 

One last sidetrack, I think I like the backside of having it together better.  The unflattering inappropriate joking and the a piece fell off the cake.  The backside of having it together is a win.  

 

Treating on Almost Halloween

I have a hot coffee sitting next to me, real smart at six-thirty on a Sunday night but I needed a something and I knew it would set the mood for a night of getting business done.  I am all about creating an atmosphere.  Also if I'm being honest, when I went through the drive through the pumpkin muffin called my name.  My name!  So...I have a pumpkin muffin split in half on a plate plate next to me as well.  And here I am, sipping and eating that fall goodness with a fork.  I like to eat treats with a fork.  I used to eat peanut butter honey bread every single morning with a fork, but we won't go into that routine I used to inhabit just this second.

All that to say, sometimes you just need a treat.  A treat of the pumpkin muffin variety on a crisp chilly October Sunday night.  Because it makes your heart happy to have it while your glasses are on your face and you are at your dining room table writing.

Other times, you need a treat like a Halloween party on a vacation Friday morning with twenty some little ones in costumes and a few of their mommas visiting while holding steaming coffee mugs.  Danae's annual Halloween party for her children and their friends was once again a hit.  I mean really, how could it not be when there's duck taped water bottles, themed goodies galore, pizza, games, and a vegetable pumpkin?  It's a guaranteed set up for hilarity and fun while in costume.

 
I arrived early to assist with finishing touches and to make the vegetable pumpkin.  It's my thing.  Although, this year I wasn't nearly as perfectionistic with it and you know what...the kids still ate it.  Soon I'll be a regular old laid back soul.

Pause for a heck no.

After everything was a go, I put each of Danae's kids on the table to take a picture.  They know the drill.

As does my nieces and nephews because after also arriving a tad early, they knew the first thing to do was stand in front of a closet door so their aunt could snap a memory.

Danae and I put Sil right to work topping off the fruit cups whose fluff had been deflated because that girl can be trusted with a whipped cream can.  She can really be trusted with anything.  She raises four little people, that's no joke.  

Then the entire party arrived and were fed.  Fed like kings and queens.  Danae could throw parties for a living.  

And let me tell you this, twenty some kids in one house is a riot.  A riot.  At one point I walked downstairs and the girls were jumping on the bed while singing praise music at the top of their lungs as the boys were having a round of wrestle mania in the next room.  

What is it with boys and wrestling?  It's like they have a magnetic pull to push and grab and say arghhhhhh.  It took me a solid seven minutes to wrangle the boys for a tiny moment of still.  Then, I told the few girls who were watching me dumbfounded to join in too.  At that point, I wanted a guaranteed smile on at least one face or two. 

I suppose a man in my position would say the same about the girls dancing and singing their hearts out...but the tutus and lip gloss and high kicks and claps and sitting?  Those make sense to me. 

The kindergarten teacher shined through with Danae and she soon had every single little sitting quietly working on decorating a bag.  

And then she had everyone play pin the nose on the pumpkin or something like that and it took a lot of noses being placed exactly on the pumpkin for someone to finally say, "I can see through this mask Mommy!"  Have to love Emma for her honesty.  

Who is ready for next year's party?  

And who is jittery from drinking night coffee.  And who is really not laid back at all, nor non-perfectionistic because now it's seven-forty on a Sunday night and this took me entirely too long because of a pesky few pictures which would not stay aligned with the others.  I can let vegetable pumpkins go, but apparently I'm not all the way there yet.  

I'm off to see the Wizard...the wonderful Wizard of Oz...