A Pie and Pigs Fly

I believe in the power of positive thinking and truly writing your own story.  What follows here is a silly example but it's still one in which I thought about something and how I wanted it to turn out and then made it happen.  Wrote the story so to speak.  

A couple weeks before I went on my spring trip to Arizona, I had this feeling of wanting to bake a pie with my mom, door open to the backyard letting the breeze float in. 

It happened.  The pie started in the afternoon with the crust making while the sun was still out and ended after enjoying a delicious meal outside made by Dad-o.  

After the crust went into the fridge that afternoon, I went on a bike ride with both of my parents at the same time for the first time ever in my thirty years of existence.  When you grow up on a farm in North Dakota, summer is for working.  There are a great deal of when pigs fly moments that seem to happen when in that desert air.  If you would have told my eleven year old self that one day I'd be riding bike down a street in an Arizona city with my mom next to me and my dad ahead of us taking the lead, I would have gave you a look.  A look and then a when pigs fly.  

Never count things out I guess.  

My parents left after the sun disappeared to get Sister Pister from the airport and I finished the pie with my ugliest lattice work to date while music joined the breeze floating.  The pie went in the oven and I finished my glass of white by the fire.  I could live by a fire all the time, these constant cold bones of mine love being roasted.    

Sometimes things just feel really right.  All is aligned and you just can't help but give a thank you kiss to the sky.  Give a thank you to when pigs fly.   

Vices and Versas

I am an over do-er.  A lady of extremes.  

When I paint my nails, I be sure to include way out to the hinter lands of the cuticles because there must not be a tiny spot of nail bed left naked.  Not a fleck. 

Coffee in the morning isn't one or two cups, it's like six.  At least.  

Once I'm in a strong running routine, then I must do it.  Must do it.  Must go for a few more minutes.  Add more.  Do it.

If I make toast, I make two pieces and then I make two more because the first two just weren't enough and then I get sick.  So most of the time I just don't make toast because moderation is not my jam. 

When I write a list for a Costco trip, I type it and organize it by heading and store section.  Because that's necessary.   

I won't say never or impossible because those are extreme in themselves, but it's rare...real rare...that I do things down the middle or towards just sliding by.  I yearn for down the middle.  I wish for let this go and slide by under the radar.  I actually remember self talking during college classes when the notion of group work and projects came up, you are not going to say anything...someone else can take control of this...you are not going to say anything...you are not going to do everything.  And without fail, boom.  I'd be putting the project together late into the night before it was due because my perfectionist tendencies wouldn't allow for different fonts and formats and such.  

These are not strong points.  Controlling.  Bossy.  Extreme.  Organized to a fault.  Competitive.  All in.  

They are my vices.  My inhibiting crutches.  My weaknesses.  The hard things.  

But maybe they are strengths too which is a whole ball of wax in itself.  Is it a strength to be a strong person in a bossy way?  Sometimes maybe.  If managed and handled appropriately.  

Handled appropriately seems to be the key.  

Oh the things we learn as we age and gain life experiences.

I mean it's like this.  Maybe there are people out there whose weaknesses are being too passive, not having a voice, unorganized, too laid back, and such.  Maybe those people yearn for some bossiness and control.

We all can't be the same.  This type of person must work with this type of person.  And when done well - when handled appropriately, magic can happen when A works with B.  Instead of A working against B...or vice versa. 

Where all of this is going I am not entirely sure.  Maybe it's going here.  To the land of me jumping on a bike with my big camera around my neck to capture some evening pretties.  

To the land of a hummingbird's buzzing scaring the shit out of me.  So much so I couldn't focus.  Then it was gone, as fast as it came.  It was obviously a fellow Type A Distracted by Shiny Things.   

To the land of me adding talking on the phone to riding a bike on the way back home while keeping my big camera safe and to a guy walking down the sidewalk yelling, "That's talented multitasking!" 

I kept right on talking while snapping these.  Life is much too short to do one thing at a time.

Life is much too short to not squeeze hug every single sunset, with an extra squeeze for the super beautiful ones.  

The Lead is Smaller

We went for a bike ride on the Saturday evening we shared in Arizona, my sister and I.  Around the loop in the late afternoon sunshine, we talked about things which neither of us really have an answer for but still they needed talking.  She and I are ten years apart in age but I’m finding my ten year lead on her is feeling smaller and smaller.  A four year old and a fourteen year old are much different.  A fourteen year old and a twenty-four year old are even more different.  And now a twenty year old and a thirty year old don’t feel all that different.  

Life gets smaller, or maybe tighter is the better word, in a way as I age and I wonder if everyone feels the same.  Not smaller in a negative way, just tighter in a way like choice after choice gets made as we filter through college and first jobs and first houses and settling into a town and a place until soon it feels like this is life.  Here it is.  This is what you will do now.   

That’s a comforting notion and a maddening one all at the same time.  I love routine and knowing what’s coming ahead but there’s also a nudge of stifle that I want to shove away.

My sister is twenty.   

I’m thirty.

 

And oddly enough, I find that we are more alike than ever.  She even cares about clean now too.  Shocking.  I have to throw the word karma at her several times...several because it just feels that good.  Sister Pister is making all of those first choices and I'm making all my am I sure choices.  My lead on her is smaller and I always hoped that would happen, that our relationship would become more symbiotic, more on the same page in the life book.    

We went for a bike ride around the loop in the late afternoon sunshine and we talked about things which neither of us really have an answer for. 

I sure do love that nugget and her way of making me laugh so hard I cry.

Only she can get away with this kind of thing with Dad-o.  That's worth something right there.  

Only she can get away with convincing me to pose 80s style senior pics with her.  Before this lovely moment, Momma Debi called me a sheep dog.  So now I know for sure I have the 80s senior pic status down as well as sheep dog.  Go me.   

We made a lemon pie that afternoon and while I was pouring and she was whisking I said to her, "Just give me a little kiss."  Because that's normal.  We laughed.  A lot.  Apparently I get confused with all the people I love.