So now that I am gone from that employment, I NEVER see her. Sure, we are facebook friends...so I get the status updates...but still, I miss HER. But I do get a little glimpse and get to partake in her life (if only electonically) through her blog.
I think it is awesome...makes me feel a little closer, more connected than a FB status update. The whole time I have known her, I thought, "I wish I could do that" - blog, that is. Her blogs are always so fun to read...I am sure mine would be boring and rambling (kind of like this..)...so I never did it.
So my life is seemingly dull, and I feel I never have anything great to talk about. Then I realize several things:
1) Sometimes sharing the "ordinaryness" (yep- pretty sure I just made THAT word up) of my life, might make others feel like ORDINARY is OK.
2) sometimes I do have great things that I WOULD like to share...but alas, too much of a story for a FB status update!! So, only my closest riends and family MIGHT hear about it.
3) as my friend, Pam pointed out in her blog...someday, it will be great to have my rambling thoughts preserved in something other than my chicken scratches. Tried that whole journal thing...not for me. I kind of envy those people who carry around those beautiful books, and have perfect penmanship with which they narrate the details of their lives. Not me.
Those of you who REALLY know me, I very rarely have a legitimate writing utensil in my possession...if I can't do it on my iPad or phone...it looses it's hopefulness of being done!!
So now that I have rambled...I will get onto my "Too Long for a FB status update story" :
So I come home today and see these amazing reflective spots all over my ceiling and walls...middle of the day. SO COOL. It doesn't take long for me to discover that they are coming from the sun shining in my big beautiful windows, onto a mosaic glass candle holder that sits atop the mirror tray on my ottoman. It was spectacular (this picture really does not do it justice). Then it comes to me...after yesterdays incident...I need to THANK MY LUCKY STARS...and the ONE who created them!!
What happened, you ask? A normal day...drive bus, work at office, drive bus, clean bus, go home... FINALLY FRIDAY!! Yippeee. Sittin' in my favorite chair by the window, checkin out stuff on my iPad...when I look down...and just about THROW UP.
The diamond from my ring IS GONE!!!!! All that is left is the setting...the prongs staring up at me....man, the gaping hole between those prings looks SO HUGE, so EMPTY! I have never had such a feeling in the pit of my stomach. That little stone has been with me day in and day out for 24 years...8760 days...210240 hours...12614400 minutes.... (that was my little tribute to Rain Man).
We frantically search around the chair, in the carpet, in the garage, in the car...NOTHING. Where does one even begin?? Bill and I decide to try to retrace every step of the day. Connor joins us. Luckily, I made no stops between work and home. So if it was not at home...it would be at work, right? So we drive back to the bus barn (I Drive for Middleton School District) -
AS we drive up, I remember that I put gas in the bus...Bill yells, "Wait, wait...he jumps out of the car...runs over to the pump I had used"...I can't believe it...He bends down and picks something up...my heart is a flutter. NO, it is just a bead from a little girls hair. I definately recall sweeping them out of my bus earlier.
I had emptied my trash. YES, I resorted to digging through the trash bags..not just in the can by the pumps, but even in the big dumpster...trying to discern which bag had come from my bus. Let me just say 2 things: GROSSSSSSSSSS and NO LUCK.
so we retrace my steps from back to my bus, searching feverishly. through the 6-8 swath of landscape stones (yeah, not fun trying to look in all those crevices)...across the asphalt parking lot..trying to remember if I walked from the East door or the WEST door. WEST, yes, that is it. Open the door to the barn and before me stand 60+ buses that were not there when I left. So the odds of retracing my exact path have greatly diminished. But we do our best...searching the floor every inch of the way. Connor even takes to lying down to look across the vast expanses of concrete along the way.
NO LUCK. What did I expect. This was worse than a needle in haystack.
We get to my bus...I am ready to crawl through on my belly...I get up in the drivers seat to turn the overhead lights on when Connor yells, "I found it!".
Those of you who know Connor probably have the same thoughts going through your head:
1) "Yeah right! THAT IS NOT EVEN FUNNY" - because he just might say such a thing....cuz he is known to have such a sense of humor...in his head he thinks he is trying to lighten the moment...
2) "Yeah right!" Cuz if ANYONE is going to have such luck - it would be Connor.
I run to the back of the bus, and he has the back emergency door open. He is holding a beautiful shiny diamond...this is NO HAIR BEAD!! "Where was it", I scream with joy.
"Oh, it was stuck here...into the foam of the seal on that door"....are you kidding???? "How did you spot it", I ask.
"Oh, " he says, completely matter of factly, "I like shiny things".
That simple. I was so relieved. Not sure WHY I was so upset. It is not as if that stone WAS my marriage (though it is a symbol of it)...It is not as though my marriage would end if the stone was gone... I KNOW THAT. My husband is more solid that little piece of rock. I know in the grand scheme of things, my life would go on WITH or WITHOUT than stone...so maybe it just that I, too, "LIKE SHINY THINGS".
A so those little reflective dots on my ceiling today..remind me that Shiny things show up every where...you just have to look.
Shiny Things...Lucky Stars...Thankfulness
I am thankful for: My God, my life, my husband, my children, my friends, the people who are yet to be my friends, the family that is yet to come (via my kids...not myself -haha)...It is not the THINGS in our life that are SHINY...it is the people! And my world is sparkling!!!
