Anders...

I just love his combination of dress-up clothes - part pirate/spiderman/magician/and luau.

Winter Snapshots

We've had a lot of snow recently, and the boys have been spending lots of time shoveling it, tunneling in it, climbing on it, sliding down it, eating it, and freezing in it.

Things I do, Things they want me to do...(and I do)

I know I can be so annoying when I pose my kids for photo's like the first one, sent to their grandfather on Valentine's day....but the second pose is all Kuba's idea....holding the valentine up to his bum. (I did not send this one to my dad.)

Kid humor all the way!

Personally, I find the pet rat the funniest of all.

Sight Words Gone Wrong?

I'm not sure this is what Anders and his friend Finley's kindergarten teacher expected them to do with their sight words....but it sure does look fun!

Open Heart

Love is what we are, when we drop all the things that stand in the way.

Karen Maezen Miller

I am home again after spending a week with my father in Buffalo. Ironically, he also went home today after spending nearly a week in the hospital after having quadruple by-pass surgery.

Open Heart surgery.

It's been such an intense experience, and I find myself returning over and over again to thoughts about what really matters in life.

Love.

It really is that simple to me. And that complex.

I've been traveling a lot lately....in the last month to NY City, Charleston, SC, and Buffalo.I have met so many people in my travels..some for only a moment in passing, others for much longer conversations. I have found that my attention to even the tiniest interaction with another human is significant. How I connect with a stranger at the airport, a nurse in the hospital room, an educator in a classroom all matter to me. In fact, pretty equally. It's that love thing. I can't look at another human and not feel a sense of connection.

This has been amplified for me this year for a number of reasons. Obviously because my father is ill and my love for him is enormous. Also because I turned 50 this year and this was a riveting experience. I made a commitment to living this life as big as I could.

I couldn't do that without a wide open heart.

It matters to me. It's so simple. It all comes down to big love.

Love big.

However you want to say it. It's not hard to do and it really matters.

And in honor of my dad, I invite you to open your heart.

Happy Valentine's Day

My Father and Black Walnuts

My dad collects black walnuts.

Why?

He has a thing for trees.

All trees really, but to him, the best tree is the black walnut. It is an amazing tree for sure, but according to my father, the finest part about this tree besides the quality of the hardwood, is the nut.

I can not remember a time in my life when my dad hasn't collected and shelled black walnuts. And if you know anything at all about this nut, you know it is one tough nut...very hard to open, in fact almost impossible to open. As children, my siblings and I remember going down into my dad's workshop and using a vice to crack them open.

Last fall my father felt like he won the lottery when he discovered some prolific black walnut trees near my sister's home. We all helped him fill bag after bag with these large nuts with their green husks. He counted them...all of them. And he stuffed his car with over 1300 hundred nuts. He then spent the next month getting the husks off, building a drying rack, and drying them over his woodstove. In January they were ready to be shelled. My dad has arthritic hands and neuropthy in his fingers, yet he managed to crack open and take out these delicious walnuts one at a time. He did this down in is basement using a hatchet and some wire cutting tools.

Amazing really - I mean talk about a hobby.

He did save some to plant in the Spring, so this will be his next project. He is a renegade tree lover and has anonymously planted thousands of trees, most of them black walnuts.

In fact, right now there are about a dozen small black walnut trees growing along the entrance to my sisters condo unit. Each time he visits, he checks them, prunes them, and clears the weeds around them so they have the space needed to grow.

I have one cool dad, don't you think?

http://http://www.ehow.com/about_4602037_value-black-walnut-trees.html

Heading Home...

I have been in Charleston, South Carolina for the past 4 days.
I am heading home tomorrow.
I miss my family. I miss my boys.

Once back, I will be heading home again...to my first home.
My 86 year old father will be having open heart surgery on Tuesday next week and I am flying to be with him.
It's making me anxious. I can't quite wrap my mind about this reality.
I have heard from so many people that this kind of surgery is very efficient now.
And I believe that.

However, the thought of my father's heart on ice....makes me really anxious.
I think I believe that he will live forever.
Mortality is not a word that I pair with my dad.
He's robust, feisty, vital, and so optimistic.
I'm going to stick with this image and have faith that his big spirit will hold him as he undergoes triple bypass surgery.

Send him love, energy, prayers, and faith.
And a speedy recovery.