One Foot In Front of the Other

Today started out nice and chilly.

It seemed odd and not quite right to get up before dawn.

But we did anyway, and kids got to school and I got to work. I didn't feel like it, but baked a few loaves of bread and some pizza crusts and granola anyway.

I kind of hurt all over, missing my friends so much, but decided that it would probably be best to file paperwork and sort through receipts instead of go back to bed like I wanted to, remembering that someone somewhere said that the secret to success is doing things you don't feel like doing.

A few customers dropped in and I was reminded why I love my job so much. We didn't eat our turkey over the holiday, so I cooked it this evening and the children and I ate salad with chunks of turkey for supper and read another chapter of one of my favorite childhood books, The Mixed up Files of Mrs. Basil Frankweiler. I had forgotten what a formative book it was. Something about E L Konigsburg's writing speaks to me deeply. She captures the sense of awe and adventure and absolutely unstoppable and unfathomable sense of confidence of a pre-teenager. I just knew I would have to run away from home to the Metropolitan Museum of Art someday when I read that book as an 11 yr old.

And sure enough, I can't count how many times I have run away from home to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. But I have never slept in a bed there. And now that we are in Texas, it will be a lot harder to run away to get there. But rest assured. I plan on going back. And as we sit around the table, enjoying the shared experience of story, I certainly hope that a child of mine (hopefully all five of them) will someday feel a deep and mysterious longing to wander those grand halls and find themselves there. And maybe read aloud the story to their own children someday.

PS During evening prayers we remembered the many people we know in need. And took some time to say thanks for Mrs. Konigsburg. And I prayed that God would help each of my children, in their own unique way, be able to touch some people just like he used Mrs. Konigsburg to touch us.