Things I Liked About Today

Just some random moments from an ordinary day...

We couldn't decide what to do, so we voted. We do this often. If no one has a firm enough opinion to say "this is what we're doing" we list all our options, rank them, and add them up. Lowest score wins.



Of course, the problem with that tactic is that when you vote before breakfast, "brunch at Perkins" tends to win. So we decided to do two from the list and hit Putt U, too. It was a beautiful morning and great to get out of the house. I won, but Kairi nearly beat me. She's got this habit of making sudden GREAT shots, and she stays out of the hazards better than I do.



The weather was perfect and felt like fall, so we set up our fall decorations when we came back home. A trip to the grocery store also netted us some mums and mini-pumpkins. I asked Nick to help me with the rest of the decorations, and he said, "Absolutely. I love fall." It's nice to have something in common with your son. We had a good time pawing through the totes in the garage looking for "just fall" decor - as opposed to all the Halloween and Thanksgiving stuff. Too early for that.



Then, in keeping with the it's-beginning-to-feel-like-fall theme, we had baked ziti for dinner. Yum.



While I was waiting for dinner, I watched the birds at the feeder my nieces gave me last Christmas.



Nine years ago was an ordinary day, too, until events made it extraordinarily tragic. I normally keep this blog newsy and everyday journally, but I'm feeling upset and frustrated with what September 11th has come to mean. In my school yesterday, it meant I was supposed to break a promise to my kids to play board games in end of the day study hall. I was supposed to show them a video of the events of 9/11 and discuss what they remembered. News flash, folks. They were three. They remember nothing. I'm told that's why I need to make them remember. Where's the day of remembrance for the hundreds of thousands who died in a tsunami since that time? Or the day for the thousands who die daily of malaria? Or the innocents who are killed daily by ongoing warfare in the world? Why this one event?

And what does it mean to remember it? Should we foster hate by remembering? Should we burn books and deny places of unity and worship? Or should we turn it into a day of cookouts and patriotic themed cupcakes? (That seems to be the plan of my local grocery stores, anyway.)

Or maybe. Just maybe. We should have an ordinary day. With our ordinary families. And take the time to show them how much we love them. And thank God for the beauty and wonder in our world, from birds to mums to turning leaves. Because life is precious. And celebrating life keeps those who celebrate death from winning.