I'm great at making to-do lists; I have many of them. But checking them off, not so much. Imagine my surprise when in the last couple of days I have:

• Mailed the get-well and graduation cards I had sitting around. Yes, graduation cards.
  
• Ordered Emily's school books, a process involving mysterious ISBNs and constant cross-checking of book lists.
• Ordered school uniforms for next year.
  
• Gotten Sean enrolled in the local community college for dual credit. More time on the computer, checking classes and schedules and ratemyprofessors.com and a trip to the college and unnecessary notarization and an unscheduled discussion of the secretary's trip to Germany as we imperceptibly inched out the door.
• Ordered Sean's school books online.
• Taken Emily to the orthodontist. No braces for another six months. But eventually, braces.
  
• Gathered, collated, and posted all the school books and kits I have for sale. Not a big response so far, so Ebay is next.
• Posted a troubling bird case on VIN, waited for an answer from the bird gurus, one of whom eventually told me to tell the owner to give the bird away. Not helpful.
• Oh! And while looking for last year's continuing education paperwork, found Sean's lost paycheck, his test file I haven't seen in a year, and volumes 1-9 of A Series of Unfortunate Events. Unfortunately, I've just spent weeks putting them on library request and now Emily's read them all, but if she ever wants to read them again, I'm all set.
  

But a such a list, with the checkoffs! I feel so accomplished. I can write new lists now!

I still have Abba songs in my head. Right now, it's "Take a Chance on Me." Next it'll be "Dancing Queen," or "Waterloo." They won't go away.

We have a bunny living in the back yard, hummingbirds fighting over the feeder, a nest of wrens just fledging, and a family of chipmunks seen running up the tree in the front yard. Who'd have thought that a little landscaping would make this Wild Kingdom?

P.S. Proving again that hubris never pays, I just realized I totally forgot that I was supposed to go by and pick up a book today from an online seller. Going now to send an apologetic email....

In my prime

We all are. At the table tonight, we figured out that each of us, for the next 10 days anyway, are all prime numbers. 47 and 47 (as of today), 17, and 11, at least until July 31. The cat is prime, the dog is not, at least the one whose age we know. Lucy's age is a mystery, but I choose to believe she's only a year or two older than Abby.

The kids' birthdates are both prime. I was baptized in a prime year. David and I graduated from high school in a prime year. Kind of fun!

All in all, I had a good birthday. Emily and I saw Mamma Mia!, and the pretzels at the theater were actually pretty good, and I dropped by and saw some friends in a serendipitous sort of way, and came home, made a bit of dinner, swam, made a big cookie that is cooling off and is a little too done for my taste, but that's what I get for blogging and not watching the oven. I wanted to see Mamma Mia! because I wanted to see someone older than myself dancing and singing like a fool. I loved the movie, and now I have the all-ABBA, all the time radio station going in my head. Anytime you get to see Karen Silkwood, Mrs. Weasley, Martha May Whovier, and James Bond breaking into song, it's worth it.

A good day.

And who wouldn't want to live here?

Another movie night

Kids will be back tomorrow night. Last night's movie was 50 First Dates. Always cute; one movie that no matter how many times I see it I both laugh out loud and get choked up.

And then David turned on the TV tonight and we have:
Old Beverly Hillbillies episode, a particularly annoying one. Mr. Drysdale thinks the Clampitts are actors. It's a very early one.
The same Andy Griffith episode that was on last night. Goober got the girl, if you can believe that.
Last thirty minutes of Easy Rider. I really hate that movie. Especially the last thirty minutes.
So he turned it to another movie, one he'd never seen, and here were my thought processes (keep in mind I'm reading the sequel to The Graduate right now.)

Dustin Hoffman is running.
"Oh!" I say. "A feel-good movie! Light little comedy!" I may have been what they call a little sarcastic at this point. "Remind me I have to make a dentist appointment!"
"Great," says my husband. "Now I know someone gets their teeth pulled out." He hates knowing anything about movies ahead of time. I point out that I said nothing about teeth pulling.
All I can think of is The Graduate. Running. The Runner? No. More of a race, something about a race, running, Hoffman....
Marathon Man. At least 60 seconds to think of a movie I should have on the tip of my tongue.

This is how my brain works now. I have the same problem when I have to recall a patient's name or condition or what I did last Friday.

So far the thing is as disjointed as I remember. Much like my memory. Really, does anyone recall anything about this movie besides "Is it safe?" Which still gives me the heebies. And I'm in no hurry for that dentist's appointment now.
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On the nightstand:

Double Cross, by James Patterson (Just finished, actually. His italics drive me up a wall. So distracting.)

Home School, by Charles Richard Webb. The aforementioned sequel to The Graduate. Benjamin and Elaine are defending their right to homeschool their two boys, eleven years later. I am not making this up! Not a Simon and Garfunkel song in sight.

The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell, about, like, how epidemics start. Something like that. Meant to read it several years ago.

Close, by Martina Cole. Brain candy, looked distracting.

How Good Do We Have To Be? by Harold Kushner, everyone's favorite rabbi.

The Seven Spiritual Laws of Yoga, by Deepak Chopra. Didn't realize it was by Oprah's (hey, it rhymes!) pet yogi till I got it home. I'll give it a shot anyway.

Pilgrims, by Elizabeth Gilbert. A book of short stories by the author of Eat, Pray, Love.

Finding My Balance, by Mariel Hemingway, because it's about yoga and I always thought she was hot.

And a book on modular knitting. I have a scarf in mind, but who knows when that will happen!

Missing children

Boy, do I miss them. This is the third time Sean has gone to the long session, but only the first time that Emily will be away for 11 days. And today she called, in tears, homesick and with an earache and my mommy lion just came unhinged and I wanted her home NOW and I knew I couldn't let on. So I gave the pep talk, and we came up with an action plan (go see the nurse, make some friends, talk to her counselor). Then I called my mom to ask her to go by and texted our youth minister to check on her.

And Mimi is taking her to the doctor tomorrow to check out the ear, and she's feeling a little better, albeit still teary, and I still want her home, but I can't do that. Sometimes I hate the growing up part. And thank goodness for camp that's near grandparents!

Ach. What else.... my cantaloupe and watermelon, as promised, are taking over the garden. The tomatoes, geez, they're junglicious, the Little Garden of Horrors down on the end. I'll get pictures. But my fig tree today sighed and turned yellow. I don't know what's going on. Half the mondo grass in front is brown, even as it's blooming. Nut sedge is taking over the landscaping. All fun stuff.

And yes, the serenity is holding on, for now. I was scrubbing tubs today, thinking of how you just immerse yourself in the moment, and that moment was one to do my best, and not think of what was next or how my back hurt, or what I'd rather be doing. It was just scrubbing, and I scrubbed gloriously.

Back to work tomorrow, where Serenity will get its biggest challenge yet. Bring it on!

We now return to our regularly scheduled programming.

Sort of.

We got back last night, and this morning the kids are off to camp. In two days, my parents, sister-in-law, and niece arrive for the week. Brother and nephews follow three days after that.

Many things must happen with all that, but I have a new outlook. Now, let me preface this with how I'm maybe not the poster child for how to pray. Example: last week I thought Emily had dropped my phone at the beach. The next morning I prayed for God to help me find it, and I walked the beach and spoke to the guy picking up trash and found out where the lost and found was, and when I got back to the house, Emily came downstairs and said she'd found my phone in her suitcase. And the first thought I had, I swear, was, "OK, God, never mind. We found it." The second thought was gratitude, I promise, but you see how it goes? Not so good on the whole prayer thing.

So what do I make of it when He/She answers a prayer I don't even pray? In the last month I've read The Shack and Same Kind of Different Than Me and part of The Divine Conspiracy, and I just don't get it. All these Christian best-sellers do nothing for me. They're not bad, mind you, but I yawn and finish them and nothing has changed. I'd read all my beach books plus one (The Glass Castle, very compelling and disturbing) and I stopped by the little book store in Seaside to pick something up for the road. Not the usual mystery; those are gone too fast and I hate spending money on them. Fiction, memoir, essay, bestsellers, I kept walking along and reading jackets and not finding anything. Picked up Eat, Pray, Love. I'd heard of it, cute cover, Anne Lamott has a good blurb on the front. I bought it.

I think it was about a fourth of the way through the book that I got tears in my eyes. It wasn't the last. This is a book that will change the way I live. It may not change the way you live. You may have to find your own book. But I know there is one out there for you, or if not a book, a person, or an experience, or something that can come along and say, "Hey, there is something more. Life can been seen and experienced in ways you can't even dream of now." Just don't stop looking. God's still listening, even if you don't ask.