the ripstick incident.

Miriam is an excellent ripstick-er.  She can ride a ripstick better than most everyone I know.  They're not easy.  It's not a skateboard.  It's harder to ride than a skateboard.

Every time I decide I'm going to try ripsticking, I quickly change my mind for fear I may break my neck.

For all of you who are saying, "A rip-WHAT?"  Here's the quick run down.  It's a skateboard, except it's not.  It has a pivoting middle and castor wheels on each end.  Just getting up on the thing is impossible...let alone riding it down a hill.

All of the kids in the neighborhood were out playing in the cul-de-sac and Miriam was doing her usual tricks on her ripstick. 

She rode down the extremely steep hill of our next door neighbor's driveway.  She came speeding down and so did the ripstick. Until the ripstick hit a little tiny rock.  Then the ripstick stopped. And Miriam...didn't.

She went flying. Onto the asphalt.

She came into the house where Mike and I were.  I was chatting on the phone with a friend and I saw Miriam with her chin covered and dripping in blood.  I said, "Miriam's got blood everywhere." Which I meant to be saying to Mike.

My friend said, "Okay, I better let you go."

Not sure when I hung up.

Or if the phone was just off the hook for a while.

When we got her cleaned up we discovered that she had split her lip wide open. And that she had road rash in at least 5 places.  Including her chin.

She was complaining about her wrist kind of hurting but she could move it, move her fingers, and it wasn't swelling at all.

She went to a movie activity with her friend that evening only an hour after the entire incident.

The next day was busy and we went and did all kinds of things.  Miriam mentioned her wrist a couple of times.  We checked it and determined that she may have sprained it.  Still, no swelling.

Sunday came and went.

Monday. No school.  We were sitting at the kitchen table for breakfast.  Mike had said to Miriam, "Maybe your wrist is bothering you because you're not using it.  Maybe instead of holding it, if you use it a bit, it will feel better."

Not ten minutes later as we were all chatting around the table, Mike and I looked at each other at exactly the same second and we knew.  We said to each other, "That wrist just doesn't look right."

So we were off to the doctor.  For the rest of our day off from school, we went back and forth laughing and giggling in and out of quiet doctors' offices.

And we brought home an orange cast. For Halloween.

tough girl. LIFE.

meet kaya.

Back in the spring we had a perfect American Girl Book Club party.  The weather was blue skies and puffy clouds and just right temperatures.

When we arrived and saw the life-sized Teepee the girls were so excited.  I knew before the big day that is was going to be a great party.  I had no idea that we would be next to a pond on acres and acres of land.  The location itself was so much like the place Kaya's family had set up the temporary village. 

We sat around talking about what it would be like to be Kaya, to have responsibilities for the younger children, weave and make beautiful beaded things, cook dinner, go to the bathroom outside, and cook dinner for your family over a fire, eat mostly roots, berries, and the deer the men would kill. 

We also talked about how important it is that you create the story of your own life.  You get to choose how it plays out.

Everyone crowded around the table to eat fruits, beef jerky, salmon jerky, and nuts.

The girls even got to create their own bead bracelet by learning the ancient art of beading.

My favorite part was when the activities were over and the girls ran around the land, waded into the pond looking for tadpoles, finding blue robin's eggs, swinging in a hammock, giggling, discovering, exploring, and completely unaware that the world was moving at the speed of light everywhere else on the planet.

We stepped back in time and walked and played with Kaya for those couple of hours on a Saturday in May.

storybook. LIFE.

incontent.

Is that a word? Or is it malcontent? discontent?

Sometimes our little family gets the "I need" or "I want" -itis.  It's a terrible condition to live through.  There's a lot of whining and complaining that goes along with it.  Some feelings of "I deserve this or something even better" are common side effects.  People find it difficult to be happy and may take their feelings out on their brother by giving them dirty looks. Other side effects include frowning faces, sulking, wishing you had more money, and otherwise completely ignoring all the cool stuff in your life.

We have a board in our kitchen (it's made from those square magnet boards at Pottery Barn...we use four of them together) that is an always evolving, ever changing thing. Fingerprints optional.

It started out as my inspiration board for how to decorate my studio and our house. 

I got tired of looking at that so I took everything down and called it the joke board. Anyone that wanted to could write a joke and post it on the board.  Many of them were 6 year old humor that made no sense what-so-ever and because they made no sense they always made you smile and most of the time you laughed. There were others that didn't make since that were created by 9 year old humor and so the 13 year old had to walk past the board and every time he saw them would have to say things like, "Why would anyone even post that?  It doesn't make one bit of sense. My jokes are awesome."  And so that would make a person laugh and roll their eyes and so...it was a joke board (in more ways than one) for a little while.

Now it is a Thankful Board.  I bought a whole bunch of different colored post-its because I thought a quilt-looking thing would look pretty darn snazzy.  Anyone that wants to, anytime they want to, can write a little something on a post-it and stick on the board.

It's a homemade remedy for "I-want-itis".

snazzy. LIFE.

for President.

Of the student body.  He's doin' it Pedro style for all of those who love "Napoleon Dynamite".

fun. LIFE.

what can I say?

I think she's beautiful and amazing and hilarious and off the wall and crazy and smart and a wildly good reader. 

I'm a bit biased. 

I love her.

beyond wonderful. LIFE.