500 Apples

On Fridays, my oldest daughter has karate class at the YMCA. This class has been on Fridays at the same time (5:00 p.m.) for quite awhile now. Two days ago, I totally forgot about it. It was unsetling because earlier in the day I almost forgot that she also was to be dismissed from school at 11:20 instead of the normal 2:45. It was 10:30 when it hit me and my heart skipped a beat (I hate that feeling, just like the second I realized I forgot karate).

To my credit, I didn’t sleep well the night before. Jennifer fell asleep on the couch. Ainsley crawled in bed with me at some point and at one point I remember one of the kittens licking her face. We laughed about that. She fell back asleep; I didn’t.

When I have a bad day, sometimes from lack of sleep, it seems like it takes the form of being indecisive and then feeling bad about it. The weight of everything that needs to be done is a little heavier. I feel pulled in different directions. I can’t decide what to tackle so I end up doing very little. I felt that way Friday until about 4:30 (when I should have been tying Chloe’s karate belt).

Once in awhile, Chloe really gets into preparing a meal. She will set the table, write menus for everyone, help me do whatever I’m doing in the kitchen. I decided to go along with the whole “restaurant” game and we spend an hour and a half fixing spaghetti, baked potatoes, salad, etc.

It was nice to spend the time “present” with the girls. On a bad day (which are, luckily, very rare), once I can commit to something, I feel much better.

After dinner we went to the opening night of The Great Forest Park Balloon Race. On this night, all of the hot air balloons are tied down, but blown up. At dusk, they shoot fire up into the balloon. I don’t know how this works, actually. It involves a lot of heat and bright light to the delight of the thousands of people there. The coolest balloon each year is this humongous Energizer Bunny balloon. Among the dozens of balloon, people are spread out on blankets or folding tables. Many people bring food and drinks. For us it was a last minute decision to go (unlike two years ago when we arrived early and witnessed the “blowing up” of the pink rabbit), so we spent most of our night walking to and from the event.

While leaving, walking down a steep hill, Chloe decided to roll down (you can expect an 8-year-old to WALK 10 miles, can you?).

At the bottom of this hill, we all had to jump over a small creek. Is creek the right word? Crick? Anyway, with Ainsley riding on my back, I jumped over. Jennifer said something like “Whoo Ainsley good job” then raised her hand to give a high five then tripped over a log.

I’m running out of time before it times to go exercise, but I can’t forget to mention that I’m sitting here with my shorts on inside out. My pockets look like socks hanging from my hips. This just goes right along with me wearing my shorts backwards to the YMCA. I don’t know what’s going on. It may have something to do with last winter when I fell three times in a span of two weeks: once at Chloe’s school, once outside my doctor’s office, and once in our garage. In my defense (again) one fall was ice-related and another fall was condensation-related.