Listening to: Oh Brother Where Art Thou? Soundtrack - I hadn't listened to it in ages and we've been making up for lost time. We've been listening for days and days. The kids love it.

We're all still in our pajamas. Playing. I made muffins and we're just hanging out.  Boogers abound as both are sniffly with something so it's a good day not to be rushing around.

Life stops here in Seattle when it snows. There is about an inch or two on the ground and Hadley is home from school. I just think that's so precious. It's similar to my attraction to all things travel size. It just makes you go "Aw....cute." Better change my mentality before returning to Colorado where no one would even bat an eye at an inch of snow.

Speaking of the return to beautiful Colorado, it's coming up. SOON. I'm a swirling mass of emotions. Excitement, relief, elation, sadness, nostalgia, joy, and finally dread. I find myself trying to backpedal in my mind not wanting the days to come when it has been a year since Dad died. It's coming up faster and faster and there's nothing I can do about it. What have I been doing for a year? What do I have to show for my life without him for a year? Would I make him proud? I'm trying, Dad. Know that I am. Laughter and joy were your medicine and I am trying to make it mine too.

I read this beautiful description of death from Kris Carr's blog, Crazy Sexy Cancer. I saw her documentary and have followed her blog since. While her focus is on living with cancer, she touches on other subjects, including chronic pain and I enjoy her perspective on life.  She turned me onto juicing and other alternative treatments. She is refreshing and positive. Traits I admire in a girl.

The terror of death is so powerful that most human beings will do anything to avoid even thinking about it. Unless we’ve flatlined, seen the light, and lived to tell the tale, most of us can only speculate about what the actual journey entails. For years the thought of death made me physically ill. A spooky, jinxing paranoia grabbed my mind before it could wander into the void. At the time, I believed that worry was praying for what I don’t want, and since I didn’t want to die, I refused to think about it. What if the worry could bring it on? Yikes, creepy, no thanks! Better to smoosh the heebie-jeebies than to play roulette.
However, anything that we hide grows in strength. If you refuse to allow yourself to taste extra-dark chocolate, the curiosity will one day get the best of you. Eventually, the temptation to explore the door in the floor became too great and I had to open my mind to the darkness. By allowing my imagination to drift and wonder, a very cool possibility floated to the surface of my frontal lobe. What if death is just like leaving a room? If you are willing to swim in this murky pond with me, read on; I promise the water isn’t too deep and that I have a life vest and a first-aid kit in my bikini.
Picture this. You are at a party with your family and friends, and you are all really happy, eating crackers, and enjoying one another’s company. You are laughing, hugging, and whooping it up. After a while you leave the room to go into another part of the house. Although you are no longer you with your friends and family physically, you can still hear them. Maybe you can even make out exactly what they are saying. No doubt Uncle Buddy is telling a great joke and Grandpa Harry is advising your sweet little sister to be careful.
You then open a different door to an area of the house even farther removed from the party. Now you can no longer hear your friends and family—but you know they are all still there, still in the house, still with you. Instead of hearing their laughter, you can now feel it. In fact, no matter where you go in the house, you feel their presence. You know that even though your physical relationship to them has changed, your energetic connection has not.
This last room is the universal God soup. The place where the saint tells us we’re home; welcome to the new party. Jesus hands us butterfly wings, Buddha offers a bowl of rice and peas, and Elvis gyrates in white socks and sequins, offending no one.

It's nice, right? I like it. My interpretation is so similar, minus the Elvis, but perhaps he can stay to make things a little wackier.

We had some showings and an open house this weekend. Keep your fingers crossed.

I haven't talked about how I'm feeling physically because I'm just barreling past it and honestly, I'm to the point where I don't want to give the bastard any press. It's like a Britney on the loose in my body that I can't control. I don't have time for your antics, Lupus. I have shit to do. I am constantly aching and past 4ish, I'm worthless. But I just have to keep going. Peter usually takes one look at me when he gets home and says "whoa, mama, you look spent." I can't explain how much it means that he knows, even if I'm faking. He can see through all my BS and showmanship.