Summer Breeze Makes Me Feel Fine

It was gorgeous this morning.  And this time of year, the mornings hang on a bit longer to the chill of night, before the heat gets to you for the day.  So we decided to get out my husband's old GTO and go on a drive, the whole family.  Well, not the dogs.  We can't have dog hair on the nicely restored interior.

With the windows down, and my hair whipping all around me, I began to reminisce about times in my teen years when I'd be out driving with friends.  It was similar.  None of us had air conditioning, and somehow we were more connected to the world around us with the windows down.  It was a simple pleasure, and always the sensation of driving down the road with the windows open will always take me back to that time.  Maybe I'm just too nostalgic, but despite a lot of challenges, that was a happy time in my life.

So as I sat in the passenger seat this morning, eyes closed, and feeling the air rushing in from the window, and thinking about my teen years, I hear my not-quite-a-teen daughter, whose hair is longer than mine, complaining from the back seat.  "Will you close the windows and turn on the air conditioning?"  Actually, the GTO has no air conditioning.  And, sadly, my daughter's future reminiscing of an open car window may be far different than mine.

However, as the drive went on, some kind of magic came over my family.  My daughter somehow accepted that the cool air was a good thing, despite what it was doing to her hair.  She and her brother began to laugh and make jokes in the back seat.  Even my husband began to smile.  Life was good.  Sometimes the best things in life are the simplest.  It really set the stage for a wonderful, easy day before we all have to get onto the busyness on Monday.  And I'm so grateful for the time we had together.  And if tonight I dream about drives years ago in an old Nova stationwagon, well, that's not all bad, either.

Of Birds and Slingshots

It's funny how relationships evolve, especially with one's children.  A year ago, who could have guessed I'd be at my sewing machine, putting small pieces of fleece together with my children watching in awe.  After all, they usually ignore me when I'm elbow-deep in fabric in my sewing room.  But not tonight.  Tonight, we were creating a small red plush bird, a replica of a character of the Angry Birds game.

Really, this just started a week ago when I downloaded a free app for my iPhone for the game.  I'd heard about it and thought I'd give it a try.  I had to show my kids.  It was adorable, in a flatten-bad-piggies-by-slinging-angry-birds sort of way.  And soon it was all we could talk about.  A quick search online found a blog by a woman who had made small plus characters from the game for her family.  We had to try it.  And try, we did.