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I let the kids draw on the walls in their territory. This is their house, after all, and life’s to short too run around trying to keep everything perfect. I love creativity and love the surprises I find. Like this one next to the upstairs mysterious closet that is too small to be practical and too deep to be easy. I think it was an old dumbwaiter. Now it is a catch-all. But, before you open it, you have this friendly greeting!
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In the little sun room, which has served as a tiny guestroom, bedroom, and now hosts a computer, you can see this jolly image of a Cheerful Girl:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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How can you do anything but smile when your little one starts writing and her first public word is this?

 

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But the proof is in the pudding, and it is very gratifying to see our Sera’s fine arts work in college. First semester is not yet done, and we have this. It is a wire sculpture of whimsical lips:

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The things I find…

Today when I was cleaning up the dining room, I saw a pile of paper napkins under a book. Moving the book, this is what I found. Thank you, Kiko, for a great surprise and a lot of laughter.

The Sofa Has Eyes

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The kids said, “Look, look! Bunny and Phantom are the eyebrows!”

I couldn’t see it. So Sera quickly drew eyes. There you have it. Oh the things I’ve seen and the places I’ve been right here in my own house.

Everyday Beauty Right Outside

Out the front door, down the stairs and across the street. The front of our house looks at this all year. It is a show in every season, but this is the most spectacular season of all.

Twelve Swans

swansThis true story is beginning to recede in memory. This really happened to me. When we moved here, the only place we could find to live was a beach house. A beach house rented in the off season can be a bargain, except that beach houses are built for the warm weather, and we live in New England.

So we lived in the beach house for a short season and in the morning the living room had the bright blue ocean and at night, the moon would shine over the water. It was the kind of place that you want to see on vacation. The beauty had a quality of being out of place. Our life, at the time was very chaotic. We had moved our five (then) children here from San Diego. The rhythm of our life was exhausting to everyone because we had enrolled them in a parochial school and there was a clash going on.

At the time, I also found out I was expecting our youngest. So there we were, down a country road in a beach house. It was too small for us, and the weather was too strange. When the sun went down the house froze. My mother came out to live with us because it was just all too different after years and years in sunny California.

Yet, the ocean and the sunrise and the moon, and the herons and sea birds were so beautiful. There was a dock and a beach and a grand sweep of ocean. Like immigrants in the strange country we would sit, my children and husband, the Mayflower descendants, and my mother and me, stunned at the hardship of daily life in the cold.

Somehow we all muddled through that period. I thought I was miscarrying. I was sick with a lingering bronchitis. There was a dreadful storm that brought the ocean to the edge of the yard. In our optimistic fashion, we tried to make the most of it. Some parts, like the school,  weren’t working. The kids needed to be brought back to home school, but that would not happen for another year or two.

On one of those days when I didn’t know what to do, I took a walk with my littlest boy (who is now fourteen). I took a walk down to the beach and what I saw took my breath away.

I had walked into a fairy tale. One the beach were twelve swans sunning themselves. I counted them, twelve. Just like my favorite fairy tale, “The Wild Swans”.  Then I knew everything would work out. Of course it would. God knew that His child, Kathleen, would recognize His custom made sign. Just for me. For the child in me. Twelve swans. I will never forget the beautiful sight.

The twelve swans didn’t move. They were very relaxed on that beach. Everything got better for us. I got well. My baby grew in my womb, healthy and strong. We moved into our beloved old house. The baby was born. Everything got better.

Whenever the terrain gets bumpy, I think of the day of the twelve swans and know that everything will be alright.

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