Summer days

"What is one to say about June, the time of perfect young summer, the fulfillment of the promise of the earlier months, and with as yet no sign to remind one that its fresh young beauty will ever fade." (Gertrude Jekyll)

Ahhh, summer days...

...summer days! Are there any nicer words in the English language?  (Not many!)

Week 26 of Photo 52: Photographer's Choice

 Everything seems so fresh...

and new.

It's a lovely time to stick your head out a bit, and...

...stretch yourself, even if it makes you look a bit awkward.

Go ahead... taste all the goodness that summer has to offer. 

And be sure to kick back and relax some... especially with the ones you love most. 

(Love: there really is no nicer word in the English language than that one!) 

Yeah, somehow summer makes it just a bit easier to believe again

 that every day holds the possibility of a miracle.

So cheers to summer, and to stretching ourselves a bit, even if it's awkward.... 

"Hi HJ and Ar,

You are registered for the adoption information meeting on Saturday, July 13, 9:00-11:30 a.m. at the E Street office. We look forward to seeing you there.

Best regards, 

Carol Adoption Information Specialist" 

 ...and even if it's a long shot to work, and

even if you aren't sure you're ready for it to work, even if it were possible for it to work. 

Yeah, summer is a fine time for exploration. 

Nothing says summer like...

...a few friends, and some wine, cheese and fruit, gathered together on a humble, but sunny, patio. 

For these things, and for summer, I am so thankful. Despite the snow storms that continue to rage on in my life, there are sunny patios and wonderful people to bring relief and laughs.

Week 25 of Photo 52: Nothing says summer like....

Now granted, if I'd planned this photo to be part of the photo challenge, I'd have staged it better. I might have used the fancier wine for the photo. I'd perhaps have strategically placed these items on the cute (new) red bistro table located just a foot or two away, instead of this old TV table. I'd for sure have placed the grapes in a white bowl to allow their rich red color to pop out...

In fact, I'd originally presented the food quite beautifully - in a way to complement all the colors - but later, when I ran back in to get more grapes, I just quickly threw the second batch in this little bowl and ran back out. After all, the middle of a party is not the time to worry about colors - rather it's the time to enjoy your guests.

I'd hesitated far too long to have a little party... after all, we're in an apartment with just a small (cozy) patio. We don't have a grill or extensive and well furnished patio space to host a perfect summer party. But why was I waiting for our home to look like a magazine? The truth is, it never will - because we are us and we do not live in a magazine. And that's good enough.  

Later, as I reviewed the photos we took to capture the fun evening, I realized that, though not perfectly staged, this was the photo that summed up the week's summery theme perfectly to me - and so I went with it.

Life isn't about perfection, after all. Life isn't even about faking perfection, or at least I don't want my life to be that way. There is a lot of pasting on a smile, despite my heartache - I have to do that sometimes, especially at work - but that's not who I really want to be. I find that when I can be real about my heartache, my smiles are realer too. 

Besides, maybe nothing says summer like throwing off the extra layers and going with the flow a bit more.

“And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.” (F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby)

Texture

Textures... they really are all around us.  Some we love, some we hate, some are somewhere in between. In matters of clothing, furniture, and food, I tend toward the textures I love - soft and smooth textures - and avoid the ones I consider unpleasant. It's too bad that in life, the choice is not always ours.

Week 24 of Photo 52: Texture

Even so, there are some textures we dislike, but which are good for us, I suppose. As one example, I really dislike the texture of beans... they're very grainy and VERY unpleasant to my tongue. This has been a very strong dislike of mine, since childhood.

Even knowing that beans are good for me, my tendency would be to avoid them at all costs. It took falling in love with a man from another culture - one for whom bean-n-rice is a staple and a comfort food... and it further took for my (then) future ma-in-law to come for a visit and prepare said bean-n-rice for us, much to my dread... rendering it impossible for me to say no to giving it a try. (How do you say no to your future ma-in-law??)

Well, turned out that when mixing bean-n-rice and cooking them properly together, I like it. Who'd have thunk? It's not a love, but it's decent. I still won't eat beans straight or in a broth based soup because I still hate the texture, but when mixed with rice or in a tortilla - when there is something there to balance out the texture - I'm okay with them... and even sometimes choose them, knowing there are such good health benefits there.

And so, I've found ways to enjoy beans well enough and incorporate them into my cooking, for Ar's benefit and for mine.

Wonder if I can sort of do the same with other unpleasant textures of life?  I spend a lot of time trying to get over certain things, trying to push through, only to find myself thrown back and feeling worse than ever.

Maybe I need a new strategy. Maybe I need to make bean-n-rice.

(Yes, these are the strange things that just suddenly occur to me when I go to post my photo challenge photos. Once again, I felt like I had nothing to say - certainly nothing new - but I feel that I've committed to myself to post the photos and try to keep writing, even though I often feel too discouraged.

Yet as I start to write, crazy things come to me, like comparing infertility to beans. It's not a perfect analogy, but as Ar reminds me, I started this blog to help myself process life as I know it, not to make sense or please anyone else, so beans it is. Although I suppose I could have at least photographed some beans or something... oh well!) 

Broken forever

Here's the thing I don't think I'll ever get over: it's just so freaking unfair!!!

Lately, it's newborn photos galore - and who can blame them?  Seriously!! Not me!! Beautiful babies, proud parents... I get it.  I totally get it. I'd be snapping photos left and right, if only it could be me too.

It's just that it makes my heart hurt like nobody's business. It always comes back to this, ya know. Maybe you don't, but it does. It's always, always, always two steps forward, four million steps back.

Photos of that baby in Utila... oh my gosh - they make me ache all over.

Newborns and excitement - somehow make me want to throw up.

Kids graduated from kindergarten....

Kids graduated from whatever.... I don't know. I just don't want to see anyone or anything anymore.

It's just not fair.

I don't know how to stop coming back to that. I kinda suck, don't I? I think I'm broken forever.

When life hands you lemons...

...be glad if it also hands you coconuts.

When life seems to be a bowl full of pits...

...don't forget to notice the sweet, juicy cherries that surround the pits.

If life leads you to buy adorable baby clothes in the dream that you'll one day be a mom...

...accept that in the end, your impossible dream - and those final physical representations of it - was only worth enough to buy a delicious sub sandwich, chips, and a soda.

And no matter how dreadfully hard life rains down on you...

...get up and go to the zoo anyhow - and keep hoping for the sun to come out.

Accomplishment

Some days - some weeks - the biggest accomplishment I can muster is getting out of bed and continuing to show up. This progressively became one of those weeks. I don't feel too bad about that, I guess - after all, showing up is half the battle... Ehhh.

Since no one wants to see a photo of me getting out of bed, I took this picture of my team mate's bocce accomplishment.

Week 23 of Photo 52: Accomplishment

It's was a fabulous roll - could hardly get closer!

Yes, bocce season is back under way. This was Ar and my first week, because it started while we were in Utila - and the last two weeks were called on account of weather. I kinda stunk up the court, but it was fun to be back.

I don't feel up to accomplishing any more of a blog post than this... I'm usually not even sure why I keep writing, at all. What is the point? So... class dismissed.

Nothing ventured....

nothing gained. I had the job interview this morning and.... well, I kinda stunk! I'm quite sure I won't be getting a call back on that one. Oh well. Hey, I went for it and ya never know of course - maybe she digs rambling idiots!! ☺

It does sound like it would be a good opportunity and I think I'd like it. I also told my boss about it today. I sort of fretted about that all day, especially since I can't imagine that I'll get the job.... but, though I have some disgruntled feelings about certain things in my current situation, I very much like and respect my boss of the last 11 years - she deserves to know and she's supportive. She says that if I don't get it, we'll see what we can figure out for making my current job more challenging for me again. Problem is, it's not really under her control. Nonetheless, I feel much better having told her because in the off chance "rambling fool" is listed in the job description and I get an offer, I don't want my boss blind-sided. 

So, chalk this up to something ventured - and now it's the waiting game. Perhaps all my experience with two-week waits will help me in this waiting game... 

Somehow my May photographer's choice photos seem to fall under the title of nothing ventured, nothing gained, as well, at least in my mind. 

This, this here...

Week 22 of Photo 52: Photographer's Choice

...is the gain for my venturing into a tiny oyster can with wings and being hurtled across the sky by psychotic, peanut-wielding strangers with death wishes. It's called Big Bite and Ar used to fish here when he was a youngin'...  Of course, that's true of much of the Utila shoreline. 

Ahhh, I sure wouldn't mind picnicking right there on Big Bite: Ar, sushi, and some white wine. There was no sushi to be found on the island, but a girl can dream. Then again, in this place of unbelievably rugged beauty, a girl would also "settle" for a picnic of almost anything. 

 This one, this is the ladder that Ar ventured to create...

...which allowed ma to venture down into the sea - her piece of the sea! The piece of sea, right off the piece of land where her mom grew up, where she grew up... where she raised four children, but where she hasn't been able to get into for so very many years. 

Don't you just love the look on their faces?  Such beautiful gain!!

Now this one... 

...well, I'm not quite sure what this is, but I surely do love this photo. (Insert heavy sigh here.) I hadn't ventured to pick up a baby in so very long, quite intentionally... it just hurts too much. 

Oh, but this baby - the one who I cried in the store, while picking out adorable shoes for - well, quite unexpectedly she actually picked me up and held on tight for those two weeks. She just could not get enough of me for some unknown reason. 

This one was taken the day that we ended up toting baby around the island for hours on the golf cart and tromping around the iron shores with, because she just wouldn't stop wailing and running after me when we were trying to leave the house - and wouldn't let anyone else come near her. I rather miss this little lady. 

I'm not entirely sure if this one counts as a gain or a loss, but venturing doesn't guarantee a gain -  just that you are more likely to gain if you venture. There's probably a little of both in this one...

Wheel in the sky...

I'm such an 80's girl. Almost every word I hear turns into an 80's song. Right now my head is singing, "Wheel in the sky keeps on turning...Ooh, I don't know where I'll be tomorrow... Wheel in the sky keeps me yearnin' " 

Ahhh, Journey!! In any case, it's way better than the "What about Me" song I wrote about in my last post.  

Come to think of it, "Wheel in the Sky" may be from the late 70s, but that is every bit as good.  

So... Photo 52: week 21 - wheels. Whether or not we know where we'll be tomorrow, wheels are turning all around us. Utila sure had some different sorts of wheels than I'm used to around these parts.  

Photo 52, week 21: wheels

They also had a lot more wheels than I'd have expected...  here are very quiet moments on this street, but there were frequently scooters, motorcycles, and cars - yes cars! - zooming up and down here all day. It's a very small island, why anyone feels the need for a car is beyond me. Okay, so I think there are literally only two on the island, so that's not many, but if you came there you'd see why I still think it's two too many.

I should have perhaps photographed the traffic, come to think of it, but I preferred to try to ignore it. Carts and bikes and such seem reasonable and practical, but the super fast cycles and cars and taxis got a little out of hand. Also, there seem to be no traffic laws there than anyone can tell and it can be a little dangerous.  As I've mentioned, it's a little wild, wild west meets paradise.

I really liked these kind of wheels though, because it meant more things were being planted. Mmmm, breadfruit!

Mostly we walked places, but for two of the days, we picked up a set of wheels to go to the further reaches of the island.  Gotta love that new cart smell!!

Hey, baby... want a ride? 

Following friends to the water caves...

Putt-putt-putt... that's us! 

Speaking of putt-putt-putting, the wheels in my head sure have been turning. I keep thinking how I need some change - more than the super short new hair-do I'm sporting or the new tablecloth I bought yesterday, which is super cute by the way. Those things do help, but there's something more I feel I'm ready for, though it's not clear to me what that is.

I've been needing change for a while... something to brighten up the place, like adding that splash of yellow place mats did for our dining room. I've been thinking more about.... could we move to Utila - at least half the year? Could that work? I really miss being there, this time.  Or how hard should I work toward maybe moving back to Milwaukee area, where all my family is?

All I know is that I want - and need - to keep my wheels moving forward... to continue to work toward not dwelling on infertility, on my constant and overwhelming loss. There are successes and failures there, which is fine - as long as I'm mostly moving forward. I don't think I'm looking (anymore) to run away from my heartache, but to reconcile it better - and to still enjoy the journey - even if I don't quite know where it's leading. I do know I'm so blessed with wonderful travel companions, regardless of the details.

In any case, I actually have a job interview tomorrow! My first in... oh, eight or nine years. I've been at my company over 13 years now, in two different positions (my current position, I've been in for 11 years). It's an internal opportunity, so not the hugest of changes there - but it is on the other side of the world, from what I do now. I've started to get a bit nervous, just today.

So, Monday morning at 9 am, I'll be rollin' in to something new. Whatever the outcome of that, it feels good to take a risk - to try.