Hello Collins

Every time I think "I should write about this"... the days add up and time moves on and my recollections get fuzzier. So, here I am trying to get back on the horse of writing about life, our comings and goings, our challenges and triumphs, and what we are still creating. Transitions are hard. And I get quiet when stuff is hard. Pictures do most of my talking.  Art tells the story when the words can't quite come out :) Oh, the dreams and plans for our tree lot. We go out nearly every weekend and make plans and talk about plans and maybe weddings and grandkids and how Clay and I will garden and make food etc etc etc... a chunk of glass from one of my walks After dropping Clay off for an early morning flight, I pulled over to capture the moon setting over the water after a rainy night . It was so peaceful. March madness had me put on Lucy's high school basketball hoodie! We took a trip to Arizona to see my sister and her family. They are such adorable kids. I love watchi...

So many storms. It was just one after another. Bluffs worn down, trees uprooted, logs in the highway. It was quite the stormy month! The stairs to Surfer's destroyed. Trees rolling along in the waves after ripped from wherever. I just watched it all.  Hoping no tree would fall on our home:0 But in a strange way, it was good to let nature take over and just submit to it. It has been on my mind to write.  To take into account maybe some of my storms the last couple of years.  We all have them!  Small, or big, intense or light...whatever category, they are storms nonetheless. With some storms in life we get warnings...postings...people talking... But what happens when you have no idea and it just catches you off guard? I didn't know about the wind.  I didn't realize it was going to accompany the rain.  I didn't realize I would just watch outside my window pine and cypress trees sway and bend and then crash down with all the splintering and crackling sound effe...

Where do I begin? Saturday mornings waking up early to be with him while he made his weekly pancakes for us?  How he cut them in a grid for me? Or my adult days with him.  Or do I  go back to the day I showed up to the hospital? Where he held my hand tight when we were alone. Where he told me he loved me and asked me to hold on to him. Do I start there? Because all I want to do is rewind and pull him back to hear his laugh, his voice.   I keep reliving those last moments with him right now. I hope that's normal grieving:) The day after Christmas 1973 My mom told me she would throw a big Christmas party for all their young couple friends and serve a variety of Mexican food. One year she told my Dad she couldn't because she was very very pregnant with Leslie.  He wasn't quite grasping why she wasn't up to it ...haha  (she gave birth to Leslie on January 7th btw) She told me he got tears of disappointment in his eyes when she said she just couldn't do it....