Ten.Three Hundred & Ninety-Seven

1. His birthday. Lucky number 7. I like odd numbers best. 

2. I can't sleep so I get up before the alarm. 4:45. I've been tossing and turning. I haven't had a good night of sleep in several weeks. 

3. I water the garden and the petunias and the hydrangea. The front lawn needs love too. We didn't get anywhere near the same kind of storms my friends got in the east. Everything is so dry.

4. I have to wake up the older two so we can get out to breakfast. It's his favorite place and one of ours too. Hibiscus mimosas, coffee, harvest potatoes, bacon, eggs, English muffin. I am full but in the best way. 

5. She and I ride through the neighborhood and take the trail all the way to 5th Street. We are moving slowly though. My thighs are burning. Maybe it's the weight of breakfast. Need water. 

6. Price drop is official and we pray it brings bodies through the door. It's hard not to be in a little bit of a panic when you're not sure if there's additional support if we're unable to sell the house. What do you do? Do you rent it? Do we live apart and somehow scrounge the dollars for him to be in an apartment until the house sells? There is a way to make it work no matter what but I'll take option one please. Let's just sell this house. 

7. But if only it didn't have to end this way on his birthday. Everything is always my fault. I know that this is what she believes. That I am the reason she doesn't see her grand kids. That I am the reason they don't want to spend the night. That I am the reason we are moving to California. Of course, it's always easier to blame a stranger than the ones closest to you--or yourself. One of the things I've learned through the years is to be extra conscious of how I treat my children now so that they want to spend time with me later.

8. It's still eating away at me.

9. He asks me to make a vanilla cake with salted caramel frosting. Done and done. Everyone is full from a hearty breakfast and lunch and we skip dinner and go straight to presents and cake.

10. I think of a tornado...how in the center it is calm and quiet. That is what we have to do now. We have to keep finding the center where there is stillness. Yes, everything is being broken up and swirling around us, but there is still peace to be found in the chaos.