My BFF

About 550 steps from my front door lives my best friend.

We've lived in close proximity to each other for seven years, and have been best friends for five.  She is a joy.  An honest-to-goodness blessing in my life that just keeps blessing me.  And right when I think things can't get any sweeter, they always do.

Her name is Dorraine.  She was named after the song Dorraine of Ponchartrain, by Johnny Cash.  My Dorraine, much like Johnny's, is a spit-fire who always lets you know right where you stand.  My Dorraine never minces words; diplomacy is a waste of her God-given time on this planet, and this is a huge reason why I love her so.  It's just so refreshing to see a grown woman roll her eyes at her children, or threaten her neighbor with a back-side beating using her polenta paddle.  This woman is gold, I tell you.  A true one-of-a-kind.

To beat the winter doldrums, the two of us decided to go to our local Nordic Center and snowshoe around their trails.

From the time we entered the facility, we had the staff in stitches.  (Partly because we were geeking out about the trail names, which came straight from the J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.  Like any red-blooded American women, we decided we would not return until we'd located Legolas on the Rivendell leg.)

But, alas, we did not find the luscious Legolas out in the snow, and therefore, did not get a chance to save him from hypothermia - which would have been a bonus.

But we did split the silent air with our laughter; cackling at the top of our lungs as we rounded Middle Earth.

At the end of our trek, we were sweating, panting, and jubilant.  The day was a God-send.  The scenery was perfection on a platter.  The company, divine.

Thank you, God, for my BFF.  My life has been so blessed by the gift of Dorraine.

Love to you all,
Sylva



 

Other People's Creativity

Since 2005 I have kept a record of every book I've read.  I don't know why this list started, or what I was trying to achieve by keeping it, but the list sits proudly on my desk in a spiral-bound notebook.  Titles of every book I've read over the last five years take up twenty-one pages of college-rule paper.  So let's figure this out.  I apologize for the math.


        31 titles / page

X 21 pages

                                       

 651 books!

I have read 651 books over the last five years!  That's a book every 2.8 days!

Holy mackerel, is someone insatiable or what!

I'll admit it, I have a love affair with the written word.    

On my list, books that I have particularly loved have little stars by them, indicating that I would read them again.  Of the 651 books I've digested, only 56 wear a coveted star.

I guess the reason I'm writing this post - aside the fact that at the close of 2010 my spiral notebook was all filled up and I am now wondering if I should continue the list or not - is to honor the writers of these 651 books that I have enjoyed.

Here's to you authors!  You have created worlds that have abducted me to far off, fanciful times and places.  You have crafted romances that have left me weeping for joy.  You have weaved adventures that left me breathless, mysteries that kept me up at night, and classics that - no matter how many times I read them - will never get old.

I applaud your creativity!  I bask in the glory of your written words!  I am in awe.  I count you as blessings.
Your books too are blessings in my life.  A pleasure I could not live without, or sleep without.  You see, a requisite hour of reading is required before I can even think about closing my eyes at night.  Your books have helped me unwind.  They let me escape.  Even the smell of them produced a kind of high for me.
Thank you for your genius!  Thank you for your time.

But most of all, thank you for your words.

Ah, the blessings keep pouring over me!
May they pour over you, too!

-Sylva Leining

Thumbs

Prepare yourself, this is going to be cheesy.

Today for the first time ever - in all my 38 years living with them - I realized that my thumbs are a blessing!  Like most things we take for granted, it is only after they are gone that we truly recognize them as being huge parts of our lives, deserving of honors, accolades, and even a hero-parade or two.

No, my thumbs are not missing, but my left thumb is sprained.  Sprained so much that I can barely type.  It happened yesterday while hefting an enormous load of laundry.  "That must have been some load," you chuckle.  And yes, it was.

Not wanting to do laundry the week of Christmas, since it is a chore I hate, I put it off until it could be put off no longer.  The mountain of soiled clothing was, well...mountainous and it was threatening to topple.  If that had happened, we'd all have been buried in an avalanche of stinky underwear, and that is not how I plan to leave this life!  So I took one for the team and started what turned out to be a seven hour job.

Granted, I only do my own laundry (and my husband's), my kids are on their own.

Too many times I saw college friends ruin dry-clean only clothes by tossing them in the washer.  I vowed that my own kids would know the difference between detergent and fabric softener, and comfortably know their way around the dials on the Kenmore manifold.  (But 'children doing their own laundry' is a topic for another post.)

Back to my thumb...

It kills, and I blame the pain on laundry - the one housecleaning chore I would hire out if I could.

Meanwhile, as I blunder around thumbless, wincing as I try to hang up a coat, crying out in pain as I wash my hair, I am also feeling immense gratitude for the opposable digits that have never once registered on my gratitude meter.  Until today.

Here's to thumbs!  They are more important than we know.  And they deserve more than the occasional war with your neighbor during a particularly boring meeting.          

Count your blessings...they're right under your nose (or thumb, in this case)

Love to you,

Sylva Leining