Life lessons part II

Not Silly. But who can resist this picture?

Johanna turned 10 in December, and suddenly I was faced with a conundrum:

Do I tell her about Santa with Christmas so close, or do I let her have one more holiday where she may or may not believe?

Look, there's no way that she can't know. She's got a savvy class. She's got a smart brain. The whole thing doesn't even make sense when you stop to think about it. I found out when I was seven. I waited to tell Abby until she turned 10 (and it came as no surprise).

But still... Johanna is my baby. And I didn't want to ruin anything for her prematurely, even if I suspected that she already knew the truth.

And now we're closing in on Easter, and the question loomed again. I mean, I'm usually all about crushing dreams, but even I have my limits.

Last week, while tiding up the kitchen after dinner, Johanna and I were talking about Easter. When she approached the subject of baskets, I was like, if there's anything you'd like in your Easter basket, you need to say it out loud so the Easter bunny hears, okay?

And then, based on the look she gave me, I was all, uh, do you know about that?

She put a finger to my lips. Shh, she whispered, tell me when I'm a preteen.

Okay, then. Question answered.

The Abby Texts: Bus rides and life lessons

Abby: Tears because this bus smells like pee. Also I decided to just get on a random bus because I don't actually know what one I ride. Adventure!

Me: Sounds kinda exciting.

Abby: Hey, I'm all about living life on the edge, you know? Who cares if I end up someplace weird, at least I'll have a story to tell my future children.

Me: If you live...

Abby: Wow, that took a dark turn quick.

Me: Life often does.

Abby: Wow, that got real deep real fast.

Abby: I might need you to come get me in a sketch neighborhood. ;)

Light 2015: Reading retreat

Remember when I got fed up and cleaned my reading retreat a couple years ago? Well, it no longer looks like this:

The good old days.

I now looks like this:

Awesome.

My food drier does not really live here. Those are
flour sack towels I bought 6 months ago to make into
zero waste bread bags. Oops.

You guys, I can't even.
(Mara, America, The Book is for you.)

Well, at least the books look decent.

Um...

It actually doesn't look so bad from this view.

I've either lost my mind thinking I can clean this up in a month, or I've finally been pushed past the brink of despair and into action. Yeah, probably I'm just crazy.

So this is my Light project for the month... and it's going to be tough. My goal is to deal with ALL OF IT. That's been my problem in the past with this room: What I don't want to deal with, I just shove in a corner for "later."

Blerg. Why did I decide this was a good idea again? :/