Odds and ends

Today offered us a jumble of disconnected parts.

...like the men who showed up in the morning around the side of our house with noisy machinery to thin some branches. They worked all morning as we ducked in and out from errands. Come 2 p.m. the noise stopped, they packed up and we were left with a scantily clad tree and a mother bird squawking desperately about the disappearance of her little one's nest.

 

There was iced coffee by the bay-front water fountain and a sibling squabble over who had plucked the largest purple bloom from the gardens. This argument was followed by a punishing odor in the car, when said flowers wilted in sweaty hands. Turns out, they were garlic blossoms.

 

And a very grouchy and oft disobedient L surprised me between conflicts with this truly original and utterly ambrosial handmade necklace. I think I'll wear it all week.

 

As for the mishmash of delights and disappointments today, I attribute it to the thrown-togetherness of our family--a two-year-old just learning to communicate, an emotional four-year-old and a possibly hormonal pregnant mommy going it alone for the week. I like to put the picture of a day like today in the frame offered up years ago in a sermon by the pastor who married N and I. He said something about these being the mismatched threads of the tapestry God is weaving together to represent our entire lives.

Up close this all looks confused and disconnected, but from far away I'll bet it's breathtaking.