And then she was a grown-up girl

You may have heard the crickets a-chirpin' round these parts lately.  I haven't felt comfortable writing about my life in any kind of detail.  Too much has been bouncing around me brain-pan.  Most of it too personal to share here.  

And, now that my sweet girl is 5 and a half, I don't feel comfortable writing about her, either.  She's a pretty big kid now, and I think she might not want me to be writing about her at this point in her life without the permission of her adult self (who, to my amazement, I see emerging in greater detail each + every day).  

So I am signing off here.  I may write somewhere else, because I think it might be helpful... for me, and maybe even for others.  But I think it's time to retire Cooler Than The Cat.  

It's been fun, exhausting, stressful, enlightening, freeing, maddening, embarrassing, and emboldening to occupy this space for the past 5.5 years.  Thanks so much for watching me start to grow up.  I really like who I'm becoming.


Love to all!

With gratitude, for all the good things

Stillness

From Tyler Knott's blog:

It’s in the stillness that we learn the most about this world.  There is more truth about the whys, the whats and the hows in 10 minutes of enough perfect stillness where you can actually see mosquitoes play than there is in 10 hours of asking those questions.

Halloween

A few of Halloween + the day before:  Pumpkin carving at Tammy's farm with her family + mine, working at the Morristown Farmer's Market in costume, and just a few from trick or treating as we followed Leah down the street... she was super-fast + had a blast!  Until she decided she'd had enough.  

Last night she got to pick out 5 (for her age) pieces of candy + put the rest in a bag under her bed for the Great Pumpkin to take -- in exchange for a little present.  Big. Hit.  

Blustery morning

Good thing I could find her a pink scarf, eh?

Rainy Monday at the bus stop

My heart hurts

Here it is, a Monday morning, and I am without my girl.  For the past 5+ years, this has been our day to reconnect after a weekend.  A day all to ourselves.  And now, she is probably arriving at school, where she will line up with her classmates, march into her classroom, and start her day with people I hardly know.

I love that she is growing + blooming.  Moving into her own space, at the right time.  But oh, it hurts not to have this time with her any longer!