Sweep in heavenly peace

I've been working on a short story, and by "working on" I mean that I have come up with a title but have yet to actually put any words on the paper, about a mother (no one you know, any similarities with any person, living or dead, is purely coincidental) who realizes that she craves silence so acutely that she turns simple activities that should take only a few seconds, like taking out the recycling, or walking around the front of the minivan to get in after she's strapped in the children, into 10-15 minute Events to Savor The Quiet. The story will be told in third person, naturally, because I can't really identify with a character like that.

We have been trying to stop television. This morning's methadone dose involved dry pinto beans and pearl barley on cookie sheets. Helena, meanwhile, studied her solar system flash cards with her thinking cap on:
(ha. In actuality, she was enslaved in the gray play yard you see behind her in that picture, because Helena + pearl barley and dried pinto beans = EPIC FAIL) And it's possible that I took advantage of this time to take an inordinately long shower, which is possibly another activity that should take a few minutes but instead takes many more because of the Blessed Silence it provides. I mean, hypothetically, of course. Because I am nothing like the mother in my short story. Pure fiction.

We spent the rest of the morning with some new friends at the heretofore undiscovered by us wonderland that is the indoor playscape at a nearby Baptist church. They invite you to play even if you don't go to church there, which is very Christian of them. If I think too much about how much something like that costs, it makes me want to sell my every possession, move to Angola or Nicaragua or Rwanda, and dig wells with the Living Water people. Because in the 2 hours my healthy kids climbed and slid and bounced and delighted themselves, approximately 480 kids across the world DIED because they don't have access to clean water. Yeah. Remember in my last post when I wrote that it is loud in my head? Loud.

When I was cleaning up the pearl barley and pinto beans before dinner, I was balancing the cookie sheet on one hand to get the overflow from the tabletop and I thought to myself, "Wow, it would be a disaster to drop this right now!" so of course, about 2 seconds later, I did drop it, and I can't really convey without a complex physics equation how far and wide will pearl barley and beans scatter when unleashed on a hardwood floor. It was impressive. I pretty much had it swept up and went to find something to act as a dustpan, because I don't know where ours is, and while I was searching, Helena, who had been "helping" me sweep, got into the pile and spread it back all over the floor.

Speaking of cookies, I went to a Christmas cookie exchange at my friend Merry's house last night and it was magnificent. I'm guessing around 40 women, aged 30-80, wine, great conversation, and so many delectable cookies to sample and bring home. I have eaten upwards of a dozen today alone. Some were tiny, but some were not.