Pits and Peaks

My siblings and I are very different.

Very.

Case in point: My sister Jo is keeping an online gratitude journal.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Circle+Bloom (@circle_and_bloom)

It’s really quite lovely.

But I am not a lovely person.

I get anxious when it comes to gratitude journals. For two reasons, I think. Maybe for a bunch of reasons. But here are two: First, I can’t pick just one thing or even a small set of things that I’m grateful for. I worry about what I’m leaving out. (I know being inclusive is not really required for a gratitude journal, but it is for me.) Two, there is so much to be really ungrateful for. Just throw a dart at any recent news source. I know – again not the point of a gratitude journal – but I am definitely a the-glass-is-half-full-and-half-empty type of person.

However, I am somewhat more comfortable with Heather’s Pit and Peak of the Day game that she has us play whenever we are all together.

So I figured I would share my pits and peaks from the weekend of the Fourth.

Peaks

• Having my sister Sue do the cooking while she was there. I really like to eat well, but I don’t like to cook. And she is an awesome cook.
• Seeing the lake through new eyes. Nicole’s friend Siera did her best to capture everything from the front of the boat at all times.

• Getting the patient out of rehab so he could enjoy the view of the lake from his front lawn for a couple hours each day.
• Watching Zach and Nicole reconnect. He had so much fun, he actually stayed an extra day.

• Wheeling my grandfather into the rehab facility using Phil’s wheelchair. I could tell he was thrilled to see Phil, as were my aunt, uncle, and grandmother.

Pits

• The fireworks. Don’t get me wrong. They were very pretty. But you see all those boats in the picture? There were the same amount of boats on the port, starboard, and stern. I could not relax. And we almost swamped the boat on the ride home in the dark.

• The harrowing incident when, for a moment in time, the dog was suspended over the water between the boat and the wharf hanging by her leash. Zach saved her (another half-full and half-empty situation). This pit continued when the restaurant with outdoor seating informed us they no longer allowed dogs. And continued some more when I discovered her front paw was bleeding because one of her toe nails got partially ripped off. As Sue said, “There is always something with the Moody’s.”