Aren't those flowers pretty? They came from a birthday party we attended this weekend, a friend of ours turning sixty. It was a lovely party with dress up and a swing band and dancing. Neel joked that he should have bought me a wrist corsage. Getting ready reminded me of this old "cotton" commercial. Remember those, "The touch, the feel of cotton. The fabric of your life."? In one, a mom and dad are getting all dressed up, ready for a wedding maybe, and the kids are jumping on the bed and admiring their parents. It's sweet. You can somehow tell that the mom and dad don't get dressed up that much, and that it's as exciting for the children of the family to watch as it is for the parents to do it. (Callum liked to see us dressed up, but he was mostly irritated at having to come inside from playing with his friends in order to go out and play with other friends. Whatever.)

It was a fun night. The birthday girl, who is in a band, sang at her own party, and her husband and son gave a really lovely and touching tribute. Still, the bar closed at 10, and by 10:15 we were ready to go. When we went to say good-bye, she handed each of us one of the centerpieces. We didn't realize until we were outside that the vases were glowing with a lovely pink light. I held the beautiful rosy orb on my lap the whole way home.

I realized over the past few days that I haven't been paying attention to things the way I need to for the blog. Not the way I used to, at least. I once read this really sweet book called My Sweet Folly (chick lit, I unabashedly admit it) where the two main characters meet (and of course fall in love) through letters. Folie, the woman, talks about how her whole world revolved around those letters. What she would say in them, how she would write about her life to show her world to this far away man. "This is how I polish the silver..." she would think, thus imbuing her most mundane tasks with thoughts of him.

That's how the blog used to be for me, until I lost my way. I've spent so many ridiculous moments thinking, "Oh, I have nothing to write about..." I'm realizing though that it's just the writing that's so important. The open window, allowing you in. So instead of thinking about what to say, it's enough just to say these things. The simplest parts of our lives, like how I didn't feel like going to yoga last night, that I just wanted to be with my family. That while I like the new spring masthead, I don't love it, and I may make one using a photo of these flowers. And how we had a salad for dinner that we've been making since Callum was a newborn. And after dinner Neel and Callum played jump rope games until the dark and chill sent them inside.

All that, and these flowers, are sometimes enough. I'm paying attention again.