I had another of those epiphany moments this past Friday like I had a few weeks ago about being grateful for my bounty. Remember that? So on Friday, I was sitting at my doctor's office for a regular appointment to get prescriptions refilled and have some blood drawn, and suddenly I just knew I needed to make a conscious decision to choose joy. Last week was rough. I think some of you have mentioned that you too suffer from migraines, but if you don't, there's a component to them that goes beyond the headache itself. In fact, the head pain is only one of many symptoms that make up a migraine. One component for me (and for anyone, I think, who suffers with chronic pain) is a sense of accompanying depression and despair. A feeling that you'll never feel well again. It's a pain unlike any other, and having lived with migraines for so long is, I feel certain, why childbirth was such a breeze for me. I'm not trying to be glib. Without the despair, I breathed through those contractions as if they weren't happening to me. No lie.

So, I upped my meds, and we'll muddle along, and I'm working at choosing joy. This isn't meant to be a whiny post. Just trying to keep it real around here you know? Sometimes things are great and sometimes they suck.

We actually had a really nice weekend. I stayed mostly headache free, despite the fact that we spent almost the whole weekend together! Friday night we enjoyed a fire pit with some friends and Neel attempted to recreate that amazing drink we had a Lana. Even though he wasn't completely satisfied, I was more than happy to have one or two! It being St. Patrick's weekend made the Guinness especially appropriate. After baseball practice on Thursday night, it was clear that Callum needed new cleats, so we headed out early Saturday morning (pre-baseball practice) for some new ones. Nothing more fun than new shoes. And the boy likes vibrant when it comes to his shoes. He went with the Addidas on the right. Last year he wanted us to go to all his practices, and we keep waiting for him to outgrow that, but so far not yet. It might happen this spring. Still, the sun was warm(ish) and the afternoon was long, so Neel and I took our lawn chairs and I took a book (that's my Tamar Adler book you see pictured) to watch baseball practice. Those boys are shaking the rust off for sure. First game next Saturday.

Did you know Neel is half Irish? Well that's a story for another day, but we had corned beef and cabbage (and Guinness) for dinner and a dessert sampler too. More on dessert tomorrow, can you wait? Other than that, we're erasing and re-writing our NCAA brackets (I kid, I kid!), and catching up on Project Runway (not gonna say a word about that one). I find that even though it kills my bracket, if I don't know either team, I pull for the underdog. What does that say about me?

Speaking of dogs, we have a little bonus for you.

Poor Lucy! That silly beagle. Before the other two dogs moved in, she used to make up games with Callum's back pack. And you can literally (and I mean literally) drop a piece of paper next to her, and she'll dart off in fear. So for about 20 minutes yesterday, while Neel was at work, she got herself in a bit of a lather. Jumping towards something clearly dangerous, and then away from it. Wagging her tail and barking. Dropping into downward-facing dog before dashing into the next room, toenails scrabbling against the wood floors, only to come back and bark at the nefarious intruder. The object of her concern, you ask?

The cardboard strip the you pull off the top of a box to open it up. You have to watch those things all the time. (Ignore the dust and dog hair. I had to wait for her to calm down before I could sweep that morning, because you know, the broom scares her too.) Here's to a great week, peeps. With a beagle around to entertain us, things have to be looking up.