blissed out

Ironically, Katrina has blown the most gorgeous, perfect, early Fall weather into East Tennessee. This afternoon was breezy and about 85 degrees -- cooler in the shade -- with impossibly blue skies and fluffy clouds and that subtle change in the light that comes as Autumn creeps in.

We are deep into Fall activity season now, and this afternoon had me shuttling chillens to riding lessons and lacrosse practice.

I got to watch most of Jane's lesson and it's really amazing to me to see how much more sophisticated her riding has become just in the last 4 months. Her trainer has her doing leg yields and turns on the forehand and also jumping much trickier and higher courses, and she does it all with incredible grace and boundless enthusiasm. She works very hard.

Then it was over to Farragut High School for Henry's LAX practice. I had never been to the fields behind FHS, but they are waaaaay up on a hill, at the highest point in that area of town, and today was so beautiful and clear that I could see miles and miles, all the way to the mountains.

So I sat up there on that hill and watched my shaggy haired teenager on the field below run drills and tenaciously struggle a bit with learning spins and cradles, while my fuzzy headed seven year old, who has natural athletic ability oozing out his ears, ran circles around a lot of the middle school lacrosse players who agreed to toss the ball around with him. Elliot is blessed with incredible speed and coordination. Both Jane and Elliot also have a really sharp focus they can switch on when they are competing at sports.

Sometimes being a single mother of three kids is really, really hard. But today, as I was watching my three healthy, beautiful, athletic children jump and spin and laugh and play in the sunshine, I just felt so grateful.

How I ended up with these three great children is beyond me. They are nice, kind, funny, smart, empathetic, clever, innovative and most of the time, pretty darn easy compared to what a lot of my friends who are parents have to deal with.

Lucky, lucky me.