My Mind on My Family and My Family on My Mind

I have several jobs.  I wear a lot of hats, which is literally true and also figuratively true.  In our mudroom, we have a small bedside table with three drawers, all full of hats.  In the warmer times, the dresser is full of sun hats and now that its winter, its full of warm hats.  We don't go outside without our hat.  Here is a rare picture of me, in my favorite winter hat.

Not the best pic, but this is how I prefer to be.  At home, wearing my favorite hat.

I haven't posted in awhile because I was busy reading The Hobbit, or There And Back Again by  J.R.R. Tolkien.  Although I majored in literature, this was the first Tolkien I've read and I must say, "Jimmeney!"  What a treat.

Like the Hobbit, I prefer to stay home, in my cozy hobbit hole, enjoying life's comforts, hot tea, good food, nice company and of course plenty of shoveling of hot poop, which is actually what I'm doing in the picture above, hence the grin.  Like the Hobbit, I too occasionally am rendered helpless, dragged into adventures which pull me away from my cozy hole.  I would like nothing more than to stay home everyday with my children, doing all the pleasurable things that come with home life, laundry and poop scooping included.

But I have this other business, that no matter how hard I try, seems to keep pulling me in, away from home.  I teach a parent/toddler music class called Music Together, which is also soulfully rewarding and fun.  Every time I think I have an opportunity to part ways with the business, leaving it in capable hands, something pulls my interest back into keeping my little business.  For example, this week, a woman called from our local alternative high school inquiring if I could come and do one class for their fifteen teenage moms.  "They are babies raising babies," she said.  "I have one mom who is fourteen years old.  They don't really know how to interact with their babies."

How can I say no to this?  Music is such an integral part of our lives that it would seem a travesty to deprive these new families of Music Together.  Not only that but I was a high school drop out my Junior year and attended this same alternative high school in a School Without Walls program.  If it had not been for this alternative high school, I probably wouldn't have gone on to college, let alone graduated high school.  Before I was off the phone, I committed to not one class, but a full 10-week session, every Friday beginning in January, and an agenda to lobby parents currently enrolled to donate money to pay for the teen mom's materials for the class, a total of $600 to be raised in the next month.

All the while, reading The Hobbit, I felt something pulling on me, saying, "It is all fine and good to stay in your hobbit hole, Brittany, but sometimes you must have an adventure."  Not so much for adventures sake, but for the sake of doing what is right, for the sake of spreading that hobbit hole feeling around a little.

My cozy hat will have to stay in the drawer a little more this winter.  Deep down, I just want to be there for my children and my husband, the most.  My little hobbit hole really is heavenly.

There's band practice,

 stray kittens named "Raincloud," but called "Cloudy," and adopted by Julian,

 long walks in blue-y skies, through grassy meadows to visit neighbors,

 helpful big sisters and little brothers with sticks,

 ponies . . . I mean really!  Ponies?!

And who could forget that beautiful quinoa salad, served in a pumpkin shell with a side of Dirty Hippy beer?

I love how my photography captures the open fridge, the backside of my husband and the glob of salad on the counter.  Awesome.

Might it be cheesy if I said that our hobbit hole-esk farm is like the Arkenstone and hoarding its joy and beauty would only mean our demise?  That I have stumbled upon an adventure which I cannot turn away, not for selfish reasons, but for truly good and honest ones?  I'm a late comer to Tolkien, so bare with my oddly timed Hobbit craze.  Here's to adventures and wearing many hats.