So this is what contentment feels like....

I'm having a grateful day today, despite at least two or three weeks of being cooped up with a bunch of snotty coughing people. I wish I could say I had days (or hours) like this more often. Unfortunately, my gratitude is sure to be supplanted by bitchiness in the very near future. My husband is stretched out on his side in front of the fireplace in cammo shorts and a plaid flannel nightshirt, sporting his sexy Elvis Costello glasses (he knows my weakness for Elvis). Six of my older daughter's horses are tethered to my husband's calf in some complex scenario divining the nature of human relationships. Little bit Conner is astride his thighs, taking her plastic lion for a walk along his hip. She's wearing a new version of rapster pants, hanging halfway down a diaper barely covering her hiney, a floppy down under hat, and nothing else; the adorability quotient is off the chart. We're a grubby and unwashed lot. It's been a miracle if I brushed the girls' teeth during the day. Watching them, I was struck, as I have been all too rarely, by the fact that I’m part of a real, functioning family. This may be obvious to some. It isn’t often obvious to me. Mostly, I’m so busy watching out for the other shoe and running from my demons that I miss how good everything is. It’s nice here, warming by the fire. Quiet.