I’ve Witnessed a Miracle

Nearly nine years ago this girl came to live with us:

She was, at the time, a little rat-tailed, scaly-skinned, bloated-belly creature who cowered under the table at the animal shelter. Some people say dogs choose their owners. Judging by Luna’s behavior that day, she clearly wasn’t choosing us. Our middle daughter recently said that Luna didn’t know what she needed back then, so we had to do the choosing for her.

(In comparison, the day we adopted Neville, he crawled all over me, clearly conveying that he wanted to belong to us.)

We brought her home, where she quickly morphed into a demon. Her first act was to alienate the cats. (We had four at the time.) She lunged at one as soon as she walked through the door. He took an instant dislike to her. And, as the word made its way through the cat grapevine, the other three felines quickly learned to steer clear of this interloper.

Her demon-ness continued to develop as the days passed. She would bite the kids’ feet and lunge at faces. She would chase the cats. I’m ashamed to admit it now, but there were several moments when I wanted to take her back to the shelter. Who could blame me? I’d wanted a dog my entire life, finally had one, and she was just awful.

But we persevered, reminding ourselves that she was only a puppy and she’d had a rough start in life. (Seized from a puppy mill or a hoarding situation, I can’t remember which.) We trained the biting out of her, got her to stop lunging at faces.

There was, however, nothing we could do to keep her from chasing the cats. So it was up to the cats to adjust.

Buster put Luna in her place with frequent whacks to the nose.

Boo Boo chose avoidance.

Belle walked slowly and with confidence, somehow knowing this would not get Luna’s chase instinct fired up, and was the first to show tolerance and acceptance. She was our little hippy cat, mellow and unconcerned about anything, so this was no surprise.

Rosie chose extreme avoidance. For the first several years she only left the upstairs at night or when Luna was outside.

Time passed. Buster and Boo Boo eventually learned to live with Luna. Belle went so far as to nap on the couch near her now and then. Then the three of them passed away over a 4 year period. Rosie, the sole kitty left, remained salty at having to share her house. That’s a lot of years to hold onto a grudge. Luna didn’t help matters, though. Whenever she’d see Rosie emerge from anywhere, her ears would prick up and she would focus all of her attention on Rosie’s every move.

Now, here we are, nine years later. Something strange and bizarre has occurred recently.

Rosie has gradually taken back part of the downstairs. She likes to nap in the office. Luna likes to nap there too. She started tentatively entering the kitchen while Luna was there. She sleeps in our room though Luna (and our other dog, Neville) sleeps there also. Rosie has started sniffing Luna, walking near her, occasionally almost giving her the little “head bump of affection.”

And then, last night, a miracle occurred.

Rosie came into the living room. She has not willingly entered the living room while Luna was there for nine years. But last night she came in, jumped up on the couch with me and Luna, and enjoyed a snuggle.

It’s either a miracle or a sign of the end times. You know, the whole lion and lamb thing? Which I just now realized, while looking it up, is a misquote. It’s the wolf lying down with the lamb and a lion with a calf. So, who’s the wolf and who’s the lamb in this Luna-Rosie relationship? I have yet to figure that out.

I suppose it could also be old age. Rosie is 17 now. Perhaps she’s gotten a bit addled and doesn’t know what she’s doing. But she still seems pretty “with it.”

As for books…

I recently finished reading The Becoming by Nora Roberts, which is the second book in the Dragon Heart Legacy. I’m REALLY struggling with this series. She’s got it all in these books: weres, mermaids, dragons, fairies. And I’m not a fan of any of those in books, let alone all of them at once. I read the first book in the trilogy last year and wasn’t certain I would even pick up the second one. But it’s Nora Roberts, so I keep reading.

I have to say, she kind of lost me with her previous trilogy, Chronicles of the One. Is it that the book was about a massive pandemic and we were just entering a pandemic when I started reading it? Maybe. But I think my loss of interest has more to do with how her style is morphing.

It’s not that a morphing of style is bad. I get that maybe she was bored with her previous formula. But it was a formula I enjoyed. It was predictable and since life isn’t predictable, I like my fiction to be.

And what is with how many times she’s mentioned Coke (the beverage) in these last two books? Is she getting some sort of kickback from the company? Not to be all judgy or anything, but if her main character is supposed to be getting in shape for an epic battle with evil, she should probably kick the sugary drink habit.

I’ve Got Something in My Sights

Let’s just get this out of the way right from the start. This is big pet peeve of mine because I can’t stand pervasive misinformation.

No. The AR in AR-15 does not stand for Automatic Rifle. It stands for Armalite Rifle, which was the original manufacturer.

Let’s just get another thing out of the way.

The AR-15 is not an automatic rifle. It’s a semi-automatic rifle.

Oh, and one more thing.

I’m not what you might call a “gun” person. I do, however, believe in the right of people to defend themselves. I’m also the mom of a LEO, so I can’t get all squeamish and bothered at the mere sight of a weapon.

Now with all that out of the way, I present this:

That’s me. Shooting an AR-15.

I’m at the “range” on our property, aiming at a stump down the hill. I have no idea if I hit the stump. None of us wanted to climb down that hill to put up a target since it was snowy and slippery. If I missed, I blame those leopard print gloves I have on that I got free with a package of wool socks and wouldn’t want to be caught in public wearing and not any lack of aiming skill on my part. (Those gloves are actually pretty warm, though.)

How could I have missed, though? Years ago when I took the kids to a pellet gun class at a local hunting and fishing museum the instructor said I was practically Annie Oakley. I was stoked by this comment as I’d read a biography about her in elementary school and thought her life story pretty interesting and I’d never shot a gun before.

So, how did I come to be shooting an AR-15 in the woods on a chilly winter day?

Well, the LEOs in the family came for a visit. We would be celebrating my dad’s 82nd birthday later that night, but first, they wanted to do some target practice. So we donned our winter gear, slipped and slid our way down the snow-covered icy road, and tromped our way down the trail through crusty snow up to our calves.

(Let’s pause here for me to admit that I ended up in an embarrassing heap in the driveway thanks to that layer of ice under the snow. Ordinarily, snow on top of the ice provides some traction and creates a safe surface to walk on. Not this time, folks. That snow slid sideways on the ice, and I slid right along with it.)

Now, back to the story.

The LEOs had planned to make me shoot first as I had never used a rifle before. They hadn’t planned to tell me that rifles have no kick. They assumed I would be expecting a kick, as one would get from a shotgun (I’ve never shot one of those either.), and I would stumble over or something? I really don’t know what they thought I would do. But, thinking better of this plan, they informed me of their plot to embarrass me ahead of time. After a thorough lesson from the experts, most of which I promptly deposited in the mental file drawer of things I’ll probably never need to remember, I aimed and fired.

Then everyone else took a turn, the gun was safely stowed away, and we all went to celebrate my dad’s 82nd revolution around the sun.

As for books…

I recently finished reading Never Fall for Your Fiance by Virginia Heath. This was a rollicking and delightful historical romance. I’m not usually a fan of historical romances, but this one had plenty of amusing bits to keep me interested. This was the first novel in the Merriwell Sisters series, and I will probably go on to read the second book once it is published and available at our library.

Cooking with Audiobooks

Lately, I’ve taken to listening to audiobooks while doing our weekly food prep. In the past, I’ve usually stuck with various podcasts as I can tune in and tune out depending on how much concentration a recipe requires and not feel as if I’ve missed much provided the podcast isn’t one with an actual plot.

My favorite podcast to listen to while cooking has always been Stuff You Should Know. While sewing, if Hubby isn’t home and we’re not in the middle of listening to a book together, I branch out to true crime, enjoying Criminal or Criminal Broads. Once in a while, I’ll throw in an episode of Mind Pump if they are speaking on an exercise-related topic of interest to me.

Speaking of exercise and food prep, it’s time for a quick update of how we’re progressing on our journey of weight loss and eating less sugar.

I’m embarrassed to report that we aren’t doing all that great!

2021 started off so well. We’d cut out most sugar and the pounds were dropping off like mad. I had lost over 10 pounds by the time summer came around. I can’t remember exactly how much Hubby had lost, but I know it was more than I had.

So what happened?

Our daughter came home from college for the summer and our diet shifted more toward vegetarian/vegan again. We slacked off a bit. I started allowing a bit more sugar back into my diet. I made a lot of pudding. And the number on the scale started creeping back up. Thankfully it hasn’t crept ALL the way back up. Thus far, 2022 has not started off quite as well as last year did. I blame the Great Contagion for cursing me with a lack of energy for the entire month of January.

But still, we plod on and I think we’ll get back on track soon.

In an effort to speed up getting back on track, I’m going a step further with our food prep. Ordinarily, I would throw one entire recipe into a single storage container which meant that sometimes we’d portion out a bit too much to heat up at a meal. Now I’m dividing everything into containers based on more reasonable serving sizes and how many meals I want to get out of each recipe.

And speaking of recipes…

Here are two new favorites:

I am not a food photographer!

First is a recipe for chicken souvlaki. Did anyone watch the Amazing Race? When I saw them eating souvlaki, I knew I had to make some for us. We cooked up this chicken (we did thighs), cut it into chunks, and put it on Gyro bread with plain yogurt and sliced grape tomatoes, kalamata olives, and cucumbers. It was so tasty. https://www.chefdehome.com/recipes/772/chicken-souvlaki

Second is our new favorite dessert, Chickpea Cookie Dough Balls. I’ve made this recipe with the chocolate chips called for. I’ve also stirred in melted chocolate instead (since we had a chocolate Easter bunny languishing in the cupboard from last year). We also enjoy them with butterscotch chips (which also needed to be used up) and toasted pecan pieces. They’re not quite sugar-free, but they give us a good dose of healthy beans which isn’t something you can say about many desserts. https://tastythriftytimely.com/easy-pb-chickpea-cookie-dough-protein-balls/

So recently over several weeks, as I was whipping up yet another batch of chickpea balls (and wondering if the grocery store has noticed an increase in chickpea sales yet) and cooking chicken and cooking a week’s worth of grains and roasting veggies and cutting up fruit, I listened to A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith, which was on my ever-growing list of “classics” that I want to read. I greatly enjoyed this story.

I never really appreciated books classified as “classics” while I was a high school Honors English student. Probably because I knew I’d be tested on all of the literary elements in each book. I wasn’t one to understand symbolism or to be able to suss out whatever themes the teacher thought we should find. (How did I ever get into Honors English and survive four years of it?) But now, with a little life experience, I understand these stories and the characters’ motivations better and think that it would be incredibly wise to leave the classics for people to discover as adults. Honors English did nothing to make me appreciate these books. In fact, I steered clear for many, many years after high school.

Wicked Winter Weather Part Deux

Little did we know when we were a few years past newlywed status and our only child at the time hadn’t yet reached her first birthday and we were out searching for a small amount of acreage to build our dream home on and we’d discovered these beautiful few acres with a pond that you had to drive down 2.5 miles of dirt road and a half-mile of seasonal road to reach, that we would, at least once a year, become trapped at home by icy roads.

“Trapped” might be slightly too harsh of a word for being stuck in a place that we only willingly choose to leave on average of twice a week anyway, but, still, trapped we are.

Obviously, ice storms keep everyone at home, even folks who live on plowed city streets. Our problem usually stems from the sun and warming temps and what they cause:

Melting.

The packed snow on the road begins to melt but, as the ground underneath is still frozen, the liquified snow has nowhere to go. Temps drop at night and, suddenly, it’s like a Zamboni came through the neighborhood and made us a very nice, smooth ice rink.

That’s what happened on a recent Saturday night. By Sunday morning, the kids were calling off work as it was too dangerous to get down our hill, Hubby and I were skipping church, and Hubby was out spreading ash from the fireplace on the hill in an attempt to make the situation better.

When I hadn’t seen or heard from Hubby in over an hour, I decided I better take a walk to the hill to make sure he hadn’t slipped on the ice and concussed himself. I’m hoping our neighbor wasn’t watching out his front window as I walked past his house in an unpleasant, cold mist since I’m sure I made quite a comical sight taking tiny, mincing steps in my hiking boots whilst decked out in my finest floral exercise leggings, coat, and leopard print gloves that I got free with a package of wool socks and wouldn’t want to be seen wearing in public. I’m pleased to report I managed to not fall down, thus saving myself from making an even bigger spectacle.

I found Hubby still alive and conscious and finished with his ash spreading. As we walked home, a large truck barrelled around a corner at speeds way too fast for the condition of the road. Seeing my life flashing before my eyes, I carefully scurried into our neighbor’s driveway and out of the way of certain doom and destruction. The truck driver slowed to a more reasonable speed as he reached the apex of the hill, yet (and despite the ash on the road) his vehicle took a rather sliding route down to the bottom.

Thankfully, we received about a half-foot of snow on Sunday night which coated the ice enough that we were able to go about life as normal on Monday. But…the ice under that snow has made walking a bit treacherous. Especially when one’s boots have minimal tread and the dog gets to pulling one through the yard because he caught sight of both a squirrel AND a chipmunk. I’ve fallen three times in the past week. And I can only blame the dog for two of them. If I was older I’d worry about breaking a hip. As it is, it’s only my dignity that’s a bit bruised.

As for books…

Hubby and I recently finished listening to A Rule Against Murder by Louise Penny. This is the fourth book in the Chief Inspector Gamache series. We’re moving slowly through the series since it seems that the audiobooks are very popular. The wait time for book five is something like seven weeks, so it will be a while before we are able to start that one. I highly recommend the series, though the one downside to the audiobooks is that when there’s a scene change in the middle of a chapter it can seem rather abrupt and it takes us a moment to realize we’ve moved on to a different group of characters.

Wicked Weather Winter

The same snow that made for a delightful afternoon of cross-country skiing on a recent Saturday did not necessarily make for easy driving down the 2 1/2 miles of dirt road near our neighborhood a day later. We’d driven to church with no real trouble, but, as we returned home, we found our way blocked by a blue truck in a predicament.

A predicament made much worse with the assistance of the red truck.

I’ll admit that I may have snickered a bit. I think that’s allowable. Having lived out here and traveled these roads for over 20+ years, we’ve had our own share of mishaps. Maybe nothing quite as extreme as blue truck’s situation, but we’ve had to dig ourselves out a time or two and engage the services of a tow truck at least once. (That was the most expensive outing to Pizza Hut ever. At the time, we didn’t have AAA Roadside Assistance. The tow out of a snowbank on the side of an icy road we shouldn’t have been driving on that day cost $80. The fact that we were stuck only 1/2 mile from home was the cherry on top of that whole situation.) There was also the time I was heading to a baby shower (that I didn’t want to attend, I might add) on a too icy road, braked on a curve, skidded, did a 180? or a 360?, and busted the bead on one of the tires. (Guess who got out of that baby shower?) Who among our neighbors can say they’ve never taken an icy curve too fast and needed to be pulled out of a snowbank? Probably none of them. So we’re all allowed to laugh when these unfortunate events happen to someone else.

And take video. With commentary of all the things they were doing wrong.

Let’s just say the red truck lacked enough muscle to get the job done and attempted to pull the blue truck out at the wrong angle. Thus, the blue truck drifted further down the hill and came to rest with its hood against a tree. As we, in our non-truck vehicle, couldn’t offer any valuable assistance, we skirted around the disaster and left them to figure out the conundrum they’d gotten themselves into.

Which they must have done, as they were no longer there an hour later when our visiting family drove down the road. I kind of wish we’d stuck around to see how they did it. My guess would be that the two ladies watching events unfold from another blue truck–a fancier, beefier blue truck–who informed us that they would be able to solve the problem might have finally taken pity on the men and offered their assistance.

As for books…

I recently finished reading Say You Still Love Me by K.A. Tucker, the fourth book I’ve read by this author in recent months. I enjoyed this romance, which shifted back and forth in time between when the main characters met at camp as teenagers and when they reconnected thirteen years later as adults. I just snagged another book by her from the library, as she’s become a new favorite author.

A Blustery, Blistery Day

It was a blustery, sunny day. Temps were hovering somewhere between 20 and 30 degrees (Fahrenheit). The relatively fresh snow was perfect for skiing. Rather than ski one of our usual routes through the neighborhood, Hubby and I loaded skis, boots, and poles into the car and drove to a nearby groomed trail.

This would be my first excursion on a groomed trail. We are normally trailblazers, forging our own path through fresh snow, moving slowly as we compact a route I can confidently say we would be the only people to use. The trail we chose this day, the Cadillac Pathway in Cadillac, MI (a small town in the “Up North” portion of the western lower peninsula), was groomed for fat bikes and cross-country skis. There were signs indicating another path for hikers and snowshoers. (Because, Heaven forbid, a snowshoer dare to muss up a ski trail. I seem to recall an article in the local newspaper about trail etiquette some years ago which gave me the impression that cross-country skiers believe they have some sort of high ranking in trail use hierarchy.) Snowmobile tracks occasionally crisscrossed our route. It was truly a place for anyone who wanted to enjoy the outdoors in whatever method they preferred, provided they stuck to the appropriate path.

(I could be wrong, but I believe something new this year was a payment box in the parking lot for those who don’t have a Recreation Passport. I don’t recall it being there when we hiked the pathway in the summer.)

As we took our first few glides from the parking lot, we encountered a man who had just completed his, shall we say, “Maiden voyage,” along the path. It seemed we weren’t the only people skiing there for the first time.

The trail was smooth, curving through the woods and meandering up and down gentle hills that, despite their gradual grade, gave us a challenging workout. There were a few times when I had to remove my skis and make my way up a hill when, after trying the weird and awkward herringbone step, I found myself sliding backward and ending up on my knees in the snow. The downhill sections gave me, a relatively novice skier and an often anxiety-riddled person, a few nervous tingles in my belly. On two of the steeper sections (including one with a poorly placed tree on a downhill curve), I took the skis off and tromped my way down, being careful to not obliterate the ski trail in the process. Maybe someday I’ll find my inner daredevil, but she was AWOL that day.

As we came upon the two-mile mark and a decision point where we could decide to go a lot farther or turn and head back, capping the trip at a total of four miles, I confessed to that telltale zing of pain that indicated a zesty blister was forming on my heel despite my preemptive Bandaid application.

The return trip, under a slowly setting sun and through lengthening shadows, was slightly less enjoyable as I suffered through increasing zinginess in the heel, but, overall, I enjoyed our chilly excursion.

As for books…

I recently finished reading In a Holidaze by the two-author duo known as Christina Lauren. If you’ve seen the movie Groundhog Day, that’s probably where the inspiration for the plot of this book came from. I enjoyed the story, though I couldn’t help thinking that many of the adult characters behaved sophomorically. I’m not certain if I’ll read anything more by this author duo, as I had tried reading another book by them last year and couldn’t make it through the first chapter. But that’s okay. While they might not be the right fit for me, they clearly are for others as evidenced by their list of several published novels.

Skiing. What else would you do when it’s 10 degrees outside?

Hubby had a bit of a skiing debacle last year.

But let’s rewind a bit further than last year to set the scene.

Hubby had a pair of skis he’d stored in our attic. Now, the attic is the place where things go to disappear forever. Not because they actually disappear, but because you never want to see them again after they’ve been up there. (We live in the woods. There are critters that occasionally live in our attic, and let’s just say that they aren’t the tidiest or most sanitary of guests.) The skis were decades old and the ski boots looked less inviting than the most used pair of bowling shoes at the local alley. But that didn’t stop Hubby from washing up the boots and wearing them when we picked up cross-country skiing as a winter pastime several years ago.

We are fortunate to live, as I said, in the woods, on multiple acres of land, but also in a “neighborhood” (a term I use loosely when the houses aren’t very close together and the roads are unpaved) that is outdoor sport friendly with many places to explore by foot or various sporty motored means of transportation that we’re not into. Unfortunately, the dirt road we need to ski down to reach a nice trail is sometimes overplowed or icy.

On this fateful day last year, the road was icy. We’d traversed it safely on our way to the lovely, slightly downhill, unplowed two-track that we enjoy gliding down (going back uphill is a bit of a challenge). It was on our way home, as we glided across the ice, that things went wrong.

It started with me falling. If a fall can be graceful, this one was. I went down easy but, on the slippery ice, could not get my feet back under me. Hubby came to my rescue.

Well, Hubby attempted to come to my rescue.

Unfortunately, Hubby succumbed to the slipperiness of the ice and fell. Hard. On his shoulder. And his ski boot fell apart. Literally fell apart. The heel was flopping around, nearly detached from the body of the boot. And while I felt bad that Hubby was hurting, and continued hurting for nearly a month, I was thankful we could finally say goodbye to those horrible ski boots.

So this year, after we healed from the Great Contagion (I wouldn’t be surprised if those old ski boots harbored some Great Contagion of their own) and felt like actually doing something, we visited the local ski shop and Hubby got himself some new boots and skis for his birthday present and Christmas present and just about every other gift-giving situation for the next year. Who knew new skis and boots cost about as much as a weekend vacation?

But who cares about that when we have these priceless views to enjoy:

I have to add, it was 10 degrees when we were out! Yikes!

As for books…

Hubby and I recently finished listening to The Hollow Ones by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan. If you ever watched The Strain (or read the series, as we did), this was written by the same men. I wasn’t aware, when we began listening to the book, that it was part of a series. Only after making it more than halfway through did I think, “There’s no way this is getting wrapped up in the time left.” And, sadly, the next book isn’t out yet. I haven’t even been able to find out any info on when it’s coming! Hopefully soon, because we did enjoy this book and want to know how it ends.

Through the Woods

After a month of being sick, it was great to finally feel up to getting outside at the end of January for some fresh air and a bit of exercise. Hubby and I walked the dogs, then donned our snowshoes for a trek through the woods. (Little doggo Neville was not thrilled to be left behind. We could hear him carrying on in the house, but he’s not the easiest to walk with when we’ve got snowshoes on.) It was cold, there was a bit of wind, the sky was grey, and the snow was untrampled. Despite the wind and the temperature, we quickly worked up a sweat as we headed through the woods on one of our usual snowshoeing routes.

We traveled through our woods, choosing to head toward our nature trail rather than toward the swamp. We’ve not had the coldest winter this year, so we weren’t certain if the swamp would be frozen enough to walk on. From the nature trail, we turned onto the road for a short bit before taking a “private drive” to another trail through the woods. (There’s a sign, but as the owners rarely venture up here and it leads to the path to a pair of nearby ponds, no one heeds the “private” bit and no one cares.) It didn’t take long to reach the two ponds.

Normally, we would go around the perimeter of both ponds before taking a slightly different route home–a route where I always fall into holes in the ground during the summer–but on this day we chose to take a path between the ponds and only circle one. Still a bit low on energy from not feeling well, I was thankful we’d chosen the shorter route.

As for books…

I recently finished reading We Met in December by Rosie Curtis. It was a sweet, light romance. One line that stood out to me was when Jess, the main character, is thinking about how much of her past she’s shared with Alex, the other main character, on all of their many strolls around London and she thinks, “…there’s something about walking that makes it easier to talk about stuff.” I would agree. There is something about walking that makes it easier to talk about stuff, which is one of the things I like most about hiking with Hubby.

Which Figs Would I Choose?

It was Hubby’s birthday. We’d been sick, were past the point of contagiousness, but still had coughs. Because we didn’t want to be those people…the ones having a coughing fit in public at a time when even the tiniest of sneezes and the briefest of coughs has people turning to stare…we decided to get takeout for dinner and eat it at the lake.

Qdoba was Hubby’s meal of choice. We got our bowl and our burrito (and a pop…soda…soda pop…whatever you call it where you live…that we didn’t really want being not pop people because it was part of a deal) and drove across town on a frigid night to the lake.

We enjoyed a beautiful sunset and then a trip to the library.

I know. We are wild and exciting people. Real party animals. So wild that we’ve talked about how we look forward to being able to go to the library even more often when we are old. Library visits and hiking. That’s what brings us joy. We are incredibly simple people.

Earlier in the day, we’d enjoyed slices of the cake I baked, though I think there was more sugar in one slice of that cake than I’d eaten in a month. It wasn’t a pretty cake. Most of my cakes aren’t pretty. Simple I may be, but patient I am not, so I have no patience for cake decorating. I baked a small square cake, cut it into quarters to make a 4-layer cake, and frosted it. As there wasn’t quite enough frosting, I sprinkled on some sprinkles, because everything looks better with sprinkles. I think it turned out looking like a giant petit four.

As for books…

I recently finished listening to The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath which was on my list of classics to read. (I keep a list in the back of my bullet journal.)

What struck me the most in this novel was when the main character, Esther, talks about the fig tree saying, “I saw myself sitting in the crotch of the fig-tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest.”

Relatable, Esther, relatable. Isn’t that just the problem? We have so many “figs” (options) available to us, but which ones do we choose? Some people want them all. Haven’t so many people bought into the lie that we can “have it all?” Sure, you can have it all, but are you enjoying any of it?

There’s a bunch more symbolism in how the fig tree has branches which represent how women have to restrict themselves to one path in their lives and blah, blah, blah. (I was never one who really cared about symbolism, probably because I didn’t really “get it,” but I actually figured out the fig thing on my own.)

What I think is that we don’t have to restrict ourselves to one path. But we also can’t “have it all” no matter how much we think we should be able to. We can pick figs from different branches, but when we do, we shouldn’t be complaining when everything doesn’t mesh together perfectly.