I realize this photo of our backyard, which is a slate patio, might not say much to you. But this picture says a lot to me about endurance and promise.
In the background are ladders: we are having our house painted, a verrrrrrrrrry overdue project that having a second income (mine) in part now makes possible.
In the foreground is the fire pit our older son asked me to buy at Home Depot the other day and which has already been used several times since then by our sons and their friends.
And in the center, the pièce de résistance, is the Hurricane Bench, a bench that was the brainchild of an enterprising teen who lives down the block and who had a tree fall on his house. I'm not sure if this is from the actual tree that fell on his house, but he managed to fashion a log from some fallen tree and wheel it over here and a group of boys used axes and a chainsaw and crafted it into Something Mighty Fine.
If you look closely under the bench you will see empty bottles - of water. These are the kind of empty bottles I don't mind seeing in a place where groups of teens are gathering.
I didn't take a picture of the entire yard because it is a big mess now. Our brand-new teenager took it upon himself to chop all the bark off a chunk of downed tree and then make charcoal for his Halloween costume (By Gov. Chris Christie's Executive Decree, New Jersey celebrated Halloween last night) and then leave huge chunks of wood and charcoal all around. This is what not having school for nine days straight will do to the adolescent mind. (Someone's gonna be busy when he gets back from his halfday school this afternoon).
The Big Drama About the Water I wrote about last night? It never materialized; our town is still on a boil water advisory, but that is quite manageable. The water company never turned the water off; our heat never went out.
Maybe Someone hears our prayers?
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