Danada Equestrian Center

Through a twist of fate, a fussy baby, and a wrong-turn, we ended up yesterday at the Danada Equestrian Center out in DuPage county. Can you say "Horsie Heaven"? :)

The barns are open to visitors, so we were able to visit and kiss velvety horse noses. So, so happy. :) I'd forgotten just how much I've been missing, being away from horses for so many years now. There was homesickness and reunion-joy and total contentment. I hadn't appreciated just how much time was involved until I sat to figure it out this morning. The last time that I was on a horse, to my memory, was ten years ago! The last time I barn sat, feeding and grooming and turning out, probably seven or eight. I had no idea it had been that long. I still have my boots and my helmet stored away. I turned up a big stack of film photographs that I'd taken at the last farm I worked for, all morning light and contented grain crunching and pasture rolling photographs of the horses in their leisure time. These past few weekends with the horse farms sneaking up on us has me feeling stalked by the Universe a little bit. It doesn't make sense that one trauma should have leeched all the rest of those joys from my life. Why did I ever let it? After so many years, the punishment, so to speak, doesn't seem to match the crime.

Something to consider.

( Some photos of the grounds and a few of the big Percheron residents. )

Sunny Sunday

During the week, I spend a lot of time at home with Graeme. By the time the weekend rolls around, Daniel has spent a lot of time traveling, holed up in his office, or otherwise not-home. Our ideas of good weekend pursuits, therefore, aren't always the same. I'm like, "Let's drive to Wisconsin!" and he's like "Let's go to the produce stand to stock up for next week. Oh and get the oil changed on the car!". Today ended up being a nice compromise between productivity and roaming that we both enjoyed.

By Graeme's noon naptime, we'd loaded into the car. By the second or third block he was out, so we had to decide what to do for an hour. Where were we headed, anyways? Daniel didn't want to drive very far and I didn't have any interest in the city, so we eventually settled on driving up to Evanston for brunch at Blind Faith Cafe, this great little vegetarian restaurant with awesome tofu rancheros. On the drive, Daniel made his Sunday phone call to his parents to hear the latest batch of bad news and family-wide woes. It seems like we're lucky, existing at the calm of a storm of misfortune, within our larger families. No health concerns, no heartbreak, no great stressors, financial worries, job losses. We're grateful and a little guilty, knowing how golden our lives are right now. We have worries and irritations and parenting-fatigue, sure, but it is all manageable and the outlook is bright. I don't know. Sometimes we don't know what to say. "Oh, that's terrible to hear. We're so sorry you're dealing with that. We love you. Oh, us? Oh, things with us are great!" We talked over brunch about how difficult life actually is, despite Daniel's early thoughts that it was possible to will oneself into the perfect life. Like, yes, things are great until they aren't. Illnesses, accidents, heartache, aging. Life is challenging and dynamic, wonderful and bittersweet.

After naps, driving, phone call, and gluttonous brunch, we headed through the Evanston neighborhoods with no real destination in mind. We drove past a small neighborhood park, set back into the trees and behind a fence, and I looked back to see if Graeme noticed it. He looked at me, lit up like a Yule tree, and said, "Yeah!" as if I'd voiced an invitation to something great. As the car passed the park with its glimpse of parkiness, his face fell and he started to blubber. Guess he'd seen it afterall!

Evanston's parks are vastly better than our local city parks. (Daniel mused why "urban" was synonomous (sp?) with "shitty".) There weren't gang signs graffitied onto the slide, for one. There were toys not bolted to concrete that hadn't been stolen. It was pretty nice! The sun shone, the birds sang, the trees whispered and conspired together to drape us in green, glorious shade. It was picture perfect. Graeme gleefully toddled around with Daniel and I spent the time laughing and catching up with rubymulligan on the phone.

(Oh my heart, my Wonder Twin, my snarky, perfect sidekick! Only the sudden and complete malfunction of my cell phone could have torn us apart.)

Once Graeme was satisfied that he'd met his park quota for the day, we loaded back into the car so that Daniel could get back on his "being productive on the weekend" checklist. (By the end of the weekend, we'd managed to pick out our new appliances for our upcoming kitchen remodel, restock the pantry with food, get him some cell phone replacement part, make several obligatory phone calls, and have dinner with his coworker who was in town from Austin.) We stopped at our local Toys R Us to exchange the umbrella stroller I'd bought the other day. (WTF. I'd bought the one with two wheels in back and two wheeless stumps in front. I am not a savvy shopper.) Graeme was bummed to see their Thomas the Train setup, true to urban form, had no trains to drive around on it. (Probably stolen.) After that bit of business, we went to Trader Joe's and stocked up on junky junk food. Popcorn, dried fruit, and potato chips r us.

It might have been my all ciabatta and margarine dinner, but I keeled over and went to take a nap (thank you weekend babysitting husband!) around 7 and didn't wake up until Graeme needed to nurse to bed. I'm sorta tired but also battling this persistent runny nose and cough that are left over from my head cold last week. It is hard to sleep and cough at the same time. :) I want to sit upright with tissues stuck up my nose and a bowl of cough drops at my fingertips, but I'm also tired and with Graeme asleep I could go lay down, too. Decisions, decisions. :)