i’m going to be honest with you, all 2.5 of you out there:  i was totally in danger of writing a stuffy post today. it was all about life lessons and all that stuffy kind of stuff. i promise that i started it with good intentions. i briefly mentioned what my plans were {they were pretty awesome – at least in my book} and why none of them panned out. and then…

ok, i take it back. i’m going to live on the wild side and just go with the stuffy post because that’s what real bloggers do – they stuff it up, right?

here goes. take two.

i had, what i believed, was an exciting weekend planned out. saturday was to be spent perusing north plainfield’s big yard sale outside the vermeule mansion*, visiting the fleetwood museum inside the vermeule mansion and potentially gardening with the coolest lady ever – my mother*. then sunday, it was off to a big hike/getting lost in watchung reservation* with my two boys*.

and then early saturday morning i received a phone call; my grandpa*, who now lives back in the motherland of portugal, had taken a turn for the worse. the weekend suddenly went from adventuring to planning my mother’s impromptu trip to visit her ill father. it goes without saying that we were thrown a major curveball in both our plans and life, in general.

it has dawned on me that perhaps life is simply that – a major curveball. we, as humans, keep planning and acting as though we are in complete control of everything and learning each day that we are, in fact, at the hands of some greater force – whatever it may be. with that being said, however, it is not an excuse to not try and do the things that we want to do; to not be the best possible version of ourselves; and to not continue fighting for the life we want. it is also not a reason to not be grateful for the good things that are thrown our way.

unfortunately, this weekend did not pan out the way i had wanted it to – but i was able to spend it bonding with my family, which is just as big of an adventure most people could only hope for; an adventure so obvious that most often it is overlooked.

so, i confess once again that this blog entry is perhaps one of the more stuffy and less quirky that i will write.  the lack of grandma jokes actually both irritate and frighten me. but i guess in the end, this blog is just like life – full of curveballs. 🙂

if nothing else, i hope that all of you were able to embark on a similar adventure of family bonding this weekend. 🙂

<3 always,

ana patricia

* vermeule mansion – north plainfield, nj

my awesome parents: paula + max

watchung reservation: al + tanner, march 2012

my adorable grandparents: luisa + jose

 p.s. i may have just created a blog post inception: a blog post within a blog post. that clearly makes me just as cool, if not cooler, than leonardo dicaprio.

p.s.s. stay tuned for upcoming non-stuffy blog posts. i just got some cork laminate floor tiles that i am looking to – ahem – revamp. it should be interesting.

what kind of curveballs have you been faced with recently?