You Gotta Laugh

When I start to fret about finances, I try to regrow lettuce. 

If this makes sense to you, you've probably been in similar circumstances.

Thinking of too many things the other afternoon, I cut a lovely head of 

ruffly lettuce, put a handful in with my tomato lunch and

absentmindedly threw the delicious remainder in the garbage.

Hovering over the trashcan for a moment, I considered trying to retrieve it, 

since I believe almost  anything is pretty much still fine if you just rinse it really well, 

but ... no.

So I felt obligated to get the very most out of the  heel.

 Here it is in its place on the window sill just above the kitchen sink. 
New leaves began to sprout from the center the same afternoon!

It didn't take me long to see it.
Do you see it?

THIS made me shout out with laughter!

A plastic caveman staring at me from the leafy lettuce foliage: 

I knew it was just my husband, playing with me. 

I stopped washing dishes to go find him and enjoy the joke.

A long time ago, we discovered that the component of 'play' in our marriage

was invaluable. We misplaced it, actually, for a little while, after the 

birth of our first son. The pressures of decoding a new baby (when neither of us had

any experience with them at all) seemed so heavy as we each tried to

put on a good show of being  GROWN UP enough to parent.

Then one  night, as we lay awake hoping that the baby didn't wake up again in the wee hours,

we mused over how hard this all seemed to be. 

And how long it had been since we had laughed. 

Really hard. 

Out loud. 

Tears-on-your-face laughter.

We made a change that very night! I'll spare you the details, but with  

determination, PLAY was re-established at our address. Doesn't it seem odd to

pair words like 'determination' and 'play'? Maybe so, but in the more difficult bits of

our life together, this very element has saved the day more than once, 

making it worth the cost of a good helping of determined diligence.

How long since you and your spouse had a really good laugh together?

I'd love to hear about that!