HOW many days until Easter??

I was totally unprepared for the fact that last Sunday was, in fact, Palm Sunday. Plus, it was cold and rainy...and in my brain Palm Sunday should be dry and sunny as the day of Jesus' triumphal entry, when everyone was wearing sandals. And there were palms trees all around.

Maybe I just need a tropical vacation?

Well, spring is springing its way into southeast Michigan, however reluctantly, and I am happy about it. The hubs just returned from a printmaking conference in Philadelphia, and it was SO great to welcome him home! I was excited to have a few days to myself, cleaning obsessively, watching Jane Austen movies... but when he got home I realized how great it is to simply *be* with him.

Which leads me to the next question from the list:

What is one way that you can improve your family life this year?

It is still weird, a year and almost-a-half after my wedding, to think that I have "my own family" now. When I first read this question, I pondered what "family" even means. At a very basic level: me and the hubs. But, for most of my life, it has meant mom, dad, sister, and self. It has meant grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins. Now, it includes in-laws. Nephews. Another person's history is merging with mine into our family story. 

Like anybody else, my family story is complicated, messy, and carries its fair share of scandal. Brushes with wealth that somehow never stuck. Great-great grandma Phoebe wouldn't let my great-grandpa Charles be mentored and adopted by the millionaire art collector Charles Freer, though Freer wanted to leave his fortune to an heir and thought it serendipitous that great-grandpa shared his first and last name...and so my family and I are not art tycoons.

Though the head-slapping moments are many, and though they have continued through time to the present day in many ways, I love my family. I have to. And, I want to. Not always. But I know I can't get out of it. So, I'm thinking that one way I can improve my "family life" this year is to try to practice more compassion towards my family. Starting with my husband...maybe even starting with myself...extending to cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, in-laws. Something has to counter the scandals and goof-ups and rolling-eye-moments, because they keep coming. If I can cultivate compassion toward myself and my relations, our life can only improve...maybe even bloom.