chimera /n. / a fanciful mental illusion or fabrication. any imaginary monster made up of grotesquely incongruous parts. a dream, fantasy, or delusion. a fantastic, impracticable plan or desire. pipe dream.
chimera /n./ 1. My plans and goals this week to write more posts between my word-of-the-week posts were apparently only a wistful chimera, made (no doubt) in a moment of supreme delusion.
This was my SPT for "Green Week." Eating (and loving) hummus are about as green and granola as I get. When David saw this picture in my camera he said, incredulously, "Did you really take a picture of yourself with hummus?"
chimera /n./ 2. Savannah faced off against the Terra Nova tests (our state's test for 1st graders) this week. Her anxiety and terror had turned these into a chimera of unbelievably difficult and horrendous proportions. She was just sure that she would never be able to go to second grade. She was literally coming apart when I sent her to school on Monday morning. We did a few breathing exercises, said a prayer, and went through all the "worst scenarios" possible...all to no avail. She could not be mollified or comforted. I finally gave up and sent her off anyway, tears still streaming down her cheeks. She came home with a bashful smile.
chimera /n./ 3. The kids had a rare Friday off school and so we took full advantage of it and headed up to the mountains to camp. It has been steadily getting warmer and warmer here and I was under some kind of delusion that it is, therefore, hot everywhere. This turned out to be more chimera than reality. We froze the first night and so the next day, I sent David into the nearest town with instructions to spend enough money at Walmart to keep us warm. He did. And commented that we could have stayed at the Best Western for cheaper. Well. At least I remembered to pack the swimsuits. Yes, really. Hey, there was a pond nearby. And the kids may have wanted to swim once the thin crust of ice melted.
S'mor-ing it with my boys.
chimera /n./ 4. Ethan is completely in his element while camping. We almost didn't go, due to the length of my current to-do list, but then while I was madly trying to cross a few things off it, Ethan said, "Mom, this is the best day of my life. We're going camping today." New list: "Things to pack for camping." (Somehow swimsuits instead of sweatshirts made it onto this list, but I digress.) We went camping with "friends-with-toys" and Ethan was in all kinds of bliss riding quads and playing in the woods. At one point he went flying off one of the quads (driven by a five-year-old) and after landing face down in the dirt shouted, "That was AWESOME!" He turned into quite the chimera of dirt, popsicle, and campfire smoke. Like I said, completely in his element.
chimera /n./ 5. My kids rode quads for the first time this past weekend. I was beyond nervous about this, but somehow they miraculously escaped injury and catastrophe. (This even despite Olivia's uncanny tendency to turn her handlebars the exact opposite way she wanted to go. I explained that you turn it just like a bike, but somehow the motor confused the whole situation. I had a brief view of an inevitable moment coming during Driver's Ed. training.) They had such a riot riding around, but their dreams of actually owning one of our own is simply a lovely chimera.
