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Sunday, November 8, 2009

The unexpected...

A few months ago, we took a spontaneous trip with the kids to visit a Leonardo da Vinci machines exhibit in a town a couple hours away. We booked a hotel room for a weekend and looked forward to kicking back, swimming in the pool and spending time with the kids outside of our usual environment. What we didn't know is that there was a sort of weekend festival going on in the town. Unexpected fun things to see and do were suddenly added to the weekend.

That evening our hotel room was the best seat possible for an amazing firework display thanks to the festival. I found a firework setting on my camera and grabbed a few neat shots. The fireworks felt symbolic of this frivolous trip we almost reasoned ourselves out of. The unexpected joy of it all making us feel just 'right' in our skins.

Sometimes things work like that. The unexpected often gets a bad rap. People often use the term to talk about the bad stuff that pops up in life, and sure... that happens enough. But sometimes the good pops unanticipated into life too.

The other day we signed a two year 'lock in' deal with our cable company. It was/is way too much to pay for cable and internet, but in our area it is the monopoly and unless we want dial up it is our only option. But the unexpected thing was we will pay the same rate that we had before, and we get to keep that rate for two years, but they upgraded us to high definition digital, which unlocked a ton of channels, and upgraded our internet from the slowest service they offered (which seemed really fast to me anyway) to the fastest. So we aren't paying any more a month for a whole lot more service.

Sure, it is still not really a 'deal' as it is a major expense on mostly entertainment. But I do justify it a bit with the fact that I need a broadband internet connection for the freelancing I do for the paper. But it has been a wonder to suddenly have more of something that wasn't planned on. Fun.

My kids were unexpected. Really. Both of them. (Yes, I know how that all works, and now I know how it can all malfunction.) And well, they are wonderful bits of the unexpected. We were going to grow old reading books and playing video games. Perfectly content to be weekend parents to my stepson. And bam! Life changing life. Unbelievably unexpected and unbelievably amazing.

And one more bit of the unexpected before I close this drifty little post. At least unexpected to me. My nanowrimo novel is a romance. I am writing a romance! And I've written more than 13,000 words on it. Crazy? Yes. Embarrassing? Yes. Fun? Yes. Unexpected? Completely.

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