About to turn the calendar

Well, the big wave has passed leaving bizarre assemblages such as boats parked on top of houses. Perhaps not a tsunami, but my life for the last few months has been a force of nature, nonetheless. I have written end-of-year progress reports, gone through a job search process ending up remaining where I am and happy about that, taken my sixth graders to New York City, and fought a pretty persistent illness all the while. I am sure there are other things in there that escape memory right now, but it has been full--full enough to force me to take a break from blogging. I am back, hopefully to the daily level if not weekly.

Here are a few videos and images from the interregnum (yes, there was no king in my head during this time)

Rose has learned how to manage food not already cut up into bite sized pieces. It helps that all four of her front teeth are there. She is currently working on independence in holding her own drinking bottle. In this video, Rose chomps on asparagus, one of her favorite foods right now.


This spring has been glorious. It is amazing how people in Boston ritually complain about there being no or a very short spring. While much of it is obscured by the cold and rainy weather that follows the interminable, and this year snow-filled, winter, spring arrives with the gradual swelling of the tree buds. It is about this time that I really begin to get excited, and the process of life erupting from that moment took months and only just ended with the heat of summer. Flowers are still blooming, and nature is happening. Spring, this year, was glorious. Roses, in particular, had a great season.

The previous owners did very little to maintain the outside property. I have yet to tackle it this spring, see above reasoning, and the result is a wild mixture of intentional and wild plants. A few stray tulips and other flowers mix in with a dense spread of wildflowers along the driveway before it is taken over by the spectacular rose bushes that I spent quite a bit of time last year taming. I especially love the blue-eyed grass.Before we left for our week vacation, the roses were just about ready to bloom. Sprays of buds promised a richness resulting from the pruning I gave them last year.
Rose decided to change up her very convenient sleeping pattern. Formerly 6 to 6 was almost a guarantee except when she was ill. However, a few nights of screaming from 6 to 9 or waking up to screams in the middle of the night convinced us that things, indeed, fall apart, and we have only just begun to see if the center has returned let alone whether or not it can hold.
In the midst of all of this, we took off for Atlantic City. We left the day after professional days were finished at both of our schools and drove to stay at Reena's dad's place by the sea. This is a 180 degree photo stitch of the view from the boardwalk nearby. Click on it for a larger version.We had fun being in and outside. Rose seemed to have the same amount of amusement from this mechanical toy in a country store located in the midst of a casino complex. It was fun to poke around Atlantic City.

We then arrived in Philly to stay with Reena's dad and visit friends and family. Reena's blog will probably highlight visits with Michael and Wendy, her grandparents, and her cousin. This trip, we made sure to create time for visits with Emily & Eliza and the Speer/Zisook household. Rose took quite easily to Emily which was wonderful. Rose has developed a case of not wanting to be held by strangers (again).Eliza showed Rose how to make sounds with a beer bottle, and she cooked us one of her wonderful meals. We had mushroom soup with yummy bread. Their new house is wonderful and smack in the middle of the neighborhood in which I lived after college. I love the atmosphere there.Rose played with Leo at Jim and Helene's house where we got another amazing meal of quiche and fixings! yummy.During dinner, Rose loved to hold hands with Leo, but he got a bit tired of it by the time I got my camera out.When we arrived home, we saw that the roses in the driveway had burst into bloom. Now, I have started my summer list, made a dent on cleaning up my office, and started to wrap my head around priorities. One of those is to stretch daily and get back in shape a bit. I sign off now to see if I can still touch my toes before I go to bed.