getting away

Hello!

So, the blogging has significantly slowed down, no? I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas and wonderful New Year. Spencer and I were both able to spend some significant time away from the office, which was a fantastic break and good way to gear up for the next four months of being a widow (busy season). To dispell some of my potential loneliness, I've decided to enrich myself by taking a class: How to Make an Adirondack Chair. No, I'm not kidding, and yes, that is actually the name of the class. I'm really excited! I hope to make two chairs to inspire some porch sitting in the years to come. Or perhaps to inspire buying a house with a porch for sitting.

In other news, I'm trying to plan a big trip to Europe but it's a big task! It was so much easier to plan weekend excursions to a single destination when I actually lived in Brussels. Sadly, I think my four months there, all travel included, will cost less than the two week vacation we're planning. Maybe we'll move back to Brussels?

Anyway, I'm dying to know what's happening with everyone. Please give me the scoop, the poop, the update, the 411, whatev. Please. Love to you all.

Happy Birthday Whitney!

Hope the day is great!

The Joys of Grown Up Life

I feel like throwing an all out tantrum and I figured I might find sympathy among my fellow white mothers. Here's the deal -- the holiday season just isn't the same when you work full-time. Everything special about the season as I have always known it, has existed in part because of the huge lack of responsibility for say, a week or two, that accompanies Christmas break. But when you're a grown up and you work for a really fantastically ridiculous company, Thanksgiving means you get Thanksgiving day off. One random day in the middle of the week to stuff yourself and then somehow wake from your turkey coma on Friday morning to return bright eyed and bushy tailed to work. Christmas means you get Christmas day off. And that's it. No more lounging around mom and dad's house in pajama pants until noon, sliding across wood floors in your favorite wool socks and eating leftovers all day long. Those days are in the past. And the best part? At my current place of employment, we are not to ask for time off in November or December and from what I understand, any such requests will be denied. In other words, if my request of Christmas Eve is denied (it's a monday, for crying out loud!), I'm going to call in sick. And I announced that at our staff meeting last week. Might as well be honest if they won't be fair, right?

Now that I think about it, appealing to an audience comprised two-thirds of teachers, who will forever maintain in some sense the sanity-affording breaks that make the season special, may not have been the best place to call for sympathy.