It''s good to be home! July was a busy month, from jury duty to retirement/going away parites, a wedding and a family reunion there was little time for glass. Even the new molds I bought after the Oregon Glass Guild meeting didn''t get the attention they were crying for. We''re home now, after a 10 day sweep through Washington and Idaho that included the aforementioned family reunion, time well-spent with with good friends and family, visits to some great displays of glass (including one that now includes some of my work), golf and relaxation. As nice as it was to have some time away, it feels great to be home. We got home early enough that I had most of the afternoon to load up my kiln for the first time in what seems like a long while. Not long enough to try some of the new ideas I have after some time away, but tomorrow is another day!
Once their mother…
We are empty nesters, well, if truth be told, not only our nest is empty, but so are our city, state and time zone are empty too. This means that we don’t often get to see our kids, but thanks to cell phones, email and instant messaging it seems like we are able to maintain good contact, most of the time. We tell ourselves that the fact that our kids choose to live far from their native Portland is a sign that we did our job raising them well, giving them the confidence necessary to seek new horizons.
This works for us most of the time and we enjoy the easy pace of our household of two. It works until someone gets sick. And if said sickness involves an emergency room and IV antibiotics, all bets are off and I’m a nervous wreck. Never mind that Kyle, the object of my concern looks like an adult to you, and was cared for at the same institution as our nation’s vice president, he is, and will always be my baby and suddenly the fact that I can’t be there, checking things out and fixing soup and a grilled cheese sandwich for him becomes a problem for me.
The good news is that he is fine now, even got up early to go jogging the other day, and I am recovering.
The one thing…
I work with some great people. Sure, there is the occasional snake, but all in all it is a good bunch. One of the things we do for each other are 30-day challenges. We choose something good for us that we all find lots of reasons to avoid and “challenge” each other to do it for 30 days. Past months have seen us exercising 30 minutes per day, doing 100 crunches per day, giving up sugar and other variations on the theme. For each day that one of us fails to live up to the challenge a $5 fine is imposed, and donated to a charity at the end of the month. The ultimate challenge was in May, the month of the vegan diets. The timing was perfect for me, we had just returned from a cruise during which my diet had deteriorated to the point where breakfast included not just eggs Benedict, but also bacon and sausage. And that was just breakfast.
This challenge had fewer participants than previous months’, and even fewer finished. We exchanged recipes, discovered vegan dark chocolate, and re-adjusted our attitudes about what we eat. For me it was easy after about the third day, I found that I am generally quite satisfied without meat and dairy products. Even now, almost three months later I am fine with just the occasional taste of meat (half a meatball at Ikea on Saturday), with one exception. Bacon. I crave bacon. So far I haven’t acted on it, but I know if is only a matter of time…
Welcom Max!
I had the pleasure of meeting one of earth's newest citizens the other day, Max. Max is the almost 9 pound, first-born child of my co-worker, Stacey and her husband Alex. Max is beautiful. There is nothing quite like holding a newborn baby, a pleasure I got to experience when Max was less than a day old. Congratulations Stacey and Alex on a job well-done!
On a separate note, I talked to my friend Linda today. She is two days away from finishing her radiation and initial series of chemotherapy for a ansty brain tumor. Amazingly, 8 weeks into this experience is still doing well, some fatigue, but other than hair loss has none of the predicted symptoms--Go Linda!