Web working

Thursday June 23 at 3:14, I was in an IT (Information Technology) meeting talking about our new web pages. Even though almost everything on our campus is back to normal, thanks to massive vaccination and booster policies, and also a robust "mask – friendly" policy, we still met virtually, seeing one another as a little boxes in a larger screen. It was easy to see that many of the people were paying attention to email or other tasks as the conversation was going along.

Web presence is an interesting sociological phenomenon in its own right. On the one hand, it makes life so much easier: if I want to know a store's hours, or the correct spelling of the word "flouted" (o, not a), or figure out the title of a staff member on my campus, the web is a handy, go-to reference guide. On the other hand, it seems like we're always hiring consultants to design new web systems, maintaining a staff of experts to help support our web system, going through trainings on how to design and manage webpages, etc. The existence of the web has created a new, costly infrastructure burden that didn't used to exist, and that we can't shrug off.

And so, as I think about my dean-ly activities related to internal funding, external funding, and research compliance, I'm trying to figure out the best way to reconstruct or restructure a good web presence for us, to make other peoples' lives a little bit easier going forward.

Compost nostalgia

Kind of in response to a request from a friend, I've dredged up an old (2018) post of mine from a blog I had to shut down.   It's fun to revisit this: who doesn't love making dirt?

The one-year Compost Bin Experiment update

It was a year ago that I took down my old wooden-pallet compost bins and started a metal-fencing system.    And now, a year later, what do I think?  I think, two thumbs up.   Probably green thumbs up, in fact!

If you're as into compost as I am, here's the dirt (heh-heh) on how the first year of a new compost era has gone.

Basically, ever since I moved to this city about a quarter century ago, I've been honing my skills at turning plants into dirt.  I am generally much better at turning plants into dirt than the other way around, in fact (although as the decades pass, I have occasionally had success at the dirt --> plant version of this process).  The basic method for composting is (1) put plants and food scraps on the ground, and (2) wait.  That's about where I was, oh, 25 years ago, and you'd better believe that I was amazed at myself for having my own compost pile.  My three-year-old daughter bragged to my friends, "My mom has a PhD AND a compost pile!".  Yes.

Moving up a notch is having a structure that encloses the pile.  When my husband and I moved to this house, I built two wooden pens out of old fencing.   One pen held the "new scraps" pile, and one pen held the "cooking" pile --- at least in theory, that's how it worked.  Every so often, I'd head out with the pitchfork and "stir" the piles.   But "stir" is in quotes because compost is kinda heavy, so this was a lot more like digging ditches as far as muscle and activity goes.  When the plants-and-food-scraps had sufficiently decomposed---usually after about  a year---I'd  use more muscle to shovel the compost from the piles into a wheelbarrow and move the dirt over to the garden. 

But then my neighbor Morgan ---who has an actual certificate designating her a "Master Composter" --- recommended another method.  This uses portable circles of metal fencing: one circle for the active, lasagna-style pile, and one circle as a holding pen for leaves.  I clip the metal fencing into circles using binder clips, which makes removing the fencing from the dirt as easy as undoing binder clips.    THIS is the method I've been trying out this year, and THIS is a new level of composting awesomeness for me.  I tell you, I'm better than ever at turning plants into dirt now. 

My "active" bin, about three feet in diameter
and three feet tall. 
The compost-makings are about a foot high right now.

This picture on the right is the latest "active" bin, and if you look super carefully, you'll see an almost-empty "holding" bin behind it, with the leaves almost gone.  The bin in front has a bunch of food on top; I'm about to grab leaves from the holding bin and put them on top. 

So, what's great about this system?

First, the layering thing *really* works.  Food and green stuff goes in, and then I toss leaves on top.  More food and/or green stuff goes in, then I toss in another layer of leaves.  I never once stirred this stuff, and yet it happily decomposed down into dirt way more quickly than in the past.

Second, because I put the active bins right there in the garden, I don't have to use a wheelbarrow and muscle to get the compost to the right place.  Once I have dirt, I open up the circle, move the fence to another place, and the compost is right there, in the right place.  I've done this twice now -- twice in one year.   This is really almost like magic here!

A nearly empty bin that used to be full of leaves.
This is about 4 feet in diameter and 3 feet high.  

Third, I really like having a giant bin to hold all those leaves I rake up in the fall.  It's nice thinking of these leaves as "fuel" to add to the top of a pile of food.  Somehow, for my large yard, the ratio worked out beautifully; this holding bin just finally, magically, emptied out right now -- just as fall has started tingeing the leaves that are hanging on the trees in our yard.  We won't start raking again for another few weeks, but when we do, I have empty bins ready to hold those leaves to make the next round of compost. 


No matter what style of compost bins I use, I love the fact that composting reduces the amount of stuff we send to landfills -- less gasoline for garbage trucks, less stuff in the landfill overall.   I also appreciate that, because my food scraps go into the ground instead of the trash can, my garbage doesn't stink.  We can (and do) leave a garbage can in the garage for a couple of months, slowly filling up with stuff from our home, and we don't have to put it out at the curb early because of bad odors. 

Whereas compost piles, in contrast, are happy living places.  Squirrels, birds, and bunnies visit my compost piles more often even than I do.  I really love walking by these bins in the morning and seeing the flurry of activity happening there. 

And that's my October [now June!!!] homage to compost bins, with a thank-you to Master Composter Morgan for bumping me up to a new level, for cluing me into the notion that Fence Circles are the new Black Gold. 

3:14, Research Administration (oooh, sexy!)

Tuesday and Wednesday (the 21st and 22nd) at 3:14, I was doing research administration. We have an awesome new person person on campus who is just a delight to work with. Both of these days I was working with this person. We're digging into grungy little details of background information, planning and plotting ways to try to make bureaucratic procedures a little bit less cumbersome for faculty who have to go through them, and for the various offices that need to be looped in on them.

There's evidence that we're succeeding. For example on Wednesday, it wasn't just the two of us: we also met with a faculty member who is threading their way through the pre-proposal maze. At the end of this, the faculty member thanked us both for making their life easier. Go figure, and yay!

This is a picture of me working in our new hire's office space. It's mostly incredibly deserted right now, so I feel like I get to do a service to them just by showing up and hanging out there, and it's nice that they agree!

3:14 complaining

Monday, June 20 at 3:14, I was complaining. Oh, I know – I know – it's not good for my soul. And yet, complaining to a friend is irresistible. Especially when the friend keeps saying things like, "you're not complaining; you're just explaining how you feel!" Or when your friend keeps asking for more details about how this other person did you wrong.

I kind of feel like an alcoholic: I think just about every single night I come home and regret what I had said earlier in the day. I promise myself that I'm not going to do that complaining thing tomorrow, and I go to sleep devising strategies for ways to avoid it. And then the next day rolls around, and a friend comes along, and takes the first drink – or rather utters the first grumble. And then we're off, galloping along on a complaining binge, me thinking about the damage this does my immortal soul, and both of us nonetheless enjoying the airing of our shared grievances, the act of venting weaving a web around the two of us that binds us closer together in a shared, grumbly of friendship.

That's what I was doing; I was complaining. Oh, me.

Three 3:14's: cherries, power tools, and laundry baskets

Phew!  What a bunch of catching up I get to do this evening.   Here's three different 3:14's:  cherry picking, basement cleaning, and laundry.  What a glam life I lead!

Friday the 17th, I was on a three-generation cherry picking expedition.  

Stats:  Sweet cherries, 25+ quarts, $125 (sheesh).  

Last year, I made cherry syrup (which was supposed to be cherry jelly, but I wimped out on the sugar, so . .  syrup).  This year, I just pitted the cherries and hot-pack canned them in water, no sugar at all.   I canned up about 30 pints (one of which got a special label and will be a birthday present for this special picker below). 

I also (and I think this is super clever, if I do say so) canned up about two dozen one-cup jars of cherry juice.  Next year, when I have the Purple Dress dinner, we'll have our individual cups of cherry juice, beautifully labeled, ready to go.  Whoop!

With all these cherries canned up, I needed some place to put them.  Which leads us to . . . 

 . . . Saturday June 18th at 3:14 I was cleaning out the basement. As storage places tend to do, it had become a dumping ground for various kinds of clutter, and also increasingly disorganized. I had spent the morning canning cherries, and my canning supplies are all in the basement, and I think my morning trips up and down the stairs -- back-and-forth in the basement space -- had convinced me that it was time to shuffle things around. One of the last things I did was to saw up a chair that has given the family good service for 30 years but that we no longer wanted.

My basement workspace

I don't know if the wooden posts that were once legs (etc) will be something that I use in a new project, or whether I'll just give them to some friends who have a fire pit. Either way, it felt good to use power tools to break this into smaller pieces, and the space looks so much better not having chairs and other giant boxes full of unwanted odds and ends congregating like guests at a cocktail party, making small talk and dropping crumbs rom their hors d'oeuvres on the floor.

Sunday June 19th at 3:14 I was putting away laundry. The week before that, I had been emptying the dishwasher, and as I mentioned when I wrote about dishwasher emptying, this is a rare chore for me these days. Since my husband is the Lord of the Laundry, putting away my own clothes is not unusual, but actually using the washing machine is exceedingly rare for me. I did, of course, hang the laundry on the drying rack rather than use the dryer (naturally!).

The 19th marks approximately the midpoint of my husband's European tour, so with any luck, I won't have to do laundry again until he gets back – which means by implication that I probably won't touch the washing machine again for about a year. In fact, I probably could've made it a month without resorting to the washing machine if I had just had a somewhat larger stash of undergarments. I don't usually order things via the computer, either, but after putting away my clothes I did order enough knickers to tide me over if my husband hast to travel for an extended period of time in the coming year. Phew!

Quick(ish) Enoughsville update

Life continues to be rich and full here in Enoughsville.  I'm kind of caught up in work stuff, which is (a) why this update is a bit late, and (b) why this update will be a bit short.

Inkling headed out of town Wednesday for the square dance convention, and definitely wins the "cool photo" award.

Also, of course, attending live performances:

Ofsnough is at a vacation monastery with his friend the monk, his former Army buddy. I just love that. I love that there's such a thing as a "vacation monastery", kind of like timeshares for monks, but probably without the free polo shirt.  Around the same time that Inkling was leaving for her square dancing, Ofsnough was heading out of the vacation monastery for the Arctic Circle where he could spend summer solstice in 24-hour light.

Bodo Norway at 1am

Prewash is not traveling anywhere, and she's not caught up in work stuff, but she has been officially pronounced cured.  If you're at all interested in dog pee, here's the scoop on hers: "The pH is normal. No sign of blood in there. No bacteria seen, no increase in red or white blood cells on there or any crystals."  

And that's the (quick) news from (some of) our family, which continues to be wealthy in our adventures.  May you and yours be similarly prosperous.

3:14 Wednesday meetings, and Thursday plannings.

Wednesday June 15 at 3:14 I was meeting with my boss. We were supposed to meet earlier, but his schedule is so full that things often keep him running late. The meeting was our regular (although, during the summer, not-so-regular) one-on-one catch up time. It will probably not surprise people who know me that I keep a running agenda that I send to him before each meeting, which keeps these pretty darned efficient. This meeting was likewise pretty efficient. I guess that's all I can say about it, though. (And obviously, no photos).

Thursday the 16th at 3:14, I was finishing my sabbatical proposal and getting ready to submit it. Early. Or late, depending on how you see it. Pulling together a sabbatical proposal was relatively easy this year because I'd actually submitted a sabbatical proposal two years ago, and had been approved to go on sabbatical this past year. Instead, I became an associate dean. Usually, this position lasts for three years, but for reasons that I'm just not going to even talk about, my own tour of duty will be two years long, we think. Therefore, I'm putting in a sabbatical proposal now for a sabbatical that would begin one year from today. The proposals aren't due until August 10, but I am now done done done with this one little task. It's nice to check some thing off the list!

my sabbatical proposal on the computer,
and my trusty planner nearby as always.

My big dean desk, large enough to sleep on!

chocolate and donations at 3:14

Tuesday June 14, I was opening chocolates. But not just any chocolates!

It was twenty years ago that I went under the knife, and my kidney had an out-of-body experience, eventually finding its way into a new body – that of a colleague of mine.

Donating a kidney wasn't something that I had known a person could do until about six months before it actually happened to me. When I found out that Chris needed a kidney, I looked on the hospital website to see what they thought about donation, and of course they thought it was the bees knees, but I wasn't sure I could trust them to be perfectly objective because, c'mon, they're the ones doing it!  

I tried hard to think about who actually knew somethings factual about donation but who might have a more pessimistic view, and so eventually I called my insurance company to ask what they would think if I were to donate a kidney. If you can hear somebody shrug their shoulders through the phone, that's kind of what happened. I figured if they didn't freak them out, then kidney donation must not be too big a deal. So I contacted Chris and told them that I was willing to step forward.

I didn't really want to tell many people about this beforehand, because I knew I had to do a battery of medical tests first. If it turned out that I had some terrible disease that would prevent me from donating a kidney, I didn't really want that terrible disease to become public until I was ready to deal with it myself. But of course some of my friends found out anyway. One of them asked me, about Chris, "how could anybody ever say thank you for something like this?!?" I didn't really know what to say to that, so I just answered, " . . . chocolate?"

At any rate, the surgery itself was short and sweet. They made a few tiny holes for their tools, one somewhat larger hole for the kidney. They pulled the kidney out, dusted off the dog hair that had settled there (just kidding -- but really, doesn't dog hair seem to wind up everywhere?), and popped it into Chris. Three days later, I was home again. I was pretty sleepy for a few weeks. Within a month, I was running my old distance (albeit more slowly), going back into work, and essentially back to normal.

Now, every year on June 14, I get a box of chocolates. Sweet. If I had known that was the deal, I would've donated a kidney much earlier!

This year, Chris and their now-husband found a chocolatier that created a custom box with my name on it. So cool!

So, at 3:14, I opened it.  Ymmmmm.

3:14, on a walk with a friend

Monday June 13 at 3:14 I had left work early, and I went for a walk through the woods and around neighborhoods with a friend of mine from church that I hadn't seen, thanks to Covid, in a few years. It was really good to catch up with her, even if only briefly. The weather decided to give us a bit of extra challenge, and temps shot up to about 90 as we heaved our way up and down hills, slathered in sunscreen, wearing our shade hats, and carrying our water bottles.



Earlier in the day I had picked up Daniel Pink's book "When: The Scientific Secret of Perfect Timing". In the evening, I started reading it, and his basic thesis is that especially for people like me, I should do all my crucial work in the morning, basically give up in the middle of the afternoon, and then do some creative work in the evening. So it looks like I designed my day just right by taking a midday walk with my friend. Good to know I was on the right track, so to speak!

3:14: dishwasher emptying. How exciting.

Sunday, June 12, at 3:14 I had just finished vacuuming up lots of dog hair that somebody had left lying around and had started emptying the dishwasher. I think this is the first time – no, the second time – that I've emptied the dishwasher since my husband left for Europe a little over a week ago. Ever since he retired, he's thrown himself into being what he calls my "wife", by which he means taking care of most of the household chores.

In fact, he just called me today (the 19th) to say he's staying with his friend -- the former Army buddy who is now a German monk, you know how that goes.  They're in a "Vacation monastery" in Copenhagen, and my husband is cooking for the two of them, then letting Brother Cliff head out to do his monk work (helping, via telephone, with computer glitches back at the main monastery), while he (my husband) cleans up the after-dinner mess.  Just like at home . . . when he's home.

For so many years of my career, I was the primary parent and household keeper, since we both had jobs, but mine was two blocks from our house and his was an hour away by train. People talked a lot about the difficulties holding down a career while being a mother, and I thought to myself, "it's challenging, but it's doable. After all I do it!"

Then my husband retired and took things over, and I realized, "Oh! That is what they meant." I started publishing like crazy, even came out with my second book. Nowadays I come home and my husband makes dinner while I read the paper or finish up from work, then we eat dinner together and go for a walk, and then he does the dishes while I do my last little bits of email. So this isn't just the first or second time I've emptied the dishwasher since he left for Europe --- it's probably the first or second time I've emptied the dishwasher since he came back from his last trip. Try not to feel too sorry for me.

p.s.  See my home-made, wooden canning lid rack?  It's working great.  I love that thing!

Family update, with blue zombie fingers

Life continues to be rich and full in Enoughsville. This week, I was lucky enough to find a time that I could gather three generations together to go hang out among cherry trees. Together, we picked about 25 or 30 quarts of cherries on a very-hot-but-beautiful Friday afternoon.

Neither Inkling nor Kinderling wanted to be in the cherry picking photo; they stood side-by-side and each snapped a shot. I think this makes the pair of photos below stereographic projection; with the right glasses, if you stare at this hard enough, would it look 3-D?

A few years ago, I discovered a wonderful pitter that hooks up to canning jars (everything is wonderful if it coordinates with canning jars, of course), and so I spent Friday evening listening to podcasts about memory and attention, pitting cherries, and staining my fingers the kind of blue that would make them be perfect in a zombie horror film.

Ofsnough is not pitting cherries, but he is having a wonderful time visiting various ATMs in Europe. (Actually, I'm sure he's visiting more than ATMs, but since I don't have Facebook I just check how he's doing by visiting our bank's website.)  He called me Thursday and filled me in on what he's up to. My hastily handwritten notes say "Frankfurt – small death camp -- laundromat -- Top Gun -- big death camp -- Copenhagen".   The "Laundromat" reference in this list refers to the fact that he can tell that life is returning to some kind of post-Covid normal, because he sees Americans as well as Europeans in laundromats.

My sister-in-law appreciated last week's photos and sent a few more of a visit that she paid to Gosling.  

Jeannie: Frank and I are driving back to NH via Virginia. Pick one.

Me: Thank you for these! Good looking people, I must say!

Jeannie:  Nothing wrong with your eyesight my dear Sister in Law

And, in the realms of "what was I doing at 3:14 a week ago?", here's the scoop.  

 Saturday the 11th at 3:14, I was just finishing up a fitness blender workout. It may just possibly be the case that work-related drama had me so cued up that I needed to do something strenuous and physical. Also, the New York Times gave a nudge about the importance of strength training for senior citizens, and while I’m not quite yet a senior citizen, that’s something I aspire to be, and want to get ready for that eventuality. It’s also true that none of my running buddies showed up in the morning, so I decided to spend 45 minutes with Daniel, doing a high intensity/strength workout.

I don’t have a yoga mat, but it turns out that the rug I braided from denim jeans works very well. I’ll probably someday make it a little bit longer so that when I do push-ups both my hands and my feet are on it: right now, because they both don’t fit, one end of me keeps sliding away on the rug while the other stays put on the floor, but aside from that the rug works great. Prewash kept me company and reminded me of the importance of stretching.

Inkling had a different kind of work story; while she was closing up the shop she got a phone call from somebody who turned out to be the the mother of the owner of the shop, who then proceeded to gush and to say thank you to Inkling for doing such a good job that her daughter (the owner) could actually take her first vacation in many years and leave the shop in such good hands. It's very nice to be appreciated!

And that's the news from our family, which continues to be wealthy in our adventures. May you and yours be similarly prosperous.

Porch sitting at 3:14

Two Fridays ago, when I came home early I sat on the front porch with Prewash. Last Friday, the 10th, when I came home early I changed it up and sat on the back porch with Prewash. I wasn’t even doing emails at 3:14; I was doing the sudoku puzzle. Life is good.

3:14, an email flogger

Thursday the 9th at 3:14, I was beating down my emails and taking care of tasks on my to-do list. Do you see that my inbox has only four messages in it? I am an email maniac. I get approximately two gazillion emails per day, and I need to get them out, the heck out, of my inbox.

last week at 3:14: trail mix (and before that, Dog chauffeur)

Last Wednesday (the 8th) at 3:14, I was in-between meetings and tasks, and so I was snacking on the trail mix that I keep in my office. I bulk purchase supplies -- banana chips, cashews, raisins -- and make my own trail mix. I make a lot of it. I keep a gallon jug of this in my office, and now it’s nearly empty. This photo is from the mouth looking in to the jug. I guess I’ll need to bring some more in soon.

I also realized I forgot to post the previous week.  Wednesday the 1st, I was returning home from the vet with Prewash. 

Photo Re-enactment (when she rides in the car,
she wears a harness and gets buckled into a seatbelt that way).

It was a big car day for me, with 4 (four!) car trips in just one day: I took her to the vet in the morning and dropped her off there.  Later in the day I went for a yearly check-up of my own (all clear).  Then I picked Prewash up and drove her home.  

And then in the evening, I drove to visit a friend for dinner.  I think that's more car trips in one day than I took in all of May combined.  

p.s. Update:  she's now on a different antibiotic, because it turns out she's got "staff Aureus", resistant to penicillin.  Cross fingers that this clears everything up!

Meeting about grant proposals

At 3:14 last Tuesday, I was in a meeting about grant proposals.

Part of my job as an Associate Dean is to learn about, and then enforce, picky rules.  One of the things I've been learning is that the picky, annoying rules aren't proliferating on just my campus; it's part of a nationwide thing.  Big Business has long complained about governmental regulation, and now academic research is getting a taste of that same medicine.

My mom was a physicist, and I grew up in a house hearing her and my father talk about writing proposals. I think I knew what grant proposals were long before I knew what marriage proposals were. I know that they took up a lot of my mother's life.

Who would've thought that someday I would be part of the process of other people writing grant proposals? Even weirder, is this: when you write a grant proposal to try to make the world a better place, you think that the obstacles and the difficulties are going to be out there somewhere, in the larger world. You don't think that the obstacles and difficulties are going to be inside your own house, tripping you on your own floor rug for electrocuting you in your own wall sockets. 

After the meeting was over, late at night, I was thinking back to 3:14, and I wrote to the person trying to pull together the proposal. 

Trust me, I very much appreciate your reactions to just how challenging this whole process has been in so many ways.

Given all that, I just want to remind you that I think that what you are doing is amazing, wonderful, much needed, and transformative. I'm so glad that you have the courage and persistence to keep plugging ahead right now, and anything that I can do to help, I will continue to do.

That's all. I wanted you to know this. Please reach out if you need a pep talk or even more tangible assistance, and thank you both again for letting me have a front row (or second row) seat to this adventure.

3:14 last Monday, Ironic planner pages

Monday, June 6th, at 3:14 I was printing out, slicing, and three-hole-punching my daily planner pages for July. I like to claim that doing this helps to keep me organized, but ironically, at this very same moment I was missing a meeting that had started at 3 o’clock. I remembered about the meeting at 3:17, and joined it then.

Whoopsies.

3:14 last Sunday, coming home from the dog park

Sunday June 5th at 3:14, I was returning home from the dog park; I took a photo of the dog bag I use. I got it at my college reunion a week or so ago, and have used it to replace the previous dog bag. This one is much better because it has pockets for newspaper (that I use for picking up dog poop) and a hook for holding keys, so that I won’t lose them in the dog park again, and also an extra pocket for my glasses, so I’ll be able to read books while Prewash runs around like a maniac with her young maniac friend.

Inside the main pocket are lots of her favorite toys. In the process of putting on the theatrical show that I did, looking for props, I discovered that the volleyball team was happy to offload many of their old volleyballs. Prewash loves chasing them, whether they be spherical or deflated. She loves to gallop through the dog park with these balls; when she runs she bounces up and down and her ears flop like she’s Dumbo, flying.

The goal of going to the dog park on Sundays – never yet realized – is to wear this child friend of ours out a bit. He is inexhaustible. She’s well behaved enough on the leash that our young friend G can walk her or run her, as he pleases. I love this photo from earlier in the day, with the two of them getting close to entering the dog park.

In fact, I like these photos enough that I turned them into coloring pages with Colorscape.  Unfortunately, Colorscape seems to only work on phones; anybody have any suggestions for computer software that converts photos to coloring book pictures?

Enoughsville update: photos galore

 Life continues to be rich and full in Enoughsville.  This week I'm particularly rich in photos (some with stories) that people are sending me.  Here we go, in age order. 

OfSnough:

Rome, like Jerusalem, is historic in every direction. 

There are arches without hamburgers, forums without people,

colosseums without sports teams, and even the sewer lids are historic.

I also reset my Garmin steps per day record at 37,698 or 19.5 miles.  

Tomorrow I will go to the Vatican. 

Wednesday Ostia. 

Cliff and I will see Top Gun sometime during the trip. Probably in Germany where we can see it in English without subtitles. He's not sure about in Denmark.

We can see it in Kendig Square when I get back.

Speaking of $2 (2 Euros) when I arrived here I realized I packed so light that I had only one short-sleeved t-shirt, which I was wearing. Outside the train station was a flea market. I got two t-shirts for 2 Euros each. 

I love you.

I hope Prewash is okay. 

Today I had a meeting on the phone with a PR person from Razom.  she would like me to volunteer for the Razom PR group when I return from the trip. 

She told me about volunteering in Warsaw with a huge operation for feeding refugees and gave me contact info. So after Cliff and I get back from Scandinavia, I will spend a few days volunteering to feed refugees.

Me:  I've been trying to pause at 3:14 each day to stop and pay attention to what is actually happening at that very moment.  Last Saturday at 3:14, I was walking the dog, delivering invitations to a party that I'd be hosting, and I walked right by the rose garden where we'd be having that party.

From Gosling:

In OBX and taking in the sunset

Anyone have a shell fish craving

Hard shell crab? Dad hope you continue to enjoy my beach puns

Inkling documented the party I'd planned: our annual Purple Dress Dinner (that I instigated so I'd have an excuse to wear my $1 yard-sale purchased purple dress, of course).

From Sizzling:

I biked for the first time in a few years today!

She also gave us a map showing she'd gone 22.66 miles.  Gosling noted, "While I don't have a pic of it, I too did some biking for the first time in prob over a decade at the beach. Def didn't ride as far as you Sizz, but it's like riding a bike, you don't forget lol"

Me to Sizzling: 
"Good thing you stopped when you did.
 Two feet further on, and it would have been a biathlon."

Kinderling hosted a bus-themed birthday party for B-child.   I love the dress she's wearing, which is made from fabric with cars and buses.  It reminds me so much of a shirt my sister wore that she loved.  (The dress, like the shirt, was made by a grandmother).  

Jason visited the beach with his foster family.  His foster mom says, "We had a lot of fun at the shore."

Nelson is out of tech contact, mostly.   I've been making photo books for him, and found an app called Colorscape that can turn a photo into a coloring page, like these two below.   I think I'm going to have fun making a collection for him.

Prewash didn't take photos or send me photos, but one of her fans made a picture of her.

Amazing likeness!

We've gotten the results back from her lab (heh) tests and ultrasounds, and the doc says, "The culture was positive for a bacterial organism staff Aureus. So I would recommend getting on some medication. The amoxicillin that she was put on previous is resistant to this organism. So I definitely getting you a different medication."   We'll give her more pills (which she loves, because they come with more peanut butter) and retest her.  The good news is, she's acting like her old self, with lots of energy.  Not that the pictures show the energy, I realize.

"Not sure that the portrait captures my good side."

And that's our family in photos. Phew!  We've clearly been rich in our adventures, and hope that you and yours are similarly prosperous.