the days we waited for

A string of warm, sunny days! We flirted with them in May, but they didn't take hold. Finally, in June, they took hold. We wake up to blue skies and gentle breezes once again. Snowdrop tells me later -- there is not a single bit of white cloud in the sky! It's all blue! She is so right.

When I step outside and look around me, I can't believe that all this bounty is with us once more. In the winter it all seems like a distant dream. And now, it's a glorious reality: a garden unfolding its beauty before our eyes.
















I do so love the transformation from a barren winter landscape to this!






(Let me not neglect the pots of annuals...)






Breakfast -- most definitely on the porch!





The day's events are once again out of the ordinary. In the morning, I go to Snowdrop's school for her end of year performance.

We first mingle on the playground with the kids.... (Do you remember how awesome it was to see your family at school? Or on family day at camp?)






(showing us what's what...)






Then each class takes to the stage...






School continues for another few days next week, and then there's a break before "summer camp" begins (same school, slightly different program), but this is the last Friday of the school year, and it feels right for a celebration of a year gone by, and so here we are, parents and the occasional grandparent, smiling joyfully at our children as they sing songs of light and peace and all those good things we hope will come when they take charge of the world, having inherited the mess our generations have made for them.

I ask her teacher -- what happens to these young souls? At what age is all this lost for so many of them? To a desire for power, to indifference... I mean, all these kids on stage were so earnest and so full of love!
She tells me, with a smile -- a child's personality is pretty much formed by age 5. We hope to get the good stuff in place when we send them out into the world then!


From there, it's just a whirlwind. I grocery shop. I cut Ed's hair. I cut my finger as I cut Ed's hair. (Too much in a hurry.) I pick up Snowdrop.

Yesterday, I had a haircut at Bang Salon, today it's the little girl's turn. I'd let her bangs get too long (I'm the official hair trimmer in the family in between more professional visits), don't you think?






Done!






Then a snack, two books and some cheeper fun at the farmette...






And wait, not done! (Are you tired yet?) I take the little girl swimming at her local pool, meeting up with her mom there. She takes over as I eventually retreat.





I have stuff to do!

(By evening -- unfurled...)






(Out front, unfurled...)






Dinner to cook! (On the porch today. It's just so lovely!)





House to neaten up and then, at a very late hour -- the younger family to greet as they arrive, tired, I'm sure, after their own long day in Chicago.

We have a full family weekend before us. Let me retreat now. I have a cake to bake!