Monthly Archive: July 2013

29
Jul
2013

A GOOD WEEKEND

I’ve never had so much fun cleaning the bathroom as I did this weekend. I clean the bathroom pretty regularly on the surface, but I’m not always so good about deep-cleaning…and I can’t remember the last time I did a COMPLETE clean. It was past time. I know there will be people totally judging me because my bathroom isn’t disinfectant-clean but give me a break. It works for us. Our house is HUGE and just keeping it TIDY is a full-time job and I already HAVE a full-time job. The kids had to help, and Karin had to help most...

25
Jul
2013

AT THE TOP OF SUMMER

The lawn is crispy crunchy underfoot, every grass blade seared and sun-brittle. No one here wastes water on lawns so the whole neighborhood has a sere look to it. In the fields around our village, wheat and oats and grasses are tawny beige as well; harvest-time is nearly here. The only thing still blooming outside of pots around our house are the roses which are still going strong. The pots add dashes of color: pelargoniums, flowering succulents, begonias and some sad blasted pansies that weren’t quite done when I was repotting summer flowers some time ago. Tomorrow is 7 weeks...

21
Jul
2013

LONDON, PART THE SECOND

Goodness, time gets away from me the second I start working again. I made it through my first week of work after 3 weeks off, but I need to post about the rest of our trip so I can move forward. 🙂 We took the train from Covent Garden out to Watford Junction (which, incidentally, is close to where my UK office is), which took several changes and a very long time. From there, we took the a shuttle to the Warner Brothers Studio, where the Making of Harry Potter tour holds court. The bus was covered an a giant...

15
Jul
2013

LONDON, PART THE FIRST

We left Salisbury on the 11-something train and found our way to our final destination…a few blocks down from the Gloucester Road Underground station. Anders had downloaded an app called Tube Map which made our visit much easier…it has the full London Underground map with all kinds of information like departure times, lines, notifications about delays or closures, when the first and last trains are going, etc., but the best part is that you don’t need to be online to get routing info or stand by the huge confusing full map and trace lines in a confused attempt to figure...

13
Jul
2013

FOURTEEN

It’s hard to remember the details this far forward, but I remember how I cried when the ultrasound technician confirmed that our second child was a girl. I was so glad that I wouldn’t have to consider being pregnant again, since we’d have one of each which is what we both wanted. Of course, then Karin arrived and was the biggest tomboy ever born, so all I could think was “be careful what you wish for”, haha! Neither of my kids wanted to actually leave the womb, and despite being three days early, a welcome change from her big brother...

09
Jul
2013

STONED ON SUNSHINE & SIGHTSEEING AROUND SALISBURY

We had mostly great weather the whole time we were in England. Lots of sunshine and I even got sunburned a bit, which is rare since I don’t sit in the sun very much. After we left the boat back in Leighton Buzzard, we took the train to Salisbury. I think of England as being so small and populated that it’s coast-to-coast towns but there sure is a lot of beautiful landscape and farmland everywhere. Salisbury is a lovely old medieval town with a great deal of ancient architecture. All you have to do is look up above the first...

05
Jul
2013

LONGBOATING

We flew into Stansted and took the train to Leighton Buzzard, where we spent the night before picking up our longboat the next day. After dropping off our suitcases in the shipyard, we walked back into town and hit the Tesco for groceries, enough to supply breakfasts and a couple of other meals for the week on the boat. We didn’t see much of Leighton Buzzard, just walked around a little bit, and spent a pleasant hour in the church of All Saints which had a lovely old cemetery huddled within the close. When I looked up Leighton Buzzard on...

04
Jul
2013

R&R

Vacation traveling with teenagers is a lot different than vacation traveling with young kids. It feels harder now, because they are so much more opinionated about what they want to do, or rather about what they DON’T want to do, which is invariably whatever WE want to do. But we mostly manage to compromise or get someone to give in, and mostly everyone gets to do SOMETHING they want to do, and everyone ends up satisfied, for the most part. Though it sometimes takes a lot of eye-rolling and sarcasm to get there. And nowadays, it’s all about the free...

July 2013
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