A Free Weekend

The snow. The kids were disappointed that the snow didn't come in time to give them a snow day. It started about 9:30 a.m. Friday morning. I was leaving the house to teach and when I opened the door, I heard the tinking of ice hitting the frozen ground and the house.
"Do you hear that?" I turned back and asked Earl.
"Yeah, I hear the birds."
But, no. Not the birds fighting over the bird feeder and filling the bushes. The sound of the snow and ice. Tiny little pellets were spitting from the sky.
In class, I looked out the window and the snow flakes were huge, big as a baby's fist as they pelted from the sky. The weather was still fairly warm, hovering around 31 degrees so the flakes were big and wet.
I wore clogs to class. Snow filled my shoes as I walked outside two hours later.

The male cardinal is easy to find in this tree.
Can you spot his mate?
As the snow continued to fall, cancellations filled the television screen.
No basketball game that night. Check. I could mark it off my list.
The swim meet on Saturday was cancelled. Another check. Grace has a cold anyway so she should stay home and get well.
The snow continued in the dark, somewhere between 9-12 inches they estimated. And this morning, the cold had settled in and the newly dried snow blew wildly around the sky. Was it new snow or the old snow blowing?
It didn't matter, because we all slept in and the college we were supposed to visit on Sunday called to cancel.
Cha-ching. Three cancellations and I could spend all weekend at home grading papers.

Tucker took a picture of the bird feeder.
He said it had an afro that needed some styling.
I made a pot of Beach Bar Tomato Soup that includes cream cheese and half & half. Imagine how rich it is with chunks of stewed tomatoes. I put Italian-style croutons in the soup and sprinkle some sharp cheddar on top.
Grace baked cupcakes in preparation for her 18th birthday party tomorrow and we hardly left the house. This is luxury. Even if I do still have a ton of papers to grade. At least, I have time to do that now.

Let the Summer Begin

Aaaaah!
That's me, sighing because I just finished recording the grades for my five-week courses. Suddenly the summer unfolds in front of me like a morning glory just after dawn.
The summer weeks were crazy with teaching and grading and preparing for classes. I hunched in front of my computer, my legs falling asleep because my feet don't reach the floor, as I prepared for teaching the three-hour class twice a week and the two-hour class three times a week. I struggled to stay on top of the grading, throwing an occasional bone to my online class which runs all summer. But now, I'm done!
I'm looking forward to seeing the sun on my run tomorrow morning rather than running in the pre-dawn dark.
I plan to take my computer to a cozy coffee shop and bang out a few thousand words on my next novel, which, as you can tell if you look at the word count, is almost at 30,000. I don't have a spiffy blurb for this essay yet, but suffice it to say, Fia, a Midwestern mother and wife, loses her job at the local newspaper, but is convinced something wonderful will land in her lap to help pay all those bills that are stacking up. Enter her great uncle Martin who married a French woman after World War II and runs a bed and breakfast near Aix en Provence. He calls and asks Fia and her family to take over running the bed and breakfast. Fia agrees to try it for the summer in hopes it will bond the family together at a time when her 14-year-old twins are beginning to pull away. The adventure in France isn't nearly the family builder she had hoped, and Fia begins to wonder what secret her uncle was hiding as the phone is tapped and people ransack the bed and breakfast searching for something...
So, I'm happy that I can spend the dog days of August writing and reading good books, but I regret the things I missed this year. As I sat on the front porch, I could hear the sounds from the municipal pool down the hill. I spotted the last hollyhock bloom of the summer, well, at least my hollyhock bloom. It waved slowly in the breeze, a pale pink circle on the tiptop of the stem. Maybe next year, I'll take the time to admire the hollyhocks all summer long and remember that working and running in moderation make a more fulfilling life.

Now It's Summer

As if the weather could see the calendar page ready to turn, today became hot and muggy. I stood in the garden and breathed in that earthy smell, shrugging off the bugs that landed on my bare arms and feeling the air thick around me.
July has been almost cool. We haven't had the air conditioning on at all. I think the French would call it "fresh." Our skinny French girl has spent a lot of time under the throw blanket.
I walked home from the garden with a bag full of tomatoes and two red peppers that are candy apple red. I'd already told the boys that I wasn't cooking this week. What I meant was, I wasn't cooking for them. I made some risotto with apricots and white onions for myself. I had a side salad of fresh tomatoes with vinaigrette, and for dessert, a peach cobbler.
Seeing the end of my five-week classes gives me a chance to breathe. I feel taller, as if a weight has risen from my shoulders. I sat and read a book tonight after I ate. I still have lots of papers to grade and a class to plan for tomorrow and the next day, but the end is in sight. I might have a life again someday soon.