Monday Morning

Hi. It's a good morning.

The weekend was so full, in the best of ways: of friends and family, girls and boys, lots of food and presents and nice, long walks (with enough berries poachedgathered for cobbler). My newly-minted teenager has been sleeping past noon. I figure, that's ok for now. For August. School days will come soon enough.

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I am off tomorrow on a little adventure with my girls. My tech-director is trying to fix me up with the proper equipment to stay in touch while I'm away, but it might be a little quiet around here for a while. As excited as I am to get up to Maine and start taking pictures, and as much as I know I'll want to share about being there, meeting friends, spending time with my family in a different place, all the things we'll do and see: I'm also looking for a little space from the screen and keyboard. I've been finding that it looms larger than its fifteen inches when I'm at home, and longing for a distraction from chores.

I don't think I'll be longing for any distraction from the now, this week.

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From here on in, we're in the thick of the things that we wait for all year. Our August of being together, somewhere other than home, is literally what I day-dream about all year long. I know- because it is true every year- that it is different up there. That we are different. A little more relaxed, a little slower, simpler. Dare I say (kids?), a little quieter. More connected.

And every year I vow that I will take a little bit of that back home, and make it stick.

I think, that this past year, I did that more than ever. And I'm looking forward to this August, and what comes after, and hoping I keep even more of the state I'm in, when I'm in Maine, when I come back home.

I wish that you all bring a little bit of your vacation-selves home, too, to hold you over until the next time.

More tomorrow. Thanks for reading.

tt

ps::my tech-guy says that I'll have e-mail up there, for those of you who need to get in touch with me. I might even check it now and then. And I'll be back home for a few days next week. 'Til then!