It's That Time of Year

In the past week, we have...

1) Bought new clothes and paper supplies for the kids.

2) cleaned the refrigerator and the kitchen floor (trust me,  you don't want "before" pictures.  Both were long overdue).

3) Met up with friends to watch the first episode of Season 8 of Dr. Who (and made Tardis-frosted brownies).

  4) Gone to Canobie Lake Park with the kids--where, oddly, we saw a rabbit.  And, less oddly, a sign for a bubbler (gotta love New England).

5) (I) bought a new Surface Pro and a new book bag--both with the aim of trimming the amount of weight I carry on my aging, aching back.  Plus, the bag is kind of stylish (at least, compared to the huge black one I was schlepping around).

Additionally:

• I have spent a couple of days on campus in back-to-back meetings.
• I plan to paint the half bathroom this weekend.
• I'm trying to get in one last revision of my paper on Che, and starting to look at my Post Tenure Review narrative.

This can mean only one thing...summer is ending and the academic year is rapidly approaching.  It's time to get ready, and to finish up all those little projects that didn't get done over the summer.  

Time for a deep breath.

How's your transition from summer to fall going?

Renewal

A room given a new lease on life all because of a couple of cans of paint (Pike's Peak Gray, Benjamin Moore), plus a day's worth of cleaning and prepping and painting.  There is more blue in the gray than I expected, and there is still a little more to do here and there before I will feel "done," but I think it's great.  Like the rest of the house--like us!--it's not formal, and not all of it fits together perfectly (and I declined to share a picture of the treadmill in one corner: less than lovely, but nice to have on a rainy or icy day). But it is comfortable and functional and relaxed...and that's what I want my home to be about.

What small changes have improved your life lately?

In My Kitchen: Obsessions

(Joining the Kitchen Blog Hop again this week)

My current kitchen obsessions--or, more nicely put, eccentricities--are obvious in my pictures this week:

• I've been eating home-made muesli every day.  
• Herbs have taken the place of flowers on my tables and counters (here: peppermint on the table--automatic after dinner mint!)
• Okay, not my obsession: Samuel and his cubes are all over the kitchen, every day.
• The kids are doing well putting dishes away without complaint--but sometimes they leave the cabinet doors open, an aversion I've inherited from my mother (even though I thought her obsession with closed cabinet doors was soooo stupid when I was a kid. Maybe it's genetic and kicks in during adulthood.)
• New favorite lunch: hummus, avocado, tomato, pea shoots, and red onion on sprouted grain bread.  Eating that almost as often as muesli.  
• And, of course, jam.  I caved and made blueberry jam with large berries.  I was trying to hold out for wild ones, but we just aren't going to make it to Maine to get them.

What eccentricities are showing up in your kitchen?

Mesmerized

Anya had been at us to go to the Museum of Science for ages, and she was absolutely right.  It was a blast. Somehow, however, even though I enjoyed it all, I only took pictures of the audio-kinetic sculpture and her image in the mini-mirrors...still my favorites. Really, I could watch the sculpture for hours...

What mesmerizes you?

Together

  

  

It was such a lovely, family-centered day in Rockport that it was worth the traffic home (during which I took the cool picture of the Zakim bridge).