A random update of the last days of Summer

"I wish there was a way to know you're in "the good old days", before you've actually left them."

""I'm happy that this was all filmed, so I can remember everyone and what we did. ……I worked for a paper company all these years and never wrote anything down."

"How did you capture what it was really like? How we felt, and how we made each other laugh, and how we got through the day... how did you do it"

"There's a lot of beauty in ordinary things"

I was watching "The Office" Finale today. 

The last lines of each of the characters reminded me of why I used to blog .I started as a way to connect with other parents dealing with special needs. 

But it became a record of my time along with the feelings of that time.  

A blog is better than a photograph or a video because you interpret yesterday's photo with today's perspective. But you cannot do that with a journal. 

And so I am back - years after my last post - just telling you about a few random days

(I am talking to you, dear reader, even though I don't know if any of you still come here. Or even  if people really even blog any more. )

Summer was so busy - usually all our friends/relatives come and stay with us during the summer (Only a special kind of person would like Seattle in the winter. Luckily we are that special type of person. I always find the winters really restful here - a way to explore the great indoors - read books - watch movies - feel that delicious sense of Hygge)

We traveled quite a bit - around Western Washington- barely leaving the State on our many trips. This State is so beautiful. In addition , this summer was really mild which also meant no forest fires

We had many many guests over.

One new thing about R is that he loves having guests over. Instead of waiting for them to leave, he now eagerly asks when the next set will arrive. Its not just all the going out and the Sprite and eating Subway too. He really truly enjoys them. Our friends for the most part are very accepting of R too. Now that he is a bit more grown up and interactive the constant stream of advice has lessened, which has also helped us to be free to enjoy people more.

Friday

May be my absolute favorite day of the weekend. Even the  dentist whose lecture on periodontal disease ( she is annoyed, because I absolutely refuse to take out my wisdom teeth, but now cannot say it any more since I explicitly said that I want no more advice on talking out wisdom teeth)

Saturday

I listen to Harry Potter all morning and do a massive clear out of kitchen appliances.  Due to our smallish kitchen we have slowly upgraded to  appliances that multitask,  such as the instant pot that takes place of pressure-cooker +slow cooker +rice maker.

Some friends of ours have their kids starting Grad school in Vancouver our clear out,  will mean a stock up for them. DH and I hate throwing things and when  they delightedly accept our offer

With the smugness of a  super productive morning behind me, I settle down in the deck to read my book and drink some tea. R comes out and joins me. He is the most terrific company, content to simply have his legs resting on my lap, while we are both busy in our respective devices. 

Sunday

Sunday I wake up with a feeling of happy anticipation.

I have recently bought Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince on Audible ( this series may be my favorite re-read)  and every day I wake up with joy thinking of listening to the book.

Saturday's kitchen clear out has also meant that I have found my old Cuisinart Grind and Brew. DH had given  this to me many years ago. We had laughed at a review on amazon which said that " This is a great coffee maker for a person who likes to spend their whole day cleaning the coffee machine" . Laughed,  because in those days when I worked in Bush's Baked Beans with a leisurely pace of life - I could not imagine being so busy that the few minutes a day would feel like a hassle.

The pace of life has gone up tremendously since moving to Seattle. Somewhere in the beginning of our time in Seattle, I bought a Nespresso. I am used to now waiting those 15 seconds impatiently, as it brews a cup.

I have been thinking of late that I want to shift my mindset. Feeling frenetic is a state of mind. Taking the few minutes to set and program it in the night and waking up to the sound of it grinding the beans puts me in a good mood. DH and i do our usual coffee + news on our phones in bed.

Today for lunch we are doing to Downtown - we are meeting a freind of ours who works in the Gates Foundation. She prepares lunch for us and is a huge fan of Hello-Fresh since she now gets to try out things she would normally never try. I take my lunch with me since I am not a huge fan of unusual meats and flavors. R is so delighted with her. She lives facing the ocean and has a really beautiful apartment furnished with things she has collected as she lived in various African and Asian countries

The sky is so blue as we drive back- even though its Sunday, I am looking forward to the coming week which will end in a 3 day weekend

The week

Is super intense. Most people are back from their vacation which means that the temporary Summer lull is over and its the usual Microsoft that I both love am exhausted by.

Every day is full of meetings, while the evenings pass with needing to tend to some email while also doing the evening routine of dinner exercise etc

The weekend 

I start the weekend the right way with a date lunch with DH at a fantastic café at Microsoft called Ingredients. The food is REMARKABLE and we pledge to reinstate a monthly date lunch ( I will tell you at the end of September if we are able to continue on this plan)

We cook and clear up on Saturday. Our friends will  stop over for the weekend and we don't want to waste time cooking, while they are here  from Canada. Since we have an open kitchen, there is also no way to put your headphones on and cook by myself as I like to do. (I also am odd in that I don't like people helping me in the kitchen. The nicer our friends are, the more they have a hard time not helping. They assume I am being gracious despite my repeated protests that they should just sit and let me cook in peace. To avoid this we end up pre-cooking)

I cannot describe how nice these friends here. Its easy to understand why their 3 sons are so sweet when you meet the parents. Each night they are here we stay awake and chat till 1 in the morning 

R especially is smitten by D. Besides a business, she also runs a sort of animal rescue. She is mad for ALL animals ( dear reader- the true extent of this is made clear to me when we watch the latest Jurassic movie, and I find her sympathetic to the creepy Indoraptor. This is more clarifying than even her veganism)  

Because of her ability to bond without words- R is inseparable from her. 

Monday the last day of summer vacation seems to move in slow motion. 

R comes and snuggles in bed with us in the morning and we read - all 3 of us together -  in a way that we haven't in a long time. 

We drink a last cup of tea before our friends leave, with promises to meet again next year 

I come and sit in our deck to finish this blog dear reader - our deck that is a little bit of paradise - thanks to DH's alchemist touch with flowers, plants, color  and architecture in the perfect sunshine of a September day.

R comes out with a Tinker crate kit to make a paper plane launcher and DH comes to help. 

Dear reader sometime the beauty and perfection of life takes my breath away. If I could press pause, I would. 

But I can't. So I write- hoping to bottle up my  bliss

Adieu until next month