This task was completed as part of the Monday Missions. This week’s assignment was to post in the form of a tanga or a nonnet. Like Painted Maypole, the illustrious MM taskmaster herself, I put together a tanka tanga. And like Painted, I’m also hoping I’ll get around to trying my hand at the nonnet.
Remember how I said I hoped to get some recaps and photos from my trip posted soon, and get back to visiting blogs? Well, as it turns out, I underestimated how entirely tired I would be.
In addition to seriously underestimating the impact of jetlag, I’d also underestimated how stressed I would feel coming back to the pressure of home and work responsibilities. Not that our trip was relaxing, mind you. In fact, we were too busy for me to even think about all the work I wasn’t doing on the trip, and all the other random crap we hadn’t gotten done before our departure. It was a kind of decompression to be away from it all, and taxed with merely the day-by-day, and sometimes hour-by-hour, stress of making our way around on very tired feet and getting ourselves fed all the while wrangling two very tired little kiddos.
And now we’re back to the pressures of our regular chaotic home and life, among which are dealing with various home and car issues. Such as a car tire with a slow leak that had been getting progressively worse. For the weeks leading up to the trip, we’d had to pump up the tire 2 or 3 times a day. It would get totally flat within maybe 8 hours. With the hecticness of work before the trip, we just couldn’t fit the time and even brief carlessness into our schedules. So upon returning, the rear tire was still leaking and lurking, rearing its ugly total flatness almost every time I needed to dash out the door to get the kids to daycare, or rush back from work to pick them up. (Mind you, we did really get some good use out of our portable air compressor tire pump.)
I’m happy to say that our car now has new tires. 4 new tires, as it turns out. The tires hold their pressure beautifully, which greatly relieves one pressure in my daily schedule. And we had a lovely Saturday evening out together as a family at a mall eating mediocre food and buying fuzzy pajamas while the car got tired. (Phoebe was very happy that she got to meet some mechanics. She is a big fan of mechanics. She even will tell you as much, given the chance.)
Since I didn’t get any photos of the tire in its flatness, I thought perhaps I could instead share photos of tiredness from our trip.
Here he is at a street cafe in Barcelona.
Here he is at the top of Montjuïc in Barcelona.
His cheeks got to know the buckles of the stroller well.
And on many occasion, Theo just got tired of being stuck in the stroller.
Okay, it’s getting on towards midnight now, and I have a long day of commuting and work ahead. Yes, this post is odd and rambly. But what can I say? I’m tired.
Hola, amics! Què hi ha de nou?
Here we are in Barcelona. We arrived on Tuesday. It’s been remarkably hard to find time to even open my computer, so I won’t write much. I haven’t had much chance for sightseeing yet, as the conference just wrapped up yesterday. Shockingly, I have yet to see a speck of Gaudi. Tomorrow will hopefully change that.
For now, I’ll just share a few photos from the conference. Yes, that sounds really boring. Except that the conference was held in this building:
It didn’t look like much from the outside, but inside, it looked like this:
The talks were held in this little auditorium…
…which was full of antique tapestries.
We got to go outside to the portico/balcony surrounding the courtyard for coffee breaks…
…during which we could drink espresso and eat our fill of tasty pastries…
…and go for a stroll in the jasmine-scented rooftop garden, where we could admire the water lily pond and other attractive plants.
The poster sessions were also held outside on the balconies. (I forgot to get a photo with my own poster up, but you can see the setup.)
I have to say, of the conferences I’ve been to, this was by far the most pleasant venue. (The conference itself was also great, mind you, and my poster went pretty well. )
Every day, thousands of children must go without causes to represent. And every day, thousands of posters are printed with no children to promote their causes. Please, don’t let your poster go without a sad child’s face.
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So, I’ve been deeply mired in working on my poster for this conference. One of the things I’ve been doing is selecting good examples from my data to illustrate my points. So-called “poster children” examples.
What with the craziness of work, making travel arrangements, as well as loads of other family and life obligations, I have had no time for blogging. Either the writing or the reading. This makes me sad. Clearly I need a poster child to express this sadness.
In other news, the Just Posts are coming right up. If there are posts from August that you’d like us to include, send them along!
I was quite shocked to see that today’s PhotoHunt theme was “nipples.” This is really quite a departure for this typically wholesome venture. I can work with it, though. I don’t like to think of myself as prudish.
What’s that you say?
Oh, ripples. With an R. That’s quite different.
Never mind.
So I guess I’ll share this photo instead, which is one of my favorite reflection shots. I took it in Providence back in 2005.
For more people flashing us their…um…ripples, go check out today’s PhotoHunt post at tnchick.
Theo during his first day ever meeting the beach.
I couldn’t resist (re)posting this for the August Greeblepix contest, for the theme of “vacation.” (Add this one to the big heap of baby photos, beach photos and sunset photos being submitted for this theme. I’ll go up a notch and submit a baby beach sunset photo!)
This week’s PhotoHunt theme is untensils. With my history of utensil-themed posts¹, how could I resist sticking my fork into this one?²
For more people’s interpretations of the theme, go visit tnchick.com.
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¹ My utensil drawer includes photos of spoons, a list of forks and spoons, a list of knives, a utensil quiz (along with photos of giant utensil sculptures). Plus you can find “runs with spoons” and “It’s a Wonderful Knife.”
² Or in this case, my measuring spoons and potato masher.
We had a wedding to go to up in New Hampshire this weekend, and Phoebe got to be a flower girl. It was a fun trip, if largely hectic with various functions and family commitments. I’d write more about the weekend, but I’ve got some work to catch up on. I actually didn’t even bring my laptop on the trip with us, knowing how tight our schedule (and cargo space) would be.
On Sunday, one of John’s cousins invited us up to spend a bit of time with her family at a beach in Maine. So we headed up there after checking out of the hotel, and attending the last of the wedding-related gatherings.
The setting was gorgeous, and the weather was perfect.
This “summer” has been one of the coldest, rainiest ones I can remember, so it was a real treat to have warm sunshine this weekend. Now we’re back to chilly rain and thunder, the afternoon sky so dark outside the window that it makes me feel like climbing into bed. As I sit here hunched over my laptop trying to do work, I find it hard to tear myself away from the photos that tell a different story about these days of summer.
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p.s. I forgot to mention that it’s time for the Just Posts once more. If you have read or written posts on topics of social justice, send ’em in!
collecting tokens 