Last week and this...

This is what a lot of last week looked like.  I think some of it was Eliza catching up from her trip to Texas (want to see some awesome pictures?? Our dearest friend Tokarz has posted them on her new blog, Cold Coffee - there's a link in the side bar...), some of it was fighting off a mild dizzying, achey virus, some of it was hating how cold it is here, when it was so nice there...a sort of post-vacation blues, I guess.

Ani was pretty willing to go along with the listen-to-stories-till-your-ears-fall-off mode of things, as she was still recovering from her own illness. We were a pretty quiet bunch.

This week started that way as well, with an extra layer of General Funk, and I wasn't quite sure how to help us navigate through it.  My skin is thin right now, and I'm to the bottom of my barrel of resources - or at least, that is how it feels, until the miracles of friendship and community and  nature all show up to remind me that the bottom is actually so much further away, and I just need to lift my head. Or ask for help.  So, Monday, we sent Ani - full of energy and longing for her friend Ari - out to Turtle Hill Farm for a sleepover; Eliza and I had a much-needed day together, laughing, talking, and just hanging out with each other.  It was actually amazing; bedtime tends to be a rough time for this girl.  All of the aches and pains of the day surface, and added to the litany of "my ___ hurts, Mama" there sometimes are tears.  It's been this way almost always, to varying degrees, but lately, with growing pains, sickness, missings, longings, and the added family stress that inevitably filters down through us all, it seems to be harder.  But on Monday, after such a day of connecting, there was peace. It was remarkable.

Tuesday we got out to Turtle Hill ourselves, to pick up Ani, but first to go for a long hike in their woods...it was so beautiful.

my first Spring Beauty of the year!

One of the first spring mushrooms - Scarlet Cup

The first hepatica of the year! I take photos of the same flowers every spring (if you don't believe, me, look in the archives; it's true.), but this spring feels so welcome, so deserved, as we actually had a winter, that it's like photographing a friend I haven't seen in so long...This whole hike was like that, finding proof - crawdads! water striders! spring wildflowers! - that the seasons are changing.