Archives - Weekly Update

Peonies are my favorite flowers. I have four bushes of them at the house, and they typically come out the week of the Book Expo America (BEA) conference, so I get to see them maybe for a day or two. By the time I get back they are usually just massive clumps of petals on the ground. This weekend the weather at the house was glorious, and the peonies went from buds to full blossoms like they were on steroids. I cut a few lush flowers and put them in a vase and plopped that on my desk in New York, then moved it to the hotel in the city where I am staying. At least I can enjoy some peonies since I know rain, cold and wind will scatter the petals by Sunday afternoon. Between those and the lilacs, the weekend did smell lovely.

Well this week sure zipped by. There could not have been 24 hours in each of these last seven days. The house is quieter than usual today. My older son flew across the pond to merry old England to visit friends and "unwind from his year at school." Be amused at the last phrase; I am too. He is sailing back on the Queen Mary 2 in a few weeks where he and a friend are sharing a budget-minded inside cabin. Amazing how "inside cabin" is just fine when HE is paying. He has this trip planned to precision detail and is doing it for remarkably little money since he researched EVERY deal. He gets an A in vacation planning. My husband is at a college reunion with his friends where they are reliving their happy years at Lehigh. So it’s my younger son and me. I am tossing out endless suggestions for mother/son bonding time. He is looking at me like I am daft with all this enthusiasm.

Remember back in September when my son went off to college and I wrote how much “stuff” we moved to school? Well, it's now all back at the house --- and I feel like it arrived back here in a heartbeat! Yes, last night in an act that I think should solidify Mother's Day as a bonafide weeklong holiday, I drove over to the campus from the office, opened the back of my car, and in went boxes and boxes of dishes, pots, pans, clothes and computer/stereo equipment. And the paper shredder he inherited from his roommate who is not returning next fall, which was taking things full circle since his roommate’s mom picked that up the first day of school when we did some last-minute shopping together.