Archives - Weekly Update

For five days in January, life in my house takes a celebratory route as both of my sons mark their birthdays. Today Greg turns 21, and Cory turned 16 last Sunday. I took Greg to lunch today (he ordered a martini with olives, making me feel like I was in an episode of "Mad Men," and I asked the waiter to please "proof him") before driving him to the airport, as he is flying to California to meet friends to continue his celebration aboard the Queen Mary in Long Beach. I love that he figured out how to make this momentous birthday special --- and applaud his efforts to extend the marking of this day by three extra hours by spending it on the West Coast. Bravo! Cory celebrated with his good friends, who we call son 2A and son 2B, both of whom keep things hopping.

Just for the record, I am a tad bored with the colors white and gray that I see outside my window. I would prefer blue and green with streaming sunlight. Since that does not look like it’s going to happen any time soon, I am brightening my days with reading.

For my trip to the American Library Association Midwinter Meeting in San Diego, I had great travel karma. I slipped out and back between snowstorms, and given the weather these past few weeks, I feel like I won some version of the weather lottery. The flights right after mine were cancelled going both ways. Flying over the country, it was amazing how much white was on the ground below. I have to say the Rockies looked stupendous, and I wish I had time for skiing. That said, I know the snow has made life miserable for many of you and has thrust real inconvenience to scheduling on many levels along the way. My sister lives in Atlanta, and her description of the icy roads there was terrifying.

After a nice break, we are back and wish you a great 2011!

It was a really lovely holiday this year. We saw six inches of snow on the Outer Banks, which made me look out the window more than once and wonder if we were in Colorado or at the beach. Snow there is a rare occurrence, and it gave us some nice photo ops as well as a chance to drive in the snow on the 4x4 beach. I had held up my snow boots the day I was leaving and thought I wouldn't be needing those at the beach. How wrong I was! My younger son had not brought gloves, thus fun in the snow was confined to snow angels outside the hot tub and melting snow in the hot water as we scraped it from the cover.