Deep Breath

Phew. What a week! Or should I say, what a month!

The retreat that I have been coordinating has arrived and will take place all day Sunday and Monday. It has been fun to organize, but also a lot of work.

As part of the retreat, I am providing the group with a summary of all of their culminating thoughts about their experience with our program over the past 9 months. This information was collected over the course of three weeks, in individual 60-90 minute interviews with each participant, of which there were about 20. Let's just say, trying to synthesize and then summarize this information was a challenge - not to mention that I had about 2 days total to work on it! But it was SO COOL to hear their perspectives. 

I have been IMMERSED in this program over the past month, and am amazed at what an expert I've become in such a short time. The participants are all rock star community leaders, counselors, and public health and human services professionals. It is inspiring to work among them. And it is so incredibly cool that sometimes I feel like I have to pinch myself to realize that this is really my job. And sometimes I need to pinch myself just to stay awake (!) because the work has been exhausting, too. 

Anyway, with all of the madness of work, it is nice to have a vacation on the horizon.... and so SB and I bought our tickets to Europe. We're flying into Paris on a Sunday afternoon, spending about 5 days there, spending 2 days in Brussels, and spending about 3 days in London. It has NOT hit me that I will really be seeing the following things IN PERSON in just a matter of months:

Seriously. Those are FLOWERS in the center of this square in Brussels.

Hard to top Shakespeare.

Amazing art, like The Raft of the Medusa in the Louvre. I took an art history course
in college and a reverence for renaissance masterpieces has been with me ever since. 

I can't help it - I really want to see the burial place of Jean Paul Sartre
and Simone de Beauvoir. Such an extraordinarily excellent couple.

Westminster Abbey, not to mention Notre Dame and Sainte-Chapelle.
The glorious architecture and history of these churches - very exciting.

Yep, and just drinking coffee and sitting on the street, probably
looking like a tourist but hopefully not too terribly touristy...

Mussels with fries is essentially the specialty in Belgium, and
I'm a big fan of both. Not to mention beer and chocolate.

Quick One

I'm about 20 hours into a 55 hour workweek and I am already feeling spent, so this is going to be a quick post.

First, I wanted to recommend the movie Nebraska. We watched it over the weekend and loved it. The movie mostly captures the mundaneness of reality (and incredibly well), but it is also hilarious, sad, and heartwarming. Great movie.

Also, I just finished A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway. SB and I are both suckers for his writing; there is just something about his voice - the simplicity, the coarseness, the drama, and the beauty. The book is plotless - just a series of short chapters chronicling his memories of Paris. Needless to say, reading it left me with an even greater itch to go there! A favorite passage: "But Paris was a very old city and we were young and nothing was simple there, not even poverty, nor sudden money, nor the moonlight, nor right and wrong nor the breathing of someone who lay beside you in the moonlight."

Finally - at long last I put an adorable wedding present to good use by making SB and I each a mini molton chocolate cake (with orange zest) for the Oscars. It was so fun to eat from these cute little single-serving dishes that I think mini chicken pot pies will be in order soon!

Drive

You know those days where you're going-going-going all day long, from before dawn to after dark? Somehow that has become my weekday routine. And I can't decide if the fact that it feels good means that it is healthy or if I'm some kind of masochist.

My new job is pretty great - I get to work on a variety of projects with a diverse group of people, all of which culminates in work directly impacting families and communities. That being said, my new job is a sort of maddening experience - incoming calls, emails, people stopping by my desk constantly every day, and there is truly more to do than I could ever hope to accomplish. 

I used to listen to music on headphones at my old job, to keep me focused and upbeat; these days when I put in an earbud I usually listen to two minutes of a song before being interrupted and, by the time I remember that I was listening to music, I realize that the album is done playing. Yikes.

And yet, it is invigorating. I love being busy all day at work. I kind of love jumping from project to project to project - it allows me to help a lot of people each day. There are a lot of small victories. And, as a result of this driving pace every workday, I am more regularly hitting the gym after work and pushing myself there, too. It is a way to decompress, but also to continue to feel this "thriving" feeling, for lack of a better word. It is addictive.

But is it sustainable? That remains to be seen. 

Eyes on August

It isn't as official as plane tickets, but it is official as telling my boss about it (which felt surprisingly official)... SB and I are planning to go abroad in August. (!)

As a teacher (and summer school teacher), SB essentially has one month off every year - August. Thus, it makes the most sense for me to save the majority of my vacation time each year for August; that way we can savor a bit of the summer together before he goes back to school. This year we're going to try to fit in 10 days in Europe. Next year we'll be restoring our pocketbooks, so it will be more like a local camping trip... but until then...we're brushing up on our French.

Here is our general itinerary...

Brussels - SB spent a semester there in college.
This photo shows a "carpet of flowers" that will be in bloom in August!

Paris

London

I really wanted to get to Barcelona or to Rome or Munich on this trip, but we have limited time and budget. C'est la vie. Maybe for our 10 year wedding anniversary... ;)