Checking in
Hi, I'm here
The past few weeks must have been a whirlwind, because it doesn’t feel like almost a month since I’ve shared anything. Yet my Substack dashboard sits accusingly with April 14 as the latest post date. Dutifully, here I am. In theory, this Substack is for Writing and Ruminating and Prosifying. My apologies for the fact that this one reads like a Xanga entry I would’ve written 20 years ago.
I think it is finally spring. We went to the first farmer’s market of the season and shared a delicious baguette with some new friends. The new friends have come from the local homeschool group which Victoria has thrown herself into; there are a few families we’ve seen just about weekly and we get along with well. It’s nice to feel like part of a community, swapping game and book recommendations, and planning a field trip to the planetarium later this month.
Our family scavenger Easter egg hunt, one of the traditions we do for the kids, was a week late due to schedules, but they had a blast figuring out the riddles and hunting around the house. I’ve found as they get older, I’m having more and more fun coming up with clues. Plus, making their baskets a week late meant I scored on discounted candy at the grocery store.
Corinne and I have begun Early Modern History but I’m trying to slow it down. The first two chapters are about Elizabethan England and we’ve spent awhile discussing Elizabeth, Shakespeare, Henry VIII’s wives (much beloved due to the musical SIX), and the Renaissance Faire. After we read about the English explorer Francis Drake, I pulled up a photo from our Faire trip last year of a man in costume handing my kids some sparkly gems and pointed out that he was in costume as Francis Drake. What a cool way for history to come alive!
Victoria and I spent a few days with the kids in Phoenix visiting my parents which was a lovely break from reality. Joshua couldn’t join us due to work obligations, but we want to go back as a family. And, we successfully packed in four backpacks for the whole trip! I really like taking advantage of Frontier’s deals. Besides the tight packing and long flight, both this year’s and last year's visits to Phoenix have been some of my favorite adventures.
The weather was cooler than expected, so the kids weren’t in the pool as much as they hoped, but that also meant we didn’t die of heat at the botanic gardens and we were even able to climb a mountain - though, given that we packed so light, the only shoes I had with me were my Birkenstocks, which was not the greatest for climbing. The blister scabs will disappear eventually…
And in between all that, we’ve had birthday celebrations for friends, new library hauls, playdates with neighbors in the backyard, thrift store dates, and all the mundanity of life. It’s such a happy time to be outside in Chicago; the flowers are exploding and everywhere you look is green and bright.
I’ll find my philosophical, curated voice again one of these days. It’s in me somewhere.
