Up, down, up, down, all around... that's the stuff life is made of, right? Saturday was amazing in all its sunshiney glory. Sunday, we all woke up feeling awful and miserable and all sorts of horrendous. A daylong marathon of Dinosaur Train appeased/entertained the boys, allowing Zach and me to semi-rest and try to recuperate ourselves. I had horrible visions of us spending most of our spring break sick and miserable, but thankfully the plague only lasted about a day-- by Monday we were most of the way better, and by Tuesday/yesterday D was able to go back to school and everything.
Back on an upswing, yesterday evening I went on a little road trip to Vermont with my hippie feminist SAHDad friend Jeremy (I know, he sounds pretty awesome already, right?). Another friend had told me about this Women Report from Abroad event by Dining for Women and Oxfam about success stories of foreign aid helping women and girls in developing countries. The talk itself was pretty interesting, with a couple of the interesting take-aways for me being 1) a shift in US aid from simply giving food or money to actually working with the people in the target communities in a more collaborative way and trying to solve the root causes for issues vs bandaid solutions, and 2) recognizing the need for accountability in aid work so that we can know the money is actually going where it's supposed to (eg. avoid fraud), and figuring out ways to make that happen.
So that was cool, though to be honest even better than that was the chance to have a few hours to just hang out and chat with a friend. I met Jeremy (and wife Jody, also awesome, along with their awesome kiddoes) a few weeks after we moved here last summer. Our kids hit it off, and so did we, and we've spent a lot of time together since then (indeed, there were probably some weeks in the fall when I saw more of them than I did Zach)... But it's almost always with our kids around. Which is great and fun and I love it, but as any parent knows it can be a wee bit difficult sometimes to hold a meaningful conversation when you've got your kids tugging at your legs or they're trying to smash each other with sticks or trucks, etc. So a few hours of uninterrupted adult conversation with someone whose company I greatly enjoy was, needless to say, very refreshing and quite a treat. I also got to see some Vermont countryside which would have been incredibly charming and adorable had it not been rainy and foggy and slushy. You win some, you lose some.
Then this morning Zach and I got to have a morning date, also sans kids, so that was also pretty great to spend some quality time with one of my other favorite people. We went to the King Arthur Flour bakery (my first time) and hung out enjoying some coffee/tea and yummy bread, then browsed the store and all their pretty and adorable baking goods and doodads and I wished I were more of a baker than I am. Maybe one day. I did get a scone mix that I think D will enjoy making with me, back when we would go on our Starbucks dates (we should really start that back up again...) he always loved getting their scones so hopefully will get a kick out of trying to make some ourselves.
So, the bought of illness aside, I'd say we're off to a pretty good start on our little family break here. Let's keep that going...
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