Gratitude Post, 6 of 12

After last summer's big trip, Scott and I wanted to head somewhere low-key this year for summer vacation. Knowing this would be our last trip pre-baby, we also wanted somewhere different where we'd have the feeling of exploring a new place.

For my 6th gratitide post this year, I am grateful for our July trip to Cape Cod. The weather was perfect, our hosts were gracious, the scenery was beautiful, and the food was fabulous. All in all, it was one of the best vacations we've had together, and I can't wait to take Jude back one day!

I was unsure about how it would be traveling when I was 27 weeks pregnant, but everything was perfect. The weather was about 20 degrees cooler than it was here in Atlanta, so that helped my energy level considerably, and our decision to spend the Fourth of July in Hyannis made for such a memorable experience. I am grateful for the opportunity to see some New England coast and enjoy time together before our little family gets a lot bigger!

A view of Nantucket from the top of the Whaling Museum

Scott and me in Nantucket

The Fourth of July Parade on Main Street in Hyannis

Me - 27 weeks pregnant and in front of the Grist Mill in Sandwich, MA

Boats on the coast of Provincetown

The boardwalk at Yarmouthport

Scott and me at the Hyannis Harbor, stuffed with yummy seafood

Good to be home?

We have been back from Europe for 5 days but it feels like years. So much going on and too long to explain. Let's just say I wanted to feel peaceful and cozy when I returned home but it has been anything but that. Why does everything seem to happen at once?

I start back to school in 10 days, and I can't believe I am saying this but I almost want to start back just to get my mind off the super-stressful business that has been occupying my time and energy these days. I am trying various approaches to bring peace of mind to myself, and so far early morning grocery shopping is the only thing that works. I can't even read these days.

Oh well. Let's not dwell on unhappy things. I will instead focus on that 16-day-long oasis from craziness. From now on, I will try to imagine myself back to .......

T.S. Eliot's footsteps in the reading room in the British Museum.....

the beautiful stained glass in King's College Chapel....

Cambridge, England - my favorite place on Earth.....

The Trinity College courtyard on a cloudy Sunday afternoon.....

a punt along the River Cam.....

the beautiful Roman Baths....

Where else can you be this happy in the pouring rain?

or maybe the quays of the River Seine....

or the lending library of Shakespeare & Company Books....

a stomach full of French food and an evening stroll in front of the Eiffel Tower....

the quaint canalside lanes of Bruges, Belgium....

Belgian countryside.....

the busy energy of Dam Square ...

the canals of Amsterdam....

Our trip was lovely, and I have so much to reflect on. Reflection will come, but for now, I don't have the energy or the time. I begin school in 10 days and I have a 700-page summer reading book to complete and a sudden lack of concentration ability - such a bad combination. As I've mentioned already, my mental and physical energy is being pulled a million directions at the moment. ....A death in my family, small issues that are unnecessarily being made bigger... and I am saddened by the news that a college friend of mine has been widowed far too early. Her pain is beyond my comprehension.

I'm thinking of her and everything else that is going wrong at that moment, but I am trying to focus on the positive. 10 more precious days of summer.

Bonjour!

I wanted to update more often, but I have been doing all of my "computering" with the occasional free wifi on my iPhone.

We are in Belgium now. This picture was taken with my phone last night after a fabulous French meal. Paris was great! Five more nights in Europe - 2 in Bruges and then on to Amsterdam for the final leg of the trip.

Here, There, Everywhere.....

Wow. This blog is seriously suffering. I certainly have not placed this as a priority in quite some time - as evidenced with these massive gaps in posting. One of the reasons I love keeping a blog is to look back at it and see what I was doing, thinking, feeling at that moment, but when I post every 6+ weeks, it's not really reflective of that so I need to shape it up around here.

Let's see? A recap of summer thus far? Well, it began beautifully with a fabulous book discussion on one of my favorite books of all time. I met a college preofessor and a few English major nerds for brunch to discuss this book for my professor's special study on southern women reading southern lit. She recorded our conversation, and it was a good one. Visiting Ivy Rowe through the pages of Fair and Tender Ladies is like seeing an old friend. I have much more to say, but I am going to devote all of that to its own post later this week. I SWEAR.

After that, I went to yearbook camp - woo hoo. And then I had a nice long weekend with some college gals whom I don't see nearly enough of.

Here we are about 8 years ago:

And here we are last weekend in Seaside, Florida:

Funny how some things have changed and others......not so much. It was great ladies, and we better not wait so long next time. [The story behind that picture is actually funny. We were trying to get a picture with the camera timer, and some guy walked by and said he'd take it for us. We said "sure" but then I forgot to turn off the timer feature so he was just holding it awkwardly for ten long seconds - which is why we are laughing. It was weird...not to mention that he was walking on a dark beach all alone with a cigar. Odd.]


Aside from all of this, I managed to finish Belong to Me which was a great summer read - not too heavy but not entirely fluffy either. I came to really like the characters by the end of it. Now I am diving into Norwegian Wood which has begun fabulously and I am fighting the urge to sit here and read it when I finish this post instead of go to the gym like I need to.


In addition to all of these lovely novels, what have I been reading? Oh, just a few guidebooks for a little trip we are taking. Only one short week from now, I'll be gazing at these sights to name a few......

or maybe this......

then this ....

and finally this.....

London, Paris, Bruges, and Amsterdam!

Yipee. I am so excited and I'd love to know suggestions on food, cafes, sights, whatever.

We leave in 7 days.

So. Much. To. Do. It's a big summer.

Get Me Out of Here

So when I spent the summer of 2001 in England, I discovered Grantchester Orchard. It's a hike from Cambridge. (Literally, you have to walk there on foot through pastures.) When you complete the journey, though, you end up here.



Full trees, quaint tables, and a little stand that sells tea and scones. What could be more pleasant? Good tea, delicious scones and cream, and a good book. If heaven doesn't feel like this, I'm not interested.


Rupert Brooke immortalized this place in his famous poem "The Old Vicarage, Grantchester."

And clever modern men have seen
A Faun a-peeping through the green,
And felt the Classics were not dead,
To glimpse a Naiad's reedy head,
Or hear the Goat-foot piping low: . . .
But these are things I do not know.
I only know that you may lie
Day long and watch the Cambridge sky,
And, flower-lulled in sleepy grass,
Hear the cool lapse of hours pass,
Until the centuries blend and blur
In Grantchester, in Grantchester. . . .


Now each time I read Rupert Brooke (even if it's another poem), I always remember the breeze through the trees and the beautiful simplicity of an afternoon at Grantchester Orchard.


Today we read "The Soldier" in my British Lit class. You know the one; "If I should die, think only this of me: / That there's some corner of a foreign field / That is for ever England." Gaining a force of its own, it can move any English major to tears...or at least give you chills and remind you, "This is why I read!"


I am reading it aloud to my class of sleepy seniors when I hear a loud slurping from my right. One culprit and his morning milkshake are to blame. The class snickered a bit and I glared. When he clulessly said, "What?" I explained that he was managing to "slowly slurp every last ounce of litereray passion from my soul."


Oh that I had a time machine! I'd be 20 years old again with no students and no papers and no bills and no responsibilities. I'd be sipping tea beaneath the orchard trees this very second.