A quick breather...

...between weekends spent celebrating with friends.  Gorgeous wedding this past weekend in Connecticut, right on the Long Island Sound. 

Beautiful bride, beaming groom and two -- count 'em, TWO -- receptions, one right after the other. 

And that after a night of having the groom -- a college friend who just oozes big personality, Italian pride and serious loyalty to friendships -- all to ourselves for some great catching up and anticipation of the big day.

Such good times with people we see too rarely.

 

Holy Graphic Tees, Batman!

We missed our boy, but he spent some much-needed time with Grandma before her second knee replacement this week.  And as silly as it sounds, he actually changed in the two days we were away from him.  A little bit stronger, or at least more daring, in the wobble-walking department, and his seriously-is-this-nasty-green-snotty-nose-thing-that-keeps-him-up-at-night-two-month-cold seems to *maybe* have broken for good.  Knocking on all the wood I can find.



If he's not better, at least he's responding to the $40 cool mist humidifier recommended by Doc Baker's nurse.  Unfortunately, her other suggestion -- resurrecting the infant boogie sucker -- just won't fly with this boy, who would much rather suck on the end of the boogie sucker or heave it across the room than have it jammed up his nose.

Anyway, this weekend we look forward to tailgating and watching a Nittany Lion win in Happy Valley with an odd, yet completely exciting mish-mash of friends.  We thought it would just be six of us: Brian and I; Bill, his fraternity brother from Millersville who now lives at Penn State, and his yet-to-be-met girlfriend; and Brad and Katie, one of Brian's high school pals and his long-time girlfriend.  But then we realized that THREE of Brian's cousins may be around for the tailgate.  And as icing on the cake, my long-missed new Mama girlfriend Erin will be there, and I can't wait to catch up with her on how three-month old Nora is doing and how her much dreaded first week back at work was.

Again, knock on wood, it looks like a beautiful forecast on the weather front and on the catching-up-with-friends front.

And this weekend the Chicken will spend some sleepover time with Grammy and Dude, who missed him terribly after a long getaway at the cottage in Canada.

This, I think is as close to the perfect balance as we could get: hard days at the office that challenge and reward me more professionally than I expected in accepting this position, tempered with a record number of back-to-back, things-to-do weekends that celebrate friendships and family and relegate cleaning and chores to the back burner.  And surprisingly, I'm ok with that.

So long as the things-to-do weekends aren't hosted at my house, where people would discover and witness the dust bunnies, week-old dried out macaroni and not-quite-sure-what-that-stickyness-is sticky kitchen floors.