Happy summer!

(photo from my sister!)

We took a break from packing last night to walk over to Brooklyn Heights one last time. We had dinner at Jack the Horse Tavern (a serious favorite of mine -- the smoked trout salad is insanely good!) and then walked along the promenade. 

Speaking of breaks: the last few years I've taken a few weeks off from posting while in Brazil and then Hawaii. While we aren't going anywhere very exotic this year, we do have engagements and weddings to celebrate, cute babies to snuggle and beach days to enjoy. Posting will likely be light (if at all) until about mid-August.

Wishing you a very happy few weeks of summer! Hopefully there will be lots of sun and sand and gin involved :)

Something enviable

"You don't weep unless you've been happy first; tears always mean something enviable."

- Graham Greene 

The tears came for the first time two weeks ago. I had actually started to wonder if they would come at all because I'm so excited about our upcoming move. But we were hurrying out to meet someone to pick up a giant pile of moving boxes, and it made me impossibly sad to think about packing our things away.

Instead of walking out the door, I sat on the bed. I started crying and told Peter we'd never have any friends in Boston, and why are we doing this again? I tend to fall down hard on the friend excuse, though I know we already have friends there, and family, too. But it felt like a tangible thing to be upset about, versus the actual fuzzy conflicted sadness I have about leaving our life here. Our life that is so lovely, it feels very bratty to want to turn away from it for the hope of something better.

The thing is though, the hope is that it will be better for us, not better better.

This weekend we are packing up the rest of the apartment, and maybe trying to fit in one or two more things from the list. But there has been so much happiness here, I think more tears are coming.

Pretend shopping: Beach day

Last night around 11:00 PM, I decided it was the perfect time to fill up a bowl with soapy water and start cleaning the radiators with an old tooth brush. Peter was like, "Darling dearest, do you maybe you want to tackle this one another time?!" No time like the present, honey pie!

Moving is making me extra crazy.

Peter sent me a list of the best beaches in Massachusetts this morning, and I'm so excited to visit a few this summer. Unless you'd like to read about my strategies for minimizing the amount of bubble wrap we use to pack up breakables, I think we should do a little pretend beach shopping this afternoon, what do you say?

1. Blueridge backpack beach chair.
2. Floral beach towel - water color.
3. Embroidered gauze swim cover up.
4. Turn Right at Machu Picchu by Mark Adams. Other great adventure reads found on this NPR list.
5. Salt water sandal, shiny yellow.
6. Haribo Happy Cola gummies.

It was impressive

Last night we headed to the west side of Manhattan and sat on a blanket playing cards and Trivial Pursuit with friends, waiting for the show to start. The sky went from yellow to tan to hot pink before it started getting dark.

One of the reasons we decided to get married near the Fourth of July was because anniversary celebrations would always involve fireworks. I love fireworks. But last night, the crowd we were surrounded by was ooh-ing and ahh-ing so much, Peter said that I might not have been the most enthusiastic viewer. I was being matched by these people!

While everyone was calling out their favorites and chatting about awesome new shapes, I felt strangely proud to be in a large group of people that allowed themselves to get so excited. They gave themselves full permission to be impressed.

It's so easy to just slog through, ignoring all the magical stuff, or pretending it wasn't actually all that cool after all. Fireworks aren't going to be blasting off over the water every night, but I think I'd like to live my life like they are a bit more often.

Happy Fourth of July!

Happy Fourth of July weekend, everyone! We are going to the Berkshires tonight for the James Taylor concert at Tanglewood, and heading back to NYC later this weekend for our fancy dinner and to watch fireworks over the Hudson.

Hope you all have fantastic long weekends with lots of hot dogs and margaritas and fireworks!

P.S. Thank you all so much for your sweet well-wishes for our first anniversary this week. You are the best :)