The Oregon Coast...

Did I mention it was beautiful?

rainy... haily... cold... windy... but hauntingly, mournfully beautiful.

Adventuring...

These last months have been full up of time spent with good people in their beautiful spaces.

Through the early months of the year I was here at home with mom and dad and junebug, trying to gracefully weather winter... doing lots of experimental cooking, walking in the arboretum when temperatures allowed... bemoaning the days when they didn't... drinking tea, lots and lots of tea.

I took the train west to Macomb and had a fun weekend with Jesse, Olivia and Benjamin... though very uncharacteristically, I managed not to take me camera out the whole time... rats.

A symposium on campus mid-February brought many good people to us-- Uncle jonathan and aunt Eileen... more Barnetts than could be counted on ones hands... Samm, Mwenda and co... One evening we went down to the Rasdashan for the best Ethiopian in town. (Notice: the gleaming plate, which just minutes before was full of yummy Ethiopian deliciousness...)

Between here there and everywhere I spent a what felt like many hours in ORD, KCI, DEN, SEA, MSO, GEG (Name that airport...!) (One day I will make an extensive list of every airport ever flown through in my life time. That will be impressive.)
I spent a week in Kansas in early March for Zephyrs 1st birthday. It was a grand weekend with lots more good people... complete with cupcakes, dogs, MORE tea, dopple alts at the Freestate, and an out-of-the-blue snow storm that dropped 8 inches of snow in one day. The following day it was back up in the 60s and the snow all melted away. Pretty impressive.

Look at these darling Afghan ladies mapping out the fruit trees! Or wait, never mind, just some crazy Barnett sisters under cover...)
Mom, Martha, Eileen, Skyler and Annie looking on...
Zephyr- the birthday boy in his watotoes and Osh Kosh B'goshes! Yeah stylin' kiddo... and his wonderful mom and dad...
Oh yes, and a special day spent with Raha while Lucia made her way, fist-first into the world... You can do it la Luce! And RITA... :)
Annie and the Skyman...
Then it was on to Missoula for three weeks with Kara...
... and Allison (and more snow)
... and Britta and Beth
... and cousins Lindsay and Corin and Seth and Tim... again, how did I not get a photo?

One weekend Kara and I decided to make a rainy, haily pilgrimage to the Oregon coast. Ah its quite a tale where just about everything that could have gone wrong did... from rain and hail, to flat tires, to more hail on our heads while we fixed flat tires... to 'camping' that never was due to wind, rain and hail... to funky little hotel/motel deals and sketchy motel men... and long drives with no rest stops... ahhh... all in 24 hours... someday I'll regale you in full color... someday. But Oregon was stunningly beautiful, even in the rain. And hail. And Portland seems a city well worth further exploration, once I get some m'self some skinny jeans, black flats, funky glasses and super straight swooped-to-the-side hair do... (On the hip scale, I think Portland might be off the charts. Or it thinks itself off the charts at any rate.)

(Below we are huddled in the car- reading out loud to one another as we waited for the elements to back off long enough to set up camp. As previously noted, this never happened.)

A forest nymph in the misty Oregon mountains...

Now I am back in this warmer booming, blooming land of Illinois... tomorrow I/we head down to Indiana and then up to Wisconsin for a bit of a robinson-rendezvousing... And next week I head east and then south... for MORE galavanting with MORE good good people! YEEE-HAW!

These months- while topsy turvy in so many ways... have been full up with all these fantastic people and these breathtakingly beautiful places... and I just feel remarkably lucky right now.

Let mystery have its place in you; do not be always turning up your whole soil with the ploughshare of self-examination, but leave a little fallow corner in your heart ready for any seed the winds may bring.

Henri Frederic Amiel

In 24 short hours....

Yesterday:

I was walking in the Rattlesnake with Allison, getting soggier and colder as it snowed and snowed and snowed. Gorgeous, yes, but SNOW... in APRIL...?? Ah Montana. (yes, it has been known to snow in there in June I'm told...)
Today:

I was greeted with warm, balmy breezes and sunshine in Illinois... here I am barefoot, barearmed, examining the state of the flowers with my grandma. And drinking tea on the porch swing with my parents. BASKING in sweet, glorious warmth...

Not sure I know how to mentally or physically cope with the two realities in such a short space of time... I may be a bit off kilter for the next week or so. So don't mind me.