the week has flown by in a series of challenges and trials: emma got sick at school and has been battling an energy-stealing flu-ish thing for three days (did you know that a bowl of upchucked strawberries looks just like strawberry puree? and that teaching your child to throw up into a bowl will be a lesson you never regret? oh man….sorry, tmi…), i spent 3 hours at the hospital yesterday getting an MRI (looking for some Crohn’s activity; won’t know results until Monday), our bathroom sprung a leak and warped/flooded the wood floor in the bedroom, my houseplant – the only one i’ve ever kept alive for any amount of time – is looking pale and sad, and we’re all low on sleep and quiet-time.

BUT!
we did take advantage of the unseasonable warmth with a trip to the beach, which filled my spirit up just enough to smile through the rest of the week.

i have a lot of things swirling about in my head, like how i have a pathologically hard time responding to compliments, and how much i love this dress and this necklace, and how i’d really like to write a book, and how much i really want to take a long weekend in cape cod and a week at mom & dad’s sometime soon, and how i also really really need to get my passport updated because i’d like to leave on a jet plane for someplace i’ve never been, and how much i dread going without my camera for the next week while it’s getting a check-up, but how i will not/cannot (even though i really would love to) go out and buy an upgrade-camera in the meantime, but instead will really really try to take some non-camera time and clean out the closets this weekend…

back later with some lists. hope your friday is brilliant.

. . .

after we had played in the sand a bit and established the beach “ground rules” (i wasn’t sure how it would be with two little ones + one adult at the beach, but they were great!), we decided to move closer to the water. a few steps into the run, emma stopped, and screamed “Ahhhh!!!!! A dinosaur!!!”

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turns out, she wasn’t kidding: