We love Boston too much!

Our friends from Congo always add "too much" to the end of what they say, and it always makes us smile. i.e., "we like you too much"...I think it's a bit of a lost in translation thing, but its so cute that we don't want to correct them!
Anyway, the way I feel about Boston right now, is that we love it too much!
I think we forget about how many friends we still have here until we are here...and then we are sad that we are only here for a handful of days and can't possibly see everyone, especially since planning to spend time with someone here requires at least planning two weeks out...not same day, or even same week, as tends to be our habit.
It's been wonderful seeing who've been able to see, walking around (umbrellas in hand, just in case it rains), riding the T, and reminiscing about our days of dating...
Tomorrow we are heading to the south shore to hang out with a neat family we met about a year ago via Ryanhood...they just got back from touring around the world with their kids on bikes...I'm sure we'll have lots of stories to share from our time with them!

Happy Memorial Day!

It was quite an enjoyable Memorial Day here in Boston!!
8:30am: Woke-up!
9:00am: Took our friend's dog for a run around Fresh Pond
10:15am: Sat in the backyard to eat breakfast--homemade granola and strawberries with yogurt
11:00am: took shower
11:30am: sat in backyard and read World Without End by Ken Follett
2:00pm: walked with Lisa to check out her friend's glass studio
3:30pm: sat in backyard and read World Without End
4:30pm: Walked to Harvard Square to listen to the campfire rounds at Club Passim (our favorite little folk listening room in Cambridge that has a music festival called campfire every year on Memorial and Labor Day weekends)
7:00pm: Walked to the Charles River and sat down in the grass and read World Without End (it's a really long book...and I'm soo close to finally being done!...no more 1,000+ page books for a while...there are too many other books I'm eager to read!)
8:00pm: Walked "home" to Porter Square
9:30pm: Ryan arrived in town!!
10:00pm: went for a walk around Cambridge with Ryan

I have that nice refreshed and tired from so much good fresh air feeling to go to bed with...good night!

Conferencing...

I'm in Boston this week for the annual Child Life Conference. Even though I'm not currently practicing Child Life, I want to maintain my certification in case there is a point later in life when I do want to practice again. Today was Day 1 of the conference, and I loved it! Part of me is ready to jump back into the field with two feet...I feel so blessed to have found a field that I am totally passionate about! BUT, I'm even more passionate about my husband, so for now my feet will only be jumping into a tour van, where we can spend our time together instead of months apart at a time. The great thing about Child Life, is that a lot of the things I'm learning at this conference I can apply to when I have kids someday...so I'm just getting my bag of tricks ready. :) My two workshops today were: 1.) Play: An Endangered Species? and 2.)Sibling Voices: What Siblings Want to Know. The lecturer for the Play session was one of my professors from Wheelock, she is well-versed in the importance of play and has spent a lot of time researching how media (tv, video games, computers) hinder child's play...as well as to how it adds to violence and a desire to be "sexy" at a very young age. Every year she puts out a guide to help parents decipher healthy vs. unhealthy toys.
My second session was led by the team that I worked at Children's Hospital with on the Oncology Floor. My favorite part of this session was listening to a panel of mothers and siblings talk about what was helpful and unhelpful for them while their family member was receiving care. A common thread was to be recognized as their own person as opposed to "the sibling". To be referred to by name. To be asked how they are doing, and not "how is your sibling doing", etc. It was very helpful to hear them speak out so candidly.

Tomorrow is Day 2. My sessions are:
1.) Beyond Basics: Working with the Children of Adult Patients
2.) Listen Carefully: What Patients with Developmental Disabilities and Their Families Can Teach Us
3.) Eating Disorders: Feeding Self-Esteem

And on Sunday...
1.) Ten Ways to Support Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders While They Receive Care in Your Hospital

Lots of great stuff ahead...including a reunion dinner tomorrow night with my Wheelock girls! :)

Feels like home

I'm in Boston for the week, and it all feels just like "home"! I loved walking out of the airport with my backpack waiting for the Silver Line to take me to South Station to transfer to the Red Line. I love how people are so eager to welcome the warm weather (91 degrees yesterday!) with sun dresses and standing outside the bars instead of inside. I love the familiarity of the breeze blowing while walking "home" for the night. I love the conversation I have with people (both friends and strangers). I love being handed a metro as I entered Porter Station this morning. I just love this city! (And, I'm so glad Ryan does too!)

Grapefruit just got better!

A great thing about spring in Arizona, is that the citrus is in mass abundance! Last week at work I was given about 30 lemons...so we have been drinking lots and lots of lemon water around our house! And then this morning where I'm dogsitting I noticed that the grapefruit tree is lush with fruit! It's also a tad overgrown, so you can't actually see any of the fruit on the tree in this photo...

AND, at the house they also have GRAPEFRUIT spoons with cerated edges so you don't have to do the oh so patient task of cutting out each triangle of fruit! Genius!

I've been awake for how long??

I woke up this morning at 4:40am to go running with a group of friends from church. It is now 12:52pm, thus I have been awake for over 8 hours already today! A nap is definitely in store for this afternoon.

I was quite hesitant to run with this group since it is not like me to wake up before 6am, let alone before 5am. But with the temperatures getting hotter and hotter, I decided that I might as well give it a try since my 8am run yesterday was less than enjoyable in the already 90degree heat. And, what do you know...I LOVED it! There were 4 of us who showed up, and it was a great run...only 68degrees! It was so peaceful to be up before the rush of life, and also to get to see the sunrise over the east mountains.

Here is a photo from when I made it back "home" (I'm dogsitting right now).

And..the doggies (Lilly and Stanley)...

Happy Mother's Day!

This year we decided to celebrate Mother's Day by giving something to our moms that they taught us to love! For my mom, it was the coasters as seen in recent previous post--she taught me how to sew! and a package of wildflower seeds because she's also taught me to love digging my hands in the dirt!
And for Lori and Grammie, we gave them tickets to see Carnivelaros at Tohono Chul Park! They are a fun Tucson band comprised of an accordian, baritone saxophone, mandolin, electric guitar, drums and bass(our friend Chris plays bass for them). Both Lori and Grammie have had a significant impact on Ryan's love for music. Grammie bought Ryan his first guitar, and Lori loves to sing and be around music as much as she can.
It was a wonderful evening of dinner, music, and of course lots of laughter.

Ryan, Lori and Grammie down the row...

Melissa and Dominic...with ear protection of course!

Cleaning Calendar!

Melissa introduced me to this "Justmommies Cleaning Calendar" a month or so ago. I got really excited about it right away because with work I felt like I never had time to clean the house and needed something that just gave me small daily tasks such as this. Well, obviously cleaning didn't go so well for me with working and Ryan gone (please refer to previous post for pictures of proof). But, now that I have a little more time on my hands I printed it out this morning, and I'm super excited about it. With their suggestion I may clean places of the house that have literally never been cleaned before! (Although, I'm stopping at the dishwasher, I'm convinced that this should be self-cleaning if it has gallons of hot soapy water flowing throughout it cleaning and sanitizing my dishes!). Another nice aspect about the calendar is that I don't feel like I need to clean the whole house at once...just a little each day. Today's tasks: clean refrigerator and microwave.

*To view the calendar using the hyperlink above, scroll 1/2 way down the page, below the blue box, where it has the months listed out...click on the month you want, and it will open in either adobe or preview.

Sunset on Blackett's Ridge!

On Friday night my friend Meg and I hiked Blackett's Ridge in Sabino Canyon at sunset. It was a gorgeous hike with the saguaros just getting ready to bloom, the sun setting beautifully in the west, as the full moon rose over the east mountains! The light of the moon was bright enough to light the trail for us the entire way down (although I did turn on the flash light a few times to assure that it was a root instead of a rattlesnake on the path). It's pretty amazing to have such wonderful adventures so close to home, and wonderful friends to share them with! I'm glad that I'm spending more time in the outdoor beauty of Tucson and falling more and more in love with "home".

Home Sweet Home!

I don't know how it always seems to happen, but when Ryan is gone for several days at a time...I tend to allow our house to get a little out of hand. I laughed when I stopped to really look at the kitchen counter the other day before I decided it was time to clean up a little before my man returned home...

I don't know if you can see it in the photo, but my wallet is in a bowl that has crusted yogurt in it from leaving it in the car after eating breakfast on my drive to work. My shoes are on the counter, along with my work clothes, mail from the past several days, and who knows what else.

While Ryan was up in the White Mountains, I did get a little craftin' in!
Coasters for my mom's belated birthday...

A mother's bracelet that Ryan's aunt special ordered...


Ryan was only gone for 2 days this past time, but I still missed him like crazy! Have no fear though, we got down to playing a game of scrabble as soon as he returned...while having a listening party to the new St. Vincent record that is. :)



Summer is officially here in Tucson...it has been 100+ for the past 4 days and shows no sign of cooling off. One positive thing that comes along with that (and the dry heat), is that I can even hang my laundry out to dry at night and its still dry in less than an hour!

Here comes the bride!

Last weekend we got to go to our friends Katie and Steve's wedding at The Tucson Botanical Gardens! Ryan and Katie have been friends from middle school, and she and Steve now live in NYC. They are a wonderful couple that pour out so much love onto other people...I'm so excited for them and this new stage of their relationship!


My favorite garden within the Botanical Gardens is just on the otherside of that brick wall...wish I would've gotten a photo of it!

Of course you gotta have mariachi music at any event in Tucson!

Last Day for the Cafe!

Today was the last day the cafe was open to the public. Next week we'll go in for a couple of cleaning days. As much as I'm looking forward to sleeping in a little bit later and spending some more time at home, I'm really going to miss working with the trainees. It is such a unique community of people...some are homeless, some have a great sense of humor, some are illiterate, some are very serious, some are developmentally delayed, all have mental illness and are extremely hard workers...both in the cafe and in their recovery work. They are such an honest community to be apart of, I just love it.

(please note that we were just having fun with wearing our hairnets that way! :)

Kindergartners rockin' out!

Well, no Ryanhood on The Ellen Show today...but, they did get to learn some pretty great dance moves from a group of Kindergartners that they played for at Rachel's school! The show was for K-8, but it was the Kindergartners who knew how to break it down in the front row...without any cues...they just wiggled their little tooshes and played their air guitars, it was fantastic!

I had a nice relaxing day off! I spent the morning doing yardwork, and then got back into a little jewelry making this evening. I love the work I get to do with Cafe 54, but I'm also really looking forward to some time off to work on other things that involve my creative juices. My last day at the Cafe will be next week, when they close for the summer (it's too hot to sit outside to eat here in the summer..imagine that Michiganders!). :)

Ellen Update...

Sooo....Ryan got several emails and then a PHONE CALL from The Ellen Show today!! No guarantees yet, but their youtube video of them singing "Oh Ellen" may air on Monday's episode of Ellen! And they also said they'd like to have Ryanhood on the show before the end of the season (4 weeks away) if possible! If I watched TV (other than our dvd series of Little House on the Prairie), I have to admit that I'd be a regular Ellen viewer...I think she's hilarious. So, the thought of Ryanhood being on there is very VERY exciting for me. I asked Ryan to ensure I could be in the audience for any taping that they may do, and he informed me that he already told the interviewer that I'm a huge Ellen fan...I'm just praying that she doesn't make me dance...I have serious stage fright...although Lori did get me a book for Christmas that shows you how to do everything from changing a light bulb to doing the worm..maybe I should resume practice on my worm dance skills.

Should you also choose to learn how to do the worm...here is a good youtube tutorial...