Welcome to June! Please Postpone Your Panic; I'm Too Busy.

1. Was it only a week ago I was preparing to leave the house for 48 hours to attend a family wedding in North Jersey? That seems ages ago. I've done scads of stuff since then.

The wedding was absolutely beautiful but the best part was seeing my cousins, who I love dearly, and their kids and catching up on each other's lives. We are all spread out (New York, Fresno, Boston, D.C., although the largest contingent is in the Bay Area in CA, which now includes my youngest brother and his family) but I never tire of spending time with them. My cousins are awesome and their kids are turning out to be really great people. Family is the best!

My hydrangea is just starting to bloom, which means I have to pour enormous amounts of water on it every morning, but it's worth it:

2. Even though I did everything I could to make the weekend at home go smoothly for Alex, he did not appreciate being handed off to a babysitter for 24 hours or that Mommy was away for 48. He wasn't nice to the sitter, he was upset when Marshall returned Sunday night and really upset with me when I returned Monday afternoon. Poor boy; we all hate change.

On a happy note, my callas are in full bloom, so we were able to take a vase full of them to school yesterday afternoon to present to Mrs. Garrett, who is Alex's full-time aide whenever he's outside of his anchor class. She's been working with him for 2 years and an absolute angel; we adore her and wanted her to know how much we appreciate her efforts.

3. Alex isn't smiling wide enough in this picture to show how he lost one of his top teeth this week. I need to get a better picture of him later this weekend. Anyway, he won, from the "tooth fairy," a Pig King plush toy. Miranda, helpful girl that she is, set it up in the castle Alex brought home earlier in the week from Art class:

4. My last MOPS meeting was Tuesday morning. Part of the reason we rushed home Monday (the other was to beat the traffic on the Turnpike) was so that I could bake individual pans of chocolate chip oatmeal bars as gifts for the ladies at my table as well as the women who've been corralling Miranda with the other 5 year old's all year long. It's a tricky recipe from the Campus By the Sea cookbook that was difficult to bake in small, individual pans. I'm hoping I'll get better at it in the weeks to come since this is what I'm making for all the teachers and aides at school and church.

Anyway, it was a lovely meeting and I was able to get up and say, with tears in my voice, what a God-send this MOPS group has been to me for the last 6 years. God has honored the efforts of every leadership team and been honored at every meeting. I'm sure I rambled a bit, (I had meant to write up my remarks ahead of time, but got busy with the weekend planning) but I was careful to give God the glory and bless, in the name of Jesus, the continuing efforts of these women, and that's really what mattered most.

As a "graduating" mom, I was given flowers by the mentor moms at my table, Barbara Randazzo and Peg Montgomery. They are really lovely:

5. I do a lot of surfing between running from here and there (or between laundry loads; I lost count of how many I did on Wednesday, but it was an all day affair) and have been following a couple of interesting writing series online.

Drew McWeeny, who used to write as Moriarty for Ain't It Cool News (which I loved and miss his contributions on the site) and now has his own site, HitFix, is doing a fascinating revisit of all the James Bond films and books. You can start with his first entry here.

I also read The Guardian regularly, mostly to keep up on UK television shows, and have really enjoyed Natalie Haynes Guide to TV detectives. It makes me wonder if I shouldn't find Magnum, P.I., on DVD somewhere. (Short break while I log in to the library and request the DVD box set for season 1!)

And here's some more callas for you:

I love it when one of the flowers "blends into" one of the leaves and makes them both beautiful.

6. Made more progress on Celestial Dragon this week, slowly but surely with only a little frogging (yet another reminder to avoid stitching when you're too tired to count). Here's your progress pic:

That tiny little stitching in the middle of the square, that would be one-over-one. (Here's a diagram; not the best, but it will give you an idea of what I mean). Ugh. By the time I finish this square and all the half-stitches, I'm going to be relieved to return to the dragon body and all the sparklies. Or not.

7. Tonight I'm going to see Men in Black III with my mom and my mother-in-law. It should be fun! Sometime in the next week Marshall and I hope to see Snow White & the Huntsman. And I still need to see The Avengers again. Oh, and the first trailer for Les Miz hit this week; it looks awesome!

I really need to go mow the lawn before it gets hotter outside.

Here's Jen. And a few more flowers for you, Asiatic lilies.