Oh sweet & glorious vacation!! Today is the final day of our lovely two weeks away from our daily grind. We spent the first ten days in Spain, traveling with Henry & my mom. We came home for a couple of days to do laundry, eat some home cooking, and then headed down to Virginia to spend time with Michael's parents and my dad. We've had a lovely break - quality time as a family, slow(-er) mornings, play time with Alice, dates with M and a very needed escape from the City.
Mom, Henry, M, A & Me in front of our Cruise Ship, Grandeur of the Seas
Alice sitting on the Monumento a Colon in Barcelona, waiting to visit Uncle James
And that's all I can say. It wasn't a great event. It was a rough, long day.
Things began with a lot of promise. We thought several VIPs would attend. And then the temperature hit 98 and the City seemed to be anything but a gym. A frying pan? Sure! But a gym? I don't think so.
We did still manage to have some kids moving around, people playing with hula hoops and some yoga taught. But it was not a smooth afternoon, and the event seemed to go on forever.
The event didn't go as smoothly as we would have liked. Fewer people participated than planned, and the energy was -- calmer than yesterday. But it was still lovely. At one point, the fitness instructor had us doing "stars," where we hand to start in a squat with our hands touching our ankles, then jump up, throw our arms in the air, and return to a squat. Since we were facing the southern tip of Manhattan, it felt like we were saying a prayer of thanksgiving to the City we were serving. Pretty amazing.
The launch of the "Make NYC Your Gym" campaign was absolutely thrilling! We had a great turnout, with hundreds of New Yorkers zumba-ing in Madison Square Park. I couldn't believe our luck with the weather - sunshine, heat but no humidity. I noticed our commissioner smile as soon as he walked into park. A class of 3-year olds danced for a while too. It was great.
Today, it all begins. The months and months of hard work culminate in this upcoming week. We are launching "Make NYC Your Gym." In order to celebrate, we have organized 7-days of free fitness programs in all 5 boroughs. The mayor (the MAYOR of NYC!!!) talked about the project today. Amazing.
I'll try to keep up with blog posts this week, because I need to make sure I remember as much as I can. I'm a little worried that this is the climax of my entire professional career. Will I ever get to hear the Mayor of NYC say words that I helped craft again? Will I ever get to promote something so genuinely good for New York again? I sure hope so.
Alice was up at 4:30 with a runny nose and slight fever. She sat with me for about an hour, waiting patiently for the Tylenol to kick in. We watched the sun rise together, Alice drinking water and playing with her sippy cups. She fell back to sleep, leaving me with another hour of stillness. Time to get some work done.
A surprisingly beautiful start to the day. Happy Friday everyone!
Tonight, Michael and I threw caution to the wind and took Alice out for an evening walk after dinner was done.
We set our sights low - just a loop around a few blocks in the neighborhood, enough to get out and stretch but not to keep Alice up hours beyond her bedtime. It was a beautiful evening - perfect temperature with just the right amount of breeze and sunlight left in the day. The walk was lovely, quality time with the family - quiet, peaceful, gentle.
Alice is becoming a New Yorker before our very eyes. She now loves to walk from our apartment to the elevator, then from the elevator out to the front door. She navigates sidewalks very well, and knows how to wave at every passing stranger. She's in awe of nature whenever it appears - a green leaf, a piece of bark, a blade of grass. It is a shock to realize that Alice is growing up as a city kid, and the implications of such are already in play now.
Alice is napping. Michael & I are cleaning, reading, baking cookies, and dreaming about our upcoming trip to Spain. Listening to the '60s radio station on Pandora.
I'm doing my best to fight off the Sunday Blues and my pending anxiety about work. I have another meeting with the Commissioner tomorrow and we have no hot water, so I'll be taking an ice cold shower in the morning. What am I going to wear? And have I done enough to prepare for our meeting?
Work will be insane until June 13th. Please pray for me - that I don't stress about things I have no control over. That I have the stamina required to maintain the focus necessary to launch this project. That we manage to eek out some fun. Can't wait to share with you all what we've been working on!
Two other items: 1. Welcome Palermosogno to my list of followers! Love how we find random connections to people all over the world...
2. We are praying for you over here, my sweet friend!
The past month has been incredibly busy. Between my regular job and my Saturday job, I feel like I'm always working. Hopefully this insanity will pay off for me professionally, and things should calm down just in time for our trip to Spain. Just counting down the days...
We are doing our best to grin and bear a week of clouds, rain and general dreariness. Michael has has to get to work early every morning this week, which has required some speediness between the hours of 6 and 9 AM. And the rain is just making it hard to get spirits up.
Thankfully, Alice is just too cute for words, so she provides some perkiness to the days! She is really growing up far too quickly. She toddles around on her own, loves sitting at her little table and drawing. She's a very kind little baby. Such sweetness.
Well, I'm pretty proud of us. It's 7:30 and we have already enjoyed family dinner, cleaned up the dishes, made tomorrow's sandwiches, given Alice a bath and story time, and put the sweet one to bed. This happens once in a blue moon, so I think it deserves a moment of celebration!
For the past couple of nights, Alice has stayed up well past bedtime, talking, laughing and playing in her crib. I can hear her chattering away while we sit in the living room reading or watching TV. It takes all the energy I have to keep myself from going in there, picking her up, and playing with her.
I've been pretty down lately. I really miss Alice and feel like there is too much going on in life. Work is more stressful than usual, and I feel like I spend a lot of time running from one thing to the next, with little or no time for myself. I'm not working out, barely keeping the house in order. I'm not getting enough time with my family.
Our sweet friend S over at Incessant Anonymity has talked about feeling like you can never quite get everything in balance. You manage to get healthy, nutritious dinners prepared, for example, but can't keep the clutter at bay. You finish your task list at work but forget to pick up dry cleaning four days in a row. You pay all the bills early but don't get your library books returned until a day too late.
It's exhausting, this running-a-household thing. And I clearly haven't figured out how to manage it. There are seasons in life, right? One of these days I'll find a way to spend my time with my family, make them healthy meals, have a rewarding career and take care of me, right?...
"But when she stepped off the train in New York, her plain little face looked beautiful for a moment, as if the future were opening before her and its glow were already upon her forehead, as if she were eager and proud and ready to meet it..."
Mom, Henry, M, A & Me in front of our Cruise Ship,
Alice sitting on the Monumento a Colon
Date Night in Ibiza
A & M in Malaga
A in Malaga
A & Me, waiting for dinner on the boat
Us, on Formal Night
A, with Grandma & Grandpa in Virginia
A wearing Great-Grandma's big girl shoes!
