"What you see and hear depends a good deal on where you are standing; it also depends on what kind of a person you are." ~C.S. Lewis
I had not intended to stop writing for two months. (And, let's be honest, it's really been much longer than that that I've been writing consistently.)
However, as we all know, there are a finite number of minutes in the day, and I decided that writing did not fit into those minutes. Primarily, I decided to make sleep a serious priority. And so if you are wondering where I have been, I will tell you: I was sleeping. The girls would go to bed, and then a few minutes later, I would too.
And since that left my day with few moments to pause, drink some tea uninterrupted and sit at the computer, then...well, here we are. Months later.
However!
Nevertheless!
But!
My school year has ended. My energy level is normalizing (ergo, I'm finding that I don't need 10 hours of sleep a night to function), and so I'm dusting off the keyboard and trying to remember how to put a sentence together.
Plus, Sarah and I went to see the tulips and any tulip excursion is incomplete until I splash those beautiful pictures all over my blog. I can give up writing for months at a time, but as soon as tulips make their way into my camera's viewfinder, I get this urge to start writing about it. Tulips and blogging. They are inextricably linked in my psyche.
Once upon a time, eight years ago, Sarah and I started this funny little tradition of taking our kids to see tulips. Rain or shine, pregnancy or carrying a newborn, we have gone. We never have a particular day marked on our calendar to go, but it's as faithful to arrive as any other annual holiday. We just have to go because that's what we do.
This was a year of firsts for us. The first year for Wavey's first tulip adventure. The first year of 80 degree weather. The first year we relied heavily on our iPhones for most of our photography (in fact, Sarah didn't even take along another camera). It's true. I'm rather smitten with iPhonography.
(Sidenote: Since getting my iPhone in February, I have taken up Instagramming. I am a teensy tiny bit addicted to Instagram--a photo sharing app, for those of you who aren't familiar with it--and if you're on there, find me! I'm @stephstaley.)
I snapped and edited this little gem all with my phone.
Not with my phone?
The group shot.
Behold the seven cousins! We don't fuss about perfect expressions anymore. If you're facing the camera, then it's good enough.
This wasn't Addie's first year, but it was her first year as a fully mobile child.
You know what she did with those strong little legs of hers?
She found every single mud puddle and went walking in it. Admittedly, I was a bit surprised that there were puddles at all after the string of hot weathered days we'd had. One might even say I was a bit suspicious that the puddles were there naturally....without any orchestrating from the tulip people...who may or may not think it's funny to see children getting muddy and mothers getting frantic that the perfect photo op is going to be ruined. Mmhmm. I've got my eye on those tulippers. Very crafty.
As it just so happened, though, I did not care that Addie tromped and splashed through all the puddles. She was happy doing it, and I was happy to let her (until she started throwing mud at her cousin, at which I drew the line).
It was a fun time, and always makes me wish I had acres of tulips in my yard. I never grow tired of tulips. Hands down, one of my favorite flowers.
If you want to see more of our tulip adventures, I somehow managed to get a handful up on Flickr.
Tulips? Done and done.
Revisiting my habit of blogging more consistently? Well, I got this far.
Give the credit to the tulips.
