Dear friends, how was your weekend? I can't say a word until I thank you for all of the lovely comments you left on my Fear post. Ultimately, it wasn't all that scary to post all those things. for the most part. Did you go read some of the others? So moving. What I found the most moving as I read all those wonderful blog posts is that I never thought, I can't believe she shared THAT. More often than not, I thought, oh! Me too. I'll go back and leave some comments to your comments, but mostly I wanted to say thank you so much, for your understanding and sharing. It only serves to remind me that we're all more connected and alike than we're not.

We had a really lovely weekend, for the most part. People, I feel SO much better. Those antibiotics are doing the trick. Friday night I went for Chinese with some of my favorite neighborhood girlfriends, and that was just lovely. We grabbed cupcakes on our way home and sat in the front yard for ages, snacking on dessert and chatting. Just about the best way to spend an evening in my opinion. Saturday was full. Lunch and the beach with some friends. It was the first time Cal and I got our toes in the surf, and was nice. The ocean and the bay are such a part of us (we're just about totally surrounded by water here), that it never occurred to me that some of you newer readers wouldn't even realize. I expect some beach-themed posts will be forthcoming. After that delicious afternoon, we dropped Cal at a friends house for a sleepover and ended up staying for dinner. That river view in the top middle was our view at dinner. Not too shabby, eh?

Sunday without Cal was errand day. A trip to the hardware store, a trip to the grocery store and the garden center (I did point out that Neel never comes make-up shopping with me even though I always go to the garden center with him...). All errands Callum hates, but it was such fun to do them just the two of us. Picked up Cal mid-day and headed to a celebratory pool party that evening. Once we got home, Neel and Cal got their annual Memorial Day war movie marathon on, while I read cookbooks. Fair compromise.

Monday, oh Monday. How lovely to have the day off. Neel painted the fence and worked in the garden while I set about restoring our house after what feels like months of neglect. But here's the kicker. We think Cal has Fifth Disease. How crazy is that? I think I mentioned that he had a fever a bit over a week ago. On Thursday, when I picked him up from school, he showed me a rash on his forearms, and he had bright pink cheeks. We assumed that it came from digging in a bush for a baseball, or the fact that I'd recently changed lanudry detergent (of course), but the rash didn't go away. It's not terribly itchy, but it is uncomfortable, and he's past being contagious, but it caused a lot of consternation over the weekend. The rash should go away in a couple weeks. Wait, what? Weeks? Good grief. Kid can't catch a break.

Today we get back at it. Less than two weeks of school (and a lot of early dismissals coming down the pike), and there's much to do. What have you guys been up to? Feels like we haven't chatted in ages!