Post-Visit

I like having company. I love sharing my home, and my little corner of the world, with people. I also like getting back to my good-old ordinary routine when company leaves. There's that little part of me that enjoys going around the house after company's gone and putting everything back in its place ("just so"), doing chores neglected during the visit, and just generally relaxing. Which we did on Saturday after dropping Sister Kate off at the airport. We relaxed... By painting two rooms in our house.

In hindsight, there are many reasons we shouldn't have plowed ahead with the plan to paint rooms (not the least of which is that it was 95+ degrees out all weekend and we don't have air conditioning, so getting that much-needed "cross-ventilation" was stiflingly hot), but we did it anyway. The end result is lovely, we're both very happy with it - and we've also learned some things we'd do differently next time. Of course, the last time I had a paintbrush in my hand prior to this weekend was probably over a year ago - so "next time" might not be anytime soon. I hope we remember all of our precious lessons learned.

(The silliest part of it all is that we painted the guest room and the guest bathroom - after the guest had left. And these are, arguably, two of the least-used rooms in the house. They're beautiful, though...)

Next on the agenda is some serious trip-planning for next month's holiday. It's looming - much closer than I'm comfortable with for not having anything planned yet - and I haven't even had time to get freaked out about the lack of arrangements. I'm sure this week's down-time will allow me ample time to catch up, though (on both planning and freaking out).

I think I have a couple more photos from the last few days of Kate's visit, which I'll try to post later. She started her first post-college "real" job today, and will soon be teaching music to America's youth (or at least some of them). I wish her the best of luck, especially in light of the near-mutiny by the kindergartners during her internship... Seriously, she'll be fantastic at it - she's enthusiastic about both music and kids, and has tons of ideas for introducing her students to all kinds of world music. The idea that there are nations beyond our borders is a concept that is best taught early and often, so I'm thrilled that she'll be doing her part to make the world seem smaller to as many kids as she can.

Finally, we won't be going anywhere near Siena on this trip, but a friend sent me this link and it brought back fabulous memories. Siena is dreamy. If you've been, you know what I mean, and you probably just sighed deeply, didn't you?