very simple

Last weekend was a bit of a wedding explosion in my family. Two weddings, in two different cities, including MY BROTHER! and his wonderful now-wife. Pics from all of those things are mainly family only, but for post-wedding lunch on Monday, we went to a super fancy restaurant on the 60th floor of a building downtown, and, well…

The view!

I normally don’t get up to the berkshires during peak foliage season, but a few weeks ago, my brother flew in from Jordan to visit for a few days, somewhat spur of the moment – so I obviously popped up to see him. Of course, in the two days Jeff was here, my dad managed to end up needing an appendectomy, so that put something of a damper on the whole “enjoying” part of the visit (he’s recovered now!), but before everything turned to chaos, I did manage to take some pictures of trees and stuff.

Two separate trips to the high line over the past month. First, in mid-April, some of my long-lost cousins from Israel were in town, so we spent some time together, including a trek on the high line. That was much more about spending time together than getting good photos (and wrangling ten family members on a gorgeous holiday weekend, including toddlers, will throw a wrench in ANY artistic endeavors!). Second was last weekend – the weather was supposed to be wretched, but it ended up not raining (unlike today), so I decided to take advantage of the surprise good weather and spend some time in the open air again.

The two walks were only three weeks apart, but its quite remarkable how much more green there was on the second trip – you can see the distinction from the first few photos, where the trees are barely blooming and the grasses are still mostly brown and barely grown-in, and then the latter photos, where everything is just an absolute explosion of greenery. It’s really no wonder my allergies have been completely haywire for the past few weeks.

As with every year, labor day weekend conveniently coincides with my dad’s birthday, so I headed to the berkshires for the weekend. It was an opportunity to bake a gazillion pies with the ridiculous number of apples from our garden (links to instagram), and to visit friends tag sales and gardens. and dogs. everywhere. Other than the first few pics, which were taken at our friends’ tag sale, most were taken at our friends’ Maria and Roberto’s farm/garden/horse paddock/retreat. Their garden puts everyone else’s to shame and these pics don’t even begin to capture it.

april appears to have largely been about meals. But I have also been inspired to finally start a project that I had been thinking about for a while. I want to photograph every subway station in the new york city subway system. It requires some planning in order to not end up repeating myself over and over again, and also switching to an unlimited metrocard. I’ve been organizing myself, putting together a comprehensive list of all of the stations in the system (which there doesn’t seem to be a good one available anywhere?!) and the trains that run through them, and once I start I’m going to try to be methodological and target small sections at a time so that I’m not biting off more than I can chew – I figure If I pick a section of a line to tackle on any particular day when i’ve got no other plans, that’s probably the most sensible way to do it. I like the idea of this project in particular because it’s something that I can choose to do on a day here or there when I’ve got no other plans, and I can put it down and pick it up again depending on how busy I am with other things. But I’m determined to start.

I don’t spend a lot of time talking about my family here, but my brother Jeff was on NPR Weekend Edition this Sunday, talking about the amazing work that he does as education coordinator for the International Rescue Committee in Lebanon: The Truth About Humanitarian Work: High Ideals vs. Hard Realities.

There are not a lot of people who can say they breathed a sigh of relief when their family member told them they were moving to Beirut, but when it’s after almost a year of his living in Kabul, Afghanistan, we all relaxed mightily.

more cats and coffee. of course. and a few other miscellaneous things. but mostly cats and coffee.

Visit my instagram page to see everything.

First, I have clearly given up the ghost on yet another 365 project. I’ve just missed too many individual days to keep up the pretense of running it out through the end of the year. Things have been a little crazy in the real world, and I just got distracted. As far as life craziness, there was the whole thing with my dad and my stepmom both ending up in the hospital at the same time (different hospitals, of course), getting a permanent job offer from my current engagement, and (as a consequence) planning a big trip to the galapagos during my transition from fancy temp to permanent employee next month. Oh, and have I mentioned that my brother lives in Afghanistan, and is NOT in the military? He’s coming home for vacation next Friday too. So…a bit crazy.

Anyway, I’ve been meaning to get out there for a few weeks, ever since I read about the Fete Paradiso, a collection of (working) french carnival attractions from the late 19th and early 20th centuries that they had imported and put up for the summer. So, given that today was gorgeous, and tomorrow is supposed to rain, I hopped on down there and wandered around for a few hours. Governor’s island isn’t quite the “hidden” gem it was the first time I went a few years ago, but now they have places to eat and, well, bathrooms, so I’m viewing development there as a net positive.

All photos run through various vintage-y filters for the right mood.

I missed a bunch of days in here. Had a bit of family craziness, with my dad needing an angiogram and some stenting after a bad stress test a few weeks ago. He’s recuperating at home now (and thankfully they caught it before the problem was worse), but there’s nothing like spending the day at the emergency room at one hospital with your dad, while your stepmom is recovering from back surgery in another hospital across town, to make a week really stressful.

Anyway, here’s a smattering of the pictures I remembered to take during the last few weeks. got 6/14 days.

This was the first weekend that I’ve officially missed photos. My excuse is that between my brother coming home from Africa for a few days and my need to catch up on much sleep, I just forgot. Oh well.

In other news though, my brother is home for a few days. He’s transitioning from one job in Senegal to another in Afghanistan. If nothing else, he certainly knows how to keep us worried! But he’s going to be doing some really good educational development work over there with a major international organization actually based in the Middle East, so we’re rooting for him.

Pictures to return later. I’m hoping they’ve started on the floor today!