the end of my winter blues

May & June were difficult months. Not only was there wrapping up at work for my surgery and recovery, there was also the anniversary of Tiffy's death and family difficulties and traumas surrounding it. Through it all, summer has been creeping slowly up on us, until we are suddenly basking in 70 degree weather and wading through lush, flowering yards -- just in time for me to return to work.

"Late Autumn" with Hyun Bin,
filmed in Seattle, WA

The surgery went very well this time.  Less pain, less recovery time, less time on crutches and, therefore, less grumpy me. I was even escorted out by Johnny and my fellow drama-watching co-worker to see a Korean movie, Late Autumn, at the Seattle International Film Festival two weeks after the surgery, with my pimp cane. The movie was, not surprisingly, a little oppressive and sad. A little slice of life, per se. Only... for those exceedingly unlucky.

Mary's wedding to John's younger brother is approaching fast. It's not often that one is lucky enough to have your best friend marrying into your family. But trying to prepare for the bestest-ever bachelorette party is sooooo outside my realm of experience it's not even funny. We've got three minds working on it, and fingers and toes crossed.

So it's really late, but I did want to share some pictures of the house that I've been capturing. We had no idea how the yard--which was bleak and muddy when we started renting the house--would bloom in the spring sun. We just resigned ourselves to it not being anything to write home about.

Depressing, ain't it?

A couple months later...

But through the last couple months, we've watched it bloom into a peaceful, pleasant place. We were happy to discover that we have a lilac tree, just off our porch, and the huge tree on the corner of the lot is a Horse Chestnut, which rivals all other trees in the neighborhood for sheet immensity. A million flowers came up in a flower bed (middle picture, above) that we thought was just an ugly rock dump!

Our bench needs a little tender care...