As of this afternoon, all three of my children have finished another school year. Even my son, whose feelings about schoolwork change by the hour, has finished and passed all his classes. My oldest has her graduation ceremony tomorrow afternoon, and then summer break officially begins. For me, that means nearly three whole months with no algebra, no googling history facts, no discussion at all about late assignments or failing grades. I might enjoy summer vacation as a parent even more than I did as a kid.

My summer plans are pretty calm, though. Hike, read, visit a museum or two, maybe plan a trip to Carlsbad Caverns National Park. I’ve been fixing up my backyard and we’re buying a fancy grill that runs on wood pellets, so we’ll spend some of our time eating tasty smoke-flavored dinners. I haven’t really talked about it here, but I enjoy cooking and I’m pretty good at it. I’m looking forward to experimenting with the new grill.

I might get the energy up to get some interior painting done. Last Saturday I finally started painting our entryway, which is a much bigger deal than it sounds. Our entryway is narrow, but the front wall reaches about ten meters (30 feet) straight up to the top of the second floor. We had to buy a very cool but very heavy new ladder to get all the way up there. There is no photo angle that really captures the height but I took a couple shots from our indoor balcony. The ladder, at full height, reaches way up to (and past) that window, which I very carefully covered with that sparkly window covering. I did a truly terrible job with the window covering, but I’m the only one in the house brave enough to climb up there so no one dares complain.

The photos don’t give a good sense of scale, but they do capture my color scheme pretty well. I’m very pleased with the pale lavender against the greens and the darker lavender we have near it. I’m carrying the color onto the ceiling of our second floor, but I ran out of time to finish Saturday. If you visit my house in the next few weeks, just maybe don’t look up. I’ll get it finished one of these days.

Aside from the rush of school ending and my painting project, I’ve managed some more day hiking. As the weather warms up, I’m seeing a lot of lizards and birds. This morning I went up one of the local peaks and got a peek at two chipmunks as I ate my lunch. They didn’t sit still long enough for a good picture, but later a horned lizard was kind enough (or lazy enough) to sit in my path long enough for some great shots. I also saw what I thought was a giant butterfly, but I just looked it up and it was a moth. A Cecropia Silk Moth, North America’s largest moth. According to the internet, it lives nearly everywhere in North America. Moths are very creepy and very beautiful, and I never expect to see them in daytime.

And that’s been my week. I’d promise to be more interesting next week but honestly, I hope to be even less interesting as I relax into my summer. Until then, I hope the moths are just as creepy and beautiful wherever you are. –Corvus