RMNP

RMNP, a set on Flickr.

Took a beautiful autumn drive through Rocky Mountain National Park.

Smiling on me

In the past two months: I started a great new part-time public affairs job at the forest service; sold my house in Virginia in a bidding war (miracle of all miracles during a housing bust); finally got divorced a year after being separated; met a great, single dad who plays scrabble and cooks Brussels sprouts; had my new part-time job bumped up to almost full-time so that I could quit my job at the paper (bye bye two night meetings per week) and then had an old editor call to offer me freelance work. I feel like the universe has been smiling on me lately.



I've had the opportunity to take a few trips lately too. I went to Bethany Beach with my family, and have taken weekend trips to Colorado wine and peach country (Palisade) where you can ride bikes between vineyards, camping with the kids near Garden of the Gods and up to the top of 14,000-foot Pikes Peak on the cog (train) and then a weekend to OktoberWest and Strawberry Hot Springs in Steamboat. To tell it straight, I guess I'm kind of glowing (and I've been told that more than once lately.)

Considering that at this same time one year ago I had just gotten separated, had almost every utility/phone in my house cut off and wasn't sure how I was going to buy groceries ... well, I can't believe the difference a year makes. It's been nutty, and I've dealt with a lot of things that I wouldn't wish on anybody. But, life is what you make of it (pardon the cliché). I never have believed more than I do now in the power of thought ... especially the positive sort (again, pardon the cliché). Even if everyone around me worried I was being naive, I wouldn't let myself get down. There was no room to fall apart. I have kids. I had to get up in the morning. I had to move on.

I believe in karma. It just helps now that I'm living with my own and not somebody else's.

Here's hoping the universe keeps smiling on me.

Camping Lake Granby

There are so many great shots from this trip I wasn't sure which to choose. Dara and I took the kids camping for one night on Lake Granby over the Fourth of July weekend. Brave Dara camped with 6-month old Rye on her own. That's my kind of mama.

Sawyer's a girl

I'm so far past the point in my life where I sit around thinking of baby names for my own future children. Occasionally, a pregnant friend will humor me for a moment as I make a few suggestions for their babies ... Harper, for instance, is a name I would definitely consider for a girl (although I think it made Top 100 this year, of course). Or Maeve. Boy names are always tougher. It's just a more traditional line of thinking — heck, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John still make the annual list. I like James ... as in Jesse James. No nickname. Tough and western. (Jesse, sadly, was stolen forever by girls back in the 80s.)

So, there are four Sawyers in Granby. A town of 1,200 people. One is in high school. One is the same age as my Sawyer. The fourth we call 'Little Sawyer.' He's a few years younger. But, lately, I've had several people tell me they considered Sawyer as a name for their little girl. Funny they should mention that. I just went onto the website of my favorite baby name book ... it has this cool dynamic name chart ... and it turns out that Sawyer skyrocketed last year as a girl's name.

Arden's heyday was as a boy's name back in the Victorian Era ... probably when people actually read Shakespeare. Happily, we have yet to meet another little one here. I do have a friend from Leadville named Arden — awesome woman. While it was just a coincidence that we chose that name, I'm proud to have her be the namesake. Funny enough, she married a guy named Reed.

Arden biking Part 1

One unexpected complication with single parenthood is that when you are teaching a kid to ride a bike, you have to be both the runner holding onto the kid and the videographer. Fortunately, it took only one big push and Arden had it down. After a couple spins on our street, we went on a big long bike ride around the neighborhood. Yet again, the balance bike proves to be an amazing invention.