Life has been a whirlwind lately! Sometimes a a very slow whirlwind, but a whirlwind nevertheless. Sara and I both went to my college reunion (no, I'm not to 5 years yet--it was for my a cappella group) and then her brother's house in Michigan several weeks ago. Then I had a few days at home. Then Sara and I headed out to Boston for most of a week as a little vacation before her friend's wedding in Northampton on the weekend. Then it was off to Turkey to visit my sister, who's been studying there, for two weeks, and then to Ireland for a week for a family reunion and celebration of my uncle's birthday. Finally two days ago I flew back to Indianapolis (20 hours of travel) for the first time in a month. Sara surprised me by meeting me at the airport, which made me really happy! We extended my vacation a day by going to the Radical Lace and Subversive Knitting exhibit at the Indiana State Museum (highly recommended, by the way, despite the bizarre name and some issues with crowded installation) and doing some fun shopping, for running shoes among other things.

So finally today I had a semi-normal day, and that was good. But it was still really busy. Among many other things, I had to open a month's worth of mail and over 150 new emails, get rid of an undeserved finance charge on a credit card, buy an airline ticket for my NY and Missouri trips in August, work out my finances for the rest of the (income-free) summer, and figure out why I hadn't gotten my check from the company that accepted the return of a file cabinet that was the wrong size. (That last was the most exciting: turns out the company was losing money and abruptly decided to leave all the people it dealt with--customers and companies alike--out to dry and go bankrupt. I about exclaimed out loud when I read this. Well, that's clearly money I'll never get back.) It's amazing the things that pile up when you're "away from it all" for an extended period of time!

Speaking of which, I'm sure I'll put up some trip pictures and summaries at some point, but they may be slow in coming and a bit terse--I'll be plenty busy for this week at least, and I'm still trying to lay off my right hand. I'm sure Nate (and Claire, once she starts her blog) will fill in what I don't get around to!

As a quick foretaste, here's a picture taken from the location from which we watched part of the exciting Turkey-Germany Euro Cup semifinal: a big outdoor screen in Istanbul, with the Blue Mosque in the background:



More to come!