It has been a quiet summer here at Casa
Embee. For the first time in many years we did not make any travel plans for
the entire season. Cindy’s daily efforts
in her large garden have recently been paying off with lots of herbs and tomatoes
- and soon, sweet potatoes. We have the
healthiest basil in the state and every morning I can hear the plants chanting,
Pesto, Pesto, Pesto! We’ll be having a
nice pesto processing party this weekend.
Cindy’s flowers are really starting to come into their own and we have
fresh flowers for the house every day, not to mention being able to sit on the
deck with a cocktail while watching the birds and bees and butterflies playing
among the colorful blossoms. (We also have a million Japanese beetles but we’ll
not discuss them.)
We have had a few fun weekends with Colin
and Meagan who returned from three years in New Zealand in late May and who are
gradually getting settled in to their new lives in the USA. Colin is well into his MBA at William and
Mary and Meagan is involved in continuing Department of State training and
looking forward to a few years here in America.
We also had a lovely weekend when daughter Megan visited us with her
husband David and son Blake (they live in North Port, FL).
I’ve had the time to get back into the sky
as a private pilot, having spent the past few weeks studying, taking exams and
successfully passing my bi-annual check ride.
I must say it feels really good to be flying again and yesterday I took
up a Cessna just to tour the area around our house. I was a bit amazed at how much more expensive
it has become to fly. Three years ago
you could rent a Cessna for $89 an hour and today it is $129. At those prices I think I’ll limit myself to
one hour or so per month.
We did have one trip this summer, which
wasn’t planned but was necessary.
Cindy’s mom sold her lake home in Alexandria, MN and we flew up there to
help with all the paperwork associated with the closing and helping to move all
of her stuff out. Most of it went to
Habitat for Humanity, who I must say seem to be the most organized outfit I’ve
ever worked with. We spent five days
making sure everything was done right and trying to take as much work off of
Cindy’s sister’s plate. Camilla really
did a heck of a job getting everything ready for the big final push.
I continue to enjoy cooking, especially now
that there are so many options for getting lots of fresh vegetables and
fruits. We have implemented Cindy’s new “rainbow”
rule for our meals: Every meal must have
five different fruits or vegetables, each of them a different color. We can of course go over the
five-color rule but never below. I must
say, it has made our meals much more colorful as well as a bit healthier. I have an online photo album with pictures of
all the meals. (Did I mention we have
stayed home all summer?!)
Cindy has decided not to teach online
during the Fall Semester, which is all I needed to start planning travel. We shall effectively be gone from September 7th
to January 23, with only a few brief visits to Charles Town. We’ll be in Italy and Spain in September, then
three weeks in Asia in October and November.
Back here for Thanksgiving with Cindy’s mom and sister and then off to
France. We have rented an apartment in Nice for six weeks and will celebrate my
birthday, Christmas and New Years in the south of France. This is something we
have always talked about and we are finally going to give it a try.
(We won’t be able to use our time-share in
La Jolla from 5-12 December so if any of you are interested in it, give us a
shout.)
With best wishes, Cindy and William
