Tiny catch up

My whole body ached. It hurt so much everywhere I couldn’t sleep so I rose and took painkillers. Now I’m sitting in after midnight darkness in the living room, waiting for the three little blue pills to take effect as I tap out this post on my phone. We were building furniture all day, my daughter, my two nieces and me, while the man made us hearty chicken and corn chowder and a delicious mango coconut bread. I was rather enjoying the flipped gender roles, though I don’t think anyone else noticed. There was a hard driving rain outside. Inside, the house felt active and happy. In the recently cleared out, newly painted, de-carpeted room, we assembled two bookshelves and a desk from those head-scratching Scandinavian instructions that are all pictures, no words, and then the man came in to help us build the bed. It was complicated, my daughter and nieces are champion builders, but there were some parts of the job that required strength of the sort my husband brought, and finesse won from long experience with the use of power tools. Between us we got the job done. Baby Harper, your room awaits. No pictures yet. We want to surprise Harper’s mom and dad with the reveal when they arrive from Dallas in four days. Instead here are pictures from when we had dinner with some of my husband’s relatives in New Jersey a couple Saturdays ago. In our cousins Bobby and Sophia’s beautiful home, among visiting relatives we’d so recently seen in Antigua, we cheered tennis phenom Coco Gauff to her incredible New York Open win. The woman in purple is my husband’s first cousin Barbara. I adore her. My children’s season of reconnecting with the Antiguan side of their family is continuing.