My time off so far.

This weekend Kimberly and I went to the park to play some catch and I found the first four-leaf clover of my life.

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Later on Sunday Kimberly's parents and grandparents came down to visit (mostly because Kimberly's little cousin was having surgery in Boston, but they stayed the night with us).

Kimberly's grandmother meeting Mr. Pink.

We all shared some cake (with homemade peanut butter frosting courtesy of Kimberly) and ice cream for my birthday.

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Since then I've been playing music,

Bach cello suites

learning lots of chords on the uke

playing Starcraft,

performing iPod surgery,

and continually punishing Guacamole with cage time for scratching at the door to the closet, which he spends most of his waking time doing. The punishment seems to have no behavior-modifying affects, but I'll keep trying.

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Yesterday I met Kimberly at her office for lunch. We drove down the street to Kimball's and observed some of the animals after we ate.

This was the alpha rooster. Twice the size of the others, he easily made it known that he was the boss.

After Kimberly went back to work I drove down to Boxborough and played some music with Ben. Later in the evening we went to dinner with the Jordans and then to our first Lowell Spinners game, courtesy of our old boss from PPM who got us the tickets.

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My time off conclusion so far: I really enjoy working. Time off is great when Kimberly has it too and we can go explore the world, but I couldn't easily make the transition to a stay-at-home dad or anything. Music and games go a long way, but I feel pretty empty after a full day without much accomplished. I'll probably have a different perspective at the end of the two weeks when I've fully adjusted to this, so I'm trying to be cognizant of the unique blessing this time of recovery is, so that I won't take it for granted.