how is that empty nest?

sunrise:  7:00

 (late bloomer - but no less beautiful than any spring beauty!)

Thanks to four fabulous children and an incomparably supportive husband, I've hardly skipped a beat as I've entered this empty nest phase of life.  The vast majority of the rough road of fledging my sweet birdies from their home came in the anticipation.  They are all finding their wings, through trial and error, sometimes soaring to the heights, sometimes stumbling and clutching on to lower branches.  But they're making it out in the world on their own.

My plan for setting the ground work for the afterlife - my life after full time motherhood, that is - has panned out well.  I leaped into this writing life with one foot last January, trying to build it up without leaving my youngest daughter behind before she left home.  Nearly 300 blog posts and 65 articles later, I have been given the opportunity to write a weekly column for the Bangor Daily News.  I am hugely excited, and nervous, but mostly just ready to go.

Several small clutters of birds were active in the sky over the fields and forests today.  They flew in chaotic patterns, and I mistook them for leaves in the air a couple of times.

Sunrise is still extraordinary to me.  I might feel grouchy heading out there, then the light shifts, colors melt into being, the sun's early angled brightness illuminates slices of world.  Okay.  It still takes my breath away.