Currently

Reading: Splitting my attention between a few things, but I finished late last night Veronica Roth's “Divergent” – and moved on to “Insurgent” – on my Kindle, and I've been reading Erica Bauermeister's “The School of Essential Ingredients” in hardback. Despite how manic the summer has been, reading still remains my escape and my Kindle is fully loaded.

Eating: fresh English strawberries, British sausages with sweet onion chutney, bacon and brie sandwiches – all the lovely things that just aren't the same in the US.

Listening to: quite a bit of Shemeka Copeland – her strong, bluesy vocals have been great while I'm unpacking, alone, and I can belt her out at the top of my lungs since no one is around. If you were riding with me in mah minivan, yo…well, I'd be embarrassed to be caught still listening to Radio Disney even after I dropped off the kids, as I've been so distracted. Until the Bieber comes on. And then I switch Sirius to Radio Margaritaville.

Thinking about: BlogHer, all the people I hope to find while I'm there, which sessions I want to attend, how I'm going to get through the long first day (6am meetup for a 5k straight through to a party that night from 9-11) completely and utterly jetlagged, if my roommates will think I'm utterly mad and hoping I can contain my nerves. I'm also thinking about how the past six months seemed to crawl by as the days passed, but now that we are back in Wales, it seems to have passed in a heartbeat. How time flies. And Pimm's. I really want a tall glass of Pimm's, and I have no fixings here.

Working on: having more patience. I will admit, I have been stretched thinner than a pair of Spanx at an underwear convention, and no one will EVER confuse me with Mother Theresa. Still, it is hard to enforce the “do NOT yell at your sister/brother/me” when you yourself fly off the handle at the drop of a hat. It is also difficult to enforce “you need to calm down and count to ten” when you aren't doing it yourself.

Watching: No TV other than working through “Hart of Dixie” on DVD (my guilty pleasure). As such, I'll switch it up by saying I'm watching my son play in the garden with his former classmates. It has always amazed me, no matter where we are visiting, how he can simply fall in with his friends no matter how long it has been since he last saw them. The friendly taunts and shouts and laughs are a gift this warm afternoon.

Bummed out on: Learning yesterday that a really lovely man whose shop we used to visit at least weekly (if not more, my son and I were addicted to the Welsh cakes he sold) passed away unexpectedly about a month or so ago, and seeing his wife bravely trying to hide her sadness. It was such a reminder about how impermanent life is.

Loving: Seeing my children fall right back into step with their UK friends as if we never left, getting to drink coffee with my bestie in the UK just like we did before I left, sitting on the patio sipping wine as the day's heat wears off, sleeping with the windows open, having lunch/ice cream with old friends and catching up on the local gossip.

This post was inspired by a prompt from “Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop”, which in turn was inspired by the meme as seen at Sometimes Sweet.