I have been taking pictures as the Valley bursts into spring. This week is Carleton's Mini-University. I am teaching 19 young people from Valley schools as far away as Cornwall. We start the week with mandalas, which I have them do on cloth inside embroidery hoops. Then we do a "Pollock" exercise, after watching some of the film about Jackson Pollock and his artistic breakthroughs: Bernie supplies the paint, sticks, and various items and the students supply their "canvases". We go outside on Wednesday afternoon and get a little dirty. It's fun. Then today, they put appropriate quotes on their canvases and we took a walk in the park by the Rideau Canal, so I took photographs as the students spread out through the park and wrote a poetry assignment. We had an interesting moment of serendipity: a student, Brad, decided to do a handprint and when he brought his hand up, the colours were astounding...so he made another handprint on another canvas. But we got a good shot of his hand with the paint.

It is a busy week, following another busy one: last Thursday I took my husband to emergency at the hospital and they admitted him and took out his gall bladder on Saturday. He came home Monday and is recuperating but it was a little stressful. And on Tuesday, our daughter left for Rwanda. She has arrived safely there and begins a two-month journalism internship, about which she will also be blogging. Wednesday night I had a meeting, and tomorrow is the last day of the Mini-U. Then next week, after catching up on a variety of projects, including the garden (of which I will post a picture or two for you very soon), I am off to San Diego for the Baha'i Book Fair being sponsored by Barnes & Noble and Baha'i Publishing.

It's all good. Bernie's getting better, our children are doing well, the garden is in bloom, and life is full.