Time, Away

So you'd think that during a vacation I'd post a little, but no--apparently my vacation was also from blogging.

I've had mostly a very nice time these last few weeks--see for yourself:

We spent the 4th of July weekend in Manchester with Mom, Don, and the very happy dogs. We walked on the beach. We ate very well.

Murray's racks, a photo by suzipaw on Flickr.

Mom, Don, and I went to a fine party at a home on the bluff overlooking the cove where the fireworks happened. It was a perfect evening--almost warm, not much of a breeze, absolutely clear.

We experienced the new casino in Point Arena. (We won't need to experience it again.)

I've apparently been by the possessed by ruffle spirits and it took the knitting of two scarves before I was able to exorcise those demons. Hopefully they will return again.

I took the whole July 4th week off and had grand plans to spend a goodly amount of time working in the backyard. I even had some notions of finally installing the livestock water troughs-turned planters, but I just didn't get it together. However, my craft room is back to its useful self--projects had been piling up projects and they've mostly been sorted out. I think that's contributed to some of my creative resurgence.

M and I took a ride out to West County last weekend to visit the Moveable Type truck. Now we both want to become letterpress artisans.

We've been baking bread.

On Thursday I went to a "ladies night" party after work at a motorcycle shop and not only purchased a new jacket (with armor, fyi), I won a bunch of great stuff in the raffle. OK, I may not ever don the fake bandana, but most of it is quite useful.

On Friday, we drove up to Manchester for a weekend rendezvous with the Manhattan Madhus, and my brothers from the interior. More food, beverages, walks, and conversations were had by all. Mostly, sleep was not, but there will be time for that later.

I left Manchester much earlier than I wanted to on Sunday to rendezvous with the Point Arena gals in Calistoga. We had soaks in the various hot tubs, lots of chatting and catching up, and I gave Liz her 50th birthday present, one of the ruffly scarves and a necklace strung from buttons collected by family women over the years that I had started over the 4th of July weekend.

Since M and I are both off to opposite ends of the coast next weekend, we left the dogs with their grandparents for some bonding and fun this week. I miss them very much already, though I know they're getting lots of attention, food, and exercise.

Sorry it took so long. Cousin Kam, thanks for the encouragement and thanks to Cousin Michelle for the photo-style blog post inspiration!