Just kidding. But, wow, that is one orange shirt.

Anyway, the day was perfect for the maiden voyage of the as-yet-unnamed Subaru. The sun was actually out for once, and since Wright State University’s women’s basketball games are, apparently, poorly attended, we had access to an almost empty parking lot.

This is the Nutter Center. That’s right, Nutter. That name has always made me laugh.

Kory shows great promise, and I’m certain he will be an excellent driver. I hope he will have a better sense of direction than his mother. Fingers crossed.

We also visited Tara and her lovely daughter Addison last weekend. Addison is growing SO fast, and she’s utterly adorable. She was fascinated with Kory’s hair, and really, who wouldn’t be? I love her face. And she loves her lamb.

Tara is expecting another daughter in June, to be named Molly. I am expecting Molly to be just as cute as her big sister.

Stay safe and warm, everyone!

Fair warning – don’t click around on those photos unless you want to see a little more of me than I normally care to show. Just trust me on this one.

Anyway, I love the new piece. The last few times I’ve gotten tattoos I’ve said each one would be my last, so I’m not going to say that this time. Many people don’t “get” tattoos, or shudder at the thought of putting something on their body permanently for fear they will regret it later in life. Others worry that when they’re older the art will wrinkle and fade. My take on it is this: I don’t regret any of my tattoos because they are bookmarks for my life … places where I have stopped to mark something forever, and each mark has it’s own story. As to the wrinkled and faded part, I figure all of me will be wrinkled and faded at some point, and I’ll enjoy telling my grandkids about each of my bodily bookmarks.

A note to all three of my readers: I can’t BELIEVE none of you pointed out I spelled “among” wrong in this post. I’m an ENGLISH MAJOR for crying out loud, and that embarrassing mistake was up for months! Kory pointed it out, rather gleefully, last night. My defense is that I have always had a mental block on that word and I consistently put a “u” in where none is needed. Also, Wordpress doesn’t spell check post titles. And among doesn’t look like a real word. Among among among. See?

First of all, Misty met me at the airport with a fruity drink to welcome me to Florida, effectively ending my lifelong embargo on grapefruit juice.  I thought Ruby Red was legitimate grapefruit juice; I was mistaken.

For a few days I got to see what’s it’s like to live on a sailboat, and I have to say I was surprised.  One of my first questions to Misty was “so, what do you do all day?”  She gets that a lot.  Trust me, there is plenty to do when you live on a floating vessel, even when you don’t have a vacationing guest to take care of.  Besides keeping the boat stocked with water, which involves hefting full tanks from the dinghy into the boat, meal planning and food storage is tricky business due to limited space.  However, “limited space” doesn’t necessarily translate to “cramped.”  I love all the nooks and crannies that are built in to boats, and even though there was an extra full-sized adult person on board in addition to Jeff, Misty, and Janus (my boyfriend for the weekend), we didn’t really step on each other’s toes very much.

This is Janus.

He’s a very attentive boyfriend.

In addition to running the boat like a streamlined little household (which is pretty much what it is) Misty is an indescribably good cook.   In fact, it was eating her cooking in the early years of our friendship that inspired me to start cooking more often, and I will confess to copying more than one of her recipes.  It was no surprise that she has managed to adapt to cooking in a tiny galley with minimal power … everything we ate was delicious, and I came home with a few new tricks to try.  Lobster, however, is not going to be one of them.  I will leave the lobster killing to other, more capable persons.

We toured the harbor, ate fabulous sushi, listened to great music, practiced yoga by the water, and scouted some local wildlife.  We stayed busy, but it certainly still felt like vacation.  Did I mention that I didn’t fix my hair or wear makeup for five days?

Misty DID make me walk down the most terrifying ramp I’ve ever seen on our walk to Pigeon Key.  I was increasingly convinced that the rotting wood planks were going to give way under me, four ton weight limit or not.  She calls it wusification; I call it a well developed sense of self-preservation.

While Jeff had to work for part of my visit, he was kind enough to indulge my desire to get out for a sail and photograph his little floating palace on a beautiful, if not terribly windy, Sunday afternoon.  I showed uncharacteristic restraint and only took 300 photos of the Sailing Vessel “Exposure.”  It was nearly impossible to narrow down which to use here, because they all look like something out of a dream.

This is Karen.

Karen is h-i-l-a-r-i-o-u-s, especially when she’s a little sleep deprived.  She was my pilot for the afternoon, since operating a camera and a dinghy at the same time is beyond my expertise.  I was only a little nervous when the dinghy ran out of gas and Karen said “what plastic thingy?” in response to Misty’s instruction to “use the plastic thingy” to pump the gas from the can to the tank.

This is the funny little dragon boat that belongs to one of the other locals.  He had a little too much fun that afternoon, so it’s probably best that we woke him and suggested he head back to the harbor.  I only took 150 photos of his homemade boat … obvious restraint, again.

I seem to have caught what Misty calls “Keys Disease” during my stay.  No, that’s not a rash.  I simply fell in love with the ease of living and the abundance of sunshine, so it has become my new goal in life to own and live on my very own sailboat.  I’d have turned around and gone right back (after coming home to 17-degree temperatures) but Kory wouldn’t let me.  Fear not; the kid’s gotta leave for college some day, and then you can all come visit me on my very own floating palace.

One at a time, please.

I’m committed to taking some fabulous photos this summer, though, so stay tuned!

Chip and Kory ran the Sugar Maple 5k … Chip went on to run the mini, so this is kind of anticlimactic, but it was still an accomplishment.

Right after this shot, Kory turned to me and said “Oh dear God, this hurts.” He hadn’t run in a while.

I took the smart route and walked. That hurt too.

Later that day, Chip enlisted the help of my friend Anna to give him a new ‘do, and let me tell you, she enjoyed it.

If you can’t tell, my friend Anna is kind of a badass. She’s a three time cancer survivor and she’s committed to helping cancer patients, so Chip’s tail went to make hair for someone else.

The beard went too, and here’s the new Chip!

I’m only guessing that enough people have seen him now that I’m allowed to post these. If not … sorry Chip!

Anyway, finals are next week(wish me luck) and then I will have more free time than I know how to handle, so I’m sure you’ll hear plenty from me then.  UNLESS all of my talents are being poured into the novel I’m supposed to be writing, as NaNoWriMo has snuck up on me again.

Until then, here are some highlights from the last few weeks:

Katie turned 3:

And Karen turned the big four-oh.  We surprised Karen with dinner, planned by “Tricky Vicki” with great success.  She actually had Karen convinced that she picked the restaurant for the evening, when we’d been waiting there all along.

She doesn’t actually need these glasses, but Dad sure thought they made a funny gift.

You know how I can only get one of my beautiful nieces to cooperate for the camera at once?  On this particular evening, Katie wasn’t exactly cooperative, but Joslyn really went out of her way to  take a bad photo.

Let’s hope SHE never actually needs these glasses.

Happy Halloween!

Only trouble is, the wood wasn’t labeled so we have no idea what it is.  If anyone recognizes it, let us know.  Even the fine folks at Woodcraft were stumped.

I made the cedar pen on the right … people probably think it’s filled with drugs, because I’ll pull it out and sniff it from time to time.  I love cedar.

Chip rounded out the set with an acrylic pen (left), which Kory really likes.  It’s pretty, but from what I could tell by watching Chip I don’t think I’d like working with acrylic very much.  I love the smell of the wood while it’s turning … acrylic just smells like plastic.  Burning plastic, if you let it get too hot.  Plus, tool marks show more readily on acrylic and are more difficult to buff out.  It’s nice and shiny when it’s finished, though.

Kory wants to learn to make pens too, so cross your fingers that no one loses an eye!

Edit: Chip did some digging and discovered that the mystery wood is Red Palm. No wonder I like it so much.

Normally I will sleep until 10 or so on a Sunday, just because I can, but such a luxury was not what Riley had in mind. She started making noise around 7:30, and I lay there hoping that Chip would suddenly become a morning person and volunteer to take her out. This was not meant to be either. So I blearily got dressed and stumbled downstairs to let the dogs romp in the yard. After a few minutes of reading and enjoying the cool morning weather, I glanced up to see this rising above the trees in my yard:

Which makes me wonder – do hot air balloons frequently pass over my house in the morning, and I’m just never awake to see them, or was I just really lucky this morning? I can’t have been too lucky, because I stubbed my toe while running inside to grab my camera.

And of course, since I already had the camera out I had to snap a few puppy portraits. Riley is growing crazy fast, and Lilly is, of course, as beautiful as ever.

Chip snapped this one a bit later in the morning – she looks like I felt, but I never got a nap.

Lucky dog.