You must be lost

We had an amazingly wonderful weekend in Asheville, NC a couple of weeks ago about a month ago (9/17-9/20). We went for the Brewgrass festival, but since it was a three night rental for weekends on the cabin, we made it a long weekend. As soon as we arrived at the cabin on Friday evening, I kind of didn't care if we went into Asheville at all. I seriously did not want to leave that place! We will definitely be back. This place is well worth the extra 30 minute drive up windy mountain roads. It slept the 5 of us very comfortably (and economically) but would sleep up to 8, I think (2 queens, a double, plus a sofa sleeper).

( Pics and a recap. )

After my costume journal post this morning, Semagic helpfully notified me that there's a new version of it available. I naively downloaded and installed it thinking all my old drafts would remain untouched.

Goodbye beautifully pictured and formatted NC trip post from a month ago and god only knows what else I had stored away. I know, it's my fault for procrastinating and not posting this crap. But who honestly thinks that when they update a piece of software that the update is going to completely wipe away all data from the previous versions? Well, I didn't, so there!

*sigh*

Anyway, for anyone who missed it, we went camping in North Carolina about a month ago. All the pictures are here. I'm not writing that shit up again though, sorry. But I will give a brief synopsis.

It was a trip like most of our trips there: we set up camp in the same area (our super secret spot within like a quarter of a mile of the car), took the same hikes (mostly), got rained on a bit (only on our way out, so not really that bad), this time Jonah did quite a bit of hiking on his own (made it up the 1 mile/500-something ft ascent to Sam Knob), he got to eat marshmallows and chocolate milk for dinner because we forgot his hot dogs, drove into Asheville before heading home and got some pizza and beer and mead at Barley's Taproom, stocked up on stuff at Bruisin' Ales, checked out French Broad Chocolate Lounge (cayenne brownie and coffee, YUM! but pricey truffles of which we did not try), remarked on how we think we'd love to live in Asheville until we visit there and realize we'd probably grow tired of it very quickly (but you gotta love a place with Old Crow Medicine Show graffiti), got stuck in traffic on the way home, praised the gods of technology that we had a portable DVD player and a binder full of DVDs to keep Jonah entertained while we were on the road and finally arrived home safely and sufficiently exhausted and stinking.

Why I didn't just write that to begin with, I don't know. But it was going to be pretty! And with pictures!

Ok, so I'm splitting Hawaii into two parts too. Six very busy days just shouldn't go into one entry. Pictures will come later.

( Day 1 in Hawaii - Saturday )

( Day 2 - Sunday )

( Day 3 - Monday )

We got back Saturday night and I'm still trying to readjust back to our timezone. The trip was amazing and marvelous and wonderful and stupendous. I'm finally caught up on email and I'm sorry, but I'm just not going to try to catch up on two weeks worth of two friends lists. Detailed report of the trip to follow, but for now, I must tend to the waking child.

Luckily I got all my tender sprouts and newly planted shrubs covered last night, since there's a fine, glittery frost on the ground. I suspect this will be the last cold snap before spring sets in full. Before we know it, we'll be looking at 100 degree highs again.

It's been difficult to fight the urge to take pictures of everyday occurrences. You get in a mode and a habit is formed. At least it wasn't 21 days in the life, then I'd really have trouble. At the same time, I feel a little more freedom to just do my tasks as they come. Strange how that works. It's not like I restricted myself, but I guess just having to remember to take pictures during the day restricted me in some ways.

I'm still having trouble balancing my focal points. I have yet to integrate 3 of the 5. Gardening has been going great, exercise is at least going (though I could do better) and the house is staying quite clean for the most part. But I'm just not finding the motivation to pick up on my spirituality, jewelry work or sewing focal points. A lot of it has to do with the room in which I do all three. In fact, I'd go so far as to say all of it has to do with that room and the complete mess it's in. I've really got to put it back together and get reorganized in there. I've gotten to the point where I just block it from my sight and mind as I pass it now. God forbid I actually have to go in there for anything. It's going to be a huge job and I'm just not feeling like taking it on right now. But I have to.

The though crosses my mind that maybe 5 was just too much. Or, maybe I'm trying to integrate too many at once. Get one fully integrated into my life and moving forward, then focus on the next one and get it working. The fact that Jonah is only taking one 2 hour nap now cuts into my time quite a bit as well (not to mention the fact that when he's awake, he's all over the place). But come fall, I'll have two full days per week to do stuff without him around. I guess by then I'll have no excuses.

I've decided not to try to take the silversmithing class at the end of the month. We've just got too much going on. The weekend of the 26th, we're going to Chicago for Dark Lord Day, then we're home for a week and flying out to San Francisco and Hawaii for two weeks. The class is April 29th, right in the middle of all that. It just doesn't seem practical. Not to mention, we could really use that $200 for the trips. Maybe after all the traveling is over, I can buy his instructional CD set (which is also $200, but it teaches more than the silversmithing class does). I'd just kind of prefer the hands on approach.