Home Again and Back to Blogging!

Oh, it feels WONDERFUL to be home again! I loved the grand circle tour of Rogersville to Gettysburg to Columbus to Lexington to Rogersville, but it's great to be back on the mountain.

We had a surprise guest waiting in Gettysburg--Sue came down from Vermont along with Barb and Linda, so there were five of us at the two-day slumber party. We played pinochle, visited a winery, toured the battlefield (Anita's house is right ON the battlefield itself), shopped, lunched, cooked, laughed and otherwise just had a grand old time.

That's Anita's apartment, right under the awning. How cool to have cannon in your yard (Bill is so envious)!

My drive to Columbus started out in the rain, but on the way, I stopped at "Ron's Barrels" near Chambersburg and bought two 55-gallon plastic drums (formerly tomato paste containers) for Bill to make rain cisterns out of. All the way to Ohio, I was thinking of how to shop and stash in the car with those two big behemoths in the back. By the time I had the brilliant idea of stopping at a car wash and flushing them out, (and then putting my shopping inside the barrels), car washes became non-existent. Oh well. I really wanted to stay on budget this year anyway!

The Bee was fun, but exhausting as usual. It was great to see my basket buddies, preview the new products, and I even won a fabulous new purple handbag from the Prize Patrol! Knock me over, I never win anything! On Saturday, I checked out of the Hyatt very early and drove to the Homestead (about an hour west of Columbus), in the early dawn.

My route took me right by the home office:

I got my shopping done and was out of there headed east and south by 10:30 am. I stopped at cousin Jean's near Lexington, napped in the afternoon and had dinner with her and two friends, before falling gratefully into bed. I took off early in the morning and was home with Bill and Echo by 11. Both were happy to see me (I could tell--one was wagging, the other was hugging)!

It feels strange to have gone a whole week without blogging, but it's good to be back on that horse again. I missed my interior life of thinking and writing this past week (too busy drinking and eating and laughing?) and was too tired to do much but wander around in my jammies and take several naps yesterday. Now I can get back to my peaceful, happy life.

And yes, now I have to clean up the basement again, for it is again full of bags and boxes from my trip.