Was spent at home. Sorry to dupe you, but when I got pneumonia I had to cancel all my travel plans. So this past week and weekend I would have been in Washington DC. Considering how much I was looking forward to conference in DC, I was surprised that after I canceled everything, I wasn’t all that letdown.
Oh, I had a few moments during the week—Tuesday, the day I would have flown there, the Wednesday autographing, and a tea party I was supposed to attend, but otherwise, I really didn’t give the entire affair much thought. I was just so pleased to be home. In my own bed. In comfortable clothes. Not wearing shoes. And no makeup. Sitting on my deck, drinking coffee, drinking in the view, and watching the hummingbirds—those little daredevils of the skies—dive and hum all over my yard. True bliss.
This weekend ended up being doubling rewarding for staying home—two of the boys went camping, leaving only me and the little guy at home. We cooked some, we planted “ketchup” (read: tomatoe plants), and gave each other space to just do what we wanted (him: draw pictures, me: knit).
Best of all, I got to go have coffee with my dear friend, Melissa McClone. I love her to death, she’s like the sister I always wanted. And she is so like a sister. I had barely sat down when she started in: “Are you feeling better? You’ve lost some weight. You look pale. You aren’t doing too much, are you?” This was all in one breath. It warmed my heart. We chatted about writing, kids, more writing, what we weren’t missing about nationals and laughed because neither of us had on anything fancy, no makeup and neither of us had remembered to put in earrings. Like I said, a true kindred spirit.
And while I wasn’t there, I do have to shout out to Joanna Bourne and Rachel Gibson, who both won RITAs. Great news and both are well deserved honors.
So what did you do this weekend? A little vacation? A festival perhaps? Some gardening? Share your idea of the perfect July weekend!
LOL! Yep, it’s kinda scary what kindred spirits we are.
And for Elizabeth’s readers, I was attending an Irish Dance feis with my family in Seattle so Elizabeth kindly drove to my hotel to meet me. You can’t imagine her face when she saw an Irish dancer, age 12, totally decked out in the spiral/sausage curl wig, fifteen hundred dollar dress and make up. It was the same reaction I had when we first got involved in Irish dancing 6 years ago. Too funny! But she’s probably really happy she has two boys, not two girl 😉
Friday I went out with a bunch of ladies from the office. We had a nice dinner, then went to see the play Steel Magnolia’s. Five out of the six Australian actresses did a credible Southern accent, but the one who played Clarie (Olympia Dukakis role) sounded like someone on the Borsht Belt comedy circuit with an upperclass British accent. The one who played Annelle (Daryl Hannah role) did a good accent, but her voice hurt my ears. But we had a grand time, with the laughter, champagne, companionship I want another evening like that soon. The rest of the weekend was going to Harry Potter – Very Good, lunch, grocery shopping, studying, taking a test, doing homework and cross stitching. All-in-all, a totally fabulous weekend!
Hi Elizabeth,
This weekend my husband was away so I was home alone with our two little dogs. I ran errands, did laundry, took the dogs for walks on both days and played ball with them. The weather was very nice here in NE. In addition, I did some writing & listened to workshops from last year’s National conference. One of them was your workshop with your husband – The Plan. I am going to find out how many pages I can write in an hour by the end of the week! Thanks.
Debra
I’m still in the “new” cycle of enjoying our weekend place on the lake, new friends, new activities, new dreams for a future that’s just beginning. Like you, I was also forced down, to rest for a long time. Recovery has it’s ups and downs too, but truly brings us back to center.
I love that you talked about a hummingbird, the same as my sister wrote about for her weekend. You can find it at http://www.fairgarden.blogspot.com/
I also felt missing nationals was fine, when I have a romance to promote, I may be interested, but I hate huge crowds. Emerald City is more my speed and I’m thrilled to be going there this year.